The Urdaneta Philippines Temple has opened its doors to the public, beginning with its media day held Tuesday morning, March 12, in Urdaneta, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) northwest of the Philippines’ capital city of Manila.
In conjunction with gathering local media representatives for a news briefing and then offering them tours of the sacred edifice, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has released interior and exterior photos of the new house of the Lord.
President Dallin H. Oaks, first counselor in the First Presidency, will dedicate the Urdaneta Philippines Temple on Sunday, April 28, in two sessions at 10 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. local time.
Once dedicated, the Urdaneta Philippines Temple will be the Church’s 190th dedicated house of the Lord worldwide. The temple will serve Church members residing in central and northern Luzon.
The temple images were first published on ChurchofJesusChrist.org.
It was the second such temple media day for the Church, with a similar event held Monday, March 11, for the recently renovated Manti Utah Temple.
Hosting the media were the three General Authority Seventies who comprise the Church’s Philippines Area presidency — Elder Steven R. Bangerter, president, and his counselors, Elder Yoon Hwan Choi and Elder Carlos G. Revillo Jr. Also participating in the day’s events was Elder Kevin R. Duncan, a General Authority Seventy and executive director of the Temple Department.
Over several days following Tuesday’s media day, invited guests will tour the temple, with a public open house running from Monday, March 18, through Saturday, March 30, excluding Sundays.
The Urdaneta temple’s announcement, groundbreaking
President Thomas S. Monson announced a house of the Lord for Urdaneta, Philippines, on Oct. 2, 2010, during October 2010 general conference. This announcement came during the first talk of the Saturday morning session.
The groundbreaking of the Urdaneta Philippines Temple was presided over by then-Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles on Jan. 16, 2019. The ceremony was by invitation only, but it was broadcast over Facebook Live to those not in attendance.
The groundbreaking happened more than eight years after its announcement, during which time three more temples were announced for the Philippines.
Exterior features
Located in the southern part of Urdaneta along the MacArthur Highway, the two-story, 32,604-square-foot building sits on the 15.34-acre grounds, with a 22,593-square-foot adjacent ancillary building offering a welcome center and housing for temple patrons, apartment accommodations for the temple presidency and a distribution center.
With an exterior of “golden sand” granite from China, the temple shows an architectural design combining Asian influences with a modern interpretation of local Spanish colonial elements. Other exterior features include rounded corners, motifs based on the sampaguita flower and mango, with the carved stone heads on the windows representative of the decorative ventilation grills on traditional buildings.
The sampaguita is the national flower of the Philippines, with the white jasmine species native to Southeast Asia. Deemed culturally and symbolically significant, the flower represents purity, simplicity, humility and strength.
Exterior art glass features shades of gold, pink, purple and green, with designs including bouquets of sampaguita flowers each supported by three vertical bands.
The white iridized glass used for the flowers makes them sparkle with purple and green highlights when viewed from inside.
Landscaping includes lush gardens and concrete-paver pathways, local flowers, large acacia trees and two rows of palm trees that line the main approach from the highway.
Interior features
The temple’s flooring features honed honey gold tile from Israel and Palestine; broadloom carpets from the United States in the instruction rooms; cream-colored, carved wool rugs from Thailand in the celestial and sealing rooms; and entry rugs made of New Zealand wool.
The baptistry includes blue and green mosaic tile from Italy, with the oxen at the base of the font being painted fiberglass.
The light fixtures of satin brass and frosted glass were fabricated in Hong Kong, with the furniture and seating coming from Vietnam. The doors and millwork throughout the temple are made of stained African mahogany.
The Church in the Philippines
Aniceta Fajardo was the first Filipino baptized, in 1946, being taught and converted by Latter-day Saint servicemen stationed in the Philippines during World War II. While a few others joined later in the 1940s and into the 1950s, missionary work on the Southeast Asia island nation didn’t start until 1961.
By the end of the 1960s, the Church had a presence on eight major islands. In 1974, then-Elder Ezra Taft Benson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles organized the first stake in the Philippines. And in the 1990s, membership surpassed a quarter of a million members.
Today, more than 853,000 members of the Church reside in the Philippines and comprise nearly 1,275 congregations. That makes for the fourth-largest population of Latter-day Saints in any country, behind only the United States, Mexico and Brazil.
Temples in the Philippines
Today, the Philippines has 13 total temples — dedicated and operating, scheduled for dedication, under construction or in planning.
The Urdaneta temple will be the Church’s third dedicated house of the Lord in the Philippines, joining the Manila Philippines Temple (dedicated in 1984) and the Cebu City Philippines Temple (2010).
Three more temples are under construction — in Alabang (started in June 2020), Davao (November 2020) and Bacolod (December 2021). Seven other temples have been announced and are in planning — in Cagayan de Oro, Iloilo, Laoag, Naga, Santiago, Tacloban City and Tuguegarao City.
Urdaneta Philippines Temple
- Location: MacArthur Highway, Barangay Nancayasan, Urdaneta City, Pangasinan, Philippines
- Announced: Oct. 2, 2010
- Groundbreaking: Jan. 16, 2019
- Construction start: Feb. 4, 2019
- Public open house: Monday, March 18, to Saturday, March 30, excluding Sundays
- To be dedicated: April 28, 2024, by President Dallin H. Oaks, first counselor in the First Presidency
- Property size: 15.34 acres (6.2 hectares)
- Building size: 32,604 square feet (3,029 square meters)
- Building height: 136 feet (41.6 meters) to the top of the angel Moroni statue
Correction: An earlier version misspelled the last name of Elder Yoon Hwan Choi as Elder Cho.
