Temple Construction and Renovation Projects Continue

Church members in Denmark gathered on 15 August 2003 near the Copenhagen City Center to watch a brief ceremony in which a statue of the angel Moroni was lifted onto a tower next to the Copenhagen Denmark Temple. Construction on the temple is expected to be completed in 2004.

That same day, ground was broken for the Newport Beach California Temple. Elder Duane B. Gerrard, formerly of the Seventy, who was then serving as First Counselor in the North America West Area Presidency, dedicated the temple site. Following the dedication, Church leaders and others put on hard hats, took up shovels, and broke ground for the temple. The Newport Beach California Temple district will serve nearly 50,000 members of the Church and will be the seventh temple in California.

The São Paulo Brazil Temple will be closed until approximately February 2004 for renovations, and the Apia Samoa Temple is currently under reconstruction after the original structure was destroyed by fire in July 2003 (see “News of the Church: Fire Destroys Samoa Temple,” Ensign, Sept. 2003, 74). The following additional temples have been announced or are under construction: Aba Nigeria, Accra Ghana, Curitiba Brazil, Harrison New York, Helsinki Finland, Kiev Ukraine, Manhattan New York, Panama City Panama, Sacramento California, and San Antonio Texas.

Church News contributed to this report.