Initial Predictions for the October 2021 General Conference

Hello again, everyone! Having just shared some preliminary notes on my initial predictions for the October 2021 General Conference, all that remains is to share my actual predictions themselves. So for this post, I wanted to share my predictions for the speaker layout, the most likely changes in general Church leadership, and my preliminary list of locations in which a temple could be announced. The commenting period for these predictions opens immediately, and will go through Thursday September 30 @ 10:00 PM MDT, at which point I will need to make any last-minute adjustments thereunto that may be needed. I look forward to your feedback.

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I am also keeping my eyes open for all Church news and temple developments, and will be sure to bring you all word of those as I become aware thereof. 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.

Preliminary Notes on My Initial Predictions for the October 2021 General Conference

Hello again, everyone! This month has been an unusual one, to be sure. The announcement of 20 new temples, with a site location and redering for 1 of those already confirmed and the announcement of changes in area leadership which will go into effect on August 1 have gieven us a lot to chew on. I was able to post the results of my April 2021 General Conference predictions a lot sooner than I traditionally have. On the flip side of that equation, we saw some delays occur that impacted the availability of the PDF version of the April magazines online. Some of the factors that led to that delay may also perhaps cause a delay in the release of the PDF version of the May editions of the magazines as well. And the Church has not yet uploaded the biographies of newly-called General Authority Seventies or the new Primary General Presidency, nor has the list of area seventies been updated. 

Above and beyond that, as Matthew Martinich reported on Saturday on the Church Growth Blog, the 2020 statistical report for the Church has not yet led to corresponding updates to the general or country-by-country or area-by-area statstical information for the Church. So it seems possible that some issue is occurring with the Church's network and internet servers on a wide scale that may be causing these delays.

So in the interim, in addition to keeping track of the latest Church news updates or reported temple developments, I have also taken time to put together the initial version of my predictions for the October 2021 General Conference. While my original intention was to just share the links to each part of those predictions with just a few observations interspersed, as I looked into what I wanted to share further, I knew I needed to devote a separate post discussing the context I wanted to go over, then follow that up with another post showing my actual predictions. So let's get right to that.

With a couple of exceptions, including the most recent General Conference, each April and October conference has conformed to some very specific standard patterns which I have used as a template for each General Conference that was not an exception. The one thing my predictions have not accounted for is what might be done with the extra time that is no longer needed for the Sustaining of General Authorities, Area Seventies, and General Officers, since any new area seventies will be presented in the General Conference Leadership Meetings.

The Church has also confirmed that the General Women's Session will be held as usual on Saturday evening. So when formulating my predictions for the speaker lineup, I had a few things to consider. Earlier this month, during the April General Conference, leaders serving outside the United States prerecorded those, which then aired live during General Conference weekend. That opens up the prospect that something similar could happen this go-round. 

Most of the General Authority Seventies I've put in the speaking order predictions are currently or will be serving outside the United States in area presidencies during this General Conference weekend, so I anticipate their remarks being prerecorded and delivered remotely. Aside from general authority seventies and the members of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, other considerations were taken into account for the Presidency of the Seventy, Presiding Bishopric, and General Officers of the Church. 

First, with reference to the Presidency of the Seventy, a little historical context might be helpful. During most of the combined periods when Presidents Gordon B. Hinckley and Thomas S. Monson served as the prophet (from 1995-2017), it was customary, more often than not, for the Church to call upon 2 currently-serving members of the Presidency of the Seventy to speak in each General Conference. During the October 2017 General Conference, the Church did not have any current members of the Presidency of the Seventy speak, instead asking Elders Richard J. Maynes and Donald L. Hallstrom, who had been released from that Presidency in August of that year, to do so instead.

Then, beginning with the April 2018 General Conference, only 1 member of the Presidency of the Seventy has been called upon to speak in each of the 6 General Conferences held between 2018 and 2020. The most recent General Conference was a slight exception to that, since we heard in the Sunday Morning Session from Elder Jose A. Teixeira (a member of the Presidency of the Seventy since August 2018) and also from Elder S. Mark Palmer (who was sustained during last General Conference to begin serving in the Presidency of the Seventy on August 1 of this year).

