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Sam Penrod Reporting Leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints broke ground today on a new temple in the Salt Lake Valley. The temple will have a unique name to distinguish it from another temple already in South Jordan.
President Gordon B. Hinckley: "It's really kind of a fake, this is soil they've moved in."
President Gordon B. Hinckley turned the first shovel of dirt to officially begin the construction on what will become the church's second temple in the city limits of South Jordan.
President Gordon B. Hinckley: "Hereafter this temple will be known as the Oquirrh Mountain Utah Temple. They won't know how to spell it, but they don't come to the temple to spell, they come to serve in the work of the Lord."
Church leaders held a brief service on the site, which was broadcast to nearby chapels. The new temple will be built on a bluff on the edge of the Daybreak development, which donated the property to the church.
Peter McMahon, President, Kennecott Land: "It will establish a wonderful and iconic building on the edge of the valley, and so we're pretty excited about it."
Construction on the new Oquirrh Mountain temple is expected to begin in the next couple of weeks, while construction continues across the valley at a new temple in Draper.
Elder Paul E. Koelliker, Quorum of Seventy: "We've now completed the footings, the foundations are in place, the baptismal font which rests in the basement is in place, the first floor concrete walls are in place. It's above grade and it's moving along very well in the last four months."
Both new temples will be similar in size.
Elder Merrill J. Bateman, Quorum of Seventy: "The size of the temple will be sixty thousand square feet, in size it's identical to the Draper temple."
When the Oqurrih Mountain temple is finished about two years from now, it will become the church's fourth in the Salt Lake Valley, the 13th in the state of Utah and the 130th in the world.
President Hinckley also announced today the church plans to build a second temple in Guatemala.
