Stokes Sounds Off: BREAKING NEWS: Church Announces Mission Changes for 2019

Search This Blog

Leaderboard

Wednesday, January 2, 2019

BREAKING NEWS: Church Announces Mission Changes for 2019

Hello again, everyone! Breaking news again from the Church about changes in missions for 2019. This is the earliest in any year, in my memory, in which such changes were announced. In the official Newsroom release, the creation of four new missions and boundary alignments for 12 others are detailed. The resulting number of missions total will be 399.

The new missions will be located to serve the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and one more each for Guatemala, Peru, and the Philippines. Mission boundaries will be realigned for 3 California missions, and one each in Argentina, Halifax Nova Scotia, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Japan, Korea, New York, and Virginia. I imagine that the specific missions will be consolidated with surrounding missions.

Later this month, the announcement notes that new mission presidents will be announced, which will also occur earlier than it has in past years. President Nelson's good health has surely impacted the earlier timing of the announcement of these changes, which is wonderful to see. In the meantime, others, who are more skilled than I am in that area, will provide further analysis of these developments in the coming days, so I will not comment further on these changes for now, except to advise all that such analysis will likely be provided later this week on the Church growth blog maintained so well by Matthew Martinich.

That does it for this post. Any and all comments are, as always, welcome and appreciated, on any post at any time, as long as such comments are made in accordance with the established guidelines. 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.

9 comments:

  1. This also was posted today, two news articles from the Deseret News and Church News also .

    https://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/temple-worship?fbclid=IwAR06xOrna-gJCYSCtXsddiqtSxnO9oMNMu8xg1-lO1jZnbSI36j-Xs6SPpk

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. James Anderson, thank you for mentioning that here. I had mentioned those resources (including the Church statement) in the comments on my New Year's Day post, but I am grateful you mentioned that here as well.

      As I noted in my post above, this is, AFAIK, the earliest the Church has ever announced changes in missions. And the fact that new mission presidents will be announced later this month is likewise ahead of the curve.

      As I mentioned in a comment on that New Year's Day post thread just a few moments ago, I am sure that President Nelson's ability to precisely and quickly take care of his heart surgery patients during his career years in turn is now impacting his ability to be ahead of the curve in announcements his presidency has made within this first year of his presidency.

      I was, as I mentioned a few times before, pleasantly surprised to see that the changes in area leadership were announced last year within a few days after General Conference. And the fact that President Oaks presented the sustaining of changes in the Presidency of the Seventy in April which were only effective on August 1 with the other area leadership changes is further evidence that President Nelson will continue to be ahead of the curve from what we have seen in years past. It will be awesome to see the announcement of new mission presidents. Once that is released, I will have more of an idea about whether current area seventies who will be announced as mission presidents will be released in April.

      It appears that 2019 will be another big year for Church news and temple developments, and I certainly look forward to learning about and passing on the latest to everyone here on this blog. Sorry for my rambling reply, and thanks again for taking time to comment, James Anderson. Always a pleasure to hear from you. Hope you are well.

      Delete
    2. Have since run across some logistical data that is public that apparently may be indicative of whatever they did with the temple changes, temples that run sessions no more frequent than every half hour have been able to redo their schedule so they can do another session at times. Mount Timpanogos' schedule on temples.lds.org shows they added a session at 1130am, 330pm, and 730pm, so there are two rooms going at exactly the same time at least three times a day. I have never seen that before. And Payson is running every 40 minutes now.

      Schedule updates may not have been posted yet for whatever reason, but should eventually show up. Provo and Jordan River run every 20 minutes and I also heard that someone looked at Ogden this morning and the times had not changed.

      I don't know how the Facebook poster arrived at this, but she said that the addition of sessions is like building 35 more temples with this added capacity as we know some of the Hinckley-era temples run as few as 11 sessions a week, a handful maybe less.

      Delete
    3. Hello, James Anderson, and thanks for this additional comment. There was more to the changes than that, as noted in the Salt Lake Tribune. As already noted, whomever the source was for the changes described in that SL Trib article shared them in direct violation with the first Presidency's guidelines about keeping what happens in the temple sacred. But those changes are outlined in that article, which can be found fairly easily from the main SL Trib website. I am not comfortable with the idea that the "unnamed source" provided the info in violation of the First Presidency's renewed request to keep such things sacred and not talk about them outside of the temple.

      That said, the development of more sessions being done per day, particularly in the Mount Timpanogos Utah Temple, was interesting to hear about. I would take the Facebook poster's words about added sessions being equivalent to building 35 more temples with a grain of salt.

      Delete
    4. Perhaps the additional sessions are one way to handle the workload at such temples, but I do not in any way anticipate that that change will impact the Church's intent (as confirmed repeatedly by many of our apostles) to build many more temples in the coming years. If the end game is to increase the number of operating temples tenfold, as was once implied, then even the addition of several hundred smaller temples will come into play in some way.

      That said, since none of us are privy to the discussions occurring at Church headquarters, the additional sessions may just be a temporary thing until more temples can be built to split the current temple districts. As I mentioned previously, if my information is correct, the Mount Timpanogos Utah Temple continues to be busy, as does Provo, and in the former's case, the Saratoga Springs Utah Temple, once dedicated, is anticipated to cut the current Mount Timpanogos district roughly in half. So I can see the sense in having extra sessions at the Mount Timp temple until the SS temple is dedicated, but wouldn't be shocked to hear that the extra sessions are discontinued after the SS temple takes away half of the current activity.

