The Pago Pago American Samoa Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is to be built on Ottoville Road is to be built on Ottoville Road on the site of the Pago Pago Samoa Central Stake center in Tafuna.
Plans call for a single-story temple of nearly 17,000 square feet.
This temple construction will also include housing for the temple president and missionaries and a distribution center.
It will be the first in American Samoa where more than 16,000 members of the LDS Church live.
The Pago Pago American Samoa Temple and the Neiafu Tonga Temple were announced in April last year by Church President Russell M. Nelson.
Latter-day Saints consider temples to be the “house of the Lord” and the most sacred places of worship on the 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 to participate in sacred ceremonies such as marriages that unite families forever and proxy baptisms on behalf of deceased ancestors who did not have the opportunity while living.
Project leaders are beginning the process of working with the various municipalities relating to the temples’ design in preparation for the eventual groundbreaking and beginning of construction at each site.
Detailed design plans for these temples are still in process. Groundbreaking dates have not been set.
Source:NZ LDS Church
