The First Presidency has announced a Nov. 22 dedication date for the Torreón Mexico Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Dedicating the temple will be Elder Gary E. Stevenson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.
Prior to the dedication, a public open house will take place Oct. 22 through Nov. 7, excluding Sundays. A media day is also planned for Monday, Oct. 19, and invited guests will tour the sacred edifice Oct. 20-21. These dates were published July 27 on ChurchofJesusChrist.org.
As previously announced, another Mexico temple will be dedicated the same month as the Torreón temple’s dedication — Elder Dale G. Renlund of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles will dedicate the San Luis Potosí Mexico Temple on Nov. 1.
Two other temple dedications are currently planned for this November, for a total of four that month.
The Torreón temple will be dedicated the same day as the Modesto California Temple, Nov. 22, by Elder Quentin L. Cook of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Earlier that month, the Wichita Kansas Temple will be dedicated Nov. 1 by Elder Patrick Kearon of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.
About the Torreón temple
Torreón’s house of the Lord is a single-story edifice of approximately 10,000 square feet. It stands on a 0.9-acre site at the corner of Paris and Amsterdam streets in the City of Gomez Palacio, a suburb west of Torreón.
On April 4, 2021, then-Church President Russell M. Nelson announced this house of the Lord for Torreón. It was one of 20 temple sites he identified in the April 2021 general conference, including another Mexico temple, for Querétaro.
Ground was broken for the Torreón temple on Dec. 10, 2022, with Elder Hugo Montoya — a General Authority Seventy and then president of the Mexico Area — presiding.
“This building, as you can see, will be beautiful,” said Elder Montoya in his remarks at the groundbreaking, adding that the temple will be “made with high-quality materials and built with the highest standards. However, it is not the building itself that allows us to feel joy but what takes place inside the building, which are ordinances and covenants.”
The Church in Mexico
Of Mexico’s 27 temples in various stages, 14 are dedicated: in Mexico City, Colonia Juárez, Ciudad Juárez, Hermosillo, Oaxaca, Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Tampico, Villahermosa, Mérida, Veracruz, Guadalajara, Monterrey, Tijuana and Puebla.
After Mexico’s two dedications in November, the San Luis Potosí and Torreón temples will bring the country’s total to 16 operating temples. Another house of the Lord is under construction in Mexico, for Querétaro.
That leaves 10 houses of the Lord in planning and design stages: the Culiacán, Mexico City Benemérito, Cuernavaca, Pachuca, Toluca, Tula, Cancún, Chihuahua, Juchitán de Zaragoza and Reynosa temples.
Missionary work began in Mexico in 1875, when seven missionaries were sent to the country. The first five members in Mexico were baptized in Hermosillo, Sonora, in 1877. A branch was soon established in Mexico City in 1879. The country’s first stake, the Juárez Stake, was created in 1895.
Today, Mexico has more than 1.5 million Latter-day Saints in nearly 1,900 wards and branches.
