BREAKING NEWS: First President Called for the Fortaleza Brazil Temple

Hello again, everyone! It was just brought to my attention a few minutes ago that the Church has called the first president for the Fortaleza Brazil Temple. That news was first reported in the Church News 4 hours ago, but due to my having a somewhat busy afternoon, I was actually not the first to find this news originally, which has not happened in a while. That said, the new president is someone known to the people of Brazil, a native Brazilian who has served in Brazil as an area seventy, mission MTC, stake and branch president, a patriarch, and a temple sealer. In other words, he is well known to, and loved and respected by the Brazilian Saints and will be a good fit for the first president of the Fortaleza Brazil Temple.

Now, I also wanted to note a caution here: While I appreciate the optimism expressed by many who see the calls of the presidents for all the new temples anticipated to be dedicated next year as a positive sign that such events could occur sooner than anticipated, and while I am not dismissing the prospect that part of President Nelson's plan in having the temple department hire a number of new employees could be to add manpower to the construction of temples already in progress, which could potentially accelerate the temples now under construction, in addition to enabling new ones to be rapidly built, the latter point seems to be a less likely prospect.

I say that because my brother took a class in high school in which he was part of a construction crew for existing projects in American Fork. And no matter what they were working on, the size of the crew was far more likely to diminish than increase as some of them either quit the project and the class or were transferred to another project. I recognize that the Church projects may be more contractual than a job done by a high school class, but, that said, nothing I have heard through the sources I have available have indicated that the most recent estimates offered for the temple events anticipated to occur next year will be accelerated beyond the more general time-frames I have previously provided.

As a review, when I posted the news of the first president for the Lisbon Portugal Temple one week ago today, in that same post, I provided the latest general estimates I had for temple events anticipated to occur in 2019. Unless there is something big about which I and the sources which I have available for such information are not aware, AFAIK, those estimates have not changed at all.

That same post from one week ago shared the complete list I had assembled of temples which have had or may yet have a new president called. I refer you to that full list for any information on those temples. But that brings the total number of temples which have had a new president announced this year to a grand total of 66, with the only other temple on my list of those which may get a new president being the one in Washington DC. But wait, you might be saying, didn't that temple close for renovation in March of this year, and isn't it only anticipated to be rededicated in 2020?

Yes, that is the case. But the Asuncion Paraguay Temple, which closed almost a year ago (last November) and for which, AFAIK, the renovation process has yet to fully begin, had a new president announced earlier this year (as evidenced by the list I linked to earlier). So it would not be unreasonable, in my opinion, to assume that a new president could similarly be announced for the Washington DC Temple.

Sorry for that aside. Getting back on topic, once all 6 of the new temples anticipated to be completed next year are dedicated, the total number of dedicated temples will increase to 167. That means that roughly 40% of all operating temples will get a new president within the next 12-15 months, which makes sense, given that temple presidents serve for a period of roughly 3 years, so roughly 1/3 (or 33.33% of all temples) will have a new president announced each year. 

The new temple presidents announced during this year is slightly above that average, but when we subtract the 6 temples for which a dedication will not occur until next year, that means 161 temples will be in operation by this year's end, and that 60 temples will have new presidents start serving this year, and that works out to 37%, which is closer to the average I mentioned above.

That does it for my report of this development. But before I end in the usual way, I also wanted to mention what I have coming up on this blog in the near future. In addition to reporting important Church news and temple developments, which I monitor on an ongoing basis, my hope this weekend is to publish another update on the ages and tenure milestones of our current apostles in the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. I will also continue to fine-tune my General Conference predictions as needed. So if any of you want to comment on either of the posts I did on that subject recently, you can find the summary of what molded those predictions here, and the updated version of those predictions here. I will continue to accept comments on those predictions up until Monday October 1 (so I will have time to do any updates that are needed on them and post them here before General Conference weekend begins the following Saturday).

As always, I continue to monitor all Church news and temple developments and will try to bring word of those to you all here as I become aware of them. That does it for this post. Any and all comments on any post are, as always, welcome and appreciated at any time they are made. Thank you for the privilege of your time, and for wading through another lengthy post from me. 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.