The First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has announced a groundbreaking date for the Freetown Sierra Leone Temple that was announced in October 2019 by Church President Russell M. Nelson.
The groundbreaking ceremony will be held on Saturday, March 19, 2022. Elder Hugo E. Martinez, Africa West Area president, will preside at the event. Attendance at the site will be by invitation only.
The Freetown Sierra Leone Temple will be built on a 2.9-acre site located at Jui Road, Kossah Town, Freetown, Sierra Leone. Plans call for a single-story temple of approximately 18,000 square feet with a two-story ancillary building that will contain an arrival center, patron housing, presidency apartments, ordinance worker apartments and utility buildings.
This will be the eighteenth temple in Africa. Temples in operation include the Accra Ghana, Kinshasa Democratic Republic of the Congo, Aba Nigeria, Durban South Africa and Johannesburg South Africa Temples. Temples under construction in Africa are the Abidjan Ivory Coast, Nairobi Kenya and Harare Zimbabwe Temples. Temples announced in Africa are the Antananarivo Madagascar, Beira Mozambique, Cape Town South Africa, Monrovia Liberia, Kumasi Ghana, Lagos Nigeria, Benin City Nigeria, Lubumbashi Democratic Republic of the Congo and Kananga Democratic Republic of the Congo Temples.
There are more than 21,000 Latter-day Saints in the Freetown Sierra Leone Temple district, with approximately 70 congregations.
Latter-day Saints consider temples to be the “house 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, however, 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.