Stokes Sounds Off: Additional Church News Updates

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Thursday, February 15, 2018

Additional Church News Updates

Hello again, everyone! While the update on the Kinshasa temple and the death of Elder Morrison warranted their own blog posts here, I am back to cover other Church news stories that are significant, and I think I can cover the remainder of those stories in a single post. If that changes, I will let you know. So let's get right into all of that.

Many of you living in the United States are no doubt aware of the shooting that was reported as taking place at a high school in Florida. The Church News shared that two young women who were members of the Church were among those killed in this attack, and the First Presidency released this statement about the shooting.

Next, the Church News reported that missionaries have returned to Puerto Rico after they and others who have since concluded their service were evacuated following Hurricane Maria. I will be evaluating how (if at all) this development changes my previous assertion that a temple in Puerto Rico would likely be delayed. If any of you have thoughts on that matter, I'd love to hear from you.

Continuing her series of articles highlighting her time as a reported and editor of the Church News, Gerry Avant wrote this article to share her interviews over the years with Presidents Benson, Packer, and Faust and Elders Perry and Haight containing their reminiscences about their calls to the apostleship.

And the Church News also wrote about new mission presidents called to serve in England, Brazil, and the DR Congo, which you can read about here.  Finally, we have this report of how, following inspired counsel from Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, local Church leaders in Mississippi came together to assist in needed refurbishment for the local offices of the NAACP.

It was great to read of all the good the Church has done as reflected in these articles, and I am grateful for the opportunity I had to share them with you herein. I will be keeping my eyes open for any further updates and Church news and will pass those along to you as I become aware of them.

That does it for this post. Any and all comments are, as always, welcome and appreciated. Thank you for the privilege of your time. Until my next post, I wish each one of you all the best and pray that the Lord will bless you all in everything you do.

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