LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley returned Saturday to the country where he served as a missionary 65 years ago to dedicate the faith's second temple in the British Isles.
President Hinckley, who will turn 88 later this month, presided over the Preston Temple dedication ceremonies, which began Sunday and are continuing through Wednesday. He served as a missionary in England from 1933 to 1935.With the Preston Temple, President Hinckley has dedicated 27 of the LDS Church's 52 working temples around the world.
More than 6,400 members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints attended Sunday's three dedicatory sessions. Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt and his wife, Jacalyn, attended a dedicatory session Monday morning with his father, Dixie Leavitt, who served as a mission president in England.
President Thomas S. Monson, first counselor in the church's First Presidency, and President Boyd K. Packer, acting president of the Quorum of the Twelve, also joined in dedicatory events.
Elders M. Russell Ballard and Jeffrey R. Holland, of the Quorum of the Twelve, and Elder W. Eugene Hansen, of the presidency of the Seventy and executive director of the church's temple department, attended. Three members of the Europe North Area: Elders Cecil O. Samuelson, Spencer J. Condie and W. Rolfe Kerr also attended.
The Preston Temple is located on a 15-acre site in Chorley's Hartwood Green area. The site includes a stake center, missionary training center and housing for missionaries and temple patrons.
Finished in white granite and adorned with a gold Angel Moroni statue, the temple is a dominant feature visible from a near-by highway. The grounds are landscaped with 700 trees and more than 100,000 other plants.
While in Europe, President Hinckley spoke to thousands of church members in meetings in France, Germany and Switzerland. At a meeting in Paris, President Hinckley requested that LDS faithful "pray to help us find a site" for a temple in that country.President Hinckley traveled to Frankfurt on Friday where he addressed more than 6,000 people. Saturday afternoon he spoke to nearly 4,000 people in the Geneva Area in Switzerland.
The Preston Temple is the church's 52nd operating temple, buildings in which LDS faithful perform marriages, baptisms and other sacred rites. England's first temple, located near London, was dedicated in 1958.