Hello again, everyone! In this update provided on Mormon Newsroom, additional comments from Elders Christensen and Gerard and Sister Harkness were provided in response to today's press conference. Particularly, Elder Christensen noted that he would be sending out an e-mail to all over whom he, as area president, has stewardship.
I just read that e-mail. In signing it, Elder Christensen lists his title as "President, Utah Area", which is definitively singular. If there is only one Utah Area, that means that, by extension, the 10 North America Areas have indeed been consolidated down to 6, with the names of those areas as identified in the August Ensign.
It is good to have this confirmed, even indirectly. I will now need to update the documents I keep on area seventies to accommodate this change. 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.
Thursday, August 23, 2018
BREAKING NEWS: Confirmation Provided That the Number of North America Areas Has Decreased From 10 to 6
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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Just did some further digging, and it appears that the area seventies living in Idaho/North America Central, North America Northwest/West and Utah Areas now comprise the membership of the 5th Quorum of the Seventy, while the 6th Quorum is now comprised of area seventies within the North America Northeast, North America Southeast, and North America Southwest Areas, which is a much better geographical distribution. Hope this additional insight is helpful to all of you.
ReplyDeleteAdditional note: When I shared the above comment, I had been reasonably certain that this was the way the 5th and 6th Quorums were now split, but in running the membership numbers, that would mean the 5th Quorum has almost twice as many members as does the 6th Quorum (63 in the former vs. 39 in the latter). I would be interested to hear from anyone who might know whether I have those areas correctly distributed. Thank you all again.
DeleteSorry. After double-checking my math, it turns out that, if I have the Quorum distributions correct, there are 66 members of the 5th Quorum and 39 in the 6th Quorum. Since that would mean that the 5th Quorum is almost full, unless I have the 6 North America Areas distributed incorrectly, I could see the 5th Quorum potentially splitting in the near future. I am sure the Church will be releasing more information soon about how the area merges have affected the demographic make-up of the 5th and 6th Quorums, which, when I learn of it, I will be sure to pass along on this blog. Thanks again, everyone!
DeleteSo I just looked into the geography of the now 6 North America Areas. Based on my findings there, assuming there has been a change in the demographics for Area Seventies based on the area consolidations in North America, it would probably make the most sense geographically and numerically if the Idaho/North America Central and Utah Areas comprised the 5th Quorum of the Seventy, and if the 6th Quorum was made up of area seventies living in the North America Northeast, North America Northwest/West, North America Southeast, and North America Southwest Areas. That is also based on the belief that the First Presidency would likely not expect the area seventies in one area to be spread out between two different Quorums. If that turns out to be the "new way" those Quorums break down, that leaves 51 members of the 5th Quorum, and 54 area seventies in the 6th Quorum, which is much more equivalent. As I mentioned in my comment above and in this post, as I learn more about all of this, I will pass along any clarifications or corrections to things I have said here. Thanks again, everyone!
DeleteIt is no longer called "Mormon Newsroom." It has appeared that they have re-titled it "Newsroom" for the time being.
ReplyDeleteThank you for that. I had not noticed that, but you are correct. It would make sense for them to simply title it "Newsroom", since anyone who accesses it would obviously know it is a subpage of the main Church webpage, which has the full name of the Church. It appears that the Church departments are indeed making changes based on President Nelson's inspired directive, and it is good to see that coming into fruition. They have not gone as far as changing the URL, but that too will come in time. Thank you again.
ReplyDeleteI also know that several years ago they were able to get two top level domains similar to .com that they can create pages and domains on. One is .lds, the other .mormon. Setting the TLDs up, both cost $180k each to have those, they have yet to use either.
ReplyDeleteIt does follow that with the stle guide change, they wanted to move fas on renaming the page even though they could not work out the domain name and redirect matter out that fast.
Thanks for that additional insight, James Anderson! I had not realized that the Church was holding domain names in reserve. What I do know is that I have leased a domain name for this blog, which is renewed on a month-to-month basis. I doubt anyone else would be interested in having this domain name, but it is nice to know I have it locked in for now. So I can understand why the Church would want to hold domain names in reserve just in case. I know that the LDS Church Temples site operated on a .com domain until the .org name became available.
ReplyDeleteI also know that, as I have previously observed, depending on how much advanced notice other Church leaders had about President Nelson's statement reiterating the importance of using the proper name for the Church, it may take a while before all Church resources are changed. It seems unreasonable to me that some seem to expect that all Church resources should have changed overnight following the statement's release. It will be interesting, to be sure, to see what happens there. Thanks, James Anderson, for taking time to comment. I appreciate the insights you shared.
It is interesting that on Elder Christianson's bio on lds.org it lists the three separate Utah areas.
