BREAKING TEMPLE NEWS: Exterior Rendering Released for Montpelier Idaho Temple

Hello again, everyone! On March 6, the Church announced a groundbreaking for the Montpelier Idaho Temple, but a rendering for it had not been released. Per a new update on the Church's home page for 2023 temple news, that news release has been updated to show an exterior rendering for the Montpelier Idaho Temple. 

So we now officially have a rendering for that temple. I am pleased we at least got this update. I continue to monitor all other temple construction, Church News, and Newsroom updates, and will be sure to pass those along to you all here as I become aware of them. 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.

BREAKING TEMPLE NEWS: Renovations Coming to the San Diego California Temple

 Hello again, everyone! As I mentioned at the tail end of my previous post, the Newsroom officially confirmed the dedication of the Okinawa Japan temple would occur, as specified in the Japanese Newsroom release. It also specified that  Elder Gary E. Stevenson will preside at that temple's dedication. That is fitting and proper since Elder Stevenson served his mission in Japan, later served as a mission president in that same nation, and came back again to Japan following his 2008 call as a General Authority Seventy when he served in the Asia North Area presidency and later as the president thereof.

But in addition to that, the Church's Newsroom release also indicated that renovations are coming to the San Diego California Temple, which will close in July 2023. That temple was originally dedicated by President Gordon B. Hinckley, then First Counselor in the First Presidency to President Ezra Taft Benson. The dedication occurred on April 25-30, 1992. 

Though no other details of this renovation are available, I wouldn't be surprised if electrical, mechanical, and ancillary systems are updated, and it's possible that some of the furnishings and fixtures will be replaced, that rooms could be reconfigured or that parts of the temple could be altered for greater efficiency and durability. An estimated completion and open house and rededication arrangements will be provided at a later time.

I am grateful for this unexpected announcement. I continue to monitor all Church News, Newsroom, and temple construction updates and will pass those along to you all here as I become aware thereof. 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.

BREAKING TEMPLE NEWS: Opening Arrangements Set for the Okinawa Japan Temple

Hello again, everyone! The next major temple announcement has been made from an unexpected source. Though the main Newsroom does not show this update, the Japanese version of the Newsroom has announced opening arrangements for the Okinawa Japan Temple. According to the release, open house tours will be conducted from Saturday, September 23-Saturday, October 7, 2023 (except for the Sundays of September 24 and October 1).

Though this is not specified in the release, I'm assuming media tours will be conducted on Monday or Tuesday, September 18 or 19, with VIP tours following for a few days prior to the public open house. The temple will be dedicated in two sessions on Sunday, November 12. Though the session times are not specified, every other two-session dedications have been held at 10:00 AM and 1:30 PM. 

The release also fails to specify who will preside at the dedicatory services. I am somewhat surprised by the timing of this dedication, but I'm glad the Church has set those arrangements. In any case, the timing on this dedication means that we might not see dedications for the Lima Peru Los Olivos and McAllen Texas Temples until November. 

The Red Cliffs Utah Temple dedication could either be held in November or December, with at least the Urdaneta Philippines and Puebla Mexico Temples dedicated before the end of 2023. That would then put the rededications of the St. George Utah Temple and the dedications of the Urdaneta Philippines, Layton Utah, Orem Utah, and Taylorsville Utah Temples in January or February. 

So beginning in 2024, I believe we will see a double-digit number of temples dedicated per year going forward. Once the main Newsroom page and the Church News cover this update, I will be sure to update this post with those links. In the meantime, I continue to monitor all Church News, Newsroom, and other temple construction updates and will bring those to you as they cross my radar.

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.

Added t 4:09 PM: The Newsroom published an update on the Okinawa Japan Temple, which indicated that Elder Gary E. Stevenson will preside over the two dedicatory sessions for that dedication. The Newsroom release also included new information about  a temple in California. I will discuss that in a new post here in the next few minutes. For now, my thanks once again to you all.

Initial Predictions for the October 2023 General Conference

Hello again, everyone! In the absence of any major announcements by the Church this week, I have been able to put together the initial draft of my predictions for the October 2023 General Conference. First up, as always, we have my predictions for the potential speaker lineup. A few notes on that: Last conference marked only the third time that President Nelson didn't deliver any remarks to open the General Conference. 

I don't know if that means he won't be speaking in any of the opening sessions for however many General Conferences he continues to serve as prophet, so I wanted to at least allow for the possibility. Secondly, as acknowledged in the one footnote to these predictions, last conference, President Oaks not only presented new GA Seventies, he also noted the upcoming August 1 release of 3 GA Seventies and led the group sustaining of the changes in area seventies and the advanced sustaining of the incoming Young Women General Presidency.

Since all of the changes effective on or before August 1 were already presented last time, the sustaining in October is likely to only include the First Presidency, the President and Acting President of the Quorum of the Twelve, the members of that Quorum, and a motion to sustain all other GA Seventies, area seventies, and general officers as presently constituted. Since that process may only take a couple of minutes, it is possible that more general Church leaders could speak in the Saturday Afternoon Session than I have predicted here.

With the major changes already noted, these predictions mark the first time that they do not include a document showing the likely changes in Church leadership. It's also worth noting that, of course, I am assuming that all apostles will be able to speak in October and that the Saturday Evening Session will again be open to all members and friends of the Church. 

So the only other element remaining are my predictions for the most likely locations in which new temples could be announced. Regarding the likely new temples, if the information I have is correct, President Nelson may announce a minimum of 35 temples per year. If that remains the case for this year, then with 15 new temples announced earlier this month, the Church may look to having a minimum of 20 others announced in October. 