Other organizaions (primarily the Presiding Bishopric and each of the 5 General Presidencies of the Church) have had General Conferences since 2018 where, on a rotational basis that is hard to gauge, have not spoken in General Conference. With that in mind, my speaking order predictions project that no members of that Presidency will address us this time around. If I am incorrect on that, it's my feeling that Elder Brent H. Nielson could be called upon to speak, which might occur sometime during the Saturday Afternoon Session. But I could be wrong on both counts.

That being said, a word about the Presiding Bishopric. Beginning in October 2015, that group saw a higher-than-usual turnover. That began in October 2015, when the Presiding Bishop, Gary E. Stevenson, was one of 3 called to fill one of the 3 vacancies in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. His former First Counselor, Gerad Causse, succeeded him as Presiding Bishop, with the former Second Counselor, Bishop Dean M. Davies, becoming the First Counselor. The new Second Counselor called was then-Elder W. Christopher Waddell.

Then we came around to last October, when we learned that current First Counselor Dean M. Davies had been dealing with health issues, and was reassigned as a General Authority Seventy. The former Second Counselor, Bishop Waddell, was called as the new First Counselor, and relatively-new GA Seventy Elder L. Todd Budge was called as the new Second Counselor. Each of these changes led to anomalies in the typical rotation of speaking assignments for the Presiding Bishopric.

In October 2019, none of the members of the Presiding Bishopric spoke, and that also proved to be the case in the most recent General Conference. Of the three current members of the Presiding Bishopric, only Bishop Budge has not spoken in General Conference since his call to the Presiding Bishopric. So I figure he will do so this time around, and it seems likely that he will do so during the Sunday Afternoon Session.

That brings me to some thoughts about the General Officers of the Church. Any solid patterns in the typical rotation of general officers speaking in the general sessions of conference have been hard to pin down since President Nelson became the prophet. 5 General Officers spoke in April 2018, with only 3 doing so in each of the two General Conferences following that. In October 2019, April and October 2020, and April 2021, 4 General Officers of the Church spoke to us. While there is a possibility that 4 more could speak to us in October 2021, based on my study, I'm predicting only 3.

The possible number of General Officers speaking in the other 4 sessions are harder to predict in October because there is also the Women's Session that may factor into that. Based on my records there, this time around, I have opted to include 3 General Officers of the Church, which, along with the rest of the layout, leaves plenty of room for new General Authority Seventies to speak, but also leaves plenty of space in the layout for other General Authority Seventies who have not spoken for a while.

Having provided some notes specific to the speaking order, we move on to the list of potential changes in Church leadership. It seems likely that the 7 General Authorities who have turned 70 or will do so later this year are almost certain to be released. Similarly, each of the area seventies who are among the new mission presidents will likely be released, as will the new presidents of the Oaxaca Mexico and Denver Colorado Temples. In keeping with the usual tradition for October, I'm anticipating that there will be more releases of current area seventies than there are new area seventies sustained.

And that brings me to my last note about my initial predictions for this General Conference, potential new temples. I don't anticipate a hiatus on the announcement of new temples anytime soon, but anticipate instead that most new temples coming down the pike will be a smaller design that are more easily approved and have construction begin sooner as a result. If that happens, I don't see it as impossible to surmise that another double-digit number of new temples could be announced. I haven't yet added any new locations to the list, so I'm hoping comments on that list might yield a few more candidate cities I can add.

That concludes my preliminary notes on the predictions I have formulated for the October 2021 General Conference. The predictions themselves will be shared as three separate documents very shortly here. 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.

BREAKING TEMPLE NEWS: First Presidency Announces Additional Temple Reopenings

Note: This post was originally published at 9:29 AM, with additional analysis added at arund noon MDT.

Hello again, everyone! As reported by the Newsroom and corroborated through the Church News main article and temple status tracker, the First Presidency has announced information on temple reopenings that will take effect in the next few weeks. In view of my not feeling well earlier today, I have had to defer analysis on these developments to now. So let's go into detail about the changes reported today.

On May 3 (one week from today), the Lisbon Portugal Temple will move to phase 2, allowing all living ordinances where proper COVID-19 protocols are followed. The priority will be given first to living husband-and-wife sealings where both are previously endowed, then to living ordinances for those preparing to be married who have not been previously endowed, then to those already out in the mission field who commenced their service prior to being able to receive their own endowments, then to those prosepctive missionaries planning to enter the field soon who need to receive their own endowment, then to anyone else who may need to receive their own endowments for any otheer reason.

