Thursday, May 31, 2007

Manaus temple announcement is official!!!!!

I found out today that it’s official—the Manaus temple has been announced!!!! João, my immediate boss and good buddy here, has a friend that’s a Seventy in Brazil, and he forwarded to João (who then forwarded to me) the email/letter from the First Presidency announcing it.


“We are pleased to announce that a temple will be constructed in Manaus, Brazil. We are confident that this will be a blessing to the many faithful Saints in this and surrounding areas who have had to travel long distances to enjoy the blessings of the temple.”


AMEN!!!! Oh man oh man oh man this makes me soooooo happy—how long so many members in Manaus (and returned missionaries) have been waiting for this!!!!


“We commend the Saints for their devotion and faithfulness, and are thankful for the blessings that will come to them through the construction of this new temple.” Signed, The First Presidency.


Oh man—the more I think about it, and about the specific people I know who will be rejoicing so much at this news and who will make such good use of this temple, the more joy I feel. I can’t WAIT to be there for the dedication!

3 comments:

Kristy said...

I'll never forget when President Hinkley announced the Columbia temple's plans: I was a pre-teen, and had just moved from an extremely LDS-saturated area in California, with a temple very close, to the other side of the country in the deep South, where I couldn't wait for our youth temple trips down to Atlanta. I was watching general conference with my family in the tiny branch building that we all met in (built just a year before we moved to the area), and when he announced it, we couldn't believe it. I remember, after the shock and excitement, thinking, "how lucky can we get? And Atlanta was only six hours away...Columbia was our stake, and it'd be just one hour. What about all the people who still travel days to get to theirs?" Yeah, I had temple guilt pretty bad...but I know the work of God is going forth, and that as it progresses, more and more of His children will have the opportunity to have temples closer to them, to have that blessing.

Rolfo said...

I felt the same way when they announced the San Antonio temple, cutting our trip from Austin from 3 hours (to Houston) to one and a half. It seemed pretty ridiculous compared to the 7-days-each-way trips that the Manaus folk have been taking for years.

Nephi said...

I just sent you a Facebook message about this - THEN I found your blog! Rolf, I'm so excited!!