Although I sincerely hope most of you will find this
information interesting and enlightening, there may be some of you who are not
interested in the data I will be presenting. Consequently, I will not in any
way be offended or bothered if any of you skip over this post and the next one.
This first post, as has been the case for previous updates, will address President
Dallin H. Oaks’ tenure as President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, then
shift to explore where Church President Russell M. Nelson currently stands in terms
of his age and tenure length among his prophetic predecessors. That will be
followed by some observations about the tenure lengths of our current First
Presidency, Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and all currently-living ordained
apostles as a group.
The more specific data about upcoming apostolic
birthdays, the long-form and decimal ages of our 15 current apostles, and
details about nonagenarians will then follow in a second post, which will be
published a few minutes after this one is. My last such update was posted on
January 27 of this year, and since I have made a tradition on this blog of sharing
these updates every 6 weeks, I will be planning on posting my next such update
on Sunday April 21 (two weeks after General Conference, and one week following
the dedication of the Kinshasa Democratic Republic of the Congo Temple).
The data in this update is current as of today (Sunday
March 10). There is a lot to get to, so let’s jump right in. President Oaks has
now served as President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles for a period of 1
year, 1 month, and 24 days, and he has not moved up among the other Quorum
Presidents since my last update. I mentioned previously that his first tenure
milestone for this year is coming up on April 9, 2019, at which time he will
have served longer as Quorum President than Franklin D. Richards, thus becoming
the 24th longest-serving Quorum President in Church history.
His next two milestones will, as noted when I provided an
overview of projects for this blog for this year, be observed on July 7 and 9
of this year. I will provide more specifics on those with my fourth overall
update this year (which I am planning on posting on June 2 of this year). As
mentioned previously, the length of President Oaks’ service will depend not
only on his health and life length, but, of course, the health and life length
of President Nelson will factor into that as well. Insofar as I have been able to ascertain, none
of our 15 current apostles is experiencing any kind of age- or health-related
limitations. While the lifespan and length of apostolic tenure for all of these
men is in the Lord’s hands, I am reasonably certain it will be several years
before the next apostolic death.
And speaking of President Nelson, since he was ordained
and set apart as Church President on the same day he set apart President Oaks
as Quorum President, his tenure has spanned 1 year, 1 month and 24 days as
well. He is also now 94 years, 6 months, and 1 day old. He will observe his only
2019 tenure-length and age-length milestones two days apart on July 3 and 5
respectively with subsequent milestones more spread out in the years following
that. And again, I will be detailing those more specifically closer to the time
when they will be reached.
In the meantime, as also noted previously, the current
First Presidency will only be joining the list of longest continuously serving
First Presidencies in Church history on Saturday April 20, 2024, so I will be
outlining their future milestones on that list closer to the time. As for the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, the
current members will mark 3 years together on March 31, 2021, at which point
they will join the list of the longest-serving Quorums of the Twelve Apostles
in Church history. I will likewise be providing updates on those future
milestones closer to that time.
Interestingly enough, less than two months prior to that,
the 15 apostles will make the list of the longest-serving such group (the exact
date is February 8, 2021). With that said, I want to conclude this portion of
the update. 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
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 (which will be the second
half of this update that published here within the next few minutes), I wish
each one of you all the best and pray that the Lord will bless you all in
everything you do.
What do you refer to when you say longest serving? Top 10?
ReplyDeleteHello, Scott! Great question. When speaking of the length of time in which President Oaks has served as Quorum President, or in which President Nelson has served as Church President, that is among all of the other men who previously served as President of the Quorum of the Twelve or President of the Church.
ReplyDeleteFor the First Presidency, Quorum of the Twelve, and apostolic groups, I have a list of the 13 longest-serving groups. So in order to make the list, the continuous service length of each of these groups will have to be longer than that of the group(s) which are currently the 13th-longest serving groups. I haven't yet determined whether or not I will eliminate the groups currently ranked 13th when our current apostles join the list, but am leaning more towards expanding such lists to the 14th longest-serving groups when our current groups make the list, which would seem to be the easiest solution. Either way, I have around two years to worry about that, so I have time to figure that out. Hope that helps answer your question. Let me know if it does not. Thanks, ScottS.