Final Apostolic Age and Tenure Updates for 2017

Hello again, everyone! In the early morning hours of Christmas Eve 2017, I am back with a post that I hope will be a very special gift for many of you to read. The last time I offered a detailed report on the latest apostolic statistics was almost two months (exactly 7 Sundays) ago.

Since that time, there have been a lot of changes in those statistics, including several milestones that were marked. I am excited to share these updates in this post, and I hope the information I will be providing herein will be interesting to most of you. That said, if any of you are not interested in reading on, I wouldn’t be offended if you opt to skip this post.

For those of you that are interested in these details, I first want to note that all the figures and data I will be presenting is, as always, current as of today. That said, today’s report of that data will start, as always, with some information on President Russell M. Nelson’s tenure as President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. He has now served as Quorum President for 2 years, 5 months, and 21 days, and in view of that length, has become the 16^th longest-tenured Quorum President, a milestone he reached on December 18 of this year, having served longer than Harold B. Lee.

As I promised in the last update 7 weeks ago that I would subsequently do, with the end of 2017 drawing near, I wanted to mention the next tenure milestones President Nelson will observe, and when they will each occur. The first will take place in just three weeks, when he will become the 15^th longest serving President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles one January 14, 2018, two weeks to the day after 2018 begins, making his tenure as Quorum President longer than that of President Marion G. Romney.

Quick sidenote here regarding President Romney. After serving as a counselor in the First Presidency under Presidents Lee and Kimball, he returned to his place in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and, as the next senior apostle after President Benson, was set apart as the President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

But because he was of an advanced age and had ill health, President Romney could not function in any way as the Quorum President. So President Hunter was set apart as the Acting Quorum President, marking the only time in Church history that an Acting President was not called because the Quorum President was simultaneously serving as a member of the First Presidency.

                                                                                                                                          

Sorry about that deviation from the subject at hand, but I thought that was important to note. Getting back to President Nelson’s tenure milestones as Quorum President, aside from the one he will reach in three weeks, he will only reach the next milestone to become the 14th longest serving Quorum President just over a year and a half after that, with the exact date being Wednesday August 7, 2019. If both he and President Monson are still alive at this time, then President Nelson will take the spot currently held by the first President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in Church history, Thomas B. Marsh.

Moving on, we next will explore where President Monson stands in terms of his tenure length and age among the other 15 Church Presidents of this dispensation. Today marks 9 years, 10 months, and 21 days since he was ordained and set apart as Church President. Since he has not observed any additional milestones related to his tenure length, he is still the 8^th longest-serving Church President. As of today, he is also 90 years, 4 months, and 3 days old. So he remains currently the 7^th oldest of the 16 Church Presidents.

As for upcoming age and tenure milestones, the next three he will observe are more spread out. It is more likely than not that he will for sure live long enough to reach the first such milestone, which will occur on Friday March 30, 2018, when he will have lived longer than President Kimball.

He will mark the next milestone less than 11 months later, when, on Saturday February 23, 2019, the length of his life will exceed that of Wilford Woodruff, becoming the 5^th oldest president in the Church’s history.

And his next tenure milestone will be marked on Tuesday December 10, also in 2019, when he will become the 7^th longest-serving president in Church history. For all three of these upcoming milestones, they will obviously not be reached by President Monson if he passes away at any point prior to reaching them, which I think goes without saying.

Moving on now to a discussion of the updated apostolic statistics, since there has been no change in our current First Presidency, they remain the third-longest continuously-serving First Presidency in Church history. Assuming President Monson is still alive at these times, they will become the second-longest serving First Presidency next year, on Wednesday September 12, and will become the longest serving First Presidency on Friday July 3, 2020. It will be interesting to see what happens there.

With that information shared, we can move on to talk about the specifics relating to the long form and decimal versions of the ages of our 14 current apostles, since the Church has yet to call someone to fill the apostolic vacancy occasioned by the October 1 death of Elder Robert D. Hales.

President Monson is, as noted above, 90 years, 3 months, and 4 days old, which puts his decimal age at 90.34. Meanwhile (again, these are current as of today), President Eyring is now 84 years, 6 months, 24 days, which is 84.57 years. And President Uchtdorf, who is the youngest First Presidency member currently, is 77 years, 0 months, and 18 days, which puts his decimal age at 77.13. The First Presidency has a combined life experience of 252.04 years, which puts the average age of the three at 84.01 years.

