Dedication of Church Facilities in Provo and Argentina

In Provo, Utah, and Buenos Aires, Argentina, new missionary and temple patron facilities were recently dedicated. Three newly completed buildings at the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah, will allow the facility to accommodate some 4,200 missionaries at a time.

President Gordon B. Hinckley, First Counselor in the First Presidency, presided over the meeting at which the new Provo structures were dedicated. The buildings carry the names of three individuals: President Lorenzo Snow, fifth President of the Church; Elder LeGrand Richards, former member of the Quorum of the Twelve; and Harriet Nye, the Church’s first official sister missionary. In his remarks prior to the dedicatory prayer, President Hinckley summarized the history of missionary training, noting that the need for expansion speaks of the tremendous growth of missionary work.

“Seventy years have passed since the Brethren first discussed the need for and made the decision to institute a missionary training program,” he said. “The work was relatively small then. Today we have, or will have in July, 303 missions. … Enough converts come into the Church each year to constitute one hundred new stakes of three thousand members each. It is all part of this marvelous work and a wonder.”

Other speakers at the dedication were President Thomas S. Monson, Second Counselor in the First Presidency; Elder David B. Haight of the Quorum of the Twelve, chairman of the Missionary Executive Council; and President Charles M. Grant, MTC president.

The construction of the MTC expansion was completed in less than eighteen months. Forty-four languages are taught at the Provo facility, which accommodates an average of twenty-six hundred missionaries at any given time. In addition to the Provo center, the Church operates fourteen other missionary training centers spread across the world.

One of those, the Missionary Training Center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, was recently dedicated by Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin of the Quorum of the Twelve. In addition to the training center, Elder Wirthlin dedicated the Patron Housing Facility. Both of the three-story buildings are adjacent to the Buenos Aires Argentina Temple.

The Missionary Training Center, which can accommodate up to ninety missionaries, and the housing facility, which houses 154 patrons, with ten apartments for couple missionaries serving in the temple, are directly involved in the mission of the Church, Elder Wirthlin pointed out in his remarks at the dedication.

“We see here an example of the Church—it is compacted in these three buildings. The Missionary Training Center is where we train and send out these wonderful missionaries in order to bring many people to the gospel of Jesus Christ. And then, later, as the converts proceed and improve themselves, they are able to come to the patron housing and then go to the temple.”

Also speaking at the dedication were Elder Joe J. Christensen of the Presidency of the Seventy and Kay Briggs, area director for temporal affairs. Elders Lynn A. Mickelsen and John B. Dickson of the Seventy, who serve in the South America South Area presidency, also attended the dedicatory services.