Hello again, everyone! This post will cover my thoughts on a wide variety of Church news which has been reported, much of it having major significance in nature. So let's dive right in. As many of you may already be aware, the First Presidency announced today that couples married civily first will now no longer need to wait a year before subsequently being married in the temple. In a Church that teaches its' members to "obey, honor, and sustain the law", it makes perfect sense to me that leaders would adjust this. That is because in so many nations around the world, civil marriages are often required to take place first.
For most of the nations which have such a requirement, a temple marriage following directly after a civil marriage has been the status quo for a while. This change may have the biggest impact in the United States, and also surely for those couples who don't want to alienate family members who are either not members of the Church, do not have a temple recommend, or both. Also, as I observed in the comment threads of a previous post on this blog, one of the forremost reasons for this change is likely to continue the process of creating greater Churchwide unity and uniformity in policies, procedures, and practices. For that reason, I welcome this change. As soon as I heard about it, I knew it was inpsired by the Lord.
In other temple news, the Oakland California Temple is being prepared to welcome visitors during its' 3-week open house (which is set to be held from this Saturday, May 11, through Saturday June 1, excluding the relevant Sundays. Reportedly, Elders Quentin L. Cook and Gary E. Stevenson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (the latter of whom serves on the Temple and Family History Executive Council) are in Oakland this week to lead the preliminary tours.
Church leaders also announced earlier today that full-time missionaries preparing to return home will be pre-approved to attend BYU-Pathway Worldwide. And in a first-of-its'-kind broadcast, the three presidernts of the female-led auxiliaries answered questions live in real-time during a broadcast of the BYU Women's Conference.
With those Newsroom stories noted, we now turn our attention to articles from the Church News website. Our native German apostle, Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf, recently returned from a visit to the Europe Area, and specifically included visits to Germany and Austria. Based on the report of that visit, I may consider looking further into the merits of a first temple for Austria and a third for Germany. Stay tuned on that.
In the meantime, several more articles have been published about the BYU Women's Conference, and rather than listing them all here, I'd refer you to these search results from the Church News. All stories I have not covered are well worthy of your time and attention. Aside from those, Gerry Avant takes a look back at Elder Bruce R. McConkie's "keen sense of humor". Continuing the series of articles about new leaders called to serve in April 2019, an article has been published about Elder Jorge M. Alvarado.
Elder Carl B. Cook of the Presidency of the Seventy and his wife, Lynette, spoke to young adults last night in the second of three Worldwide Devotionals for Young Adults in 2019. They focused their remarks on how to succeed in an eternal marriage. The Church News also provided coverage of Elder Holland rededicating the Memphis Tennessee Temple. And an hour ago, the Church News published an article sharing interior photos of the Oklahoma City Oklahoma Temple. I was grateful to learn about and bring these updates and my thoughts thereon to you all. I continue to monitor any and all Church news and temple developments and will do my level best to bring word of those to you all here as I learn of them.
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 enjoyoed 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.
Monday, May 6, 2019
Several Major Church News Items Reported
I have had a lifelong love for Church history, which has extended to ongoing reports of the ministry of our apostles and prophets, General Conference, and all temple developments. This blog enables me to share that love with all who read my thoughts on these developments, which are sometimes reported multiple times per day as needed.
5 comments:
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.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Hello again, everyone! I wanted to note here that my wife and I got our copy of the May 2019 Ensign today. Based on the announcement of the new Sunday School General Presidency and the release of the area leadership assignments (which both occurred last month), I am anticipating the release of the following advisers to the Church magazines for the following reasons: Brian K. Ashton (has been released from the Sunday School General Presidency), Donald L. Hallstrom (who will likely be granted emeritus status in October), and Erich W. Kopischke (who will serve in the Europe Area Presidency beginning in August). My thanks again to you all.
ReplyDeleteRemember, we got to keep taking our "vitamin pills" around conference there are rumors of changes. But it seems many of the changes have been taking place outside of conference. This shows that revelation does not just come twice a year. I think threre is a lot more coming. We got to be prepared.
ReplyDeleteWell put, Chris! We have our "prescription" from our prophet/spiritual physician, and we would do well to follow that advice. The lack of any significant changes last month in General Conference (with the exception of the policy change relating to children of same-gender couples) represented a reported effort to provide constancy in the midst of ongoing change. Elder Holland put it well in the April 2018 General Conference: "To paraphrase Ralph Waldo Emerson, the most memorable moments in life are those in which we feel the rush of revelation.1 President Nelson, I don’t know how many more 'rushes' we can handle. Some of us have weak hearts. But as I think about it, you can take care of that too. What a prophet!"
DeleteTo which I heartily say, Amen. Thank you, Chris, for taking time to comment.
You've probably already seen this, but just in case!
ReplyDeletehttps://www.ksl.com/article/46547505/location-of-latter-day-saint-temple-in-saratoga-springs-announced
SARATOGA SPRINGS — The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced the location of a new temple that will be constructed in Saratoga Springs.
The temple will be located in the new Beacon Pointe subdivision, west of Redwood Road and north of Meadow Side Drive, according to a Tuesday news release. The temple will be three stories and approximately 87,000 square feet. A 21,000 square-foot meetinghouse will be constructed nearby.
The church filed preliminary plans with the city that deal with open space plans, "including landscaping, parking, utilities, transportation and other site-related issues," the news release reads.
The plans also detail general design principles and uses. Specific plans are still under development, and renderings of the new temple are not yet available. A groundbreaking date has not yet been set.
Utah is currently home to 17 temples, and three more were recently announced in Layton, Tooele Valley and Washington County — in addition to the one in Saratoga Springs.
The Saratoga Springs temple was first announced two years ago in April 2017 by then-Latter-day Saint President Thomas S. Monson. Latter-day Saints believe temples are sacred buildings where they can draw closer to God.
Michael
Michael, thank you for stopping by to share that. Because I have been inundated lately with several spam calls, I have set quiet hours on my phone for around 10-12 hours at night. As a result, it was only because I happened to look at my phone that I caught word of this development around the same time KSL reported it. In the interim, I have done a new post focused on this news, and I am hoping to revisit my thoughts yet again about announced temples in general and my specific estimates for known temple events in particular. In the meantime, I published a new post focused on this news before I actually had a chance to read your comment.
ReplyDeleteBut it is wonderful to see that the Church has confirmed the location. I am betting the next 3 temples for which groundbreaking ceremonies may be set will be the Brasilia Brazil, Richmond Virginia, and Saratoga Springs Utah Temple. I am not ruling out the prospect that other temples could unexpectedly have a groundbreaking, but these 3 seem closest to the top of that list, if they are not right at the top thereof. In the meantime, thank you, Michael, for taking time to comment. Exciting times ahead for sure.