Speaking with a friend from another country, she said that she'd never seen an LDS meeting house. I Googled it.

Not only are there 5 meeting houses in her country but they also have a temple. The Church reports that there are about 1600 LDS members in that country. Can that number really support a temple?

What's going on?

The church changed its criteria/formula around 30 years ago. Years ago the church reinforced a certain stake/ward/priesthood/tithing formula required to support the building of a LDS temple.

At some point under Hinckley, it became more important to reward areas of faithful tithing donors with a nearby temple than to meet the previous temple "consideration" criteria.

Is there any reason you are not telling us the name of the country? Unless it is Vatican City, the fact that you know somebody there doesn’t seem likely to be enough info to identify you or your friend.

There might be other countries that are near enough to also use the temple. That would be true in Austria, but not so much in Samoa.

And if LDS Inc says there are 1600 members there, that probably translates into 600 actual Sunday-go-to-meeting members.

The Canadian census says there are 1640 members in Manitoba, and they have a temple. The temple district does include some small cities in NW Ontario, but they can’t add more than a few hundred members, if that.

Yeah. I talk about this friend a lot. My friends here might recognize me. I want to stay anonymous to maintain my boundaries. I don't want to have any inhibitions about speaking openly.

>Is there any reason you are not telling us the name of the country?

Try this one.

https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/facts-and-statistics/country/united-arab-emirates

A secret I learned about the Layton temple is this....

About 15 years ago the church approached the owners of the lot the temple currently sits on and bought a 10 year option on the property.

The amount was not publicly disclosed but the family agreed not to sell the land during the 10 year contract.

When the contract expired the church renewed it. Finally the church announced the Layton temple and eventually purchased the property.

From this I learned that real estate and investment is a huge portion of the process.

Secondly, many countries limit tye amount of cash one can send out of country. The best way to reinvest money, particularly in a country with weak currency, is to buy real estate.

So a temple is more an investment than anything.

Your story about the Layton temple reminds me of another recently built temple in another city.

A real estate investor/developer donated the land for the temple. (Would it count as tithing?) He then developed the land surrounding the to-be-built-temple into lots and single family homes that sold way above market value.

The very worthiest of the worthy now live in that neighborhood!

Heartless Wrote:
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> From this I learned that real estate and
> investment is a huge portion of the process.

> So a temple is more an investment than anything.

I'm sure this is right. I'll bet there are many, many option deals since that's a highly leveraged wager on economic growth.

I have written on this a few times. 27 years ago when I was in Finland I had a cousin who was high up in the Mormon hierarchy there. He told me they were going to build a temple in Helsinki as they had so much surplus funds they had to use them. The temple was built in a country with very few members. It is a money situation. Build temples with excess funds instead of being charitable.

I know of at least 2 locals from here who served missions in Finland in the 1950's (one even met a Finnish girl and brought her home to be his wife!). All their work must be for naught. Good. Perfect.

And in some cases (i.e. the Rome temple) I think they are catering to "temple tourists" and Americans who are vacationing or living abroad. Of course with the Rome temple, they are also trying to keep up with the Catholics. Good luck with that.

off the top of my mind I easily imagine that some super-wealthy TBMs at least nominally occupy (with legitimate residences) small nations, (Monaco, Huntsmans come to mind) where angels fear to tread...

I wish that all developing (example African) countries would prohibit religious donations from leaving

After reading all the comments on this thread, then I can only come to one personal observation\opinion.

The Q15 does not build temples out of inspiration anymore, they build them to keep money in house.

This just reinforces the idea that LDS leadership not only lives in this world, but is clearly part of the world.

And thus, another contradition of what I grew up being taught that leadership was based on truth and spiritual direction. But it is nothing more than empire building and wealth accumulation.

Do you think the Q15 ever built temples out of inspiration? I don't.

It's just more obvious now.

I think the church would be gone pronto if they had to pay property taxes like the rest of us. They have so much money all they know how to do is park it in real estate.

A simple tax break here and there makes a HUGE difference in overall wealth accumulation. I'm tired of religion not paying their fair share overall.

SCientology bought a really cool looking building near the ocean in Ventura, CA, but every time I drive up the 101 and glance over, it looks like the same 3 cars are in the parking lot. Seems like a total real estate/tax thing to me, and temples must be similar.

P.S. I think that one reason you must make an appointment at a temple is not, as they would tell you, that it's so busy you have to find a slot, it's that it's so slow they have to find enough temple workers to make a session go...