Tarawa Kiribati Temple | Church News Almanac
Announcement of the Tarawa Kiribati Temple
On Oct. 4, 2020, President Russell M. Nelson announced a temple for Tarawa, an Oceanian atoll in the island chain of Kiribati. The nation of Kiribati is a collection of 33 Micronesian islands in the mid-Pacific, and it spans over where the equator and international dateline meet.
When the temple was announced, Tarawa had around 21,000 Latter-day Saints in two stakes and 37 congregations. The country is currently in the Suva Fiji Temple district, meaning members have to travel 2,168 kilometers (1,171 nautical miles) southeast of Kiribati to attend the house of the Lord.
Fiji resident Adolf J. Johannsson, who presided over the Kiribati units for six years as an Area Seventy, said the Saints in the country wept with joy at the announcement. “This is a realization of the prophecy that the Lord will gather his people from all the ends of the earth. ... When the future temple is ultimately dedicated in Tarawa, it will stand as a beacon of the fullness of the gospel for all to see.”
Timeline of the Tarawa Kiribati Temple
October
04
2020
The Tarawa temple was announced Oct. 4, 2020, by President Russell M. Nelson.
Architecture and Design of the Tarawa Kiribati Temple
The Tarawa Kiribati Temple will be a single-story building of approximately 10,000 square feet. According to an exterior rendering released May 19, 2021, the temple will be surrounded by square windows with brown frames and an arched entryway above the main doors. Atop the temple, above the entrance, will be a tower on a square base and an arched window on each of the four sides.
The temple, along with a new meetinghouse and patron housing facility, will stand on a 0.8-acre site. The temple grounds will be adjacent to the Kiribati Parliament building. Green, red and purple bushes as well as some palm trees will decorate the site. An additional ancillary facility will also be located 450 meters west of the temple site.
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