Hello again, everyone! Having set the
stage in the first part of this apostolic age update (posted just a few moments
ago), we now move on to talk specifics regarding the long-form and decimal ages
of our current apostles, which will also include updated information on the
average ages of the First Presidency, Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and the 15
apostles as a group, and current and future nonagenarians. So let’s get right
into all of that. Again, all data is current as of today (Sunday September 23,
2018).
First, I thought it might be appropriate
to share an overview of the apostolic birthdays that are coming up in the near
future, particularly those which will be observed before I post the next such
update, which I will try to do in 6-weeks’ time (around November 4). We have
two apostolic birthdays coming up before then. The first will be the 60th
birthday of our youngest apostle, Elder Ulisses Soares, which he will be
observing on October 2. Then, as noted towards the end of my last post,
President M. Russell Ballard’s 90th birthday will be observed 6 days
later, on October 8. Just by way of reminder, we have two apostles each
observing their birthdays in November (Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf’s 78th
on the 6th, and Elder Dale G. Renlund’s 66th exactly one
week later), while Elders Jeffrey R. Holland and Gerrit W. Gong will observe
their respective 78th and 65th birthdays on the 3rd
and 23rd of December respectively.
With that noted, we now
move on to some exact figures about the ages (and average ages) of the First
Presidency, Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and all 15 apostles as a group. For
the First Presidency, President Russell M. Nelson’s long-form age is now 94
years, 0 months, and 14 days, which works out to 94.04 decimal years. President
Dallin H. Oaks has reached the age of 86 years, 1 month, and 11 days, which is
86.12 years. President Henry B. Eyring, who, as previously noted, is almost
always 0.8 years younger than President Oaks, is now 85 years, 3 months, and 23
days old, which puts him at a decimal age of 85.32 years.
The three Presiding High
Priests now have a combined 265.48 years of life experience, which puts their
average age at 88.49 years as of today. President Oaks remains closest to that
average, still being 2.37 years below it. Obviously, Presidents Nelson and
Eyring are still respectively above and below the average.
We move on now
to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. First, President Ballard, whose 90th
birthday is, as noted, 15 days away, has a long-form age of 89 years, 11 months,
and 15 days old, with a decimal age of 89.96 years. Elder Holland is now 77
years, 9 months, and 20 days old, which puts his decimal age at 77.81 years.
Elder Uchtdorf, at just under a month older than Elder Holland, is now 77
years, 10 months, and 17 days old, making him 77.88 in decimal years.
Elder Bednar
has a long-form age of 66 years, 3 months, and 8 days, with a decimal age of
66.27 years. Elder Cook, who also
observed a birthday since my last update, is 78 years, 0 months, and 15 days
old, making his decimal age 78.04 years. Elder Christofferson is now 73 years,
7 months, and 30 days old, which works out to 73.66 years.
Elder Andersen
is now 67 years, 1 month, and 14 days old, which puts his decimal age at 67.12
years. Elder Rasband’s long-form age is 67 years, 7 months, and 17 days, with a
decimal age of 67.63 years. Elder Gary E. Stevenson, who was the youngest
apostle currently serving until last April, is now 63 years, 1 month, and 17
days old, which is 63.13 in decimal years.
We now come to the final three apostles. Elder Renlund now has a
long-form age of 65 years, 10 months, and 10 days old, which is 65.86 years. Elder
Gong is now exactly 64 years and 9 months old, with a resulting decimal age of
64.75 years. Elder Soares, whose 60th
birthday is coming up, as noted earlier, on October 2, is now 59 years, 11
months, and 21 days old, with a resulting decimal age of 59.98 years.
The current members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles have a
combined life experience of 852.09 years, which averages out to 71.01 years for
each of those 12 Brethren. As I noted previously, the ages of Elders
Christofferson and Rasband put them above and below that average respectively,
with Elder Christofferson now being 2.65 years older and Elder Rasband remaining
roughly 3.38 years younger.
Based on the information I provided earlier about the members of
the First Presidency, the 15 apostles have a combined 1117.57 years of life
experience, which averages out to 74.5 years. Elders Holland and Christofferson
stand closest to that average, with the former being 3.31 years older, and the
latter remaining 0.84 years younger.
We now move on to the nonagenarians. President Nelson remains the
7th oldest apostle in Church history, and now has just over 9 months
before he will move up on that list. President Ballard will join that list in just
15 days. This means that by the time I post these statistics again, not only
will President Ballard have joined the list of nonagenarians, but he will be 10
days away from when he will first move up on it. While 12 other apostles will join the list at
various intervals, Elder Soares now has 30 years and 9 days until his 90th
birthday.
I continue to track all of this information, and will do my level
best to pass updates on to you regularly, with my hope being to post the next
such update roughly 6 weeks from now, which I hope to continue to do for the
foreseeable future. That does it for this post. Any and all comments are, as
always, welcome and appreciated on any post at any time. 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.
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ReplyDelete
DeleteIt appears that the temple in Ivory Coast will be ground broken in November.
The members on Facebook who are reporting the news of the Abidjan temple groundbreaking say that emails have been sent out to local leaders. I imagine we should see something official soon, perhaps even today or in the coming days.
ReplyDeleteHello, Chris and Eric! I happened upon this news on the Church Temples Facebook page not long after you both posted about it here. I am sure that if a letter has been sent out to African leaders, and if several African members have reported on this development, it is almost certain to be confirmed by official announcement sooner rather than later.
ReplyDeleteThat said, since we have had no official announcement on any official source (the Church News, the News & Events and English Newsroom, and the French version of the Ivory Coast Newsroom), I am taking this news with a grain of salt for now. But if confirmation comes of this news within the next week or less, it will be a very surprising development.
I would imagine that means that the Abidjan Temple will be another smaller one, and that that temple will join the one in Bangkok as being the two that will have a groundbreaking by the end of this year.
And that would be a good thing because those are the remaining two temples announced in April 2015 which have not had a groundbreaking. That would trim the backlog to 17 temples, and would mean that just the Urdaneta Philippines Temple, the 4 announced in 2016, the 5 announced in 2017, and the 8 announced last April would be left.
But, perhaps more significantly, this opens the prospect that other temples could potentially have a groundbreaking within the last three months of this year. It will be interesting to see what occurs in that regard. Thanks again, Eric and Chris, for taking time to comment.
Also Rick's Temple site should be back up and running this weekend.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Chris! I was aware of the date indicated in which it was projected that the site would be back up and running. That said, due to the nature of the data loss involved, I understand that the goal is to get the most crucial parts of the site back up and running by that date. Getting the entire site back to where it was may be a longer process. At least, that is what I gather from the information I have available. Either way, I look forward to being able to have that as a resource again. Thanks, Chris, for this additional comment.
ReplyDelete