Stokes Sounds Off: Update on the Number of Current Area Seventies

Search This Blog

Leaderboard

Tuesday, June 5, 2018

Update on the Number of Current Area Seventies

Hello again, everyone! Having noted previously that, with the recently-announced call of Elder Brook P. Hales as a general authority seventy, there are now 116 general authorities of the Church, as President Oaks indicated, I thought that additional information might be helpful to some of you. As I also have previously mentioned, I also track the number of area authorities of the Church after each general conference.

The way I track that data is first by quorum, then by the areas of the Church that fall under the 3rd-8th Quorums. And I then take the number of men serving within each area, add those to get a total for each quorum, and keep a running track of the grand total. The results of that process, as reflected by the changes announced at the last general conference, follow below, and will in turn be followed by some general comments on that data.

Quorum
Totals within each Area
Quorum Total
Grand Total
3rd
14+14+18+4+2
52
52
4th
4+14+23+18
59
111
5th
8+6+9+7+11+15
56
167
6th
10+11+11+17
49
216
7th
20+19
39
255
8th
9+8+15+14
46
301

The first observation I wanted to make is that there are currently three of the six Quorums (the first three) that are very close to the limit of 70, when previous Quorums have been split. That said, if I have correctly counted, we have a number of area seventies within these six Quorums that may be released in October, including those who have served as such for the last 7-10 years and have not yet been released and those who have been called to be temple or mission presidents. The number of those falling within those parameters is as follows, again listed by Quorum:

Quorum
Number of area seventies that may be released
3rd
2
4th
1
5th
3
6th
3
7th
3
8th
2


And again, these numbers are merely my preliminary thoughts on the subject. I may be incorrect, but it has seemed somewhat standard for area seventies to have a preliminary call length of 5-6 years. With that in mind, some area seventies called in 2012 and 2013 might also be released. Again, these are just very preliminary thoughts. An updated version of my list of the relevant individuals follows below:

Area Seventies: Some area seventies released, others called.
Note: The following area seventies may or may not be released: Elders Tasara Makasi, Fred A. Parker, and Miguel A. Reyes, who have been called as mission presidents and will begin their service in July; and Elders B. Sergio Antunes, Joao R. Grahl, Todd B. Hansen, Daniel W. Jones, Steven O. Laing, and Katsuyuki Otahara, who have been called as temple presidents and will begin their service in November; and Elders Sergio L. Krasnoselsky (who has served since April 2009), Kevin J. Worthen (who has served since April 2010), R. Randall Bluth, Hans T. Boom & David J. Thomson (who have served since April 2011).
Additional note: In recent years, it has been customary to see most changes in Area Seventies in April, and only a handful in October. Although mission presidents serve full-time, in recent years, several area seventies called as mission presidents have continued to serve as area seventies for one or two conferences after beginning their new assignments to preside over missions. By contrast, the assignment to serve as temple president generally precludes any area seventies from continuing in both callings.
Result:

I also recognize that these are just my own thoughts and observations, which I share, for what they may be worth to some of you. Any insights any of you have in terms of what I might have overlooked in my analysis on this topic are always welcome and appreciated.

That does it for this post. 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.

2 comments:

  1. Your statement in regards to the majority of the changes taking place in April seems to have changed. In 2017 37 seventies were called and only 2 released. (Both were called as GA seventies). In October we saw the call of 1 area seventy and the releasing of 32. At the time I didn't know if this was an anomaly or a change in pattern to match the rest of the leadership changes. This year we had 55 men called, but only released 7. (6 are newly called GA70s). I expect we will see between 40-50 Area seventies released in October

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you for taking time to comment, Scott. I recognize the truth in your statement (that the past couple of years have been an exception to the general rule that there are major changes in April and only a few in October), but that does bring up the interesting question: if the last couple of Octobers were an exception to that, would the October 2018 General Conference be more traditional in that sense, or would it be another exception?

    Let's take this further. While I highlighted above those area seventies that will likely be released, I focused my list on those called as temple presidents, mission presidents, or those who have been serving for at least 7 years. Is there a standard period of service for these men? 5 years seems to be standard for most temporary local callings (although temple and mission presidents are clearly the exception, since each serves for 3 years).

    But if the Church has a good reason to retain area seventies for longer than a 5-year period, it does get a bit tricky at times to determine how, when, and under what circumstances these men may be released. If we assume that I am spot on about those who will be released in October, there are, as mentioned, a total of 14 men I have identified as likely being released.

    But it gets more interesting than that when we consider that area seventies called as mission presidents have retained both assignments, while those called as temple presidents seem to be released in consideration of their new responsibilities. And there are several interesting anomalies involved. Elder Bednar had been an area seventy for 5-7 years (depending on what period you count as part of his tenure), and there are a number of area seventies who have served for 10 years or more before their release. Prime examples of this recently are Jon M. Huntsman Sr. and J. Willard Marriott Jr.

    So there is certainly no shortage of things to consider, not the least of which is that it was standard for most of the Hinckley and Monson presidencies for most changes to occur in April, with only a few in October. With the last two years that have been an exception to that, it certainly is possible that we could see this October turning out to be yet another exception.

    The fact is, we have seen all kinds of precedent-breaking things occurring in recent General Conference. So at times, it is hard to say with any certainty what actually will happen. The odds are more likely than not that I have overlooked a great many possibilities in my analysis above.

    That said, my analysis above constitutes the changes I feel are most likely, which may not exactly be equivalent to all the changes that will actually be announced. It will be interesting to see what occurs.

    Additionally, another wild card in all of this is which of the two counselors might lead the sustaining. My feeling is that President Nelson may ask President Eyring to do so, since he has led the Sustaining every October within the last decade, and since most new area seventies are called in April, President Oaks may be held in reserve to lead that sustaining.

    The matter of all the nuances involved in the callings and releases of area seventies are interesting to consider, and I hope the additional information I have shared in this comment is helpful to you, Scott, and to all who read both this post and this comment. Thanks for being willing to share your thoughts with all of us, Scott.

    ReplyDelete

In addition to my life-long love for the subjects which I cover in the posts of this blog, I have long held the belief that we can disagree without becoming disagreeable. Differences of opinion are natural, while being disagreeable in expressing those differences is not. And in that sense, I have no desire to close the door on anyone who earnestly desires to contribute to the ongoing dialogue on subjects covered in the posts on this blog.

At the same time, however, I recognize that we live in a time when incivility, discourtesy, unkindness, and even cyber-bullying has regrettably become part of online interactions. With that in mind, while anyone who wishes can comment on anything if they choose to do so, I hereby reserve the right to immediately delete any comments which are critical, unkind, lack civility, or promote prodcuts, services, and values contrary to either the Church, or to the rules of online etiquette.

I'd also like to remind all who comment here that I try to respond personally to each individual comment as I feel is appropriate. Such replies are not meant to end the conversation, but to acknowledge earnest feedback as it is submitted.

And in order to better preserve the spirit and pure intentions for which this blog was established, I also hereby request that anyone not commenting with a regular user name (particularly those whose comments appear under the "Unknown" or "Anonymous" monikers, give the rest of us a name to work with in addressing any replies. If such individuals do not wish to disclose their actual given names, a pseudonym or nickname would suffice.

Any comments made by individuals who opt to not give a name by which they can ber identified may, depending on the substance and tone of such comments, be subject to deletion as well. I would respectfully ask that all of us do all we can to keep the dialogue positive, polite, and without malice or ill-will. May the Lord bless us all in our discussion of these important matters.