Meanwhile, the Kansas City Missouri and Londoon and Preston England temples are set to transition from phase 2 to phase 3 in two weeks (on Monday May 10). Phase 3 allows the performance of all living ordinances in the same priority order as phase 2, but also allows ordinance work to be done for the dead on an appointment-based schedule, with constraints and protocols in place for the safety of all who worship at the temple. Members living within the districts for any of these temples can schedule proxy ordinance work through the Church's online scheduling for each of these temples.

If these were the only updates for this week, that would be tremendous enough, but there's more to report here as well. Also on May 10, the Church has noted that 27 more temples will transition to phase 2-B. That phase allows living ordinances in the same priority order as other phase 2 temples, but it also opens the baptistries in certain temples for scheduled proxy work. Among those 27 temples opening in phase 2-B on May 10 are the following, sorted by the geographical area of the Church under which they fall: 

Caribbean: Port-au-Prince Haiti

Central America: Panama City Panama; Tegucigalpa Honduras<

Mexico: Guadalajara, Monterrey, Tampico, and Veracruz

North America Central: Nauvoo Illinois

North America Northeast: Indianapolis Indiana

North America Southeast: Atlanta Georgia, Birmingham Alabama, Columbia South Carolina, Louisville Kentucky, Raleigh North Carolina

North America Southwest: All 4 Texas Temples (Dallas, Houston, Lubbock, and San Antonio); Oklahoma City Oklahoma

North America West: All 7 temples in California (Fresno, Los Angeles, Newport Beach, Oakland, Redlands, Sacramento, San Diego)

Philippines: Cebu City

Aside from these reopening updates, the Church announced today as well that 2 temples that had reached phase 3 (Halifax Nova Scotia and Suva Fiji) are having their reopenings paused due to COVID-19 regulations and governmental restrictions.

As of next Monday (May 3), the Church will have 8 temples closed for major renovations (3 of which, Mesa Arizona, Salt Lake, and St. George Utah, allow for phase 2-B scheduling at nearby temples for those within those temple districts); 1 temple (Kyiv Ukraine) which has not yet reopened at all since last year's closure of all operating temples; 12 temples paused in their reopenings (2 in phase 3, 9 in phase 2, and 1 in phase 1); 4 temples remaining in phase 1; 67 in phase 2; 52 in phase 2-B; and the remaining 24 in phase 3. One week after that (on Monday May 10), with the additional changes noted, while the other data noted above will not change, there will then be 27 temples open in phase 3 and 76 others in phase 2-B, which will then leave 40 temples in phase 2.I am grateful to have been able to learn of these updates and to have passed them along to you all here. I continue to monitor all Church news updates and temple developments and will be sure to pass those along to you all as I become aware of them.

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.

BREAKING NEWS: First Presidency Announces 2021 Area Leadership Assignments

Note: This post was initially published on April 21, 2021 at 9:47 AM, with subsequent updates added thereunto at roughly 2:15 PM.

Hello again, everyone! As reported by both the Church News and the Newsroom, the First Presidency has announced the changes in area leadership that will become effective on August 1. Although it escaped my notice at the time I originally posted content about those changes this morning, it appears that the Church News report was actually shared today, and that the Newsroom report may hve been retroactively dated two days ago (April 19). 

As announced during the Saturday Afternoon Session of General Conference, Elders Robert C. Gay and Terence M. Vinson will be released from the Presidency of the Seventy, with Elders Paul V. Johnson and S. Mark Palmer filling the resulting vacancies. That, in turn, may necessitate a change in the Commissioner of Church Education (unless the Church asks Elder Johnson to continue to serve in that capacity while serving in the Presidency of the Seventy), and it also obviously necessitated a change in the Africa South Area Presidency.

I have taken time to analyze the changes in two different ways. And I am pleased at this time to present those two forms of analysis. The first shows an alphabetical list of all the general authority seventies (along with the two area seventies) who are mentioned by name in this year's area assignments. And the scond document shows the changes to each area presidency, with those areas listed in alphabetical order.

