Last weekend, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints held its twice-annual General Conference. This is a two-day event held in April and October in Utah and broadcast worldwide, during which leaders of the Church speak on various gospels subjects designed to lead and guide the membership.
It's one of my favorite (two of my favorite? LOL) events of the year.
One of the things they do during every Conference these days is announce the upcoming construction of new temples in various places throughout the world.
This time around, 15 new temples were announced:
-Uturoa, French Polynesia
-Chihuahua, Mexico
-Florianópolis, Brazil
-Rosario, Argentina
-Edinburgh, Scotland
-Brisbane Australia South Area
-Victoria, British Columbia
-Yuma, Arizona
-Houston Texas South Area
-Des Moines, Iowa
-Cincinnati, Ohio
-Honolulu, Hawaii
-West Jordan, Utah
-Lehi, Utah
-Maracaibo, Venezuela
Utah hasn't had a new temple announced in the past few Conferences, so it was interesting to see them now announce TWO upcoming temples, which will eventually bring the total count of LDS temples in Utah to 30.
But speaking of Utah temples, one of the oldest ones is the Provo Temple, located across the Missionary Training Center and within spitting distance of Brigham Young University.
It was announced some time ago that upon the completion of the Orem Temple -- which opened at the end of 2023 -- the Provo temple would be demolished and rebuilt with a fresh design. It was officially closed in February, but as I learned last weekend, the temple building itself still technically stands.
So I returned one last time to capture one final photo of this temple before it is torn down. I have always wanted to take a photo of this temple through the fresh cherry blossoms of spring, and last weekend I finally got that opportunity.
It will be bittersweet to say goodbye to this temple, but we have lots more temples to look forward to, and at some point the MTC and BYU will have a temple again.