      I also mentioned previously that, at least at the Mount Timpanogos Utah Temple, the shifts for workers have been shortened from 3 6-hour shifts to 4 4-hour shifts, which means less of a time commitment for temple workers and opened the prospect that more people would feel they could serve there. While all of these developments are surely helping more people serve in the temple as patrons and temple workers, the expansion of the number of temples may almost certainly have the greatest impact going forward.

      I could be mistaken in that regard, but again, without being privy to the conversations occurring at Church headquarters, I am relying solely on what I personally read that the apostles have said on that subject, or on the reports of others who have heard the apostles say something. In that regard, the latest reports I heard indicated the end goal was an ultimate tenfold increase, at minimum, in the number of operating temples. The only question appears to be within what time-frame that might occur. But I also heard in passing that the 19 new temples announced last year was President Nelson's way of starting slowly. What that means for the future may remain to be seen, but I hope that any of us are ready for whatever might wind up happening. With the Lord at the helm, and a prophet who has shown a willingness to do things in an unconventional way, or to change what we have previously seen as standard practice, the main question is what's next. And perhaps only President Nelson or those he authorizes will be able to answer that question. Either way, it is exciting to see the work of the Lord progressing in various aspects, and I am grateful to you, James Anderson, for your ongoing contributions to the dialogue about such things. As said by someone else in another comment, it is an exciting time for the kingdom of God, and I am sure that the Church has only scratched the surface of what's coming. I am grateful to you, James Anderson, for your ongoing contributions to the discussions in that regard here. Hope you are well, and thanks again.

      Delete
    5. Yes any guess as to what the increased capacity is equivalent to is complicated, as each temple has a different capacity, from two very small rooms in Tahiti to the six rather large rooms in Provo and Jordan River, and the largest capacity for a single session being Salt Lake. The Facebook post I saw left that important detail out, and neither did it account for other factors incident to church member populations, distance from a temple, travel conditions, etc. So the actual equivalent is likely well under 35, and may not be more than the equivalent of building a handful more for the time being.

      Delete
    6. Thanks for this additional comment, James Anderson. Perhaps the member meant that it would be the equivalent of building 35 smaller-sized temples from the Hinckley era generation. That would make more sense. But without knowing what factors were used in that calculation, it gets more than a little tricky.

      I mentioned this in another comment below our conversation here, but we are seeing more instances in which probable site locations have been identified for announced temples within six months or less of the time of their announcement, which gives me hope that we may be seeing some of those have a groundbreaking sooner rather than later. If that turns out to be the case, then that will certainly be a change and acceleration from the 2-3 year time-span within which most of the Church's temples have gone from announcement to groundbreaking and on to construction and dedication, especially if a smaller design is utilized for many of the most-recently-announced temples. It will be amazing to see. If President Nelson was starting slowly in 2018, who knows what's ahead for the temple construction program of the Church? It will surely be interesting to see. Thanks again, James Anderson, for taking time to comment.

      Delete
  2. Hello again, everyone! Exactly one year ago today, at about this same time of night, I had felt prompted to check KSL's website. In so doing, I caught word of the breaking news that Church President Thomas S. Monson passed away. On this one-year anniversary of his passing, a Church News staff writer penned an article in his honor. You can find that at the web address below. Thanks again, everyone!

    https://www.thechurchnews.com/history-revisited/2019-01-02/president-monson-died-1-year-ago-today-heres-how-his-legacy-of-love-lives-on-48701

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hello again, everyone! Two additional articles have been published by the Church News. The first addresses comments and suggestions from the Sunday School General Presidency on how to approach the new curriculum, especially in light of the fact that Sunday School will now only be held once or twice a month (as the entire fifth Sunday block will be determined by bishoprics, and because of ward, stake, or General Conferences). Read more in the article at the address below:

    https://www.thechurchnews.com/living-faith/2019-01-03/sunday-school-general-presidency-talks-about-how-to-approach-come-follow-me-2019-curriculum-48696

    And we have another inspiring story. After his recovery from the Brussels bombing incident, Mason Wells, now in the Naval Academy and serving as a midshipman, is using his experiences to bless the lives of his fellow midshipmen. Although he still experiences a fair amount of PTSD, he has also found opportunities to be a member missionary, and one of his fellow midshipmen whom he referred to the missionaries has asked him to baptize her. You can read more of his story in the article below:

    https://www.thechurchnews.com/members/2019-01-03/how-being-injured-in-the-brussels-bombing-has-helped-this-returned-missionary-share-the-gospel-in-the-us-navy-48706

    My thanks again to all of you for your ongoing interest and support, and for your many contributions to the dialogue about topics covered on this blog.

    ReplyDelete

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.

At the same time, however, I recognize that we live in a time when incivility, discourtesy, unkindness, and even cyber-bullying has regrettably become part of online interactions. With that in mind, while anyone who wishes can comment on anything if they choose to do so, I hereby reserve the right to immediately delete any comments which are critical, unkind, lack civility, or promote prodcuts, services, and values contrary to either the Church, or to the rules of online etiquette.

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.

And in order to better preserve the spirit and pure intentions for which this blog was established, I also hereby request that anyone not commenting with a regular user name (particularly those whose comments appear under the "Unknown" or "Anonymous" monikers, give the rest of us a name to work with in addressing any replies. If such individuals do not wish to disclose their actual given names, a pseudonym or nickname would suffice.

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.