A comment on my blog reminded me that I had forgotten to report on the death of another emeritus General Authority, Elder Rulon G. Craven. He died on Friday at the age of 92. He actively served for the six years spanning 1990-1996. Funeral arrangements are still pending. To read the Church News article published in tribute of his life, click here. Though I was still a toddler when he was called and a preteen at the time of his release, I have some memories of having heard his name before, though I can't say how or why that is. Elder Craven gave two remarkable addresses in his years as an active General Authority. Click here to read those talks.
Another great one in the kingdom has fallen. He will be missed. Funeral arrangements are still pending.
Thanks to you all for your readership, interst, and support.
Tuesday, February 7, 2017
Church Loses Another Emeritus General Authority
I have had a lifelong love for Church history, which has extended to ongoing reports of the ministry of our apostles and prophets, General Conference, and all temple developments. This blog enables me to share that love with all who read my thoughts on these developments, which are sometimes reported multiple times per day as needed.
4 comments:
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.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Totally unrelated to this post, but I have the info on the Europe East Area Presidency. I gave up waiting for it to be officially announced and just emailed the church history library, which is an awesome resource. Here is their response:Our response is:
ReplyDeleteScott E. Shipley,
The Europe East Area Presidency is made up of the following individuals.
James B. Martino, president, general authority seventy
Larry S. Kacher, 1st counselor, general authority seventy
Alexey V. Samaykin, 2nd counselor, area seventy
Sincerely,
Jenny St. Clair Thomas
Reference Librarian
Church History Library
Feel free to update any wikipedia pages as needed, you are much better at it than I am.
Scott, there are a few questions in my mind. First of all, how did I not know that you, one of my somewhat regular readers, were a fellow editor on Wikipedia? Second, what led you to inquire for the information at the Church History Library? Third, why is that you were able to find this information out in one inquiry after I failed to do so with multiple inquiries to the Church? And finally, do you happen to remember how long it's been since we had an Area Presidency member that was an area seventy? I know it was not uncommon during the Hinckley years to have most, or even all, members of an area presidency be those serving on the local rather than the general level. I want to say that the last time we had an area seventy serve in such an assignment was just recently, and only on a temporary basis (for a few short months until changes were made that took effect that August), but I honestly can't remember the particulars. At any rate, however it happened, thanks for sharing that information. I will report it in a brand new blog post shortly. I appreciate the notification. As far as updating Wikipedia goes, the dilemma is that Wikipedia may insist on having the information verified before it is included. The all-too-prevalent problems in that regard have led me to cut short my time there recently, and save it for more important things, like blogging about Church news in an environment where my views are respected and shared. So I may have a hard time getting the information included in the relevant places on Wikipedia. I will look at doing so if and when I feel up to it. Right now, I just want to blog about it. Thanks for sharing.
DeleteLooking best I can the last time I found an Area 70 serving in an area presidency was Aleksandr N. Manzhos. He was called to serve as 2nd counselor in the Europe East area in August. He served all twelve months. The only other time this happened under President Monson was in august 2008 when Miguel A. Lee was called as 2nd counselor in the Caribbean area and Yoon Hwan Choi as 2nd counselor in the Asia North Area. Although in the case of Elder Choi he was released as an Area Seventy and sustained as a General Authority Seventy in April of 2009 and finished his area presidency service as such.
ReplyDeleteAs far as why I got such a quick easy answer I am not sure. I don't know who at the church headquarters you tried to contact. I always go to the church history library website's ask a librarian feature and ask that way. I have always gotten info within a couple of days.
Thank you for that. I finally remembered the other case of which I had been speaking in my prior comment. As a result of Elder Gerrit W. Gong's reassignment to the Presidency of the Seventy following the call of Elder Ronald A. Rasband to the apostleship, the Asia Area Presidency was reorganized. Elder Randy D. Funk, Elder Gong's former first counselor, succeeded him as the area president, while Elder Chi Hong (Sam) Wong, Elder Gong's former second counselor, became Elder Funk's new first counselor. Called as second counselor was area seventy Siu Hong Pon. Those changes were effective from January 4, 2016, until the 2016 changes in area leadership resulted in Elder Pon's release from the area presidency. So that was the case to which I was referring. It happened just last year. I'm glad I remembered the details. Thanks again for this wonderful research.
ReplyDeleteAs a matter of curiosity, last September, the Church announced that Elder Enrique R. Falabella would be replacing Elder Lawrence E. Corbridge as the first counselor in the South America Northwest Area Presidency. It sounded like those changes were supposed to be effective on August 15 of last year. That said, it seems that Elder Falabella did not actually commence his service in that Area Presidency until that would coincide with a visit Elder Quentin L. Cook made to Peru and Bolivia late last month. So that makes me wonder, why the delay of roughly five months between the time when the changes were supposed to be effective until they actually were? I'm sure there was a reason, but whenever such abrupt changes happen, it does seem curious. And this is the first time of which I am aware when there was that much of a lengthy gap between the effective assignment date and the actual date when that assignment was officially commenced. It does make me wonder.
For what it's worth, those are some additional thoughts, observations, and questions. Thanks again, Scott!