Oquirrh Mountain Utah Temple

I was able to attend a satellite broadcast of the groundbreaking ceremony for the new temple in South Jordan on Saturday. We will be in the new temple district even though we are only 10 minutes from the Jordan River temple which is also in South Jordan. This temple will be slightly closer to us with fewer traffic lights in-between. It was a nice, short ceremony which was held at the temple site in a temporary tent structure that was set up for the occasion. The temperature outside was below freezing and we had received a couple inches of snow the night before.

Elder Nelson conducted the ceremony and all of the members of the First Presidency spoke. I was pleasantly surprised to see President Faust stand and walk to the podium and he stayed standing for his entire talk (which was brief). President Faust referred to a prophecy that is attributed to Brigham Young that the Salt Lake Valley will experience incredible growth and the Jordan River will run down the middle of it. He said that we are seeing the fulfillment of this prophecy now.

President Hinckley was his normal joking self and introduced the name for the new temple. He said that there was a lot of concern about the name of the temple which was originally going to be called the South Jordan Temple. There was concern that there would be too much confusion between the names of the Jordan River Temple and the South Jordan Temple. So after much deliberation, they decided to name the new temple the Oquirrh Mountain Temple. "No one will know how to spell it," he said, "but they don't come to the temple to spell." The mountains here on the west side of the valley are called the Oquirrh Mountains. Oquirrh is a Goshute Indian word that means "Shining Mountains". President Hinckley said that this is "the greatest Christmas present" that the members in the South Jordan area can receive.

Then when they were breaking the ground President Hinckley said, "This is really kind of fake. This is just dirt they brought in." There was a large pile of dirt in front of the podium in the temporary tent structure that was used for the "groundbreaking". The temple is scheduled to be completed in about 2 years. The Jordan River Temple is currently the busiest temple in the world. The Oquirrh Mountain Temple, as well as the Draper Temple which had it's groundbreaking in August, will help to relieve that busyness. The ground for the temple was donated by the president of Kennecott Land.

President Hinckley said that there will probably be another temple built in the Salt Lake Valley if the growth keeps up. He also announced plans for a new temple in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala and said that more will probably be built in Brazil.

Newspaper articles on the groundbreaking:
Deseret Morning News
Salt Lake Tribune