Hello again, everyone! With just a few days of 2022 remaining, I do plan to provide my traditional year-end temple construction progress review and a look back at major developments covered there this year, and a look ahead to those projects I have planned for next year. But in the interim, I wanted to provide my initial predictions for the April 2023 General Conference.
Since we likely won't get an announcement on the plans for the Saturday Evening Session until February, the predictions for the potential speaker lineup includes a projection that the third session of General Conference will be another general one for all members and friends of the Church. I have also allowed for the possibility that President Nelson could either be the first or last speaker in the first session.
Additionally, it's worth noting that the Church has continued to ask more of the female General Officers of the Church to speak. The two counselors in the Relief Society General Presidency spoke in October, meaning that Sister Camille N. Johnson might be the only one from that presidency to speak this time around.
Sister Tracy Y. Browing spoke in October, and Amy A. Wright spoke six months earlier alongside Sister Susan B. Porter when Sisters Porter and Wright were serving as counselors to Sister Johnson. It seems more likely to me that Sister Porter will again speak this time around since she has not spoken since her call as Primary General President.
So if one member apiece speaks from the Primary and Relief Society General Presidencies, it is more likely that two representatives from the Young Women General Presidency will speak this time around. That is especially true since the current Young Women General Presidency are anticipated to be released in the upcoming General Conference.
So because Sister Michelle D. Craig spoke during the October 2022 General Conference, I think the other two outgoing members of the Young Women General Presidency will speak. I also believe that, since the Young Men General President spoke in October and the Sunday School General President spoke in April of this year, that the First Counselor in the Sunday School General Presidency, Brother Milton Camargo, will represent the male General Officers.
It's also worth noting that in the April General Conferences of 2021 and 2022, there were no speakers from the Presiding Bishopric. While that trend could continue, I have felt impressed that Bishop W. Christopher Waddell might speak this go-round, and if he does, he is likely to do so in the final session of General Conference.
As far as the Presidency of the Seventy is concerned, regarding the current 7 members, Elder Carl B. Cook was the one who spoke least recently (he did so in April 2019). Due to subsequent changes to the Presidency of the Seventy, the next least-recent speaker was Elder Carlos A. Godoy, who spoke in October 2020. So I see three possible scenarios for the Presidency of the Seventy:
First, it is possible that changes that will take effect in August of 2023 in conjunction with area leadership changes may be presented in advance for a sustaining vote. If that happens, one of the incoming members could speak. If no changes are presented, either Elder Cook could speak this time around, or the Church could skip the Presidency of the Seventy until October 2023.
It's also worth noting that, with the exception of Elder David S. Baxter (who is still reportedly on medical leave from his Church assignments and who last spoke in April of 2012), all of the General Authority Seventies who last spoke in the 5 General Conferences before the one in October 2015 have spoken again recently.
So, as reflected in my predictions for General Authority Seventies who will speak this time around, I have the 3 remaining GA Seventies who last spoke in October 2015, the 1 remaining who last spoke in April 2016, and the 7 who last spoke in October 2016.
The only other element of the speaker lineup I haven't mentioned relates to my predictions for the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. I am assuming that, barring anything unexpected, President Nelson will speak 3 times, President Oaks will do so twice (when taking the Sustaining of General Authorities, Area Seventies, and General OFficers into account) and President Eyring will speak once.
And for the members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, this document may illustrate how I came to the conclusion of which Quorum members would speak in each session. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them here. I will be back shortly to share my predictions for changes in general Church leadership, the numbers I calculated for the statistical report, and the updated list of locations where a temple could be announced.
In the meantime, that does it for now. All comments are, as always, welcome and appreciated on any post at any time, as long as the offered feedback is made per 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.
Please subscribe if you liked what you read here and would like to be informed of newly-added posts and comments. Thank you for the privilege of your time. Until my next post, I wish you all the best and pray that the Lord will bless you all in everything you do.
Thank you for all your hard work! I run a Fantasy Conference game and frequently check your stats. I looked at your linked google doc for your proposed speaker lineup, but I don't see any explanation on how you come to that conclusion.
ReplyDelete1) Would you be willing to share your reasonings with me?
2) Have you tracked your accuracy percentages for your speaker predictions?
