Hello again, everyone! For my 2000th post on this blog, I am pleased to bring you word of two breaking temple developments which have been shared by the Newsroom this morning. The Church has released the location and rendering for the Pittsburgh Pennsylvania Temple, and has announced a relocation and renaming for the Tooele Valley Utah Temple. Let's get right into the breakdown of these announcements.
We start with Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. That temple will be located at the site that was widely speculated as the spot for the temple, at 2093 Powell Road in Cranberry Township Pennsylvania. The single-story temple of 32,000 square feet is currently in the approvals process, where project leaders are working with local governmental leaders through the approvals process. This is another temple announced in the United States less than a year ago (in April 2020) by Church President Russell M. Nelson. No groundbreaking has been announced for this temple, but given its' smaller size, I anticipate we could see that occur within the next 6-8 months, if not sooner.
Next, we turn our attention to the changes announced for the Tooele Valley Utah Temple. First, the big news is a change to the name of it. Although it has been known by that generic name, it has been renamed the Deseret Peak Utah Temple. And given the residential objections to the original temple plans for the Erda Utah location, the temple has now been relocated and will rise just west of the intersection of 2400 North and 400 West in Tooele City.
Although no mention is made of any accompanying residential development, it has been noted that the temple's exterior and interior renderings, in addition to the estimated size (70,000 square feet) and plans for an adjacent meetinghouse (of 20,000 square feet) remain unchanged. The Church also notes the following in the newest release on the Deseret Peak Utah Temple: "The First Presidency expresses gratitude for the faith and prayers of Church members in this area, and continues to encourage all people to treat one another with kindness and Christlike love."
I am grateful that the Church has made these announcements. With regard to the Deseret Peak Utah Temple, I also personally want to put out an apology to longtime reader Kenny, who had commented on another post 4 days ago on a rumor he had heard that the location might be changed as a result of that opposition to the residential development. At the time, based on the evidence and sources I had on my end, I shared my personal opinion that the Church would try to make the originally-announced lcoation work, and I included some sources available to me at the time that led me to assert that opinion.
Today, however, the Lord has once again confirmed that my personal research is imperfect even at the best of times, and that His ways and thoughts did not align with my personally-offered analysis. So I take this opportunity to publicly apologize to Kenny, and to also make a new commitment as we get further into this new year. Over the last little while, I have felt sufficiently confident enough in some of my personal research and reasoning to discount some earnestly-offered feedback from my regular readers.
What happened regarding my response to Kenny a few days ago is similar to what has recently happened with the announcement of Utah temples, where feedback received on suggestions for future Utah locations has turned out to trump and be more accurate than my own personally-offered estimates. Those comments, recently offered by Jim Anderson, another longtime reader, should have been given more earnest consideration and corresponding changes that I have not yet made to my personal list.
And so, recognizing these recent repeated personal follies, where my ego, pride, and attitude have led to clear evidence of how much I've missed the mark, I want to make a new commitment. When I say "any and all comments are welcome and appreciated", I will hereafter make an extra effort to be more earnest in my consideration of all such feedback, and attempt to not be so dismissive or appear so unappreciative of the feedback that is offered.
I could not possibly have gotten to this 2000th blog post milestone today without the kindness of so many of you who read, follow, and regularly comment on reports and information I share here, and it's become more obvious in recent months that some of that feedback has more merit and validity than I may have tried to suggest. I hope, going forward, to be more inclined to listen to those suggestions, and to request more information when I am uncertain on anything relating to that feedback.
In the meantime, I sincerely request forgiveness from any who have offered those comments and any who may have been put off by my short-sighted response to those suggestions. It's plain that I need to spend more time listening and less time advancing my own ideas. I also hope you all will continue to be patient with me as I try to change these elements in my life. As I begin working on the next 2000 posts and beyond, I also hope to show more profoundly the gratitutde I feel for all of you who are always so willing to read, follow, comment, and share.
I continue to monitor all Church news and temple updates and will be sure to pass those along to you all as I become aware of those developments. That does it for now. 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.
Hello again, everyone! The Church News has provided coverage of their own on today's temple updates:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.thechurchnews.com/temples/2021-01-19/pittsburgh-pennsylvania-temple-location-rendering-201996
https://www.thechurchnews.com/temples/2021-01-19/tooele-valley-temple-renamed-deseret-peak-new-location-202216
Also, in one of the subthreads of my previous post, I mentioned the Newsroom announcement of additional keynote speakers for RootsTech 2021:
https://stokessoundsoff.blogspot.com/2021/01/president-nelson-marks-three-year.html?showComment=1611078193927#c8548021546615503659
The Church News has confirmed that information as well:
https://www.thechurchnews.com/global/2021-01-19/rootstech-connect-keynote-speakers-erick-avari-sunetra-sarker-diego-lugano-202160
And the Newsroom and the Church News have provided coverage on the BYU-Provo devotional address given this morning by Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles:
https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/elder-bednar-temple-miracles-covid-19
https://www.thechurchnews.com/leaders-and-ministry/2021-01-19/bednar-byu-devotional-covenants-temples-202156
My thanks once again to you all.
I was actually surprised to see the announcement to for both temples. It seems to me the is a build up for a huge round of groundbreaking announcements coming soon.
