BREAKING TEMPLE NEWS: Location, Rendering, Name, and Preliminary Details Released for the Eugene Oregon Temple (Renamed the Willamette Valley Oregon Temple)

Hello again, everyone! Within the last half hour or less, the Church has released initial details on the temple to be built in Eugene Oregon. So let's break down those official details. First of all, the official name by which that temple will now be known is the Willamette Valley Oregon Temple. Those familar with early Church history will note the significance of that name. 

The temple's location has been announced as a 10.5 acre plot of land that is at the intersection of Corporate Way and International Bouelvard in Springfield Oregon.  The temple is planned to be a single-story edifice that will be roughly 30.000 square feet in area. And in contrast to the other US temples for which preliminary details have been announced, this temple has had an exterior rendering released. 

The released rendering in question seems to incorporate similar (if not identical) designs and parameters as the temple currently under construction in Moses Lake Washington. That makes sense because both temples have been planned for construction in the Northwestern United States. Having acknwlwedged that, anyone who knows me knows thatt I have some issues with visual perception problems, so with that in mind, I think I will defer to some of you, my readers, to post any other observations you have about that temple design.

When it comes to past temple plans, longtime follower Jim Anderson, who has also extensively commented on developments I share here, has brought a lazer-like accurate assessment of new temple designs, so I would particularly defer to him. And if he dcides to weigh in here on this, I will warmly welcome any such insights he might have.

I would just add something else here. I had the opportunity to read subsequent comments that have been published on the comment threads of the newest Church Growth Blog's post. I have referred to previous commients which have been part of that discussion, particularly the one that noted that, if the Church utilizes modular components for other US temples and even some outside of the United States, that could speed up construction of all temples.

It was also mentioned that, even when the modular design is not being used, precast concrete paneles are also becoming more widely used. Subsequent comments noted in addition that if the Helena Montana Temple is being used by the Church as a "test case" for modular components, it seemed more likely that temples of a similar size which might also use the modular components, whether inside the United States, or elsewhere in the world, might not have their construction begin until the Church is farther along in the process of seeing how well such plans work with the test case of the Helena Montana Temple.

I can certainly understand the rationale behind those expressed opinions. But in general, based on what we saw last year, it seems more likely that most temples going through the approvals process should have their groundbreakings within 6-9 months of when their site locations and preliiminary information were confirmed. And particularly with the Willamette Valley Oregon Temple, since  so much information has been shared in conjunction with the initial announcement, I would be absolutely stunned if ground was not broken for that temple before the April 2022 General Conference.

In the meantime, with the Church getting further into the construction process for the Helena Montana Temple, the similarly-sized temples announced for Casper Wyoming and Elko Nevada might have renderings released and groundbreakings announced perhaps either just prior to or not long after the October 2021 General Conference. 

And until futher evidence suggests otherwise, I'm also reasonably confident that the number of temples that will have a groundbreaking this year will exceed the number of temples that had a groundbreaking last year (21), which is especially true now that the Church can resume setting specific dates for those events. With only one temple (thus far) set to have its' groundbreaking after the October 2021 General Conference, I anticipate subsequent announcements this month will set other groundbreakings to occur on that same day, or on any of the other 3 Saturdays in October.

I likewise anticipate temple groundbreakings could be set for at least 3 of the 4 Saturdays in November, and that the first 2 or 3 Saturdays in December might also see groundbreakings occur. Additionally, at this point, it's also worth noting that, barring anything every unexpected, I don't see the Church scheduling any other temple dedications or rededications to occur prior to the end of this year. But it does seem likely that subsequent announcements about temple dedications or rededications could be made before the end of this year, with the events themselves set for the early months of 2022.

Right now, there are a lot of moving parts relating to temple construction, and it's interesting to think about all that has happened in that respect up to now. I feel reasonably certain that the remaining 4 months of this year will see a high number of announcements relating to temple construction. It's also worth noting that subsequent comments on the Church Growth Blog have seen quite a few people noting that they don't think as many temples might be announced in General Conference next month as were announced in April and May 2021.

