Ground was broken Saturday, Nov. 7, in Mason for the Cincinnati Ohio Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, moving Ohio’s third temple into its construction phase nearly three months after the state’s second operating temple was dedicated in Cleveland, according to Church News and the Church’s official newsroom.
Elder Alan T. Phillips, a General Authority Seventy and member of the United States Northeast Area presidency, presided over the groundbreaking ceremony and offered the dedicatory prayer on the site and the construction process, according to Church News. Local Latter-day Saints, faith and government leaders and community members attended, and many took part in the ceremonial turning of the soil.
“May this house of the Lord be a light to this city, pointing all who see it to Jesus Christ, the Light of the World,” Elder Phillips said at the ceremony, as quoted by Church News. In his remarks, he noted that it was in Ohio — at the Kirtland Temple in 1836 — that priesthood keys were restored, and he described Cincinnati as a historic “bridge to freedom” as a key crossing point on the Underground Railroad, calling a temple “a bridge too, a bridge between heaven and earth,” according to Church News…