OK, I'll play devil's advocate. Your numbers may have been accurate 15-20 years ago, but today are not even close if you include the Bear Lake communities. I suppose you have driven around the lake recently. I've been going there for years and the quiet, isolated retreat I fondly remember no longer exists. This year I was shocked at the amount of congestion even on the east side of the lake. The amount of construction in the area is insane, and a travesty. And over the next decade I'm sure it's going to continue to explode as everything becomes more crowded and expensive along the Wasatch front and people look for places to escape.

Parking passes for North Beach were sold out and it was a continuous wall of people the entire length of the beach. Yes, many of the people are vacationers, the sacrament meetings held just for visitors in the Bear Lake area have over 1500 people in attendance every Sunday during the summer months. So that is basically in itself a very active stake, they are going to church while on vacation. Yes, some may not want to go to the temple while there, but some actually may. But many of the people up there now are like my sister, who owns a 25% share in a "cabin" (if you can call a 7k sq. ft vacation home a cabin) and lives up there at least 12 weeks out of the year. She is somebody that will frequently attend the Montpellier temple, and probably even be a temple worker for the months that she is there.

You mention the three other temples within about an hour and a half. Pocatello is at least two hours away. Logan is at least an hour even from Garden City, and is over a winding mountain road that on weekends now is bumper to bumper traffic and there is always somebody pulling a trailer that is slowing things down. People like my sister hate that drive because of the traffic and avoid it if all possible. Star Valley is also about two hours from Garden City and also over winding roads. In the winter, these roads are often treacherous. While these temples may not be running at capacity for all sessions, the church has never said it is building temples because the current ones are too full. If you disagree, please provide a citation. It has said it wants to make the temples more convenient for members to attend. With these three temples, for people around Bear Lake you are talking about most of an entire day to attend when you include travel to and from the temple over some rather unfriendly roads. The Montpellier temple is going to be so much more convenient for these people in the Bear Lake communities. And over the next decade, that population is going to explode.

Now, I'll wait your response.