ReplyDeleteBTW, no apology needed. We are all just trying to make our best guesses with what information we have available to us.
Kenny, thanks for your follow-up comment here. I was looking back at the data in my files here, and it appears that the confirmed spot for the Pittsburgh temple had been widely speculated as such since not long after the temple was announced in General Conference last April.
DeleteWhat surprised me was that the announced confirmation of the details for the Tallahassee Florida Temple occurred prior to the release of those for Pittsburgh, since no rumors had been floating around for Tallahassee in the same way they had for Pittsburgh.
Either way, great to have those details confirmed. I also took a look back at the timing last year between when renderings were released for smaller temples and the timing of their groundbreakings. And almost all smaller temples, whether foreign or domestic, had a rough gap of 4-8 months between when a rendering was released and a groundbreaking window.
So if we split that difference and say that smaller temples for the most part have their groundbreakings within roughly a six-month period from the release of their official information, that opens the prospect that at least the Pago Pago American Samoa, Neiafu Tonga, and Port Moresby Papua New Guinea Temples could see groundbreakings occur before the upcoming April 2021 General Conference.
But it appears that the Church is hoping to also break ground for the Syracuse Utah Temple this spring, which would also potentially put that occurring before General Conference. And given that the Bengaluru India Temple had its' groundbreaking before that of the Phnom Penh Cambodia Temple, despite the latter having its' official information released first, that the first temple in Cambodia could also see a groundbreaking before General Conference.
And the latest announcements that the newest temples in Florida and Pittsburgh will both be on the smaller side may expedite approvals in both cases. Plus, with fairly swift approvals granted for temples here in Utah County, Lindon will be something to watch as well. And I don't think we can discount the prospect that the relocation of the Deseret Peak Temple and the scaled-down plans for that project might expedite approvals there as well.
What is most impressive to me is that today's announcement on Pittsburgh means that there aren't any announced temples here in the United States that have not had some official information confirmed. That opens up the prospect of multiple US temples, and perhaps more than one here in Utah being announced in April as well.
I've also got at least 6 temples outside the United States on my radar for the relatively near future that could see official announcements soon as well, though the potential timing on subsequent groundbreakings for any of those is harder to gauge at this point.
In any case, the actions taken by the Church since General Conference just 3 months ago has helped shift the queue dramatically. If my calculations are correct here, there are 28 announced temples left in the queue, and of those, 19 lack any official information. So to have less than 20 temples in that queue is tremendous, given that President Nelson inherited a queue of 12 announced temples from President Monson, and has added 49 new temples.
Based on the way things have gone this year thus far, I have a feeling that the queue will have slimmed down even further by April, which could mean new temples announced in the double-digits.
I think that's enough to chew on for now. Thanks for your kind expressions regarding my response to your feedback. It seems to be getting more and more difficult to know what information to believe when it comes to theories about temples. Social media has correctly called the actual information for many of the temples announced here in Utah, so that will be something to watch in the days ahead. If you come across anything else helpful in that respect in the future, please feel free to share it again here. Thanks again, Kenny, for taking time to comment. It's always a pleasure to hear from you.
Today, the Church News published the following report:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.thechurchnews.com/members/2021-01-20/byu-pathway-worldwide-president-education-hasten-podcast-202006
My thanks once again to you all.
The Church News has also shared these additional reports:
Deletehttps://www.thechurchnews.com/history-revisited/2021-01-20/the-tabernacle-choir-went-to-washington-u-s-president-inauguration-202329
https://www.thechurchnews.com/living-faith/2021-01-20/young-women-general-presidency-a-great-work-youth-theme-201916
My thanks once again to you all.
Hello again, everyone! I didn't realize this until just now, but, in addition to the breaking news I reported through this post on Tuesday, two other major milestones were marked on that day as well. Both milestones relate to the age of our prophet, President Russell M. Nelson. On Tuesday, the length of President Nelson's lifespan matched that of President David O. McKay. As a result, our current prophet thus became the second-oldest prophet in Church history on Tuesday.
ReplyDeleteParenthetically, he will become the oldest-living prophet in Church history in mid-April of next year, at which time his lifespan will have been longer than that of President Gordon B. Hinckley. Also, slightly related, less than a month from now, on February 10, the prophet will additionally observe his only prophetic tenure milestone for this year.
But as far as the other milestone is concerned, on Tuesday, with President Nelson becoming the second-oldest prophet in Church history, he also became the fourth-oldest apostle in Church history as well. He is set to become the third-oldest apostle in mid-August of this year,
Just for informational purposes, less than two weeks before President Nelson's next apostolic nonagenarian milestone, President Ballard will be observing an apostolic nonagenarian milestone of his own. I will be providing some additional details and context on that with my first 2021 apostolic milestone update, which I have pre-set to publish on Sunday January 24.
That morning will also, incidentally, see the publication of another new post here, as Elder D. Todd Christofferson observes his 76th birthday. So just in terms of known developments on this blog, there's much more to come this year, as I outline in the following document:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/14Mu8uFAcyQyqskM0QiU3oToTTa-iLY6mkRVNRli2lAs/edit?usp=sharing
Stay tuned for all of those updates and more, including my April 2021 General Conference predictions, as I can put all of that together. In the meantime, my thanks once again to you all.