The First Presidency has announced the dedication date for the Modesto California Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as Sunday, November 22.
This comes more than five months after the dedication of the Yorba Linda California Temple and three months after the rededication of the San Diego California Temple.
Elder Quentin L. Cook of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles dedicates the Modesto Temple. Prior to his call as a General Authority, Elder Cook worked as a lawyer and business executive in California.
Prior to the dedication ceremony on November 22nd, the building will be open to the public from October 16th to October 31st, excluding Sundays. A media day is also planned for October 13th, and invited guests will tour the sacred structure on October 14th and 15th.
Information about the upcoming dedication ceremony, which will be broadcast to congregations in the temple district, was announced in a June 15 news release on ChurchofJesusChrist.org.
About the Modesto Temple
On April 3, 2022, then-Church President Russell M. Nelson announced that the House of the Lord would be built in Modesto, California, one of 17 temple locations identified at the April 2022 general conference.
Ground was then broken on October 7, 2023, and the construction phase began. Elder Gary B. Sabin, then a General Authority Seventy and first counselor in the North America West Area Presidency, presided over the ceremony. This was the day before the Feather River California Temple was dedicated.
In his remarks at the Modesto Temple groundbreaking ceremony, Elder Sabin said, “Temples remind us that they bring us closer to Christ, and as we draw closer to Him, we rejoice even more. We are deeply grateful to all our members, past and present, whose faith and courage along the way have made this possible.”
According to previously released site plans, the Modesto Temple will be a one-story building measuring approximately 30,000 square feet. The facility is being constructed on a 17.63-acre site adjacent to an existing meeting place at 4300 Dale Road in Modesto, California.
california church
California, located on the Pacific coast, currently has the second largest number of temples among U.S. states, followed by Utah. Twelve master homes are currently in operation, under construction or under renovation in California.
Nine temples have already been dedicated: Los Angeles Temple (1956), Oakland Temple (1964), San Diego Temple (1993), Fresno Temple (2000), Redlands Temple (2003), Newport Beach Temple (2005), Sacramento Temple (2006), Feather River Temple (2023), and Yorba Linda Temple (June 2026).
Notably, the San Diego Temple will close in July 2023 for extensive renovations and is scheduled to be rededicated soon on August 23rd.
The Modesto California Temple has been under construction since October 2023. Temples are also planned for Bakersfield and the San Jose suburb of Sunnyvale, both of which were announced in April 2023.
Latter-day Saints first arrived in California, then Yerba Buena, on July 31, 1846. The company, with approximately 230 employees, tripled the population of Yerba Buena and helped create the prosperous city of San Francisco.
Today, nearly 730,000 Latter-day Saints live in California and meet in approximately 600 meetinghouses and more than 1,000 wards and branches.
