Hello again, everyone! This will just be a quick post to pass along what verification I have relating to the dedication of the Fortaleza Brazil Temple earlier today by Elder Ulisses Soares, our native Brazilian apostle. First, the Brazilian Newsroom on the Church's official website shared an article describing how Elder Soares, accompanied by the Brazil Area Presidency (Elders Marcos A. Aidukaitis, W. Mark Basset, and Adilson de Paula Parrella) met with several Brazilian journalists to discuss the history of the Church in Brazil, and to describe the purpose and significance of temples and the role that worship therein plays for members of the Church around the world.
That meeting with journalists was 1 of the 4 total meetings presided over by Elder Soares, excluding the temple dedication. The other 3 were with missionaries, pioneering members of the Church in Brazil, and with the Brazilian Saints (particularly the youth) for a devotional last night. Elder Soares took time to reminisce about his family's conversion to the Church, how his parents and many of his siblings were sealed in the temple while he was on his full-time mission, and how he was given permission to join other missionaries and their families (including his own) at the temple so the missionaries could receive their own endowments and also be sealed to their family members.
In presiding over the dedicatory services for the temple, Elder Soares became the first non-American apostle to dedicate a temple in his home country. The dedicatory sessions were also significant because they marked the first time all three sessions of the dedication for a new temple were conducted entirely in a language other than English (with sessions being conducted from beginning to end in their entirety in Portuguese). Elder Soares choked with emotion as he spoke of the honor he felt in having been assigned by President Nelson to personally preside at this event.
This was only the third temple dedication in which the dedicatory prayer was offered in a language other than English. The first was the September 2016 rededication for the Freiberg Germany Temple by then-President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, and the second was in April when Elder Dale G. Renlund gave the dedicatory prayer for the Kinshasa Democratic Republic of the Congo Temple in French. And all who participated with Elder Soares were fluent in Portuguese.
Fellow Brazilians Elder Carlos A. Godoy, who serves in the Presidency of the Seventy, was there with his wife,, as were Elders Aidiukaitis and de Paula Parrella. The only non-native Brazilian leaders in attendance were Elders W. Mark Bassett, who learned Portuguese as a result of his full-time missionary service in Guatemala, and Elder Larry Y. Wilson, who serves as the Exectuive Director of the Temple Department, having served a full-time mission in Brazil.
And the temple dedication was significant to Elder Soares for another reason: he had had a major first-hand role in finding the site on which the temple was ultimately built. The traditional cornerstone ceremony was conducted by Elder Soares at the beginning of the first session, and in addition to other Church leaders who joined him in placing mortar were several children in the congregation, in addition to some of the pioneering members of the Church in Brazil. I am grateful to have been able to find this report and bring it to you here.
I am hoping that within the next 12 hours or less, subsequent reports on this weekend's dedicatory events will be shared on both the main Newsroom and the Brazilian edition of that same page. Once I have those reports, I will be sure to pass them along here. 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.
Sunday, June 2, 2019
Fortaleza Brazil Temple Dedicated As the 164th In Operation Worldwide
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.
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Hello again, everyone! The Church's official Newsroom finally posted a story covering this weekend's dedication of the Fortaleza Brazil Temple, which you can find at the following web address:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/elder-ulisses-soares-dedicates-fortaleza-brazil-temple
My thanks once again to you all.
Posted this to Matt's blog, but this is an important step in the Seminary changes announced in March:
ReplyDeleteMore details about the changes coming to the Seminary curriculum have emerged.
Two videos are here, one is describing what is being done, what the new curriculum will be, and what it will not. The second is a panel discussion about the first. Jargon related to seminary teaching will be heard but it can be understood. Note also the names of each year will not be the book of scripture either, but that change is an exciting and major new focus.
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/si/seminary/2019-global-faculty-meeting?lang=eng&cid=email_03_06_2019_SAI_LTA_2&fbclid=IwAR3tgWC_1VXF-bbAmk2VF_XzdvyBye8YF0orlqB4lOWIk63GH6z-BdRknPc
James Anderson, thank you so much for taking time to comment, and for sharing these developments here. It is not surprising that more details are being unrolled during the remainder of this year relating to the changes in Seminary curriculum and the new intitiative for those 3-18 year-old Primary- and youth-aged groups within the Church. It is certainly an exciting time to be alive, since so much is being done to further unify the Church and standardize its' programs, policies, procedures, music, and scripture. It is more likely than not that there will be more yet to come in terms of existing or anticipated developments, in addition to anything else which may be announced going forward. Thank you again for taking time to share that here.
DeleteHello again, everyone! The Church News has released another biographical article with more information on Elder John A. McCune. You can find that article, which speaks for itself, at the following web address:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.thechurchnews.com/leaders-and-ministry/2019-06-03/general-authority-april-general-conference-elder-mccune-50043
And in another video released by the Church News, Sister Wendy W. Nelson shares her experience of meeting President Nelson, beginning a relationship with him, and some of the experiences she had which confirmed to her that marrying him was the right thing to do. It is wonderful to see these little nuggets of insights into such things being shared to a more significant degree. That article and the video accompanying it can be found at the web address below:
https://www.thechurchnews.com/leaders-and-ministry/2019-06-03/video-sister-wendy-nelson-marrying-president-russell-nelson-50048
My thanks again to you all for your ongoing interest and support.
And the Church News also shared an article on the first Brazilian converts to the Church and the missionaries who played a role in teaching them:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.thechurchnews.com/history-revisited/2019-06-03/a-look-back-at-the-first-converts-in-fortaleza-and-what-its-taken-to-build-a-temple-there-50052
Thanks again, everyone!
Hello again, everyone! Two additional articles have been published by the Church News today. The first one shares the text of the dedicatory prayer for the Fortaleza Brazil Temple, which was offered by Elder Ulisses Soares of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and given in his native Portuguese:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.thechurchnews.com/temples/2019-06-04/brazil-fortaleza-elder-ulisses-soares-dedicatory-prayer-50056
An additional article shares the story of a Latter-day Saint woman who is one of the only women to ever have a career as an army ranger for the United States:
https://www.thechurchnews.com/members/2019-06-04/latter-day-saint-u-s-army-ranger-relief-society-50045
As always, my thanks to all of you for your continued interest and ongoing support.