Aside from that information, the documents (and the applicable changes) largely speak for themselves. If any of you have any questions on those documents, feel free to ask about that here. In the meantime, I continue to monitor all Church news updates and reported temple developments, and remain committed to bringing word of those to you all here as I become aware thereof.

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.

BREAKING TEMPLE NEWS: Location Confirmed and Rendering Released for the Helena Montana Temple

Hello again, everyone! When 20 new temples were announced in General Conference a couple of weeks ago, I had personally theorized that most of those would be smaller temples, for which approvals could move quickly and official information might come down the pike more quickly than their recently-announced counterparts. But even in view of that statement, I couldn't imagine how quickly that would start occurring.

The site location has been confimed and the rendering released for the Helena Montana Temple. The single-story temple will be approximately 10,000 square feet in area, with single central spire. The chosen site is located at 1260 Otter Road in Helena, and the temple will be built on 4.8 acres of land. Project leaders have begun working with city leaders through the approvals process. A groundbreaking date will be set once the appropriate approvals are granted.

Given the quick turnaround for this temple, I'd anticipate a groundbreaking in mid-2021 or mid-to-late 2021 at latest. And if the other 19 temples are similarly-sized, official information could be released for quite a few of those in the future as well. I'd also anticipate work will continue to be done to clear temples that have been in the queue for a while. This is a tremendous development, and I'm grateful to have been able to learn about it and pass it along to you all here.

I continue to monitor all temple developments and Church news updates and will be sure to bring word of those to you all here as I become aware of it.

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.

POTENTIAL BREAKING NEWS: Preliminary Information Unofficially Revealed About the Russia Temple?

Hello again, everyone! In several previous posts (and various comment threads thereof this year and last year), I had mentioned several temples on which I was keeping my eyes for more offical information. For most of those temples, I listed them by their specific names. But I also mentioned that at least one of the temples for which extensive delays in the approvals process were anticipated was on my watchlist for more information in the near term. I didn't identify that temple by name at any point in recent mentions because I didn't have anything official to pass along about that

Fast forward to a short time ago. I have periodically checked the Church's official temple list for any information that has not otherwise been officially confirmed, and I felt impressed to check that again within the last half-hour. I pulled up the list of 48 announced temples. At my last check, that list had not included the 20 new temples announced by President Nelson almost two weeks ago. But when I checked it today, not only were all 48 announced temples listed, but where it had previously listed the Russia Temple, there is now text that reads "Russia Administration Building".

The text for that entry on the list of temples potentially gives us more details on the temple planned for Russia than we've had since that prospect was first announced in General Conference 3 years or so ago. And it suggests to me that perhaps the Church will be successful in getting approval for a Russian mulltipurpose building that includes the temple perhaps more swiftly that would be true if the temple was the only thing planned.

And with the headquarters of the Europe East Area being Moscow Russia, I could see a scenario where the Church takes a similar approach to doing in Russia what has been done previously in Tokyo Japan and what is being planned for Shanghai China, where a multipurpose building would serve as a home base for the area and mission offices, for meetinghouse spaces, and for rooms that could be used for temple worship.

I need to be very clear here that this is no more and no less than a hypothetical theory on my part based on what I'm seeing on the page where the announced temples are listed. It could just as easily be true that the name or specification here is a placeholder, and/or that there will be more work ahead for the Church to do in order to get the temple (and anything else in Russia) approved. When official information is released, that will be the confirmation of the details which are currently lacking.

If nothing else, at least it's a working theory based on what I am seeing on that list, and what I have heard from a couple of sources on my end. I will be most intrigued to see what happens in terms of temple developments in the days, weeks, and months ahead, even if the theory I have posited here turns out to be misguided or ill-conceived on my part. Stay tuned for more informaiton on this (and any other Church news or temple developments) as I become aware of those.

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.

BREAKING TEMPLE NEWS: Groundbreaking Set for Tallahasse Florida Temple

 Hello again, everyone! Within the last half hour, breaking temple news has been reported. I have previously mentioned that the smaller US temples generally get more swift approval than their international counterparts. The breaking news relates to one of those small temples. Groundbreaking arrangements have been announced for the Tallahassee Florida Temple. The groundbreaking is set to take place in June. As hax been the case with all groundbreakings held during the COVID-19 pandemic, only a general window has been set for the groundbreaking.

