Pressing Matters of a Sound Mind

The Paris, France Temple...?

I always look forward to General Conference. On my mission, we would get CD's of the sessions and listen to them while we studied, ate, planned, etc. There was a time I even had the October 2006 General Conference talks memorized; namely Thomas S. Monson's, "True to Our Priesthood Trust" , Gordon B. Hinkley's " The Faith to Move Mountians" among several others. Though I may not recall as clearly what is said as much as at that time, I still love hearing from the General Authorities.
I am really hoping that maybe we'll hear an announcement about a temple in France. The LDS members in France have wanted a temple for years. I have lived among the most faithful French Saints and seen their hunger and yearning for a House of the Lord to grace their country. I know first hand their sacrifices and I can testify of their need. President Hinkley visited France in 2004, and he told the French Saints they were "worthy of the richest blessings of the Church... "I wish I could announce that we could have a temple here, but we do not have a suitable place yet, in my judgment, to build it...So we will continue to look. I don't know when it will be built, but I am confident that that we will have a temple for the French-speaking people of the church sometime in the future...And so, my brothers and sisters, I ask you to be patient for a time...Sometime in the future a beautiful house of the Lord will grace this land."

"Sometime in the future" may be announced Saturday.

Paris, France Temple

In July, a reputable newspaper, Le Parisien, the largest national newspaper in circulation in France, announced that a detail document had been submitted to the city hall of Le Chesney (a city near Versailles) for approval. Anxious to clear the field, mayor Philippe Brillault confirmed "From what I know, the Mormons are planning to spend 80 million Euros in total, including land and buildings."
President Thomas S. Monson announced that the church "hoped" to build its first temple in France on property on the outskirts of Paris. The Deseret News reports, "customarily, new temples are announced by the president of the church at one of the church's general conferences, after local government building approvals and property acquisition have been secured... Although the local government approval process for the French temple is still under way, French newspapers are already reporting church plans to build at Le Chesnay, near Versailles, and this prompted today's announcement...There have been several previous attempts to find a suitable site for a French temple, but none were finalized... French members of the church wishing to visit a temple usually travel to those in neighboring European countries." (In my mission that meant Spain or Switzerland.)
The long-awaited announcement of a temple is just the most recent development in the LDS Church's 162-year history in France. Although there is earlier mention of sending missionaries to France, as early as the Nauvoo period, the first mission was organized in 1849. As was the case in so many European missions, the earliest Mormon missionaries met with considerable resistance, and church growth was slow. At one point the mission was closed for several decades, during the violent French Revolution and World Wars I and II, and wasn't re-opened until 1912. A unique chapter of LDS Church history in France was the so-called "Paris Art Mission." In 1890, five young artists — John Hafen, Lorus Pratt, John B. Fairbanks, Edwin Evans and Herman Haag — were called as "art missionaries" and sent to study at the Julian Academy in Paris, where they honed their skills in preparation for painting the vast murals in the Salt Lake Temple. That "missionary" effort was, by all accounts, eminently successful. Church growth in France increased significantly after World War II. The first stake in France was organized in Paris in 1975. Today there are more than 35,000 Latter-day Saints in France in nine stakes, 57 wards, 54 branches, two districts and two missions.

And now, in the very near future, there may be a temple to serve them all.

posted by Austin @ 9:43 PM