Another LDS temple will be built in Boise/Meridian. I don't understand why Boise needs another temple? There must be more LDS moving here for them to justify this expense? I don't pay that much attention to the one that's already here, but I've never seen a traffic jam or hoards of people/cars filing out of it. I suppose we're now the second mecca?

Thanks Morg for ruining the only truly fun city in Idaho. I wonder how my exmo buddy is going to feel about this. He hates the church more than I do.

The Meridian temple will be near Linder Rd and Chinden Blvd. I ran it through google maps this morning and it is 10.8 miles from the current Boise temple. (The Boise temple is currently closed for a $13 million remodel, which apparently couldn't wait until the Meridian temple opens, which is probably still 3 years away.)

As far as I can tell, only the Jordan River and Ouirrh Mountain temple are closer, at 4.1 miles. Jordan River and Draper are 10.9 miles, so about the same. Even Provo and Timpanogos temples are 14 miles.

Further, Linder/Chinden is so far off the freeway that for anyone coming from Nampa, Caldwell, Easter Oregon, etc. it will be faster to go to the Boise temple, since it is right on the freeway.

I don't see how this makes any sense at all, unless it is just a ploy to pull in more tithing from the Eagle and Meridian areas, which are much more affluent than any of the surrounding areas.

Oh, hold it, of course, all temples are just a ploy to increase tithing income. Sorry. Move along. Nothing to see here.

The Gilbert and Mesa temples are also about 10 miles apart. There's also to be one in Phoenix which is a little further away.

Crap, right down the street from me. Puke.

GA probably has some relative in the construction industry that need a job.

+1

I live 2.5 miles from the new Temple site. We are calling our part of Northwest Meridian "Little Provo." A couple of Mo's posted on Facebook all about it yesterday. They've built two ward houses here in the last year within one mile of each other.

I think the location sucks for several reason:
1. The road is two lanes
2. It's 2.5 miles from my house :(
3. They closed the BOise temple for upgrades and haven't completed this one so stupid
4. I have to hear all my stupid TBM talk about how great it will be.
5. It's not convenient near the freeway.

I'll go visit when it is open to public. Will they kick me out if I ask about special underwear, watching the video, seeing the veil, or asking to unbaptise my dead grandparents??


PS. Thanks for all the advice about where to live in SLC. Turns out we aren't moving, but my neighbor is so I passed it on to them!

Boise has a higher mormon population than all of utah put together and their activity rate is thru the roof. I'll post link if I can find it again. I'm surprised church headquarters hasn't moved there yet.

I guess I never notice the Mo population when I am in Boise. Granted I hangout at Grainey's and The Reef.

Great hangouts! Pengilly's is fun too :-)

I lived in Boise near Capitol high school in the 1970s, and it was about one house in three on my street who were Mormon. I kept hearing at BYU what an anti-Mormon place Boise is from BYU professors, and people from eastern Idaho talked about what a "cosmopolitan" town Boise is and how they are more like Utahns. All my friends in Boise were non-Mormon, in fact.

It sounds like Boise has really gone to pot.

Makurosu Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I lived in Boise near Capitol high school in the
> 1970s, and it was about one house in three on my
> street who were Mormon. I kept hearing at BYU what
> an anti-Mormon place Boise is from BYU professors,
> and people from eastern Idaho talked about what a
> "cosmopolitan" town Boise is and how they are more
> like Utahns. All my friends in Boise were
> non-Mormon, in fact.
>

That is where I live now. Our ward went from about 250-300 in 1996 down to 125 ON THE RECORDS in 2004. So, we were getting less than 50 butts in seats on Sunday. So, they combined the 19th and 20th wards to create the Goddard Ward and they are still struggling.

The 20th ward used to take 20 scouts to scout camp in the 90's. The Mtn. View ward had 20 deacons (meaning two quorums) as recently as 2005. In 2009, there were only 50 boys 12-18 years old in the STAKE! (And half were in one ward - Mtn. View.) I know because I was stake YM president from 2007-2009 and when we did stake high adventure I had all the rolls.