I see no reason to not believe that will be the minimum possible number of temples. With those introductory notes shared, the rest of the predictions largely speak for themselves. I am pleased, therefore, to declare the commenting period for these initial predictions officially opened. That commenting period will remain active until Thursday, October 2, at 10:00 PM, which will then give me 36 hours to finalize these predictions.

Unless the Church continues to take a temporary hiatus on temple construction announcements, I assume the next major announcement will be shared on Monday. In the interim, I continue to monitor all major Church News and Newsroom updates and any other temple construction updates and will be sure to pass those along to you all as they cross my radar. 

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.

UPDATE: Post-Conference Documents

 Hello again, everyone! WA little over a week since the April 2023 General Conference convened, I wanted to share my post-conference document analysis. First, I wanted to provide a report on my predictions for General Conference. First up is the review of my predictions for the speaker lineup, the changes in general Church leadership, (and the statistical report), and, of course, the most likely;prospective temple locations. As a result of those predictions vs. what actually happened, I have taken the opportunity to analyze and score those predictions.

Some reminders on the scoring might be helpful. Regarding my projected speaker lineup, 3 points were awarded if I got the right speaker in the right position in the right session. Some examples of that are my correct predictions that President Dallin H. Oaks would conduct the Saturday Morning Session,and that Elder Gerrit W. Gong would speak in the exact spot he did in the same session. 

Two points were awarded if I got the right speaker in the right session but in the wrong position. Some examples of that were Eldeers Gary E. Stevenson and Quentin L. Cook,who both spoke in the first session, but not in the spots I projected. One point was awarded when I correctly predicted that a leader would speak at any point in the conference, but had them both in the wrong session and the wrong order in that session. 

Examples of that are Camille N. Johnson, who spoke Sunday Morning rather than Saturday Evening, and Elder Carl B. Cook, who spoke Saturday Morning rather than Sunday Morning. And of course, anything I had not predicted that occurred was given a score of 0. Examples of that are most of the GA Seventies who spoke. Regarding my predictions for changes in general Church leadership, each element was worth 3 points. 

I correctly protected new GA Seventies, changes in area seventies, and the Young Women General Presidency, and I was also correct about changes in the Young Men General Presidency. there were 3 points On the temple locations, 3 points meant I had the correct location exactly right (Jakarta Indonesia is an example), with 2 points for having the correct general region but the wrong specific location (one of the 2 Philippines temples was unexpected). 

1 point meant an unexpected announcement for states where I had predicted new temples. And there was a score of 0 for locations where I wasn't predicting a new temple, but one was announced (the temples in Missouri, Virginia, and Pennsylvania are examples). I gave myself a small margin of error on both the temple predictions and the speaker lineup since there were some things I couldn't have predicted.

So, as reflected in the scorecard, even though there was a lot about this conference that I had no way to predict, what I put together yielded a 58.6% accuracy rate, and with all of the unknowns, I'm satisfied with that. If that was all I had to pass along tonight, I'd be satisfied therewith, but I do have a few more items. As I usually do, I have also been able to compile a document showing the lengths of each apostolic address. 

I have likewise updated the document showing the total number of General Conference addresses given by each of our current apostles. And I have also created a mock-up of what I think the table of contents might look like for the May 2023 Liahona. I will be sure to provide a follow-up on how my mock-up table of contents compares with the actual thing once that is available.

I likewise continue to monitor all Church news updates and temple developments and will be sure to post here with the latest on that as I become aware thereof. Unless there is a good reason for the Church not to do so, I am fully expecting that the next major temple construction update from the Church will be published tomorrow during the 2:00 PM hour. You can count on my analysis thereof ASAP after that announcement is made.

In the meantime, that does it for now. Thank you for the privilege of your time.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. 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 15 New Temples as the April 2023 General Conference Concludes

Hello again, everyone! In all but one of the Church's 10 previous General Conferences held since early 2018, the Sunday Afternoon Session has usually concluded with closing remarks and the announcement of new temples by our beloved prophet, President Russell M. Nelson. Today was no different. I am pleased to report that 15 new templeshave been announced in each of the following locations: 

Retalhuleu Guatemala; Iquitos Peru; Teresina & Natal Brazil; Tuguegarao City & Iloilo Philippines; Jakarta Indonesia; Hamburg Germany; Lethbridge Alberta Canada; San Jose and Bakersfield California; Springfield Missouri; Charlotte North Carolina; Winchester Virginia; and Harrisburg Pennsylvania. Today's announcement brings the total number of temples in the Church to 315, 133 (42% of which President Nelson has personally announced).

I had the following 9 locations exactly correct: Iquitos Peru, Teresina and Natal Brazil, Jakarta Indonesia, Hamburg Germany, Lehtbridge Alberta Canada, San Jose and Bakersfield California, and Charlotte North Carolina. I had the right general location but the wrong specific location for the following temples: Retalhuleu Guatemala & Tuguegaro City & Iloilo Philippines, And the following temples announced were not on my radar, but perhaps they should have been: Springfield Missouri, Winchester Virginia, and Harrisburg Pennsylvania.

As a general note, unless I am mistaken, Sister Wendy Nelson is a native of Raymond Alberta, and the temple in Lethbridge will likely serve the area in which she grew up. Matthew Martinich, who maintains the Church Growth Blog, will likely have more information on this than I could provide here. With today's announcement of new temples, the Church may or may not have another major temple construction update announced at around 2:00 PM tomorrow afternoon. 

But if such an announcement is made, I will be sure to cover it here ASAP once I learn of it. 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.