The First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has released the location of a temple to be built in Bakersfield, California.
Bakersfield California Temple Site
This temple will be built on a 13.07-acre site located at the northwest corner of the intersection of Stockdale Highway and Jewetta Avenue, Bakersfield. Plans call for a single-story temple of approximately 30,000 square feet, an accompanying distribution center and a new meetinghouse.
California is home to 12 houses of the Lord. Along with Bakersfield, a temple was announced for San Jose by Church President Russell M. Nelson in the April 2023 general conference. Other temples in use or under construction in the state include the Fresno, Los Angeles, Modesto, Newport Beach, Oakland, Redlands, Sacramento, San Diego and Yorba Linda California Temples. The Feather River California Temple will be dedicated on October 8, 2023, by Elder Ulisses Soares of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.
There are nearly 730,000 Latter-day Saints in more than 1,130 congregations in California. The first Latter-day Saint immigrants arrived in San Francisco in 1846. The Mormon Battalion, a group of Latter-day Saints preparing to fight in the Mexican-American War, arrived in San Diego the following year.
Latter-day Saints consider temples to be houses of the Lord and the most sacred places of worship on earth. Temples differ from the Church’s meetinghouses (chapels). All are welcome to attend Sunday worship services and other weekday activities at local meetinghouses. The primary purpose of temples is for faithful members of the Church of Jesus Christ to participate in sacred ceremonies, such as marriages, which unite families forever, and proxy baptisms on behalf of deceased ancestors who did not have the opportunity to be baptized while living.
Cleveland Ohio Temple Rendering Released
An artist’s rendering of the Cleveland Ohio Temple has been released. The site of the temple was released in December 2022.
