Temple in Thailand

Sister Moleff wept after she opened her iPad at 6 am Monday morning and read the announcement from Heidi and Andy about a Temple in Thailand.  Then she went to play the broadcast of President Monson's announcement and wept some more.  Her joy was almost overwhelming.  We found the following on-line and copied it below.  Elder Moleff added the photo to the article.

BANGKOK THAILAND TEMPLE
Planning phase; awaiting official site announcement; groundbreaking not announced (1)

Location: Bangkok, Thailand.

ANNOUNCEMENT: 5 April 2015

CONSTRUCTION STATUS
The Bangkok Thailand Temple is currently in the planning stages. No groundbreaking date has
been announced.

TEMPLE RENDERING
Renderings of the Bangkok Thailand Temple and site plan have not yet been publicly released.

TEMPLE SITE
No site location has been officially announced for the Bangkok Thailand Temple. However, some
members speculate that the Church office building on New Petchaburi Road in Bangkok [this is the office where we work], acquired by the Church in 2008, may be torn down and  a multipurpose Church building similar to the temple in Hong Kong constructed here.The Makkasen Station on Bangkok's Airport Rail Link stands directly behind the property, making for rapid and dependable transportation from Suvarnabhumi Airport, which opened in 2006. The building houses most of the country's Church offices including the Thailand Bangkok Mission, the Bangkok Thailand Service Center, the Bangkok Thailand PEF Self Reliance Center, and LDS Charities.

This is a photo of the Thailand Bangkok Service Center taken on the day after President Monson made the announcement of a Temple in Bangkok.  This is a possible site for the Bangkok Temple.  If you look close at the bottom of the stairs going up into the Service Center, you will see Sister Moleff standing there.  The Service Center used to be a bank building that the Church purchased. Three photos below show areal view of Service Center.

TEMPLE ANNOUNCEMENT
President Thomas S. Monson announced the construction of the Bangkok Thailand Temple during
his opening remarks at the Sunday Morning Session of the 185th Annual General Conference. The
temple will be the first in Thailand where the Church was first organized in 1966. There are now
approximately 18,000 Church members in 38 congregations in Thailand. The Bangkok Thailand
Temple will serve Latter-day Saints throughout Southeast Asia. Members currently attend temple
worship services in Hong Kong, over 1,000 miles away.

Nineteen years after the first stake was organized in Bangkok in 1995, the city's second stake
and a district were organized on June 15, 2014. Four additional districts operate in the country,
headquartered in Chiang Mai, Ubon, and Udorn and the Bangkok West which are expected to be reorganized as stakes in the coming months and years. In neighboring Cambodia, the country's first two stakes were both organized on May 25, 2014. Stakes have also been organized in the nearby nations of India, Indonesia, and Singapore. Several districts operate in the bordering country of Malaysia.

TEMPLE FACTS
The Bangkok Thailand Temple will be the first temple built in Thailand.

TEMPLE HISTORY
On June 12, 2000, President Gordon B. Hinckley became the first president of the Church to visit
Thailand where he enjoyed a "prebirthday" celebration hosted by Deputy Prime Minister Bhichai
Rattakul. The next morning, President Hinckley also met with Bangkok Governor Bhichit
and Thailand Prime Minister Chuan Leepkai who thanked the prophet for all the work that Latter-day
Saint volunteers had done for Thailand, noting in particular the 100 volunteers who had taught more
than 300,000 English teachers and students over the previous three years.

Bangkok was the second stop in a tour of Asia and the South Pacific to dedicate four temples in
Fukuoka, Japan; Adelaide, Australia; Melbourne, Australia; and Suva, Fiji. Before leaving Bangkok,
President Hinckley addressed a congregation of over 2,600 members at the Thailand Air Force
Convention Center. Some members had traveled 18 hours by bus to be in attendance.

In his remarks, President Hinckley recalled his first visit to the country in 1961 when there were
just a half dozen members of the Church. "We went quietly in the morning into Lumpini Park, a
small group of us, including Elder Marion D. Hanks of the Seventy, and there we lifted our voices in
prayer. We prayed that the Lord would smile upon this land, that He would touch it by the power of
His Holy Spirit, that the way would be opened for missionaries to come here, that the faithful would
accept the truth, and that the Lord would do a great and good work here." He continued, "Now it's
been a long time since I was here and I have seen a miracle, a very real miracle." He told the
members that they were pioneers of the Lord's work in their country and promised that if they were
faithful, the time would come when a temple would be constructed in Thailand. "The Lord expects so
very, very much of you. He expects you to be the best people in all of Thailand, and you ought to be
because you have a knowledge of His everlasting truth."(2)

1. "New Temples Announced: Abidjan, Ivory Coast (Côte d’Ivoire); Port Au Prince, Haiti; Bangkok, Thailand," The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints News Release, 5 Apr. 2015.

2. "'We have been on a long journey—but it was a great occasion,'" Church News 1 Jul. 2000, 27 Aug. 2010
<http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/38065/Wehavebeenonalongjourneybutitwasagreatoccasion.
html>.