The First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has released locations for temples in Mexico and Brazil and the exterior rendering for a new house of the Lord in Spain.
The sites for the Toluca Mexico Temple and the João Pessoa Brazil Temple are now official, as is the rendering of the Barcelona Spain Temple, all of which were published Monday, Nov. 20, on ChurchofJesusChrist.org.
Toluca Mexico Temple
The Church’s house of the Lord in Toluca is planned for a 4.87-acre site at the northwest intersection of Calle Guadalupe Victoria and Calle Uruapan in Colonia Las Jaras in Metepec, just southeast of Toluca, the capital of the State of Mexico.
The single-story building of approximately 19,000 square feet is one of 24 temples operating, under construction or announced and in planning for Mexico.
President Russell M. Nelson announced a temple for Toluca during the October 2022 general conference, saying the Church was planning to build multiple temples in selected metropolitan areas where travel time to an existing temple is challenging. “Therefore, I’m pleased to announce four additional temples near Mexico City, where new temples will be built in Cuernavaca, Pachuca, Toluca and Tula.”
The Toluca temple is the first of the four to have its location released.
Dedicated temples in Mexico are located in Ciudad Juarez, Colonia Juárez, Guadalajara, Hermosillo, Mérida, Mexico City, Monterrey, Oaxaca, Tampico, Tijuana, Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Veracruz and Villahermosa.
Temples under construction are in Puebla, Querétaro and Torreón, with those others with sites released being the Mexico City Benemérito and San Luis Potosí temples, with other houses of the Lord in planning for Cancún, Cuernavaca, Culiacán, Pachuca and Tula.
More than 1.5 million Latter-day Saints comprising more than 1,850 congregations reside in Mexico, making Church membership there more than any other country except the United States. The preaching of the gospel began in the 1870s in Mexico, with the first stake organized in 1961 and the first temple dedicated in 1983, both in Mexico City.
João Pessoa Brazil Temple
The temple will be built on a 3.9-acre site located just west of Rio Jaguaribe at the northwest intersection of Rua Paulino Pinto and Avenida Ministro José Américo de Almeida in the Cabo Branco neighborhood of João Pessoa, a port city in the state of Paraiba in northeastern Brazil, about 75 miles north of Recife.
President Nelson announced a house of the Lord in João Pessoa less than two months ago, during the October 2023 general conference. It is one of 22 temples in Brazil that are operating, under construction or in planning.
Dedicated temples are operating in Belém, Brasília, Campinas, Curitiba, Fortaleza, Manaus, Porto Alegre, Recife, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, with ones under construction in Belo Horizonte and Salvador. Besides João Pessoa, other houses of the Lord in Brazil that are in planning are in Goiânia, Londrina, Maceió, Natal, Ribeirão Preto, Santos, São Paulo East, Teresina and Vitória, with all but Goiânia having sites identified.
Brazil is home to nearly 1.5 million Latter-day Saints in over 2,175 conferences; the country’s membership is third-most worldwide, behind the United States and Mexico. The preaching of the restored gospel in southern Brazil dates back to 1928, with the Book of Mormon published in Portuguese in 1940.
Barcelona Spain Temple
The exterior rendering of the Barcelona temple provides a first glimpse of the planned house of the Lord, with general size and dimensions announced when the temple site was announced in January 2023.
The 5.4-acre site is located northeast of the intersection of Avinguda de la Vía Augusta and Avinguda de la Clota in Sant Cugat de Vallès, a municipality north of Barcelona. Also planned for the site is patron housing, an arrival center and a distribution center.
The temple will be a single-story building of approximately 27,500 square feet, or about the size of the San Salvador El Salvador, Curitiba Brazil and Arequipa Peru temples.
President Nelson announced a temple for Barcelona during the closing session of the April 2022 general conference, one of 17 new temples identified that day. The country’s other house of the Lord is the Madrid Spain Temple, dedicated in 1999.