Mishqueen, the proposed speaker lineup is based on using patterns from the past to predict the future. I have several documents with pertinent information. This first one shows the First Presidency speaking and conducting history from April 1995 to present:
Deletehttps://docs.google.com/document/d/1sqyLyiI5zi5m6IfdAfhJG9f3YGOmtQRYI2oZcAlZeOU/edit?usp=sharing
The following document tracks how recently each current member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles spoke in each session:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZWtBHOwQ_7Z-biPPHWEXcz2rBoaL7IdkNcERrhsghCo/edit?usp=sharing
The next document shows how recently each current member of the Presidency of the Seventy spoke in General Conference:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1c2LBd0-gtfR18ZX5AIBfYsOKMWze2FqE55JLcp8T5Nk/edit?usp=sharing
On this next document, I track the first General Conference talks given by each GA Seventy:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/18AffjECa0WoKOUBzbR2eY8VDkdYkgFW1g6ybQ5qT6h4/edit?usp=sharing
The next document shows how recently each GA Seventy last spoke in General Conference:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/18gJySuULYvhJTO8LrkfKdu_aD1iHJJ5yc_VRtE6Jnuo/edit?usp=sharing
The following two documents show data on the Presiding Bishopric's recent speaking opportunities:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qRAkmpgi2woFTqdMqWlTnU9Qw-lv87LGY-6W15dFbHs/edit?usp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hRNl5QenvMz7TVqY1GXjs8XlLnxKDY0GJti9yTTcEZ8/edit?usp=sharing
And the final document I want to share shows the speaker history for General Officers of the Church during President Nelson's tenure:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/14M3PTqcmoSCXrOV3g8joNFxh3mTs2xXYZ3uveP6dy4k/edit?usp=sharing
So all I have to do is look at the data in each of those documents, note the patterns of the past, and configure which general Church leaders will speak in each position and session based on those patterns and based on, in general, how many speakers there have traditionally been in each session. Hope these explanations help. On Thursday night of this week, I will have the final version of these predictions posted on this blog. Thanks for your inquiry, and please let me know if you have any follow-up questions.
Mishqueen, I just realized I didn't address your second question. I explained the scoring in detail in the following post:
Deletehttps://stokessoundsoff.blogspot.com/2022/10/update-post-conference-documents.html
As far as my overall accuracy for these predictions, that usually ranges between 60-80%. Again, please let me know if you have any other questions.
Thank you so much, James! I have about a 90% accuracy rate for Aux & 70s, but am struggling to get my Q15 rate up over 60%, max. I will see what I can find from your docs, but I do have the historical speaking patterns in a sortable spreadsheet. I suspect my shortcoming is in how to interpret thst data.
DeleteI was happy to be able to provide that to you. It was customary under Presidents Hinckley and Monson for the prophet to speak in at least 4 of the 5 sessions, with 2 of those talks being shorter to open and close each conference. Their counselors customarily spoke 2 or 3 times (with the counselors alternately leading the sustaining process for whichever counselor has 3 talks). But that's been thrown out the window. Lately, President Nelson has spoken to open each conference (though starting with last conference, he was seated to delivery his remarks, so he concluded the Saturday Morning Session rather than opening it) and to close each conference, with his 1 longer talk being given in the Sunday Morning Session.
DeleteSimilarly, the counselors in the First Presidency under Presidents Hinckley and Monson alternated between being the last speaker in the Saturday Morning Session (with that continuing under President Nelson, albeit President Oaks opened the Saturday Morning Session last time instead of closing it) and the first speaker in the Sunday Morning Session (under President Nelson, whichever counselor did not speak Saturday Moring is now the first speaker in the Sunday Afternoon Session). And now the counselors just give one major talk each (with President Oaks leading the sustaining in April and President Eyring doing so in October).
The standard patterns of how many apostles speak in each session was similarly standardized under Presidents Hinckley and Monson. Under those two prophets, 2 apostles spoke Saturday Morning, with 4 that afternoon, 1 in the Saturday Evening Sessions, 2 Sunday Morning, and the final 3 Sunday Afternoon. Under President Nelson, that has changed a bit, with the new general standard being 3 apostles speaking Saturday Moring, Saturday Afternoon, and Sunday Morning, 1 speaking Saturday Evening (which has been the concluding address for that session during the 2 conferences held last year), and the final 2 members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles speaking in the final session.