When they combined the 19th and 20th wards they had to create a singles ward to remain a stake (6 units). Then, they combined all the singles into a special stake so we were down to 5 wards. So, they took two wards from Meridian East stake and redrew the boundaries so they are now in the Boise North Stake.

There probably was a time when 1 of 3 houses in our neighborhood was LDS. Now, I'd say it is more like 1 in 10. We went through a 2 year span where 15 families moved out and 2 LDS families moved in.

The Boise Stake and the Boise South Stake are having similar problems (as per their stake YM presidents in the past 2-3 years).

I didn't write the above very well. I was a deacon in Boise in the 1970s, and I moved to Indianapolis in 1979. Then I went to BYU in the 1980s where I heard how anti-Mormon Boise was. I remember being in a ward in the 1970s that had two quorums of deacons. We even met in different classroom and had different deacons quorum advisors. We did have really great camping experiences though. I have good memories of that, despite some of the bullying that went on.

It's good to hear that people are coming to their senses out there and the density of Mormons has decreased significantly.

I worked at the Hewlett-Packard site in Boise in the early 90's. I left in 96. Boise was a boom town then and I would say the church membership numbers peaked during the 1990's there. I would say outside of Utah Mormonism has peaked and is on it's way to greater decline. As soon as the Mormon no longer politically control Utah, the game is up.

mothermayeye Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Boise has a higher mormon population than all of
> utah put together and their activity rate is thru
> the roof. I'll post link if I can find it again.
> I'm surprised church headquarters hasn't moved
> there yet.


I'd love to see that link. Maybe Meridian, and maybe Eagle, but Boise proper is losing members like water in the sieve.

mothermayeye:

I'm curious figures/statement, 'it can't be true', can it?

Boise SMA (6 counties) population = 616,500 (2010, wiki)
Boise City population = (only) 205,671...

Utah population = 2,784,572 ('09, wiki).

for your statement to be accurate...the MO % in Boise would have to be nearly 100% (which it decidedly Isn't), wouldn't it?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/20/2011 03:45PM by guynoirprivateeye.

Glad I'm wrong as I was thinking it might be located on the high piece of land adjacent to the new Ten Mile freeway exit. It won't be as noticeable where they are actually building it.

Oh joy....my convert daughter is moving near there in Feb.

Let them build more temples. They already have hit the point of diminishing returns with them. If you keep the temple a rare, special, and mysterious place, you have something there. How many of us went to the temple the first time out of curiosity? There was no internet and very little was known about the temple so I got a recommend to check it out. I was on the way of going inactive but I had so much invested already in the church I just had to do the temple thing and I did.

I think if we had the communications we have today, I would have left the church much sooner. I know why they build all these temples. It portrays the illusion of growth and when the temple is close by, they can put the pressure on the members to be temple worthy and more tithing money comes in because of it. They can ratchet up the shame factor.

The thing is, it's going to backfire. They will cheapen the temple image to the point that it's no longer anything special and just another annoying church program. Once they lose that, people aren't going to sacrifice to go to the temple and it will cause more people to up and leave the church.

So build them.

Honestone, I moved to the Boise area from Salt Lake almost seven years ago and while there are plenty of Mormons in the area they do not impact my consciousness in any major way. They are a large group but I think that the collective orthodox Christians in the area make up an equal if not larger number and pretty much balance their weight in the community. There are some pretty big churches in the Treasure Valley whose outreach at times does overshadow Mormon efforts.

Back in the 5th grade, I learned that the Califoria missions were established about 20 miles apart because that's how far the padres could walk in a day.

In early morning seminary, I learned Moroni, my temple name patron, walked all over North America dedicating temple sites.

This leads me to believe that some days he could walk only a short distance before stopping for dinner and that days site dedication and that eventually there will be as many mo-temples as Berger Kings.

The day they put a temple in Toppenish, WA, I'll be impressed.

There's a little Baptist church on Cole Road about a block from the Boise temple, apparently with a pastor who has a sense of humor. His recent message board post:"You were never a spirit chid"