Stokes Sounds Off: May 2025

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Saturday, May 17, 2025

UPDATE: Documents Relating to the April 2025 General Conference

 Hello again, everyone! Much later than I had originally planned (and even later than I promised to do so), I wanted to provide a look at my updated documents relating to the April 2025 General Conference. I think I have provided sufficient explanations for these documents previously, so this will just be a quick look at those updated documents. If any of you have any questions about anything, please let me know in the comments below.

We start with my predictions for the April 2025 General Conference, including the speaker lineup, the predicted changes in general leadership (which includes the projected numbers for the statistical report), and my projected prospective temple locations. Based on the scoring methods I have previously outlined, I put together this scorecard to analyze how well I did. 

With that result calculated at 71.05%,even with the curveballs thrown at me this time around (like failing to project that Bishop Causee would speak, or erroneously projecting that Sunday School President Paul V. Johnson would speak), my predictions still surprisingly remained in the middle range of my usual accuracy (60-80%). 

After General Conference weekend, I updated this document showing the total number of addresses given by our current apostles in General Conference, and created this document, which shows the length of each address given by each of our current apostles (16 in total this April, including the sustaining led by President Oaks on Saturday Morning). I also prepared this document, a projected table of contents for the May 2025 Liahona, which was updated with the actual page numbers once the PDF version thereof became available online.

This concludes my proverbial post-mortem for the April 2025 General Conference. I am already hard at work on my projections for the October 2025 General Conference. I also continue to monitor the latest updates from the Church News, Newsroom, and Church of Jesus Christ Temples sites. 

I’ll be sure to pass word of those along to you all as soon as I learn about 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 all such 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 liked what you read here and would like to stay informed of newly added posts and comments, please subscribe to receive the applicable updates. If you would like to support the work done on this blog, donations in any amount are always welcome and appreciated, but never required. 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.

Monday, May 12, 2025

BREAKING TEMPLE NEWS: Groundbreaking Announced for the Singapore Temple

Hello again, everyone! This afternoon, the First Presidency announced a groundbreaking for the Singapore Temple. The announcement follows that temple's announcement in April 2021, with the site confirmed in October 2022, and the release of its exterior rendering just two months later. The Church selected its general contractor in May of last year, and the existing structures on the site were demolished beginning in December of last year.

I had projected that the groundbreaking for this temple would occur in the relatively near term, and I had also projected that the Church could break ground for other temples before that of the recently announced Welington New Zealand Temple on August 2, and I was correct on that as well. As for the groundbreaking for Singapore's first temple, it is set to occur on Saturday, June 28, under the direction of Elder Kelly R. Johnson, First Counselor in the Asia Area Presidency.

This announcement will now make this temple the tenth to have a groundbreaking this year, and knocks the Wellington New Zealand Temple down to being the eleventh. The eleventh temple groundbreaking last year took place on September 7, so the Church is now 5 weeks ahead and counting for temple groundbreakings in 2025 vs. 2024.

I am grateful for this fantastic news and the chance to share it here. Stay tuned here for my coverage of the latest updates from the Church News, Newsroom, and Church of Jesus Christ Temples sites. I’ll be sure to pass word of those along to you all as soon as I learn about 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 all such 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 liked what you read here and would like to stay informed of newly added posts and comments, please subscribe to receive the applicable updates. If you would like to support the work done on this blog, donations in any amount are always welcome and appreciated, but never required. 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.

Sunday, May 11, 2025

UPDATED: Current Apostolic Data

Hello again, everyone! It has been a tradition on this blog for me to provide updates on apostolic data every 7 weeks. Having last done so on Sunday, March 23, it is time to publish the newest such data. As with every two-part update, the first part contains updated data about the age and tenure length records for all 17 Church Presidents, in addition to updated information on the tenure lengths for each of the 28 Presidents of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.The first document likewise notes information on the tenure length rankings for three sets of apostolic groups: the longest-serving First Presidencies (with the current First Presidency now moving up on that list), the longest-serving groups of members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and groups of all ordained apostles (the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles), and an overview of when each of those current groups will move up on the list. As previously noted, the current Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and apostolic group will not join that list until late next year, assuming no other apostles pass away between now and then.

Meanwhile, the second part of today's update shows the long-form and decimal ages for the members of the current First Presidency, Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and the same data for the combined First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, in addition to the average ages of each group and apostolic nonagenarians (with 3 of the current 15 apostles being on that list), and a final table showing the remaining time between today and when each of the other 12 apostles will become nonagenarians and join that list.

With these apostolic data updates coming every 7 weeks, the next update will be posted here on the morning of Sunday, June 29, 2025.

Hopefully, this post is of interest to you all. Again, I offer an open invitation to ask anyone who has any questions about those documents to ask them here. I continue to monitor any and all Church News, Newsroom, and Church of Jesus Christ Temples updates and will be sure to pass word of those along to you all as they cross my radar. 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.

If you liked what you read here and would like to be informed of newly added posts and comments, please subscribe. If you would like to support the work done on this blog, donations in any amount are never required but are always welcome and appreciated. 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.

Monday, May 5, 2025

BREAKING TEMPLE NEWS: Exterior Rendering Released for the Colorado Springs Colorado Temple

 Hello again, everyone! This afternoon, the First Presidency released the next major temple construction announcement: an exterior rendering for the Colorado Springs Colorado Temple. The release of this rendering follows the announcement of that temple in October 2023 and the site confirmation and preliminary details being released just six months ago, in November of last year.

The rendering largely speaks for itself. I currently estimate (based on recent trends) that the groundbreaking for this temple may likely occur early next year at latest, but certainly sooner if approvals go through quickly. I am grateful this update was announced today, and am happy to have been able to cover it here.

Stay tuned here for my coverage of the latest updates from the Church News, Newsroom, and Church of Jesus Christ Temples sites. I’ll be sure to pass word of those along to you all as soon as I learn about 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 all such 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 liked what you read here and would like to stay informed of newly added posts and comments, please subscribe to receive the applicable updates. If you would like to support the work done on this blog, donations in any amount are always welcome and appreciated, but never required. 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.