That event will occur sometime in June. I believe this marks the first time since the Hinckley-era smaller temples were bu8ilt that more than one temple groundbreaking occcurred in June. Elder James B. Martino, the President of the North America Southeast Area, will preside at that groundbreaking, with COVID-19 protocols leading to a limited in-person attendance. It will be interesting to see when exactly in June that groundbreaking occurs, since the Syracuse Utah Temple groundbreaking is also set to occcur that month.

Based on the temple's previously-announced location, size, and rendering, I imagine that, at most, the temple will take roughly 2-2.5 years to complete. Coverage on this morning's announcement was also shared in the Church News. Full disclosure here: I honestly wasn't expecting the announcement on the Tallahassee Florida Temple to be the next announced groundbreaking. 

Based on the information I had as recently as last night, I was anticipating the next groundbreakings announced would be, in any order, for the Lindon Utah and Pittsburgh Pennsylvania Temples, along with potentia announcemnts for the Pago Pago American Samoa and Neiafu Tonga Temples, before Tallahassee would even be on the horizon.

That being said, I am grateful the Lord continues to prove that His ways and thoughts are higher than mine. And the previous opinons I offered were always subect to official confirmation, clarification, or correction by the Brethren when official announcements come down the pike. With all of that being said, I'm grateful to have learned of this news and to be able to pass it along to you all here.

I continue to monitor all other Church news and temple updates, and will bring you all word of those as I become aware thereof. 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.

UPDATE: Results of My April 2021 General Conference Predictions

Hello again, everyone! Finding myself with some down time this evening, I took the opportunity to analyze my predictions for the April 2021 General Conference and to score the results. I wound up scoring those with a slightly-larger margin of error than usual. That is because I couldn't have anticipated that the Church would have general authorities outside the United States prerecord remarks that were given during that General Conference, nor could I have anticipated that the entire Sunday Morning Session would consist of international speakers and President Neelson. 

Smiliarly, I could not have anticipated that the newly-called aarea seventies would be presented in advance of the General Conference weekend. I also had no way to know that the Church would sustain the new members of the Presidency of the Seventy in advance, or that the only area seventies released would be those called as General Authority Seventies. And I definitely couldn't firmly gauge the full impact of COVID-19 on the Churchwide growth (or lack thereof) for the last year.

With all of that in mind, I want to share a look at the scoring information for wthose predictions. As z refresher course, especially for those following along with these results for the first time, for every predictable element, I utilize a 3-point scale. For the section wherein speakers and those conducting each session are listed, if I had the right person in the right slot in the right session, that was 3 points. Some examples of that would be my correct prediction that President Oaks would conduct the first session, and that the first two speakers would be President Nelson and Elder Uchtdorf. So that would be 3 points for each of those correct predictions.

A 2-point score was assigned where I had the correct individual(s) in the correct session(s), but not in the right order. Examples of that are the other two apostles who spoke in the Saturday Morning Session. Although I successfully predicted all 3 apostles, I had Elders Stevenson and Gong in the wrong order in that session. Meanwhile, 1 point was given for getting a speaker correct at any point in the General Conference, even though those individuals were not placed in the correct session and order in which they wound up speaking.

An example of that would be that I predicted the entire First Presidency would speak at the end of the Sunday Morning Session, but Presidents Oaks and Eyring spoke in their custmoary slots. So I was correct about them speaking, but not about when that would happen. Meanwhile, for anything that occurred which was not predicted, in most cases, that resulted in a score of 0. I mentioned "in most cases" because I did allow a slight margin of error on the predictions, given everything I could not have possibly predicted.

That said, on to the changes in Church leadership. Although the changes in the Presidency of the Seventy were not predicted, I gave myself 1 point for correctly predicting that Elder Palmer would be one of the two new members called whenever the change occurred. I also correctly predicted new general authorities, changes in area seventies, and a new Primary General Presidency, and the Church leadership changes were also scored on a curve.

For the statistical report, each element was worth 3 points. If I was within a fair margin of error (such as for the total number of missions and congregations), I scored those two elements as fully accurate. The children of record, convert baptisms, full-time and Church service missionaries were scored on a slight curve since those numbers were unpredictable. And I was fully correct on the total number of temples dedicated, rededicated, and in operation.

