Exactly 17 years after the groundbreaking of the Quetzaltenango Guatemalan Temple, groundbreaking for the Huehuetenango Guatemalan Temple took place today.
The March 14 ceremony was presided over by Elder Patricio M. Giuffra, a General Authority Seventy and Central America Area President. He also offered a dedicatory prayer over the site and the construction process.
Information and photos from the ceremony, which was also livestreamed, were published on March 14 in the Guatemala Newsroom of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
In his address to those in attendance, Elder Giuffre quoted Moroni 10:32, urging them to “come unto Christ, and be made perfect in Him, and put away all ungodliness.”
He added: “The temple is one of the most sacred places in which we respond to the invitation.”
Without the Atonement of Jesus Christ, Elder Giuffra said, the temple would be nothing more than a beautiful building. “But through the Atonement, it becomes a place of power, healing, and eternal hope.”
He encouraged his audience to transform their lives through the Savior’s redemptive power as they frequently attend the Lord’s house and keep their covenants.
“Each time we enter the temple, we reaffirm our desire to follow the Savior and continue on the covenant path,” he said.
In his dedication prayer at the site, Elder Jufra called for the area to become a sacred place so that neighbors and community members can feel the influence of the Holy Spirit.
“May their hearts be touched and their desire to know why sacred buildings be built be awakened.”
That “why” was reaffirmed at the beginning of the ceremony when a choir of Huehuetenango youth heartily sang “Cleo en Cristo,” or “I believe in Christ.”
About this and other temples in Guatemala
As previously announced, Temple Huehuetenango is planned as a one-story building measuring approximately 10,787 square feet. It will be built at 18 Avenida, Zona 4, El Terrero, Huehuetenango, Guatemala.
President Russell M. Nelson, then President of the Church, announced the construction of the House of the Lord in Huehuetenango on October 2, 2022. It was one of 18 temple locations he identified in October 2022 general conference, along with four temples in Guatemala’s neighboring country, Mexico.
There are six temples in Guatemala that are in various stages of operation, construction, and planning.
Half are operating in Guatemala City (opened in 1984), Quetzaltenango (2011) and Cobán (2024).
In addition to the Huehuetenango Temple, another house of the Lord, the Miraflores Guatemala City Guatemalan Temple, is also in the construction phase. The temple will be the second in the city and will break ground in December 2022.
This leaves one more temple in the planning stages at Letalhulev, expected to be unveiled in April 2023.
church in guatemala
In 1942, John F. O’Donal, a member of the Mexican church colony, immigrated to Central America. He visited church headquarters in December 1946 and personally appealed to church president George Albert Smith to begin missionary work in Guatemala.
The first Latter-day Saint missionaries arrived in Guatemala in 1947. O’Donal was then appointed district president in 1948, and more than 60 people attended the first meeting two weeks later in a rented building in Guatemala City.
In 1952, just five years after missionary work began in this country, the Central American Mission was established and headquartered in Guatemala City.
There are currently more than 292,000 Latter-day Saints living in approximately 440 congregations in Guatemala.