The Church is now having 4 female General Officers speak each conference, and one male leader (alternating between the Sunday School and Young Men General Presidency members). With 4 female speakers every 6 months, one of the three female-led general presidencies will have two speakers. One member of the Presidency of the Seventy has spoken each conference under President Nelson (it was a standard 2 under Presidents Hinckley and Monson), and every second or third conference, the Church does not call upon any members of the Presiding Bishopric to speak.
For the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, I usually look at each session individually, sort the Quorum members from least recent to most recent speeaker in each session, then test 2 or 3 scenarios for the next General Conference. I've found it is not always true that the apostles speaking in each session are automatically the ones who have spoken least recently in that session. Also, some apostles have gone 5 or 6 conferences without speaking in one of the sessions. So that makes the Quorum of the Twelve a little more challenging to predict. The entirety of my predictions usually score a 60-80% accuracy rate, but I haven't calculated the accuracy percentage for the speaker lineups specifically. Instead, that overall accuracy includes a joint percentage for all three documents on which I have General Conference predictions.
Hope these additional observations are helpful. Thanks again, Mishqueen, for inquiring about this. Please let me know if you have any other questios.
This is great, thank you. I had figured out the first parts of that breakdown but the middle was *very helpful.
DeleteI had also seen a clear pattern on the pasr of 70s speakers in the following categories:
Newly Called (announced in April, speak starting in October)
Presidency of 70s (I've been guessing the two names who haven't spoken for longest)
Haven't spoken in a Long Time (I've noticed a few speak or pray)
Nearing Emeritus Status (speak or pray somewhere when their 70th birthday is getting close)
BUT this last conference threw me for a loop! I got more Q15 correct than usual (opening and closing sessions I got perfect lineup), but very few 70s (which is usually my higher accuracy). I noticed a large handful of those who did speak, do *not belong to one of those 4 groups. This happens occasionally with prayers, but it's a new thing for speakers. Do you have an idea of why they were chosen? They also seemed to be pretty high in the alphabet (A-C last names, except for J.Rasband), though that might be a coincidence.
Second question; do you know how prayers figure into the patterns? In some ways it seems they mirror speaker patterns, in other ways I feel they must have their own pattern I haven't caught yet.
Third question: Saturday evening was the shortest ever. I noticed it had dropped to 1.5 hours a little while ago, but this one was only 1 hr. Do you think that's just the norm now, or do you think they just didn't fill in Holland's missing spot? He wouldn't have spoken for a full half hour, at any rate.
Thanks for everything!
So, a couple of thoughts. Per those documents, Elder Corbitt (prior to his call as a GA Seventy) was the next in line to speak from the Young Men General Presidency. They may have asked him to do so first, then called him as a GA Seventy after but kept his assignment to speak.
DeleteI'm reasonably certain that the only reason the Saturday Evening Session was so short is because Elder Holland, who would have spoken during that session, was not able to attend. Rather than rearranging several other speakers or calling on more to speak, the decision was made to just shorten the session.
On the Presidency of the Seventy, only one current member has spoken per conference under President Nelson. It looks like the Presiding Bishopric members may only speak in October going forward.
I don't predict the prayers at all (that would be like trying to predict the music) but have noted some correlation between speaking opportunities and prayers.
With Elder Corbitt speaking last weekend, that leaves 4 new GA Seventies for October. We also have seen the Church skip a group of General Officers. This time, we didn't hear from anyone in the Primary General Presidency (again, I'm counting Elder Corbitt for the Young Men General Presidency, since I believe they asked him to speak before calling him as a GA Seventy).
With those who spoke last weekend, we now have 1 GA Seventy who las spoke in 2012 (Elder David S. Baxter has been on personal or familial medical leave since around 2014-2015 dure to his cancer and then his wife's subsequent illness and passing.)
We have 10 other GA Seventies who last spoke in April or October 2017, and I'd anticipated most of them may speak in October. I'm not going to say more on the this for now, as I need to run the accuracy calculations for my predictions from this weekend and get working on my predictions for October. Stay tuned for those reports, and thanks again for your interest.