And finally, for the temple predictions, if I correctly predicted the exact location for any of the new temples, a score of 3 points were given for each of those. For the rest (where I had the right state or nation, but the wrong exact city), each of those were worth 2 points. As mentioned in the document showing my scoring breakdown, the overall percentage of accuracy on these predictions came out to 64.61%, putting me in the lower end of my usual range of 60-80& accuracy.

Hopefully everything I have laid out here makes sense to you all. Feel free to ask for clarification on anything that may be confusing. I would also just add that I antiicipate the annouoncement of new area leadership assignments for this ear to be made any day now. If that doesn't happen tomorrow, it will probably occur towards he mid-to-late part of next week. Hopefully I can get my list of the most likely changes that could be announced published to this blog before the announcement is offiicially made, but we'll have to see what happens there.

I also continue to monitor all Church news reports and temple updates and will be sure to bring you all word of those as I become aware thereof. 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..

Documnts Relating to the April 2021 General Conference

Hello again, everyone! I am still working on scoring my General Conference predictions before I share those results here, and I anticipate that within the next week or two (if not sooner), we will see the Church announce the area leadership assignments that will go into effect on August 1. So I am in the process of preparing a document to show the most likely changes I believe will be announced in area assignments. In the interim, with the transcripts from General Conference addresses now available, I was able to gather some information and make some updates to information I have previously provided. So I will share those updates in this post.

First up, we have the customary document showing the length of each talk given by each of the 15 apostles who spoke to us this weekend. I've also updated the total number of talks given by each apostle, along with the relevant grand totals thereof.

And although it might be a little early to consider this, I also had time to put together a document showing what I believe the table of contents for the May 2021 Liahona may look like. I'd just add that, with the release of the three new global magazines that began this year, the new magazines have been shorter than their previous counterparts, but I don't believe that will apply to the General Conference edition. And with the Church no longer reading either the Statistical Report or the list of newly-sustained area seventies over the pulpit, there will need to be more room in the magazine for that content.

I will publish the results of my General Conference predictions once I have those analyzed, and will also provide my thoughts on area leadership changes, both in advance of and following the offical release of those changes as soon as I can make that happen. I also continue to monitor all Church news and templ developments and will pass word of htose along to you all as I become aware of them.

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.

BREAKING NEWS: General Conference Talk Transcripts Are Now Available

Hello again, everyone! This is a very quick breaking news update. In recent years, the Church has made video/audio versions of each General Conference talk available shortly after each session concludes, and has had the transcripts for the talks available for online viewing on Wednesday or Thursday. This post is being published to advise my readers that the transcripts from last weekend's General Conference are already available. I will be analyzing some data from that, and will be sure to post updated content based on my usual traditions (including a look at the lengths of each talk given by any of our apostles and also an update on the individual and total number of talks given by our apostles).

I will have that analysis ready to post ASAP. In the meantime, I am still working on the process of scoring the accuracy of my General Conference predictions and will also post that once I have it completed. There are also a few other projects I have coming down the pipeline which I will be detailing more fully when I have the opportunity to assess their readiness towards completion. 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.

BREAKING TEMPLE NEWS: President Nelson Announces 20 New Temples as the April 2021 General Conference Concludes

Hello again, everyone! I am still attempting to put together my thoughts on the General Conference weekend that just concluded, but I do have some breaking news to report as well. During President Nelson's concluding remarks, the prophet 20 new temples that will be built in the following locations: 

In Europe: Oslo Norway; Burssels Belgium; and Vienna Austria. In Africa: Kumasi Ghana; Beira Mozambique; and Cape Town South Africa. In Asia: Singapore, Singapore.In South America: Belo Horizonte Brazil; Cali Colombia; Queretaro and Torreon Mexico. And in the Central and Western United States: Helena Montana; Casper Wyoming; Grand Junction Colorado; Farmington New Mexico; Burley Idaho; Eugene Oregon; Elko Nevada; Yorba Linda Califronia; and Smithfield Utah.

