A Saturday, Oct. 10, groundbreaking date has been announced for the Maceió Brazil Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Elder B. Corey Cuvelier — a General Authority Seventy who will then be serving as a member of the Brazil Area presidency — will preside over the ceremony.
Born in California, Elder Cuvelier served in the Brazil São Paulo South Mission as a young adult and later as president of the Brazil Curitiba South Mission.
The Maceió temple’s Oct. 10 groundbreaking date, announced by the First Presidency, was published in a July 20 news release on ChurchofJesusChrist.org.
This will be the fourth temple groundbreaking in Brazil this year — following those for the João Pessoa temple on Jan. 24, the Teresina temple on April 18 and the upcoming groundbreaking on Aug. 1 for the Santos temple.
As previously announced, the Maceió temple is planned as a single-story temple of approximately 19,000 square feet. It will be built at Avenida Dr. Durval de Góis Monteiro, S/N, Quadra 0522, Lote 0228.
Maceió is the capital and the largest city of the coastal state of Alagoas, Brazil.
On April 3, 2022, then-Church President Russell M. Nelson announced this temple for Maceió. It was one of 17 temple locations he identified in the April 2022 general conference — including another Brazil house of the Lord, for Santos.
About the Church in Brazil
Latter-day Saint missionaries began preaching in southern Brazil in 1928. By the time the São Paulo Brazil Temple — the first in South America — was dedicated in 1978, membership in the country had reached 54,000.
Home now to more than 1.5 million Latter-day Saints in over 2,000 wards and branches, Brazil has 24 temples in various stages of operation, construction and planning.
The country’s 11 operating temples include the São Paulo (dedicated in 1978), Recife (2000), Porto Alegre (2000), Campinas (2002), Curitiba (2008), Manaus (2012), Fortaleza (2019), Rio de Janeiro (2022), Belém (2022), Brasília (2023) and Salvador (2024) temples.
Another Brazil temple, in Belo Horizonte, is scheduled for an Aug. 16 dedication.
Five houses of the Lord are under construction in Brazil, including the Ribeirão Preto (2024), Londrina (2024), Natal (2025), João Pessoa (January 2026) and Teresina (April 2026) temples.
On Aug. 1, ground will be broken for a temple in Santos.
That leaves six temples in planning and design stages, for São Paulo East (announced 2020), Vitória (2021), Maceió (2022), Goiânia (2023), Florianópolis (2024) and Campo Grande (2025).
