‘Temples closer to the people’
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In less than six years as its prophet, President Russell M. Nelson has announced 153 new temples for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The global nature of those announcements was driven home for me again at the Orem Utah Temple media day. (The temple open house remains underway through Dec. 16.)
There I interviewed a Brazilian General Authority Seventy I’d met last year at the Rio de Janeiro Brazil Temple media day. Brazil now has 10 dedicated temples. A dozen more are planned or under construction.
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“President Nelson’s vision as a prophet is to bring temples closer to the people,” Elder Adilson de Paula Parrella said then. “It’s a prophetic vision coming to pass all over the world, and it’s reached Rio.”
At the time, he was the Brazil Area president. Now Elder Parrella is assigned to church headquarters in Salt Lake City as assistant executive director of the Temple Department. The media event for the Orem temple, which will be the church’s 188th, was an opportunity to revisit the subject of President Nelson’s prophetic vision for the church.
“I can’t help but just feel joy because we see the First Presidency really giving us the vision about what The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is all about,” Elder Parrella said, “and it is about receiving ordinances, making covenants, keeping those covenants, coming to the temple and making the temple a centerpiece of worship in our lives.”
The Orem Utah Temple is the 22nd in Utah, which has another six under construction or planned.
“God is sharing everything with us,” Elder Parrella added, “and he’s doing that by giving revelations to the president of the church, so that the houses of the Lord can be there closer to everyone, so that we can come to his house and enjoy his presence and be comforted and receive what we need to receive in the temple.”
President Nelson’s temple announcements bring the total of temples now operating, under construction or announced, to 335.
Sister Elaine Finholdt Parrella, Elder Parrella’s wife, sat on a couch with her husband as we spoke in the gym of the new meetinghouse on the Orem temple site, and she also addressed the prophet’s vision.
“President Nelson tells us that the most important work is to gather Israel,” she said. “I feel that the prophet is doing what is the most important thing, to bring temples closer to the members so we can do prepare everything for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.”
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