April 2021 General Conference Temple Announcement Predictions

 I love announcements about new temples that come at most General Conferences in recent years. I like to read several blogs that predict where new temples may go, such as http://ldschurchgrowth.blogspot.com/ and I love reading readers' comments predicting temple locations. I thought I'd share my list of temple announcement predictions. For the purposes of this list I have chosen 2 temples per continent. One temple pick is a likely temple and 1 temple that is less likely but could be chosen due to remoteness or other criteria - basically temples like the surprise temples we have seen announced in the recent years. Continents also include islands nearby, so Australia and New Zealand and the Pacific Islands are considered together. My list is also skewed to what I would like to see and what I know, so I recognize it is a very biased list. Oh, and I added a separate Utah category. Here are my predictions.

Africa: Madagascar, less likely Canary Islands. Both are islands and would greatly reduce travel times. Madagascar is also highly possible with 2 stakes and multiple districts on the island alone.

Asia: Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, less likely Jakarta, Indonesia. Mongolia has several stakes and is remote and will get a temple closer to much of China and Russia. Indonesia is remote, but has several stakes and districts. 

Australia and Oceana: Christchurch, New Zealand, less likely Tasmania, Australia. Christchurch is on a different island than the other two New Zealand temples and has 2 stakes and a district. Of course Wellington has more stakes and might be more likely, but it is on the island with temples so I picked this one. Tasmania is a separate island from Australia, so having a temple there would help ease travel burdens on the saints.

Europe: Scotland, less likely Tirana, Albania. Scotland has multiple stakes and several hour travel times to the Preston England Temple. Plus, with the Scottish not appreciating Brexit, there is a chance Scotland will leave the UK in coming years so there could be an international border. Albania is just up the coast from Greece, so it is almost a New Testament country, which is cool. It has a stake and district and would get the temple much closer to many in far eastern Europe and the Middle East.

South America: Iquitos, Peru, less likely Punta Arenas, Chile. South America was hard to decide on as so many temples are already being built or already built and I am not an expert. Iquitos gets further into the continent while being in a location with many members. Punta Arenas is at the southern tip of South America and would greatly ease travel burdens.

North America: Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA, less likely La Paz, Mexico. Colorado is overdue for a third temple. La Paz is on the southern tip of Baja California so it has really long travel distances, even if you were to get on a ferry.

Utah: Price. I don't have a less likely pick, but I think Heber City is also a strong possibility soon. I live in Utah, so I realize that the temples are usually crowded and new temples could easily be announced in Utah. I personally think they will wait a while before announcing new ones, but they keep announcing them anyways, so maybe these will get announced too. Price has a university extension (what used to be the College of Eastern Utah) and I think college towns should get temples so young adults can establish patterns of temple attendance, plus it has the membership to justify a temple and is remote enough and has dangerous travel in the winter. Heber City also has a lot of members and dangerous travel in the winter.

Those are my picks for new temple announcements. Hopefully I'm right on all of them. Please feel free to comment on temple predictions you have.