The First Presidency has released the site map for the already-announced Otavalo Ecuador Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
It was the third temple announced since President Dallin H. Oaks became President of the Church — following the Portland Maine Temple and Marysville Washington Temple.
Otavalo’s temple was the first of the three announced for outside of the United States. It’s also the first of them to have the exact site announced.
Planned as an 18,850-square-foot building, the temple will be built on a 6.1-acre site at the corner of Calle Bolívar and Calle Abya Yala in Otavalo, Imbabura Province, Ecuador.
The location and a corresponding site map were published Monday, Sept. 28, on ChurchofJesusChrist.org.
Once built and dedicated, the Otavalo temple will be the third in the country. The Guayaquil Ecuador Temple was dedicated in 1999, and the Quito Ecuador Temple was in 2022. No other temples have been announced for the country.
The Otavalo Ecuador Temple was announced earlier this year on May 14 in a letter by the First Presidency, comprising President Dallin H. Oaks, President Henry B. Eyring and President D. Todd Christofferson.
The letter was read by Elder Juan Pablo Villar, a General Authority Seventy and South America Northwest Area president, in a devotional with the local Imbaya, Imbabura and Ibarra stakes.
Also in attendance at that devotional were Elder Dale G. Renlund of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and Elder S. Mark Palmer of the Presidency of the Seventy.
Before announcing the Portland Maine Temple months earlier, Elder Allen D. Haynie, a General Authority Seventy, said in a December 2025 devotional that “in a recent meeting of the First Presidency of the Church, a decision was made that, when directed by the First Presidency, the announcement of the construction of a new temple should be made on location by a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, or a member of an area presidency.”
Missionary work began in Ecuador in September 1965, with nine people baptized on Oct. 31, 1965, about 50 miles southeast of Quito.
When the Ecuador Mission, headquartered in Quito, was created on Aug. 1, 1970, membership was 1,000 in the country. Ecuador’s first stake was then organized in Guayaquil in 1978.
The first missionaries to Otavalo arrived March 1, 1966, and the first branch meeting in Otavalo was held March 6 of that year.
Otavalo’s first meetinghouse for the Church was dedicated in January 1980, then the Otavalo Ecuador Stake was organized Dec. 6, 1981.
Ecuador now has around 280,000 Latter-day Saints in more than 330 wards and branches.
