Santiago West Chile Temple
The Santiago West Chile Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the fourth in the country and the second in the capital city, joining the Santiago Chile Temple (dedicated in 1983), Concepción Chile Temple (2018), and the Antofagasta Chile Temple (under construction). A temple in Viña del Mar has been announced. More than 600,000 Latter-day Saints in over 560 congregations call Chile home. Santiago is the country’s largest city, with a population of nearly seven million residents.
“The announcement of the new temple for the western area of Santiago de Chile, in the midst of a fight against the pandemic, comes from the heavens through our prophet,” wrote M. Gonzalo Sepúlveda, a Chilean Latter-day Saint and a former Area Seventy.
“It is a powerful injection of spirituality [in Santiago] that will bless the lives of its inhabitants on both sides of the veil.”[1]
The Santiago West Chile Temple will be the fifth temple built outside of the United States in the same metropolitan area as another operating temple, making the Santiago Metropolitan Region the fifth metropolitan area outside of the United States with more than one temple, following the Lima metropolitan area in Peru, the Greater Manila Area in the Philippines, the Guatemala City metropolitan area in Guatemala, and Greater São Paulo in Brazil.[2]
Location
The Santiago West Chile Temple will be built at Primo de Rivera 1551, Comuna de Maipu, Santiago, Chile. Plans call for a single-story temple of approximately 12,500 square feet.
Groundbreaking
Elder Alan R. Walker, a General Authority Seventy and the first counselor in the Church’s South America South Area, presided at the Saturday, August 17, 2024, groundbreaking ceremony in Santiago, offering remarks and a prayer dedicating the site and construction process.
“We thank You, Father, for the privilege of being instruments in Your hands as we serve in Your work and as we strive to be faithful disciples of Your Son, Jesus Christ,” said Elder Walker during the dedicatory prayer. “This temple will stand as a beacon of light, a place of peace and a refuge from the world, inviting all to come to Christ and receive His saving ordinances.”[3]
