A revelation in our day seems to confirm that Nephi built the original temple in Cusco, Peru. Though the original Coricancha temple in Cusco was a modest temple, and not the gold cover masterpiece found by the Spanish 2,000 years later, was it a temple dedicated to the Savior? Mark L. Glover wrote in an article for BYU Studies:
During President Hugh B. Brown’s (member of the first presidency at the time) visit to Cusco in February 1963, Elder Tuttle expressed his worry over the Church in that region. On February 7 in a Cusco meeting with sixty-seven people, of which only twenty were members, President Brown echoed Elder Tuttle’s concern: “Although there were many men present in the meeting, there were only a few who seemed to have the ‘Mormon Look’ or seemed to be potential leaders.” Two days later, when talking to the four missionaries in the city, President Brown suggested that “opposition was clearly in evidence and the condition of the people beyond description.” The missionaries needed to continually recognize that the blood of Israel was among the people, and they needed to be searched out. President Brown believed that “Lehi, Nephi, Mormon, Moroni and other of the Prophets who were on the other side were yearning to have their descendants hear and to accept the Gospel.”
An intriguing addition to this event is that there seems to have been more to the visitation of these ancient Book of Mormon prophets. It has been alleged by a former mission president that during that meeting in Cusco, the ancient prophets had a lot more to say to President Brown. Brent Pratt Thomas has taught that the then Andean Mission President Sterling Nicolaysen was contemplating closing the missionary work in Cusco and asked President Brown for his thoughts. President Brown allegedly said that he would give his answer in the morning. The next morning President Brown came down for breakfast and told President Nicolaysen that he had not slept all night. That Book of Mormon prophets had been with him that night and that they did not want Cusco closed for missionary work. The prophets, (apparently Lehi, Nephi, Mormon, Moroni, and others) told President Brown that there would be a temple again in Cusco. A temple “again” in Cusco implies that there had already been a house of the Lord in Cusco in ancient times. If so, the announcement on April 3, 2022, by President Russell M. Nelson that a temple will be built in Cusco, Peru has special significance to the children of Lehi living in the Andes.