LDS Scene

President Ezra Taft Benson of the Council of the Twelve recently observed his 84th birthday. The day, August 4, was marked by a daytime gathering with fellow General Authorities and staff members, as well as an evening dinner with his family.

The Idaho Falls Temple is scheduled to have an Angel Moroni statue installed atop its center spire. The gold-leafed statue is ten feet high and made of fiberglass. Statues of the Angel Moroni stand atop eight of the other twenty-three completed temples.

A site for the Denver Colorado Temple has been purchased. It is located in suburban Denver at South University Boulevard and County Line Road. Construction will take approximately eighteen months.

Two new missions have been created, one in the midwestern United States and one in the Caribbean. The Illinois Peoria Mission covers central Illinois, including Nauvoo, and parts of Iowa and Missouri. It was created by a division of the Missouri St. Louis Mission. The new West Indies Mission includes Jamaica, the Bahamas, part of Haiti, the Lesser Antilles, Barbados, Trinidad, and Tobago.

The Suva Fiji Stake, the first in Fiji, was organized during a recent conference at which Elder Howard W. Hunter of the Council of the Twelve presided, assisted by Elder John H. Groberg of the First Quorum of the Seventy.

Dedication ceremonies have been held for the Martin Harris Memorial Amphitheater in Clarkston, Utah, near the Idaho border. The 3,000-seat amphitheater was dedicated by President Ezra Taft Benson of the Council of the Twelve. Governor Scott M. Matheson of Utah and Governor John V. Evans of Idaho also attended the ceremonies. The amphitheater is located just south of Martin Harris’s grave in the Clarkston City cemetery.

Thomas W. Parker of Bellevue, Washington, recently became manager of the Promised Valley Playhouse in Salt Lake City. He succeeded Ralph G. Rodgers, Jr., who accepted an appointment as manager of the Polynesian Cultural Center in Hawaii.