Ground Broken for Toronto Temple

Ground was broken October 10 for construction of the Toronto Ontario Temple, which will be located in Brampton, a suburb of Toronto, Ontario.

President Thomas S. Monson, Second Counselor in the First Presidency, presided at the ground-breaking ceremony and turned the first shovelful of earth.

Also on hand for the ground-breaking were Elder M. Russell Ballard of the Council of the Twelve, Elder John K. Carmack of the First Quorum of the Seventy and president of the North America Northeast Area, and Brother Malcolm Warner, vice-chairman of the Toronto Temple Committee.

Both President Monson and Elder Ballard have served as mission presidents in eastern Canada.

Site preparation for the new temple is now underway, and major construction is expected to begin next spring. Plans to build the 60,000-square-foot temple were announced in 1984.

The Toronto temple will serve some 60,000 members in the Canadian provinces of Ontario, Nova Scotia, and Quebec, and in parts of Ohio, Michigan, New York, and Vermont.

The Church has forty-one temples in operation worldwide. In addition to the Toronto Ontario Temple, two others are under construction: one in Las Vegas, Nevada; and one in Portland, Oregon.