ReplyDeleteHello again, ScottS! I wanted to add a comment here directed to you personally. I know that you previously had mentioned contacting the Office of the Seventy to get an answer about Elder Parrella's birthday. If you still have the number for that office, I was wondering if you could call and just double-check for us that the 10 North American Areas have been merged into 6, and also to see if they have information on how the likely area merges may have affected the composition of the 5th and 6th Quorums. If there are only 6 areas (as appears to be the case), then I find it hard to believe that the area seventies assigned to each of those 6 areas would be in a separate Quorum. And unless I have missed something, the information I had was that the Idaho Area was part of the 5th Quorum while the North America Central Area was part of the 6th Quorum. I have offered my thoughts about the likely way those areas have been redistributed, but until we know for sure, I am merely conjecturing. Please also let me know if this request is problematic. I am in a weird place regarding this question, as it is one to which I do not have the answer, which is unusual for me. Thanks so much, Scott!
DeleteHey, Scott! Thanks for commenting. As I may have mentioned earlier, in addition to the updates in progress as a result of President Nelson's statement, the updates on the biographies of all Church leaders are in various stages.
ReplyDeleteFor example, although the main "Leader Biographies" page on lds.org shows the seven members of the Presidency of the Seventy as it has been constituted since August 1, only the biographies of Elders L. Whitney Clayton and Patrick Kearon have the information about their calls to the Presidency of the Seventy and which apostles they are assisting. For Elders Cook and Gay, after their names, their positions are listed as "Presidency of the Seventy", but no information has been included in terms of the fact they have served since March 31. And although Elders Vinson, Teixeira, and Carlos A. Godoy are listed among the current members of that Presidency, the titles underneath their names still show as "General Authority Seventies", and make no mention that their service in the Presidency began on August 1.
In a similar manner, the bios of the General Authority Seventies either do not contain their August assignments or are more dated than that. And if you look at the listings for Elders Christensen, Robbins, and Uceda, the titles under their names still show as "Presidency of the Seventy."
The Newsroom bios are even more dated than that, as they still list Elders Christensen, Robbins, and Uceda in the Presidency, and the list of the members of that Presidency has not been updated to include Elders Vinson, Teixeira, and Godoy. That said, the Newsroom bios of Elders Cook and Gay do include the fact that they were sustained to the Presidency of the Seventy on March 31, 2018. But for the seven members of the Presidency (as it was constituted before August 1, 2018), not all the assignments listed on the lds.org bios are included in the Newsroom bios.
Given that those changes have only been effective for less than a month, and given that President Nelson's re-emphasis of the Church's name needed to take precedence, it is not surprising to me at all that the bios of members of the Presidency of the Seventy and General Authority Seventies all need to be updated, both on the main page and on the Newsroom site as well.
But that is not to suggest that those updates aren't pending. As one who has updated the Wikipedia page for General Authorities, I can tell you it is a challenge to ensure that all changes effective August 1 of every year make it into the main page. For Wikipedia, ew have had to do a subpage to hold the changes in reserve, then merge it with the main page once August 1 rolls around each year.
For the Church websites, that is not an option, as mass updates would require taking the site down entirely for a time. So the updates have to be made piece by piece, and that takes time. But I am sure those changes are coming sooner rather than later. For now, you'll just have to take my word for it that Elder Christensen's e-mail showed that the Utah areas have been merged into one. Thanks for stopping by to comment, Scott, and hope these thoughts are helpful to you.
Odd but memorable (at least to me): the 5th Quorum has the same number of members as the Bible (at least the Protestant/LDS canon of it) has books, and the 6th Quorum has the same number of members as the Old Testament has books.
ReplyDeleteThat is an interesting tidbit. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. In fairness though, that will only be true if it turns out I have the redistribution of those Quorums correctly based on the merged areas. And looking ahead, it looks as though there will be several US and Canadian area seventies released in a couple of months. As I noted above, it may be some time before we know whether or not I have that distribution correctly. I don't see any scenario where the Church would split the seventies from any given area between two quorums. Hopefully in the coming days, we will learn more about how those areas are actually divided between the two Quorums, at which point the actual demographics of those Quorums will be confirmed. Thanks for sharing that bit of trivia, though. That is interesting.
ReplyDeleteIn 1997, when the Quorums of Seventy that are for area seventies were organized in 1997, it was pointed out that number 5 was given to North America to avoid the possibility that they would be considered more important than the others. We now have eight, and more could be created. See also the 1997 April Conference for some other things about this although the numbering and distribution matter came out later.
ReplyDeleteJames Anderson, thank you for those additional observations. Unless both Wikipedia and my personal records are incorrect, the Sixth Quorum of the Seventy was created in 2004, and the reason cited for that Quorum's creation was that the number of area seventies in North America then exceeded 70. One year later, for ease of travel for Quorum meetings, the Seventh and Eighth Quorums were created, which divided the 3rd and 4th Quorums.
ReplyDeleteIn the 13 years since then, the areas of the Church have been expanded and consolidated as needed, which in turn has changed the composition of the six quorums for Area Seventies. Further divisions, where needed, will certainly be done, and that could be the case based on the announced consolidations of North America Areas.
Unfortunately, however, it will be almost impossible to gauge how soon and in what manner that might occur, until more is known about how the merging of the 10 North America Areas into 6 has changed or will change the composition and demographics specifically of the 5th and 6th Quorums. As I will be detailing more fully in a new post in a few minutes, there have been some additional details released about some of the assignments i previously referenced on this blog. Stay tuned for that. In the meantime, thank you for commenting, James Anderson!