The First Presidency has announced a Sunday, Nov. 22, dedication date for the Modesto California Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
This will be more than five months after the dedication of the Yorba Linda California Temple and three months after the rededication of the San Diego California Temple.
Elder Quentin L. Cook of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles will dedicate the Modesto temple. Elder Cook had worked as an attorney and business executive in California before being called as a general authority.
Prior to the Nov. 22 dedication, a public open house will be Oct. 16-31, excluding Sundays. A media day is also planned for Oct. 13, and invited guests will tour the sacred edifice Oct. 14-15.
Information about the upcoming dedication — which will be broadcast to congregations in the temple district — was announced in a June 15 news release on ChurchofJesusChrist.org.
About the Modesto temple
On April 3, 2022, then-Church President Russell M. Nelson announced a house of the Lord for Modesto, California, one of 17 temple locations he identified in the April 2022 general conference.
Ground was later broken Oct. 7, 2023, to begin the construction phase. Elder Gary B. Sabin — then a General Authority Seventy and first counselor in the North America West Area presidency — presided over the ceremony. This was the day before the Feather River California Temple was dedicated.
In his remarks at the Modesto temple’s groundbreaking, Elder Sabin said: “We are reminded that temples bring us closer to Christ, and when we come closer to Christ, we are more joyful. We’re so grateful for all the members — past and present — whose faith and courage have made this possible along the way.”
According to previously announced site plans, the Modesto temple is a single-story edifice of approximately 30,000 square feet. It’s being built on a 17.63-acre site next to an existing meetinghouse at 4300 Dale Road, in Modesto, California.
The Church in California
Located along the Pacific Ocean coast, California currently has the second-largest number of temples of any U.S. state, with Utah being the first. California currently has 12 houses of the Lord operating, under construction or renovation, and announced.
Nine have already been dedicated: Los Angeles (in 1956), Oakland (1964), San Diego (1993), Fresno (2000), Redlands (2003), Newport Beach (2005), Sacramento (2006), Feather River (2023) and Yorba Linda (June 2026) temples.
Of note, the San Diego temple was closed in July 2023 for extensive renovations and will soon be rededicated on Aug. 23.
The Modesto California Temple has been under construction since October 2023. Temples are also planned for Bakersfield and the San Jose suburb of Sunnyvale, both announced in April 2023.
Latter-day Saints first arrived in California on July 31, 1846, in what was then Yerba Buena. The company of around 230 people tripled the population of Yerba Buena and helped build it into the prosperous city of San Francisco.
Today, nearly 730,000 Latter-day Saints live in California, meeting in around 600 meetinghouses and more than 1,000 wards and branches.
