Anew temple in the Albuquerque, N.M., area was announced April 4 by the First Presidency.
The new temple will serve a district that comprises New Mexico, and parts of Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Texas and northern Mexico. Within this area live some 85,000 members in 24 stakes.The first temple in New Mexico will be built on a 10-acre site on the northeast edge of the city. Construction is expected to begin within a year and take about two years to complete.
With this announcement, the Church will have 65 temples in use, under construction or planned. Open house and dedication dates for two of these, the St. Louis and the Vernal Utah temples, have been announced.
Currently under construction are the Preston England, Bogota Colombia, Madrid Spain, Santo Domingo Dominican Republic, and Guayaquil Ecuador temples. Site work will begin shortly for the temple in Cochabamba, Bolivia, where excavation is expected to begin in June. Ground has been broken for a temple in Recife, Brazil. Additional temples awaiting groundbreaking ceremonies include the Billings Montana, Boston Massachusetts, Caracas Venezuela, Monterrey Mexico, Nashville Tennessee, and White Plains New York temples.
Church roots in New Mexico run very deep but only in recent years has growth occurred in the major cities.
New Mexico currently has more than 55,000 members in 12 stakes and 119 wards and branches. The first stake was created in 1912. The Young Stake, now the Farmington New Mexico Stake, was an outgrowth of colonization efforts of the previous century. It was 45 years later that a second stake was created, this one in Albuquerque. The Albuquerque Stake was divided in 1966. Four additional stakes were created in New Mexico in the 1970s and five in the 1980s.
The first Mormon settlement in New Mexico was Ramah, settled in 1876. Fruitland was settled in 1878.
