The First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has released the open house and dedication dates for the Lima Peru Los Olivos Temple, which will not only be the fourth operating house of the Lord in the South American country but the second in Peru’s capital city of Lima.

Elder D. Todd Christofferson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles will dedicate the Lima Peru Los Olivos Temple on Sunday, Jan. 14, 2024, in two sessions at 10 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. PET. The date is 38 years and four days after the dedication of the country’s first temple — the Lima Peru Temple, on Jan. 10, 1986.

“Los Olivos” is Spanish for “the olive trees.” And with the dedication, Lima will be the first city outside of the United States to have two operating temples.

A public open house prior to the temple’s dedication the temple is scheduled to run from Friday, Nov. 10, through Saturday, Dec. 9, excluding Sundays. A media day will be held Monday, Nov. 6, with invited guests touring the temple in the three days between the media day and start of the public open house.

The dedicatory session will be broadcasts to all Church units in the Lima Peru Los Olivos Temple district.

The dedication and open house dates were published Monday, June 26, on ChurchofJesusChrist.org.

The first Latter-day Saint congregation in Peru was organized in July 1956, with the first missionaries arriving to preach the gospel there the following month. And Lima was the city where the first stake was organized in what is now Church’s South America Northwest Area — including Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela.

Today, Peru — the nation that rises from its Pacific Ocean beaches to its tower Andes peaks — is home to more than 630,000 Latter-day Saints comprising nearly 780 congregations and 112 stakes, which include 48 alone in Lima.

Dedicated in 1986, the Lima Peru Temple was the Church’s third house of the Lord in South America, preceded by the São Paulo Brazil Temple (1978) and the Santiago Chile Temple (1983).

Two other houses of the Lord serve Latter-day Saints in Peru — the Trujillo Peru Temple, dedicated in June 2015, and the Arequipa Peru Temple, dedicated in December 2019. Three additional temples have been announced in the past 13 months — the Cusco Peru Temple (announced in April 2022), the Chiclayo Peru Temple (October 2022) and the Iquitos Peru Temple (April 2023).

The Lima Peru Los Olivos Temple was announced April 3, 2016, by President Thomas S. Monson. The Lima North Institute of Religion building and a meetinghouse — two buildings originally on the temple site — were permanently closed on Jan. 27, 2019, to be demolished to make way for the new house of the Lord. 

Elder Enrique R. Falabella, a General Authority Seventy and the president of the South America Northwest Area, sixth from the left, invites Church and community leader to participate in the groundbreaking of the Lima Peru Los Olivos Temple on Saturday, June 8, 2019.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

The temple’s June 8, 2019, groundbreaking was presided over by Elder Enrique R. Falabella, a General Authority Seventy and president of the South America Northwest Area, on June 8, 2019.

Elder Falabella told attendees that the groundbreaking would be unforgettable. “There is something special in the temples,” he said. “As we spend more time in the Lord’s house, our life will have greater meaning.”

The Los Olivos temple has a light-gray exterior with long, rectangular windows. Atop the temple is a flat-roofed, windowed tower over the celestial room.

Landscaping on temple grounds includes trees, bushes, grass sod, flowers and cacti, with palm trees around the entrance plaza. Near the temple are two housing structures — one for missionaries and one for temple patrons — as well as an underground parking garage.