While I also understand the rationale behind that opinion, and while I agree to a certain point, as some of you mgiht recall, in advance of General Conference next month, I identified 24 specific locations throughout the Church's 22 geographical areas wherein new temples could be announced. And given the fact that all but 1 of the temples in the United States which were announced by President Nelson thus far this year have had at least preliminary information confirmed (that one temple is the Ephraim Utah Temple), I anticipate that jaround 30-35% of the temples that might be announced next month could be for locations in the United States.

And given the fact that the Church was able to move so many US temples from an announced status into the construction queue last year, I am hopeful that several more US temples and hopefully a good number of temples outside the US might also have groundbreakings occur. I continue to monitor all such developments and will bring you all word thereof here as I am able to discover all such updates.

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. 

UPDATED: Predictions for the October 2021 General Conference

Hello again, everyone! Within the last couple of months, the First Presidency initiallydiscontinuedthe Priesthood and Women's Sessions (which had respectively been held in April and October on the Saturday Evenings of General Conference weekend). That was done in early June. Roughly 6 weeks later (towards the end of last month), that session wasreinstated, though a change to its' format was announced. Prior to both announcements, I had repeatedly mentioned that each General Conference held under President Nelson has been uniquely different in various ways.

That was certainly true of last April'sGeneral Conference.4 General Officers of the Church spoke. For the members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, 3 spoke in the first and last sessions, 4 others in the Saturday Afternoon Session, and the remaining 2 speak during the Priesthood and Sunday Morning Sessions (1 each). The 3 Saturday Sessions featured 3 General Authority Seventies, 2 of whom pre-recorded their remarks while serving outside the United States.

Meanwhile, the Sunday Sessions included 6 GA Seventies in the Morning Session (3 of whom pre-recorded their remarks). Included among those 6 were also one current member of the Presidency of the Seventy (Elder Jose A. Teixeira) and 1 other GA Seventy who began serving in the Presidency of the Seventy at the beginning of this month (Elder S. Mark Palmer). And the Sunday Afternoon Session featured 2 more GA Seventies, 1 of whom pre-recorded their remarks. With a total of 11 GA Seventies speaking, that marked the highest number of GA Seventies speaking in a single General Conference within the last couple of decades.

It's also worth noting that no representatives from the Presiding Bishopric spoke. Having now laid out what occurred in the last General Conference, I wanted to note I have gotten to the point of reworking my predictions for the October 2021 General Conference that I can now share what I've got so far with you all here. A couple of preliminary notes: Since the Saturday Evening Session has been reinstated and opened to all Church members and friends of other faiths, I've surmised that the entire First Presidency will speak in reverse-seniority order to close out that session, and that 1 member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and 2 other General Authorities or General Officers might also speak then.

With the process of sustaining the general Church leadership during each General Conference having been shortened, I then determined that the Church would most likely have 4 members of the Quorum of the Twelve speak on Saturday Afternoon, which would allow 2 other general leaders to speak as well. And since the average number of members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in the Saturday Morning Session has been just about 3 every time, I think that will also continue.

So, with 3 Quorum members predicted to speak on Saturday Morning, with 4 more that afternoon, and 1 in the evening, that's a total of 8. For Sunday's sessions, my research shows that having 2 apostles speak in each of those sessions, with President Nelson closing out both, and with his counselors alternating as the first speakers ion Saturday Afternoon, that would open the prospect that more non-apostolic speakers would be able to address each General Conference, particularly the last two sessions.

I apologize for that lengthy introduction, but I wanted to set the background for my predictions. I suppose there is more than a slight chance that the speaker lineup in all General Conferences might be more in line with what happened inApril 2019andApril 2020. The biggest question mark will be how and to what extent the new Saturday Evening format might affect the rest of the conference. All that remains now for this post is for me to share the specific predictions I have assembled. First up is theprojected speaker lineup(with notes providing additional context, when needed), the anticipated changes ingeneral Church leadership, and my revised list of locations in which I have felt a new templecould be announced.