                                                                                                                          

As noted above, because there is currently a vacancy in the Quorum of the Twelve, there are 11 members. As for their current ages, President Nelson is now 93 years, 3 month, and 15 days old, with a decimal age of 93.29 years. Elder Oaks stands at 85 years, 4 months, and 12 days old (with a decimal age of 85.37 years). Elder Ballard has reached the age of 89 years, 2 months, and 16 days old (which is 89.21 decimal years) as of today. Elder Holland, who observed his birthday three weeks ago, is currently 77 years, 0 months, and 21 days old, making his decimal age 77.06 years.

Elder Bednar’s age in long form is now 65 years, 6 months, and 9 days, which puts his decimal age at 65.53 years. Elder Cook, who is older than both President Uchtdorf and Elder Holland, has reached the age (in long form) of 77 years, 3 months, and 16 days old, which makes his decimal age 77.29 years. With exactly one month to the day between this Christmas Eve and Elder Christofferson’s 73^rd birthday, his long form age is 72 years, 11 months, and 0 days old, which means his decimal age is now 72.92 years. Meanwhile, for Elder Andersen, he is now 66 years, 4 months, and 15 days old, which makes his decimal age 66.38 years.

We have now come to the three newest apostles, though I anticipate that the current apostolic vacancy will be filled during General Conference next April. As for the ages of those three, we first have Elder Rasband, who will celebrate his 67^th birthday on February 6, which is just short of 2 weeks (exactly 13 days) after Elder Christofferson marks his 73^rd birthday.

This means Elder Rasband is currently 66 years, 10 months, and 18 days old, making his decimal age 66.88 years. Elder Stevenson, who is currently our youngest apostle (though that may or may not still be true after the newest apostle is called), has a long form age of 62 years, 3 months, and 18 days old, which puts his decimal age at 62.38 decimal years.

Before moving on to discuss Elder Renlund’s long-form and decimal age and the other information I want to share in this post, I wanted to note something which I find interesting regarding the decimal ages of Elders Andersen, Rasband, and Stevenson. Because Elders Rasband and Stevenson were both born on the 6^th (with the former born in February and the latter in August), their decimal ages are almost always .5 years apart.

Elder Andersen, meanwhile, was born on August 9. Because his birthday is three days after Elder Stevenson’s, there are days like today when the hundredths of a year in his decimal age both match that of Elder Stevenson and are .5 years less than Elder Rasband’s decimal age.

But since the decimal ages of our apostles increase by .01 years every 3 or 4 days, there are days when only two of the three relate in this way, and there are other days when the hundredths of the year for all three of them are different. Just thought that would be an interesting tidbit to pass along.

With all of that said, Elder Renlund, the least senior but second youngest apostle, is 65 years, 1 month, and 11 days old as of today, which means his decimal age is now 65.11 years. So the 11 members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles have a combined life experience of 821.42 years, putting the average age of those 11 at 74.67 years. Our 14 apostles have a grand total of 1073.46 years of life experience, which puts the average age of each of them at 76.68 years.

We now turn our attention briefly to a discussion of our apostolic nonagenarians. President Nelson, who is, as noted above, 93 years, 3 months, and 15 days, ranks as the 7^th oldest apostle in Church history, a milestone he officially reached a few days ago. He will not become the 6^th oldest apostle until Saturday July 6, 2019, over a year and a half from now.

With President Monson being, as noted above, 90 years, 4 months, and 3 days old, he remains the 17^th oldest apostle in Church history. Assuming he lives long enough to do so, he will observe a few more milestones next year. To give you an idea of what those are and when they will occur, if he is still alive on Thursday March 29, he will become the 16^th oldest apostle, taking the spot now held by Spencer W. Kimball. Less than a month later (on Monday April 23), he will have outlived President Marion G. Romney to become the 15^th oldest apostle. Less than two months after that (on Thursday June 14), his age will exceed that of President Boyd K. Packer, which would make him the 14^th oldest apostle. The next milestone he will observe as a nonagenarian will only occur on Monday February 11, 2019, at which time his lifespan will have exceeded that of Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin, making him the 13^th oldest apostle in Church history.

As I have previously observed in similar updates of the past, the one unknown element in terms of the list of nonagenarian apostles is whether or not President Monson will outlive President Nelson. The latter, though just less than three years older, seems to be in considerably better health, so President Nelson could go on to be the next Church president if and when President Monson passes away. It will be interesting to see what happens in that regard.

The other 12 apostles will take varying lengths of time to join the list of nonagenarians, from Elder Ballard, who will do so in 9 months, and 14 days, to Elder Stevenson, who will do so in 27 years, 7 months, and 13 days. I am keeping an eye on all tenure and age developments relating to our apostles and will pass that information along as I am able to do so in the future.

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 hope that each of you will have a very Merry Christmas, and that the Lord will bless you all in everything you do.