Of those new temples, I correcttly predicted the following temple: Oslo Norway, Brussels Belgium, Vienna Austria,, Kumasi Ghana, Cape Town South Africa, Singapore City Singapore, Belo Horizonte Brazil, Cali Colombia, Queretaro and Torreon Mexico,  Eugene Oregon, Elko Nevada

I had the following general regions correct, but not the specific locations: Beira Mozambique (I opted for Maputo), Helena Montana (I opted for Missoula), Casper Wyoming (my choice was Evanston), Grand Junction Colorado (I had Colorado Springs),  Farmington New Mexico (I had Las Cruces), Burley Idaho (I had Preston), Yurba Linda California (Bakersfield was on my list), and Smithfield. 

Apparently, I need to do even more to listen to the opinions of others. That being siad, I'm satisfied and surprised that we go a full 20, which is the new highest number of temples announced by President Nelson at one time. I very much appreciate President Nelson's prophetic dedication to bring the temples to the people. The total number of temples in any phase has now reached 251. I am grateful to have been able to learn of (and pass along) this information to you all. I continue to monitor all Church news updates and reported developments and will be sure to pass word of those along to you all here as I become aware thereof. 

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.

April 2021 General Conference Predictions Final Edition

Hello again, everyone! Now that the countdown to the Saturday Morning Session of the April 2021 General Conference is down to just over 10 hours, I have finalized my predictions for this upcoming General Conference. The document to which I linked in the previous sentence replaces the three separate documents to which I previously linked. I'd like to thank all who participated in the dialogue about these predictions in every stage thereof.

With the upcoming General Conferenc anticipated to have a key focus on Easter, it will be interesting to see what happns therein. To the best of my ability, I will keep tabs on all such news and will pass my analysis of those developments along as I am able to do so. That will include up-to-the-minute coverage of any developments that constitute breaking news. I have a feeling this will be yet another unforgettable conference for a variety of reasons that we cannot presently discern right now.

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.

BREAKING NEWS: General Conference Leadership Sessions Held with Limited In-Person Attendance; New Area Seventies Sustained in Leadership Session for the First Time

Hello again, everyone! As first reported by the Newsroom and corroborated by the Church News, the Church was able to use a mix of in-person attendance at the Church Office Building Auditorium and remote participation through technology in order to hold General Conference Leadership Sessions for the first time since April 2019. Key counsel was provided to general Church leaders by the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. The counsel is highlighted and summarized in the articles to which I linked above, and that information is well worthy of your time and attention.

But I'm focusing this post on a new standard protocol the Church will use, effective immediately, going forward, pertaining to the sustaining of Church officers. During the leadership meeting, Elder D. Todd Christofferson read a list of 77 new area seventies who have been called to serve. Following that, President Russell M. Nelson stood up and called for a sustaining vote of those named. The vote was unanimous in the affirmative. So this is a major change in the way that area seventy sustainings will take place. The Church announcement today notes that, once the list of names have been presented and unanimously sustained in the General Conference Leadership Session, during the regular Sustaining of Church Officers that is held in conjunction with General Conference weekend, Church members will be asked to sustain the new leaders as a previously-presented group.

This change is being made not only to save time in the Saturday Afternoon Session, but also to be more consistent with scripture. The Church will be releasing information about new area seventies earlier so that, as they are sustained in General Conference as a group, Church members will have some familiarity with their names, even if they don't know the individuals behind the names.

The Church has also made the new list available according to the Quorums under which each area seventy falls, which will simplify the organization of lists for those of us keeping track of that information. So with these 77 new area seventies sustained, it appears that those who are released will be the only ones mentioned by name during the usual Saturday afternoon sustaining vote.

So already in the first General Conference Leadership Session in two years, the Church has hit the ground running and announced a major change. I am not quite sure why it was Elder Christofferson who read the list and President Nelson who called for the sustaining vote, but we may find out more about that this weekend. In the meantime, this action probably takes some pressure off of Presidents Oaks and Eyring, who will no longer have to worry about potentially mispronouncing the names on the list every six months.

I am grateful to have been able to learn about this development and to pass word of it along to you all. If the General Conference Leadership Sessions yield any other major news, I will be sure to pass that information along to you all here. In the meantime, there may or may not be other major news between now and General Conference weekend, which I will pass along to you all here as I become aware of such reports.

The commenting period for my General Conference predictions will conclude at 10:00 PM tonight, so I welcome any additional feedback on those before that window closes. I have a feeling we are just seeing the beginning of signficant developments which will be reported in the coming weekend. Stay tuned for more information and analysis as I can make that happen.

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.