Regarding the last item on the list, I have some additional information to share. Followers of theChurch Growth Blogknow that the blog author, Matthew Martinich, offers his list of the top ten locations in which a temple could be announced just before each General Conference. While I'm not comfortable narrowing my list to the top ten candidates, what I have done is created a breakdown of the most likely places in which a temple could be announced this time around based on the geographical area of the Church under which each location falls.

Unless I have miscounted what's on my list, I have a total of 24 candidates that seem most likely to have a temple announced. Here is a copy of that list:

October 2021 Top Temple Candidate Locations (projected):

Africa Central—Kampala Uganda
Africa South—Antananarivo Madagascar
Africa West—Monrovia Liberia<
Asia—Jakarta Indonesia
Asia North—Ulaanbaatar Mongólia
Brazil—Florianópolis João Pessoa/Ribeirão Preto Brazil
Caribbean—Kingston Jamaica<
Europe—Edinburgh Scotland
Mexico—Durango Mexico
North America Central—Green Bay Wisconsin & Wichita Kansas
North America Northeast—East Brunswick New Jersey
North America Southeast—Jackson Mississippi
North America Southwest—Queen Creek Arizona
North America West—Fairbanks Alaska & Bakersfield California
Philippines—Tacloban & Angeles Philippines
South America Northwest—Iquitos Peru & La Paz Bolivia<
South America South—Osorno Chile
Utah—Herriman & Lehi Utah

So those are my updated predictions for the October 2021 General Conference. An open commenting period remains in effect on these predictions until 10:00 PM on Thursday September 30, which will allow me roughly 36 hours to carry out any needed updates. I look forward to any feedback any of you have on these predictions. I continue to monitor all Church news and temple updates and will be sure to bring word of those to you all as I become aware thereof.

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.

Review of Temple Construction Progress Which Has Occurred in the FIrst Half of 2021

Hello again, everyone! As the final moments of June 2021 wind down, it is time once again for a review of temple construction developments which have occurred between the beginning of this year and now, at the half-way point of this year. Let's get right into all of that. First, we look at where things stood as 2021 began,, the progress noted on temples a few days before the April 2021 General Conference, and the developments which have been reported to close out the first half of this year. 

The information largely speaks for itself, but I will note that the quarterly reports I share here relating to temple construction are seeing more significant changes per quarter than those which have applied to each quarter in the past years I've covered all of that. And it seems that other reports this year will demonstrate even more signficant updates. It's already been quite a year for temple developments and other major Church news, and I look forward to seeing what may be next in terms of future marjor announcments related to temples and anything else.

I remain committed to monitor all of these developments and to pass them along to you all here as I become aware thereof.

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 TEMPLE NEWS: President Nelson Announces a New Temple for Ephraim Utah; Renovation on the Manti Utah Temple Will Begin in October

Hello again, everyone! In a stunning and unusually-timed announcement, President Russell M. Nelson announced this morning that the multi-year renovation on the Manti Utah Temple will begin on or around October 1 of this year, that greater care would be taken with the multi-year project to preserve the pioneer's efforts and craftsmanship, and that renovation plans for the temple would be evaluated and adjusted on an ongoing basis as the Lord inspires the Brethren further in that process

But today's video from President Nelson also included something I had not expected. It has been somewhat traditional under the leadership of Presidents Gordon B. Hinckley and Thomas S. Monson for the bulk of new temples to be announced in General Conference, with a few announced outside of those gatherings. A few examples of that are the Payson Utah Temple, announced in January 2010, and the confirmation of the intention to build the Paris France Temple was acknowledged in the summer of 2011, with plans officially confirmed for that temple in General Conference several months later.

