Ground will be broken on the Ephraim Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Saturday, Aug. 27, according to a news release Tuesday from the church.
General authority Seventy Walter F. Gonzalez will preside at the ceremony in the Sanpete County city.
(The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) The site for a new temple in Ephraim has been announced.)
The three-story, 39,000-square-foot temple will be constructed on a 9.16-acre site at the intersection of 200 North and 400 West. It will serve more than 31,000 Latter-day Saints in central Utah.
Church President Russell M. Nelson announced the temple in May 2021, at the same time the Salt Lake City-based faith announced it was canceling plans to remove historic murals from the pioneer-era Manti Temple, which is just 7 miles away from where the Ephraim Temple will be built.
Those wall paintings, including a “world room” diorama by famed Latter-day Saint artist Minerva Teichert, are instead being preserved in the historic Manti Temple, which is closed for renovation.
The Ephraim Temple is one of 28 existing or planned temples in Utah.
There are currently 14 temples operating in Utah, and three more — the pioneer-era Salt Lake, Manti and St. George structures — are undergoing renovation. In addition to Ephraim, temples also are planned or under construction in the Heber Valley, Layton, Lindon, Orem, Saratoga Springs, Smithfield, St. George (a second one), Syracuse, Taylorsville and Tooele.
Latter-day Saints consider a temple to be a House of the Lord, where Jesus Christ’s teachings are reaffirmed through ordinances that unite families for eternity.
