Clarification on My General Conference Predictions

Hello again, everyone! As some of you might be aware, beginning about 2 years ago, I somehow inadvertently offended someone on Wikipedia. As a result of that, since that time, I have been harassed both on and off Wikipedia, most notably by trolls who continue to this day to use phony accounts on Wikipedia to harass me or generally make nuisances of themselves. Unfortunately, whoever is behind those efforts is very clever, and is using multiple false accounts of various names.

A few of them have even attempted to spoof names of some of my fellow editors, or by using the names of various general leaders of the Church. The names change, but the abuse by those who operate those accounts is the same. As a result, I have had to take some drastic measures on Wikipedia (including having several others keep their eyes out for those types of accounts in the history of pages I visit) and trying to be more discerning with the comments on this blog. 

2 days ago, I had a new comment posted here by President Russell M. Nelson To my knowledge, the senior Brethren of the Church haven't habitually followed personal blogs, and have never commented on them, which is understandable given the heavy loads they carry. Something about the comment didn't seem right, and given the fact that the names of senior apostles in the Church had been invoked in user accounts on Wikipedia to disrupt page content, I had to make a quick call about whether to keep it or not. At the time, I deleted it because something about it didn't seem right to me.

But if it was a genuine comment from the prophet, then it should be retained here in some form. I am posting a copy of the comment, just in case it is genuine, along with some additional information from me. President Nelson, if that really was a genuine comment from you, I apologize if I was unnecessarily suspicious of it, and I hope that the explanation that follows this reproduction of that comment might be illuminating to you and to all my other readers:

So, at 10:02 AM on February 25, 2022, at 10:02 AM, President Russell M. Nelson posted the following comment:

"Please do not make predictions about the upcoming General Conferences. You are not in a position to know what decisions may or may not be made. Do no make predictions about matters that you cannot possibly know about.

"When I was a heart surgeon, it was always dangerous to make predictions about what may or may not happen in a surgery. It's even more dangerous to make unfounded predictions about spiritual matters. You might lead new converts to trust in your opinion, instead of following the prophet. I know that you love the Lord and His Church too much to continue to do that.

"Thank you for your thoughtful, faith inspiring blog. In my 97 years, I've never seen a better example of a faithful Latter-day Saint.

"Sincerely,

"President Russell M. Nelson"

I bolded the errors which I believe point to this being a troll omment rather than a genuine one from the prophet, on which grounds I deleted that comment. 

But if it was genuine, I appreciate the kind words offered. Some of the things said reminded me of what the Prophet Joseph Smith said about the destiny of the Church being something the other men of his day knew no more about than a babe on its' mother's lap. At the same time, I have been creating such predictions for my own personal use since around 2007, and have publicly posted them since turning this blog's focus from personal updates to being almost completely focused on the Church. 

The point is valid: In general, I have no idea what decisions have been/will be made, who will speak and when they might do so, what changes will be made in general Church leadership, what the statistical report for 2021 might look like, or the full list of locations for which the Church will announce a temple in April. 

So for me to suggest in any way that each set of predictions will be 100% accurate would be foolish on my part. At the same time, beginning with the General Conferences held under President Hinckley, each General Conference followed specific patterns that were fairly easily analyzed so that a general framework for each subsequent conference emerged. 

Based on those patterns, I started keeping files of multiple documents relating to the general leaders of the Church. At a glance, I can give information on which members of the First Presidency conducted and spoke at any General Conference from April 1995 through now. I also track the most recent conferences in which each current member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles has spoken in each General Conference session. 

And I have other documents showing information about the first time each current GA Seventy spoke in each General Conference, and when each GA Seventy last did so. That information has similarly been compiled for members of the current Presidency of the Seventy and the Presiding Bishopric. I've also tracked information about the speaking history for General Officers of the Church during President Nelson, and the particulars of each Women's Session in terms of who has conducted and spoken at each. As President Nelson reminded us in 2018, "Good inspiration is based on good information."

Based on the data in those files, which continues to expand, I have a rough idea of which leaders are likely to speak and when. But I have never once been 100% accurate on that, so I hope no one is taking those projections as gospel. The prophet is the one who ultimately discerns who speaks when and for how long, under the inspiration of the Spirit. 

And quite honestly, the process of predicting the speakers has been even more challenging under President Nelson, who has given us 8 General Conferences thus far that have each uniquely differed from the "usual patterns" I noticed in General Conferences overseen by Presidents Hinckley and Monson. 

As such, they should not at all be taken as gospel, and anyone who puts their faith in those or in myself as the predictor thereof is misguided. I have found myself paying even more attention to General Conferences since President Nelson became the prophet because, even with my best projections, I'm bound to be surprised multiple times over that one weekend. 

Similarly, I have never been fully accurate in predicting the changes in general Church leadership or the exact figures on the statistical report.  And I've been clear about the fact that some of the temples being announced caught me off guard. Temples for India, Russia, mainland China, and the Middle East were announced long before I thought that would ever happen. And Vitoria Brazil last time wasn't anywhere on my radar. 

Having linked to the files of information I keep for General Conferences, I hope that helps explain my process more thoroughly.  Let me clearly state this again: I have no inside sourcing or special access to inside information that would qualify me to pass off these predictions as anywhere close to doctrinally correct. If I were to attempt to do so, and someone was led away from the Church because of such assertions, I'd stand accountable before the Lord for that in the final judgment. 

I am just as likely to be wrong about any of these predictions as I am to be right. And I will gratefully and joyfully report any flaws in my thinking as they are proven to be incorrect. Anyways, hope this explanation is helpful to all who read it. I still am not sure whether that comment was genuinely from the prophet or not, and although I have my doubts, I am honored by the thought that he might have weighed in here. 

I hope no one who reads my blog here is taking my thoughts on this as having any authority of any kind because that's not the case. What I do is the best research I'm capable of, followed by waiting to find out if anything I have predicted is correct. With that said, I invite us all to tune in to General Conference to see how accurate I might be. 

In the meantime, 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 adhere to the the established guidelines.  I hope any of you who would like to share anything will take your opportunity to “sound off” in the comments below. 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.