Hello again, everyone! I have somewhat breaking news on two different fronts. First, BYU-Provo, with the approval of the Church Board of Education, has announced that it will no longer hold commencement exercises in the fall, but will instead hold one graduation ceremony each April, to which all who will complete their education during any given year will be invited. You can find more details on that here.
In the meantime, for the first time in a decade or more, the Caribbean Saints will welcome a prophet of the Lord to their islands. President Russell M. and Sister Wendy W. Nelson, accompanied by Elder Dale G. Renlund of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and his wife Ruth L. Renlund, are set to speak at a missionary meeting and member devotional which will originate from Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, which will be broadcast to other regions in the Caribbean on Saturday September 1.
The following day, the Nelsons and Renlunds will be in Puerto Rico, where they will all be speaking at a devotional for members that will be similarly broadcast to those who cannot attend in person. While this has not been verified, I would imagine that part of their time in the Caribbean will be spent visiting the site of the Port-au-Prince Haiti Temple.
The Puerto Rican members of the Church are still recovering from the aftermath of the hurricane that struck their island nation nearly a year ago. For that reason, while I would love to see the Church announce a temple for Puerto Rico during General Conference in around a month, that prospect may not be as imminent as it appears to be. It also appears that President Nelson did not want to delay assessing the situation firsthand there. You can find the Church News report on this development here.
It is also interesting that the second leg of this trip will be observed one week prior to President Nelson's 94th birthday. And he continues the tradition of just stopping between trips long enough to get a new traveling companionship from the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. If he continues to make trips to nearby areas roughly once a month, and more extended trips once or twice a year, it will not be long at all before he has visited a wide variety of Saints from various world regions.
I have not found official confirmation of this, but it would make sense to me if he is the one to travel to Chile in late October and Colombia in mid-December to dedicate the temples there. In the interim, I can see him continuing to travel as time and circumstances allow. It is indeed awe-inspiring to think that the second-oldest man to ever be ordained president of the Church is as vibrant and healthy (if not more so) than any Church President has been since the early days of President Hinckley's presidency.
While the length of his presidency is up to the Lord, it is amazing that, at his age, he is still making regular trips outside the United States. I am sure he will continue to do so as his time, circumstances, and health allow, and you can find all the latest information on those travels here as I become aware of it.
In the meantime, I wanted to additionally note that the Church has also reported on an area-wide Family Home Evening that was carried by Facebook Live to all Saints in Brazil while President M. Russell Ballard and Elder Ulisses Soares of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles were visiting to conduct Church business there. This was the first time Elder Soares returned to his homeland since his call to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles almost 5 months ago.
That does it for this post. Any and all comments are, as always, welcome and appreciated. Thank you for the privilege of your time. If you enjoyed what you read here and would like to stay informed of newly-added content, please feel free to subscribe. 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.
Wednesday, August 29, 2018
BREAKING NEWS: BYU-Provo Commencement/President Nelson To Visit Puerto Rico
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I can't wait for a temple in Puerto Rico. I hope this visit will prompt an announcement.
ReplyDeleteI wonder when was the last time a temple was announced outside of general conference. I know that several were announced by President Monson in his first year as prophet. But outside of that I don't remember.
ReplyDeleteLast one was Trujillo Peru and the last three Arizona temples besides Tucson and those came about two weeks apart in 2008, Trujillo was around that time but at least months away from the Arizona ones
ReplyDeleteWas Payson one?
DeleteSee my answer below. Payson was one (announced in January 2010 which, if memory serves, was made during the groundbreaking ceremony for the Trujillo Temple), and, depending on which date you acknowledge, the Paris France Temple may fit that definition. Thanks, Chris!
DeleteHello, L. Chris Jones and James Anderson. Thanks so much for taking time to comment. Chris, according to the article I cited in this post, the Puerto Rican Saints are still dealing with the aftermath and damage done by last year's storm. It is true that there is a significant Church presence in Puerto Rico such that it now ranks as the second of the top ten nations with the strongest Church presence that does not have a temple in any phase. So the question then arises: Would the Church wait to announce a temple there until the saints in that area have recovered more sufficiently from the storm's aftermath, or would the Church opt to announce one sooner and merely wait for construction to begin at a more opportune moment? We will have to see.
