Update on the Number of Current Area Seventies

Hello again, everyone! Having noted previously that, with the recently-announced call of Elder Brook P. Hales as a general authority seventy, there are now 116 general authorities of the Church, as President Oaks indicated, I thought that additional information might be helpful to some of you. As I also have previously mentioned, I also track the number of area authorities of the Church after each general conference.

The way I track that data is first by quorum, then by the areas of the Church that fall under the 3rd-8th Quorums. And I then take the number of men serving within each area, add those to get a total for each quorum, and keep a running track of the grand total. The results of that process, as reflected by the changes announced at the last general conference, follow below, and will in turn be followed by some general comments on that data.

Quorum	Totals within each Area	Quorum Total	Grand Total
3rd	14+14+18+4+2	52	52
4th	4+14+23+18	59	111
5th	8+6+9+7+11+15	56	167
6th	10+11+11+17	49	216
7th	20+19	39	255
8th	9+8+15+14	46	301

The first observation I wanted to make is that there are currently three of the six Quorums (the first three) that are very close to the limit of 70, when previous Quorums have been split. That said, if I have correctly counted, we have a number of area seventies within these six Quorums that may be released in October, including those who have served as such for the last 7-10 years and have not yet been released and those who have been called to be temple or mission presidents. The number of those falling within those parameters is as follows, again listed by Quorum:

Quorum	Number of area seventies that may be released
3rd	2
4th	1
5th	3
6th	3
7th	3
8th	2

And again, these numbers are merely my preliminary thoughts on the subject. I may be incorrect, but it has seemed somewhat standard for area seventies to have a preliminary call length of 5-6 years. With that in mind, some area seventies called in 2012 and 2013 might also be released. Again, these are just very preliminary thoughts. An updated version of my list of the relevant individuals follows below:

Area Seventies: Some area seventies released, others called. Note: The following area seventies may or may not be released: Elders Tasara Makasi, Fred A. Parker, and Miguel A. Reyes, who have been called as mission presidents and will begin their service in July; and Elders B. Sergio Antunes, Joao R. Grahl, Todd B. Hansen, Daniel W. Jones, Steven O. Laing, and Katsuyuki Otahara, who have been called as temple presidents and will begin their service in November; and Elders Sergio L. Krasnoselsky (who has served since April 2009), Kevin J. Worthen (who has served since April 2010), R. Randall Bluth, Hans T. Boom & David J. Thomson (who have served since April 2011). Additional note: In recent years, it has been customary to see most changes in Area Seventies in April, and only a handful in October. Although mission presidents serve full-time, in recent years, several area seventies called as mission presidents have continued to serve as area seventies for one or two conferences after beginning their new assignments to preside over missions. By contrast, the assignment to serve as temple president generally precludes any area seventies from continuing in both callings. Result:

I also recognize that these are just my own thoughts and observations, which I share, for what they may be worth to some of you. Any insights any of you have in terms of what I might have overlooked in my analysis on this topic are always welcome and appreciated.

That does it for this post. 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.

List of Temples That Will Close for an Extended Period of Time in 2018

Hello again, everyone! As some of you may be aware, an earlier report on this blog provided confirmation of the extended closure of the Edmonton Alberta Temple later this year. Then late last week, as I intended to start my second series of posts on potential future temples, my research led me to several temples that would also have an extended closure period at various points during 2018.

Note that I am only including those temples that will be closed for five weeks or longer. While 3- or 4-week closures are somewhat uncommon and therefore significant, a period of 5+ weeks indicates major work is being done that cannot occur during typical maintenance closures, which are generally only 2-3 weeks in duration.

The complete list of those extended periods of closure follows below. 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.

Edmonton Alberta Temple will close for 19 weeks (from Monday June 25-Monday November 5)

Salt Lake Temple will close for 5 weeks (from Monday July 2-Monday August 6)

Accra Ghana Temple will close for 11 weeks (from Monday July 23-Monday October 8)

St. Louis Missouri Temple will close for 10 weeks (from Monday July 30-Monday October 8)

Johannesburg South Africa Temple will close for 8 weeks (from Monday July 30-Monday September 24)

Bountiful Utah Temple will close for 6 weeks (from Monday August 6-Monday September 17)

Hermosillo Sonora Mexico Temple will close for 5 weeks (from Monday August 13-Monday September 17)

Seattle Washington Temple will close for roughly 12.5 weeks (from Sunday August 26-Thursday November 22)

Nauvoo Illinois Temple will close for 13 weeks (from Monday September 17-Monday December 17)

Aba Nigeria Temple will close for 10 weeks (from Monday October 22-Monday December 31)

Recife Brazil Temple will close for 12 weeks (from Monday September 3-Monday November 26)

San Antonio Texas Temple will close for 6 weeks (from Monday September 24-Monday November 5)

Billings Montana Temple will close for 10 weeks (from Monday November 5, 2018-Monday January 14, 2019)