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.