ReplyDeleteAlso, while I recognize that President Monson did announce a few temples outside of General Conference during the first year or so of his presidency, unless my research is mistaken, the Payson Utah Temple was announced outside of General Conference in January 2010, which would put its' announcement later than Trujillo Peru.
Some have also suggested that the Paris France Temple may fit the definition of the last temple announced outside of General Conference, since President Monson issued a statement in summer 2011 confirming the Church was looking at the prospect of building a temple in Paris France. Others have said that one was only officially confirmed in the following General Conference, so it's up for debate as to which date should be considered as more official.
Other than these temples, all temples announced since 2012 have had an announcement during General Conference. And although I would love to hear the Church announce either some temple groundbreakings, dedications or rededications of temples, or new temple locations prior to the next General Conference, it may be more likely that President Nelson will wait until October to outline whatever his plans might be to expand the number of temples and detail how that will be done. I am not ruling out a miraculously unexpected announcement, but at this point, that seems more unlikely, at least for now. Hope this information helps. Thanks again, L. Chris Jones and James Anderson, for taking time to comment.
I just wanted to reiterate here that I am accepting feedback on my latest list of potential locations that could have a temple announced in October. That feedback will be accepted for the next 3-4 weeks, before I have to do the work of finalizing the list prior to General Conference. Let me arbitrarily set Monday October 1 as that end date for such comments. The latest list of temple prospects can be found at the link below.
ReplyDeleteAnd just to be clear, the prospects mentioned in that list are those that (in my opinion) are most likely to have a temple announced in October. I do continue to maintain other lists with more distant prospects which, as previously noted, I will monitor for inclusion as circumstances necessitated. After the October General Conference, we may know quite a bit more about how extensive the plans to expand the number of temples really is, at which point I can reevaluate the imminent likelihood of those prospects which, for now, seem more distant. That said, I would welcome the feedback. Thanks again to all who are reading this blog and especially to you, James Anderson and L. Chris Jones, for your regular comments that are always so insightful and help the conversations here to move along most effectively.
http://stokessoundsoff.blogspot.com/2018/08/updated-list-of-prospective-temple.html
I just got some travel time numbers from a local on the ground in Bentonville, Arkansas, a place along with Rogers is regularly mentioned as a possible for a new site.
DeleteThey said it takes about three hours to go to either Oklahoma City or Kansas City, many though seem to prefer Kansas City, is it because of better roads?
Three hours is, if traveling at 60mph, is 180 miles or so although with stoplights and slower speeds until you get out of the place or onto a freeway that isn't backed up would be 180 miles, likely less with the need to navigate city traffic at at least one end
Hello, James Anderson. Thanks for the information. That is interesting. My research shows that, to get to OKC, the Saints in Bentonville have a journey of 218 miles exactly, which may constitute a 3-4 hour journey based on the conditions you described. In the meantime, Bentonville is also 210.5 miles away from the temple in Kansas City, Missouri.
DeleteWould the reason the Saints from Bentonville "prefer" Kansas City have anything to do with the fact that the temple in Oklahoma City is currently closed? The stakes in Arkansas that fall under the OKC district may have found it easier to get to Kansas City with OKC closed. With that in mind, I am not sure of the reasoning behind routing some Arkansas stakes to OKC.
But I agree that the Saints in Arkansas surely have an inordinate distance to travel to either temple. Whether or not the mileage goal set by previous Church presidents is lowered (it currently stands at 200 miles), the distances involved for the Saints in Arkansas are a clear qualifier.
As I also have noted previously, some may favor Rogers above Bentonville for the location of the first temple in Arkansas. That said, I have a good friend who served a mission in that area, and he told me that he heard directly from Bentonville members among whom he served that the Church has reserved land in that city for a temple when it is needed. I know that Rogers and Bentonville are not that far apart, but I have to trust my friend's information on this, especially since there has not seemed to be any indication that Rogers and Bentonville have had any kind of border dispute over the land in question.
If what we have heard about President Nelson's plans to expand the number of temples is true, then a temple in every location in which the Church has land already purchased may become a reality over the next several years. I understand from my research and the comments of others that there are many such locations, some of which may only be known to the residents in those locations. It will be interesting to see the process whereby the number of temples in expanded, and I feel reasonably confident that, whatever else might occur, a temple in Bentonville will be part of those plans. Thanks, James Anderson, for taking time to comment.