Calgary Alberta Canada Temple Dedicated After 100,000+ Take Public Tours

Thousands of onlookers witnessed the traditional cornerstone ceremony of the Calgary Alberta Canada Temple, Sunday 28 October. President Thomas S. Monson conducted the ceremony and invited children from the audience to participate in applying mortar to the ceremonial final stone.

He then offered a dedicatory prayer inside the temple. Prior to being formerly dedicated, more than 100,000 people enjoyed tours inside the temple as part of an open house for the public.

The Calgary temple is among seven new or remodeled temples around the world that received nearly one million visitors over the past year. Visitors learned about worship inside Mormons temples. [link "inside Mormon temples" to temple package]

The Calgary Temple is the 140th temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the world and the 8th in Canada. There are also temples in Cardston, Edmonton, Vancouver, Regina, Toronto, Montreal and Halifax. The temple will serve approximately 25,000 Latter-day Saints in Calgary and surrounding communities from Banff in the west to Drumheller in the east.

While tens of thousands of Church meetinghouses are open to all people who wish to attend religious services there, temples, like the Calgary Alberta Canada Temple, are open only to faithful Latter-day Saints after they are formally dedicated. (See a Mormon Newsroom article explaining the difference between the Church’s chapels and temples.)

Latter-day Saint temples differ from the chapels where members meet for Sunday worship services. Temples are considered “houses of the Lord” where the teachings of Jesus Christ are reaffirmed through marriage, baptism and other ordinances that unite families for eternity.

Learn more about Mormon temple worship here [link to temple pkg]