Open house, dedication dates set for Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, Mendoza Argentina temples (2024)

The First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has announced open house and dedication dates for two temples: the Pittsburgh Pennsylvania Temple and the Mendoza Argentina Temple.

Open houses for both houses of the Lord are scheduled to begin in August 2024, with each to be dedicated the following month by a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

“We regard a temple as the most sacred structure in the Church,” said Church President Russell M. Nelson at the April 2019 general conference. “As we speak of our temples old and new, may each of us signify by our actions that we are true disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ. May we renovate our lives through our faith and trust in Him.”

Monday’s announcement of the open house and dedication dates for the Pittsburgh and Mendoza dates followed a similar announcement two months ago — on Feb. 12 — for the the same two events for the Casper Wyoming Temple. However, the open house and dedication of the house of the Lord in Casper will come after the two in Pittsburgh and Mendoza — a late-August start to the open house and an Oct. 13 dedication of the Casper temple.

Barring the announcement of any other dedications prior to those three, the order would have the Pittsburgh temple be the Church’s 196th dedicated house of the Lord, the Mendoza temple the 197th and the Casper temple the 198th.

First published Monday, April 15, on ChurchofJesusChrist.org, the update on the two temples was part of the Church’s full day of temple news. Monday started with the media day for the Layton Utah Temple and the release of a video and interior and exterior photos of that house of the Lord. Later in the afternoon, along with the dates for the Pittsburgh and Mendoza temples, the Church also announced the groundbreaking date for the Cleveland Ohio Temple and the site location for the Kananga Democratic Republic of the Congo Temple.

Pittsburgh Pennsylvania Temple

Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles will dedicate the Pittsburgh Pennsylvania Temple in two sessions on Sunday, Sept. 15, at 10 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. EDT. The dedication will be broadcast to all meetinghouses within the temple district.

Prior to the dedication, a series of open-house tours will be conducted, beginning with a media day on Monday, Aug. 12, with invited-guest tours following through Thursday, Aug. 15. The public open house begins Friday, Aug. 16, and runs through Saturday, Aug. 31, excluding Sundays.

President Nelson announced a temple for Pittsburgh during the April 2020 general conference, one of eight locations he identified on April 5. The site location and accompanying exterior rendering were released on Jan. 19, 2021.

The 5.8-acre site is located at 2093 Powell Rd., Cranberry Township in western Pennsylvania. The rendering reflected plans for a single-story temple of approximately 32,000 square feet with a center spire.

The Pittsburgh Pennsylvania Temple is one of three houses of the Lord in the state and will be the second to be dedicated. The first — the Philadelphia Pennsylvania Temple — was dedicated Sept. 18, 2016. A temple for Harrisburg was announced in April 2023.

More than 53,000 Latter-day Saints in 107 congregations reside in Pennsylvania, where many significant events in Church history occurred. Much of the Book of Mormon was translated in the town of Harmony (now Oakland Township) with the first members of the Church baptized in the Susquehanna River in in May 1829.

Mendoza Argentina Temple

Elder Gary E. Stevenson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles will dedicate the Mendoza Argentina Temple in two sessions on Sunday, Sept. 22, at 10 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. UTC. The sessions will be broadcast to meetinghouses in the temple district.

Before the dedication, the Mendoza temple will be available for a series of open-house tours, beginning with a media day on Monday, Aug. 19, followed by invited-guest tours through Wednesday, Aug. 21. The public open house begins Thursday, Aug. 22, and runs through Saturday, Sept. 7, excluding Sundays.

President Nelson announced a temple for Mendoza, Argentina, on Oct. 7, 2018, one of 12 temple locations identified during the October 2018 general conference.

On June 23, 2022, the Church released the exterior rendering, site location and initial design plans for the Mendoza temple, with plans calling for a temple of approximately 21,000 square feet with a single spire as well as the construction of an adjacent meetinghouse and temple patron housing. The temple is located along Avenida Champagnat between Calle Dr. Pose and Calle Dr. Coni E., on the western edge of Mendoza’s northern suburb of Las Heras.

Ground was broken for the house of the Lord on Dec. 17, 2020, as a small gathering of Latter-day Saint leaders gathered at the future temple site in the north/central city of Mendoza, located within the foothills and high plains of the eastern side of the Andes. Attendance was limited due to local COVID-19 social distancing guidelines.

Elder Allen D. Haynie, a General Authority Seventy and then a member of the South America South Area Presidency, offered the dedicatory prayer and presided over the ceremony.

Until now, Latter-day Saints in Mendoza have been part of the Córdoba Argentina Temple district, with that temple more than 400 miles away to the northeast. The Santiago Chile Temple is only some 120 miles to the west, but the route by car or bus is double the distance and time-consuming over the rugged Andes Mountains.

The Mendoza temple is one of seven houses of the Lord in Argentina, where two German immigrants began preaching the gospel in 1923 and where more than 480,000 now reside and comprise about 730 congregations.

The South American country’s first temple — the Buenos Aires Argentina Temple — was dedicated in 1986, followed by the Córdoba Argentina Temple, which was dedicated in 2015.

The Salta Argentina Temple will be dedicated on June 16, just three months prior to the house of the Lord in Mendoza.

The Bahia Blanca Argentina Temple has been under construction since April 2022. Two more temples have been announced: one for the city center area of Buenos Aires, identified during the October 2022 general conference, and one for Rosario. The latter was one of 15 temple locations announced by President Nelson just eight days ago at the conclusion of April 2024 general conference.