Port-au-Prince Haiti Temple
During the Sunday Morning Session of the April 2015 General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, on 5 April 2015, President Thomas S. Monson announced the Church's intention to build a temple in Port-au-Prince, the capital city of Haiti. Soon Latter-day Saints who live in one of the Western Hemisphere's poorest nations with a poverty rate approaching 60 percent, will be able to partake of the richest blessings of their faith through temple ordinances.
Haiti is home to more than 22,000 Mormons (out of an overall population of nearly 11 million), 46 LDS congregations, and one mission. The temple district comprises more than 17,000 Latter-day Saints located in four Haiti stakes (similar to a diocese) and three districts (smaller than a stake).
At a stake conference held on Sunday, 12 March 2017, at the Centrale Chapel in Port-au-Prince, Elder Neil L. Andersen of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles announced that the Port-au-Prince Haiti Temple would be built on land immediately behind the chapel on Route de Frères.
The Port-au-Prince Haiti Temple will be the first built in the country and the second built in the Caribbean, where missionary work officially began in 1980. Church members in Haiti currently attend temple services in the Santo Domingo Dominican Republic Temple, requiring nearly a day's journey. The Church is growing steadily in this island nation where its third and fourth stakes were recently organized in 2012—all four stakes being headquartered in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area, which boasts well over two million residents.
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A Few Facts About the Church in Haiti
The first Haitian member of the Church was converted after reading a Joseph Smith pamphlet. A pair of missionaries at a Florida airport gave a Joseph Smith pamphlet and Book of Mormon to a Haitian who was passing through the terminal. That pamphlet made its way into the hands of Alexandre Mourra, who upon reading it, immediately wrote the mission home in Florida, asking to be baptized. In 1977, he traveled to the U.S. and returned as the first official Latter-day Saint in Haiti.
Haitian Saints love to sing, even though many of the early Saints had to learn hymns by ear. Haitian-born Marc-Aurel reveals, "The saints in Haiti really love to sing. They sing loud. I would say most of them don’t know how to read music. But they like the words, they like the tune, and they sing as if they really mean it." His mother learned the hymns by hearing others sing early in the Church's history in Haiti when hymnals and other church resources were not widely available.
Less than 0.2% of Haitians are Mormon—that's 2 in 1,000. The vast majority of Haitians—80%—are Catholic. With only 18,165 members in a nation of almost 10 million, Mormons in Haiti are still a very rare thing. Pioneer Haitian Church member, Fritzner Joseph says, "I have been living in Haiti for all my life. I grew up in Haiti, and I made progress living in Haiti. And I know that if the saints there can remain faithful, they will succeed."
The Church's quick response and ample aid following the earthquake have proven to be one of the biggest boons to the Church's visibility in Haiti. The humanitarian assistance of the Church, which was on the ground before the Red Cross after the earthquake, has helped the Church come further out of obscurity in the tiny island nation. Joseph continues, "Today in Haiti we have people who are not members who are willing to defend the church because they know who we are through the earthquake."
According to LDS Living.com, "While the earthquake was a day of devastation, out of tragedies come stories of triumph. The Haitian people were beaten but not broken, and those Haitian Saints who experienced heartache at the hands of this natural disaster remain resilient." Dieudonne Martial, a native of Haiti, commented, "I had a very good experience that benefited me. With this earthquake, I was reminded that material things take second place. In the matter of a few seconds, the material possessions could disappear. That helped me to become more compassionate."
Another member, Kesner Kella, also shared her faith in the wake of the tragedy. She said, "I realized that this must happen in order to strengthen our faith in the omnipotence of God." Trusting in Him and relying on Him were both critical lessons that the Saints in Haiti learned through the earthquake. Kella continues, "The pain was terrible but the Eternal Father has relieved us."
Groundbreaking Ceremony
The ground was broken for the Port-au-Prince Haiti Temple on Saturday, 28 October 2017, as Mormons and community leaders gathered to participate in the event. Elder Walter F. González, a member of the Seventy, president of the Caribbean Area for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and an Uruguayan native presided at the groundbreaking ceremony and offered the dedicatory prayer. Elder Claudio D. Zivic and Elder Jose L. Alonso, counselors in the Area Presidency, also participated. They hosted Dominique Saint-Roc, mayor of the community of Pétion-Ville, the location of the Port-au-Prince Haiti Temple.
Responding to questions from the local media, Elder González said, "The temple groundbreaking ceremony was a wonderful spiritual experience. I can only think about everlasting joy and gratitude for all what the temple means in our lives. It is hard to express with words. This was a day of joy and gratitude when we start to build a portal to heaven as we come to better understand the importance of the covenants made in the temple and how they impact our daily lives, both in this time and eternity." A choir comprised of local Mormons in Haiti provided music for the sacred occasion.
Prosner Colin, a member who works in the Church's Haiti office, commented, "My beloved wife, Patricia, and I and our three beautiful kids, Eliza, Niel and Neilla, pray for the coming of the temple in each of our prayers. We pray for the hearts of the Haitian saints [to] keep turning to the Lord in order to continue the merit to have the temple. . . .It is real, we will have a temple, it is not a dream. For me this temple gives me hope that this nation will not be destroyed, and the Gospel of the Lord, Jesus Christ will be in this land forever. I have hope that this country will change ... and I have hope that this House of the Lord will bring peace to this country in every aspect."
After the temple is completed, open house dates will be announced so the public can tour the temple before it is dedicated. A date for the dedication will also be announced. The temple will serve more than 17,000 members living in seven stakes.
There are currently 182 temples throughout the world either in operation, under construction or announced. Six are currently being renovated and seven more temples have been announced to be renovated in 2017 and 2018.
Public Open House, Youth Devotional, and Temple Dedication Announced
in the opening month of 2010, a massive earthquake claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and displaced legions more. Now, almost a decade later as Haitians Latter-day Saints continue to recover from the quake, the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has announced dates for the open house for the Port-au-Prince Haiti Temple. The public open house officially began on Tuesday, 6 August 2019 - although a few visitors had already toured the new edifice. The public open house will continue through Saturday, 17 August 2019 — except for Sunday, 11 August 2019.
Among the first visitors to the Port-au-Prince Haiti Temple was a delegation from the U.S. Embassy. They were hosted by Caribbean Area President Elder José Alonso, a General Authority Seventy, and Elder Bien Aimé Huberman, an Area Seventy and chairman of the temple’s organizing committee.
In the past, the high cost of travel and passports prevented many Haitian Latter-day Saints from worshipping regularly inside temples in neighboring Dominican Republic and other nearby nations. Elder Huberman commented, "The temple is, first and foremost, important because the members will be able to do their sacred ordinances. . . .(Now) we will also be able to go to the temple in our own country with our friends, family and our own people. It is a new day for us, a new program. We are very satisfied. Everyone is excited and we are ready now for the open house to begin."
Michael Paquette, a Canadian who was one of the first international missionaries to serve in Haiti in the 1980s, said, "I can’t believe my eyes. I used to walk up and down this road outside the temple, Route de Freres. (That) was in the early days of missionary work; now there are (several) stakes here in Port-au-Prince. Now the temple is here." He further commented that the building's beauty is amazing, stating that it "is very special for the Saints in Haiti."
A youth devotional in Haiti will be held on the eve of the 1 September 2019 dedication of the Port-au-Prince Haiti Temple. The temple will open for ordinances on 10 September 2019.
