Latest Apostolic Statistics: Part One--Updated Information for the President of the Quorum of the Twelve, Church President, and First Presidency

Hello again, everyone! It has been 8 weeks since I last posted an update on the latest apostolic statistics. Given the announcement last week that Elders Gerrit W. Gong and Ulisses Soares were called to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and that so much time has passed since I last posted on this subject, there have been a number of changes to note.

Before we begin discussing that information, I wanted to note, as I always do, that I recognize that not all who regularly read this blog might find this information as interesting as I do. So I will not in any way be bothered or offended if any of you choose to bypass this post, as there is always a lot of information in it. For those of you who are staying with me for this information, let’s dive right in to this subject.

First, I wanted to provide some thoughts about apostolic birthdays. As some of you might recall me mentioning earlier, before the deaths of President Monson and Elder Hales, we had 1 apostle born in January, 1 other the following month, 1 each in May and June, 5 more in August, 2 in September, 1 in October, 2 in November, and 1 in December.

Given the changes in Church leadership, while nothing has changed in terms of the number of apostles born in January, February, May, or June, (which are Elders Christofferson and Rasband, President Eyring, and Elder Bednar respectively) the number of current apostles born in August is down to 3 (Elders Stevenson and Andersen and President Oaks). 

We still have the two in September (Elder Cook and President Nelson) and November (Elders Uchtdorf and Renlund), but the calling of Elders Soares and Gong has meant that 2 apostles (Elder Soares and President Ballard) will celebrate their birthdays in October, while the remaining two (Elders Holland and Gong) will do so in December.

With Elder Christofferson marking his birthday on January 24, Elder Rasband follows with his birthday 13 days later, on February 6. Almost four months later, on the final day of May, President Eyring marks his birthday, and Elder Bednar marks his 15 days later in mid-June. 

Our three apostles born in August celebrate their birthdays on August 6, 9, and 12, respectively. Elder Cook marks his on September 8, with President Nelson having his birthday the next day. Elders Uchtdorf and Renlund are just a week apart in their birthdays, (on November 6 and 13 respectively). Rounding out the year, Elder Holland marks his 20 days after Elder Renlund on December 3, and Elder Gong marks his 2 days before Christmas.

It has been interesting to see how the lengths between these birthdays change as apostles pass away and new ones are appointed. And I am grateful to be able to track information such as this and pass it along to you. Just wanted to note that before I move on.

Having provided that background, let’s begin as we always do, by talking about President Oaks’ tenure as President of the Quorum of the Twelve. We will then turn our attention to President Nelson’s age and tenure status among the previous 16 Church Presidents. We will then conclude with a discussion about the current long- and decimal forms of the ages of our current apostles, and I will also address how other apostolic averages I have previously mentioned have either been raised or lowered based on the addition of the newest apostles.

I also probably should note that I recently had to recreate much of this data due to a crashed hard drive and getting a new computer, and part of recreating these documents involved double-checking data I had previously provided. I now believe that, if there were any errors in previous updates, those should be corrected in this one. If any of you see anything that doesn’t look right in this report, I always appreciate any corrections and clarifications. And, as always, all data presented here is current as of today.

We start with President Oaks’ current tenure length as President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, which will include exploring how soon he will move up on this list. With the 8 weeks that have passed since my last report, President Oaks has served for just short of 3 full months as Quorum President. The exact length of that service has spanned 2 months and 25 days, and he remains the 27th longest-serving Quorum President among the 28 that have served.

As noted in the previous update, he will be marking 2 additional tenure milestones before the end of this year, and will be marking 5 others in 2019. In terms of those he will observe in 2018, on Sunday September 16, he will become the 26th longest-serving Quorum President, with his tenure being longer than that of President David O. McKay. 

Just over a month later, on October 22, with his tenure length exceeding that of President Gordon B. Hinckley, he will become the 25th longest-serving Quorum President. Looking ahead to next year, he will mark other milestones in April, July (in which he will observe two milestones two days apart), November, and December. I will mention the specifics of those milestones closer to that time.

Moving on now to President Nelson, since he was ordained and set apart as Church president on the same day he set apart President Oaks as Quorum President, his tenure has spanned 2 months and 25 days as well. Nothing has changed since my last report regarding where he stands among the 16 other Church presidents in terms of his tenure length or age.

He will observe the first tenure length milestone of his presidency in roughly six months, on Thursday October 11. He will observe both another tenure-related and his first age-related milestone two days apart in July of 2019, with subsequent milestones more spread out in the years following that.

In order to prevent this post from being too lengthy, I will put the second part of this update in a new post, which will be posted in the next few minutes. 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.