Groundbreaking Announced for Peru’s 10th Temple

The First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has scheduled the groundbreaking ceremony for the Piura Peru Temple for Saturday, November 14, 2026, according to a Church Newsroom release. Elder Steven C. Barlow, a member of the South America Northwest Area Presidency, will preside at the event.

President Russell M. Nelson announced the Piura Peru Temple during general conference on October 1, 2023. The Church of Jesus Christ has also released an artist’s rendering of the future temple and an updated map of the site.

Ten Temples in Peru

The Piura Peru Temple joins nine other temples that the Church has dedicated, announced or placed under construction in Peru. Nearly 668,000 Latter-day Saints currently worship in 809 congregations across the country.

Peru’s four dedicated temples include the Lima Peru Temple, Trujillo Peru Temple, Arequipa Peru Temple and Lima Peru Los Olivos Temple. The Church has also announced or begun developing temples in Chiclayo, Chorrillos, Cusco, Huancayo and Iquitos.

The Lima Peru Temple became the country’s first temple when President Gordon B. Hinckley dedicated it from January 10 through 12, 1986. It was also the third temple dedicated in South America.

President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, then Second Counselor in the First Presidency, dedicated the Trujillo Peru Temple on June 21, 2015. Elder Ulisses Soares of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles dedicated the Arequipa Peru Temple on December 15, 2019.

Elder D. Todd Christofferson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles dedicated the Lima Peru Los Olivos Temple on January 14, 2024. Its dedication made Lima the first city outside Utah with two dedicated temples.

President Nelson announced the Cusco Peru Temple on April 3, 2022, followed by the Chiclayo Peru Temple on October 2 of that year. He announced the Iquitos Peru Temple on April 2, 2023, and announced temples for both Piura and Huancayo on October 1, 2023.

The Church’s Beginnings in Peru

The Church’s history in Peru traces back to Elder Parley P. Pratt of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, who served a five-month mission in Chile with his wife, Phoebe, in 1851 and 1852. During that mission, Elder Pratt considered the prospects for missionary work in Peru and concluded that missionaries needed a Spanish translation of the Book of Mormon.

“I had much desire to go to Peru,” Elder Pratt later wrote, “but an empty purse and imperfect tongue, which has only barely begun to stammer in that language … combined to cause me to wait a little.” The Church published the Spanish translation of the Book of Mormon in Salt Lake City in 1886, but more than a century passed after Elder Pratt’s mission before the Church established a formal presence in Peru.

From 1943 through 1960, Stanley A. Moore and his wife, Edna Zaldívar, held regular Sunday School meetings in their home for North American expatriates and other interested people. Church members organized the Lima Peru Branch on July 8, 1956, and the Church secured legal recognition in Peru three days later.

The first full-time missionaries arrived in Peru on August 7, 1956, and the Church acquired its first meetinghouse in Lima that November. Missionaries also lived in the building, and the first local convert received baptism on January 30, 1957.

Elder Spencer W. Kimball of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles dedicated the first Church-built meetinghouse in Peru on March 29, 1959, in Toquepala. Later that year, the Church organized the Andes Mission with headquarters in Lima after missionaries had baptized more than 700 converts and organized three branches.

Local Leadership and Expanding Congregations

Peruvian Latter-day Saints soon took increasingly prominent roles in missionary work, leadership and Church construction. William Cipriano Romera of Toquepala received a call to serve as a full-time missionary in 1960, and Ruth Ojeda became the first full-time sister missionary from Peru when she arrived in Lima from Arequipa in September 1961.

Young Peruvian men also served as building-construction missionaries after Church leaders introduced a South American building program in 1961. The program gave them practical training in construction trades as they built meetinghouses needed by growing congregations.

Local Peruvian leaders assumed responsibility for five branches in Lima and two in Trujillo in September and October 1962. Church members later organized the Lima Stake on February 22, 1970, with Roberto Vidal serving as president.

Missionary work also reached Peruvians who spoke Quechua, an Indigenous language. Antonia Ataurima and Virginia Espinoza became the first Quechua-speaking Peruvian converts baptized in July 1966, and Church members held the first baptismal service conducted entirely in Quechua on May 28, 1977.

By 1983, Peruvian missionaries made up 40 percent of the missionaries in the Lima North Mission, 50 percent in the Lima South Mission and 70 percent in the Arequipa Mission. That growing local missionary force helped carry the Church’s message to communities throughout the country in both Spanish and Quechua.

Temple Worship and Growth

Peruvian Church members began seeking temple blessings long before a temple opened in their country. Carlos and Lily Rodriguez became the first Peruvians to receive recommends for their own endowments and sealing in 1963, when they participated in a special session for members with Indigenous heritage at the Mesa Arizona Temple.

The Lima Peru Temple brought those ordinances to Peru in 1986. Two years later, the temple conducted its first session in Quechua, extending temple worship to Church members in one of Peru’s Indigenous languages.

By January 1990, attendance at the Lima temple had tripled during the previous two years. Two planeloads of families traveled from Iquitos for the temple’s fourth anniversary, making the journey by air because no other form of transportation connected them with the temple.

Church growth also produced new stakes throughout Peru. Leaders divided 11 stakes into 18 stakes during two days in January 1988, and Lima then ranked second only to Mexico City in the number of stakes located within one city outside the United States.

The Church created Peru’s 100th stake in Lima on June 30, 2013, as Latter-day Saints gathered for the largest Church assembly in the country’s history to that point. Six years later, the creation of the Lima Peru Santa Clara Stake brought the Lima metropolitan area to 49 stakes, more than any other metropolitan area outside the United States.

What Happens in Latter-day Saint Temples

Temples differ from the meetinghouses where Church members gather for regular Sunday worship. Latter-day Saints consider temples houses of the Lord and set them apart for sacred worship and religious ordinances.

Inside temples, faithful Church members make covenants with God and participate in ordinances centered on Jesus Christ and His teachings. These include ordinances that Latter-day Saints believe allow husbands and wives, along with their children, to remain united as families beyond death.

Temple worship also gives Church members opportunities for prayer, reflection and learning about God’s plan for His children. Latter-day Saints return to temples throughout their lives to worship and participate in ordinances on behalf of themselves and others.

For Church members, temple attendance forms part of lifelong discipleship rather than a one-time religious observance. The Church teaches that the covenants made there help individuals and families draw closer to Jesus Christ and prepare to return to God.

What detail from the Church’s history in Peru surprised you most? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Holly Wallace

Holly Wallace is a writer and storyteller drawn to meaningful questions and overlooked details. Her work explores Latter-day Saint life and culture through faithful inquiry, inviting readers to pause, consider, and engage more deeply with what matters most.