UPDATED: April 2021 General Conference Predictions

Hello again, everyone! Just before 1:00 AM this morning, I published some analysis on the announced Easter devotional which will take place on Sunday April 4 during the Sunday Morning Session of General Conference. I mentioned in the course of that post that I would likely need to revise my General Conference predictions. I am posting now to confirm that I have those updates nearly completed. I have made changes to the projected speaking line-up,

Since the entire First Presidency spoke in reverse seniority order to conclude the Sunday Morning Session of the April 2018 General Conference, I determined that would likely also be true for that session this go-round. The Sunday Morning Session in April 2018 also marked the only General Conference Session in which President Nelson personally opted to conduct, so I accounted for that to likely be repeated. 

Then all that remained was to figure out which other leaders might also speak during that session. Based on my calculations, it seems likely that 2 members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles will also speak (since the aforementioned webpage that announced the upcoming devotional mentioned "apostles" as a plural rather than singular term), which left room for two other general Church leaders.

Additionally, if the entire First Presidency does speak in reverse seniority order to conlcude both the Preisthood and Sunday Morning Sessions, then Presidents Oaks and Eyring wouldn't be speaking in their customary other places (which, in a standard April General Conference, would see President Eyring be the final speaker in the Saturday Morning Session, and President Oaks speaking first in the Sunday Afternoon Session), so I needed to make alterations in those sessions as well.

Other than that, the changes should speak for themselves. I may not add footnotes to that section this go-round, unless there are any questions any of you have that would need to be addressed through notes or references. Next, given the recent announcements of new temple and mission presidents, I've also updated my document showing the likely changes in general Church leadership and have tweaked some of the information in the figures I'm projecting for the statistical report.

In relation to the changes in general Church leadership, with the Church having announced that the new mission leaders will begin serving in July and that most of the new temple leaders will begin serving in August or September, I'm anticipating that all current area seventies called to serve as mission or temple presidents will be released this time around, rather than waiting to do that until October, months after their new assignments will become effective. So those have been updated, and I'm anticipating that the newest temple leader biographies will be published either later today, tomorrow, or Saturday.

Also, there has been a need to revisit my list of locations in which a temple could be announced in April, which has invovled reprioritizing some locations and adding those which, due to recent developments, seem to have a better chance of being announced now than they did 6.5 weeks or so ago, when I first published those on my blog on February 1. As I mentioned previously, based on all that has been done to clear the queue since the October 2020 General Conference, and on all the groundbreakings that seem likely to be coming down the pike later this spring and summer, I think there is a high likelihood that a double-digit number of new temples could be announced in a couple of weeks here.

So, those are the updates I have made to these predictions. The open commenting period on them will remain in effect for the next 2 weeks, and that will wrap up on Thursday April 1, at 10:00 PM MDT, which will then give me roughly 36 hours to finalize those predictions before General Conference begins on Saturday April 3 at 10:00 AM MDT. I welcome any and all feedback any of you may have on these revisions.

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: April 2021 General Conference Sunday Morning Session Will Constitute a "Special Worship Service" for Easter Sunday

Hello again, everyone! In the comment threads on content I posted on Sunday, I had mentioned how, in reference to a First Presidency letter about the upcoming April 2021 General Conference, a mention had been made of special programming in conjunction with General Conference. When I subsequently received a request asking me to verify where the information to which I referred could be found, I wasn't able to produce such evidence, and in fact felt impressed to admit that I could have been mistaken, that I might have misundestood what had been said, and that the information itself might thus be in error.

Fast forward to just now. I was in the process of performing a final check on the various Church websites for the day, and in the course of doing so, the homepage of the Church's official website led to information about the upcoming Easter General Conference. It was specifically noted that the Sunday Morning Session would consist of a worship service that will include talks from apostles and other Church leaders specifically focused on Easter and on the Savior.

And although that is specifically going to be true for the Sunday Morning Session, other Easter-themed addresses may be given in both the Sunday Afternoon Session and also any of the three Saturday Sessions. I will do some research on my end to confirm or correct this, but I have a feeling we may only see 1 or 2 members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles speak, in addition to all 3 members of the First Presidency giving their second addresses in reverse seniority order at the end of the session. That would leave just enough room for 1 or 2 other Church leaders.

Of course, that kind of scenario also means making other adjustments, including accommodating other speakers in the usual slots that would otherwise be taken by First Presidency cousnelors. Under the current rotation for standard April General Conferences, President Eyring would be the final speaker in the Saturday Morning Session, and President Oaks would be the first speaker in the Sunday Afternoon Session. This official confirmation of the Sunday Morning Session details might change that.

I will endeavor to figure that out and post any alterations to my predictions as I am able to make them. I also continue to monitor all Church news and temple updates, and will bring you all the latest on those developments as I receive word 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.