The trend of temples announced by President Nelson seemed to focus for the most part on announcing temples every six months in General Conference, with a focus between each conference on clearing the existing queue. But this morning, President Nelson announced that, in consideration of the multi-year closure planned for the Manti Utah Temple, the Brethren have felt impressed to build a new temple in Ephraim to serve those currently in the Manti Utah Temple district during its' closure, especially given the student body population of Latter-day Saint young adults attending nearby Snow College. So it appears the new temple announced for Ephraim will, in similarity to the Deseret Peak Utah Temple, be built on a similar accelerated schedule.

This is developing news I did not see coming, but I welcome it. I continue to monitor all such updates and will be sure to pass word of those along to you all as I become aware thereof.

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.

Initial Predictions for the October 2021 General Conference

Hello again, everyone! Having just shared some preliminary notes on my initial predictions for the October 2021 General Conference, all that remains is to share my actual predictions themselves. So for this post, I wanted to share my predictions for the speaker layout, the most likely changes in general Church leadership, and my preliminary list of locations in which a temple could be announced. The commenting period for these predictions opens immediately, and will go through Thursday September 30 @ 10:00 PM MDT, at which point I will need to make any last-minute adjustments thereunto that may be needed. I look forward to your feedback.

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I am also keeping my eyes open for all Church news and temple developments, and will be sure to bring you all word of those as I become aware thereof. 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.

Preliminary Notes on My Initial Predictions for the October 2021 General Conference

Hello again, everyone! This month has been an unusual one, to be sure. The announcement of 20 new temples, with a site location and redering for 1 of those already confirmed and the announcement of changes in area leadership which will go into effect on August 1 have gieven us a lot to chew on. I was able to post the results of my April 2021 General Conference predictions a lot sooner than I traditionally have. On the flip side of that equation, we saw some delays occur that impacted the availability of the PDF version of the April magazines online. Some of the factors that led to that delay may also perhaps cause a delay in the release of the PDF version of the May editions of the magazines as well. And the Church has not yet uploaded the biographies of newly-called General Authority Seventies or the new Primary General Presidency, nor has the list of area seventies been updated. 

Above and beyond that, as Matthew Martinich reported on Saturday on the Church Growth Blog, the 2020 statistical report for the Church has not yet led to corresponding updates to the general or country-by-country or area-by-area statstical information for the Church. So it seems possible that some issue is occurring with the Church's network and internet servers on a wide scale that may be causing these delays.

So in the interim, in addition to keeping track of the latest Church news updates or reported temple developments, I have also taken time to put together the initial version of my predictions for the October 2021 General Conference. While my original intention was to just share the links to each part of those predictions with just a few observations interspersed, as I looked into what I wanted to share further, I knew I needed to devote a separate post discussing the context I wanted to go over, then follow that up with another post showing my actual predictions. So let's get right to that.

With a couple of exceptions, including the most recent General Conference, each April and October conference has conformed to some very specific standard patterns which I have used as a template for each General Conference that was not an exception. The one thing my predictions have not accounted for is what might be done with the extra time that is no longer needed for the Sustaining of General Authorities, Area Seventies, and General Officers, since any new area seventies will be presented in the General Conference Leadership Meetings.

The Church has also confirmed that the General Women's Session will be held as usual on Saturday evening. So when formulating my predictions for the speaker lineup, I had a few things to consider. Earlier this month, during the April General Conference, leaders serving outside the United States prerecorded those, which then aired live during General Conference weekend. That opens up the prospect that something similar could happen this go-round. 

Most of the General Authority Seventies I've put in the speaking order predictions are currently or will be serving outside the United States in area presidencies during this General Conference weekend, so I anticipate their remarks being prerecorded and delivered remotely. Aside from general authority seventies and the members of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, other considerations were taken into account for the Presidency of the Seventy, Presiding Bishopric, and General Officers of the Church. 

First, with reference to the Presidency of the Seventy, a little historical context might be helpful. During most of the combined periods when Presidents Gordon B. Hinckley and Thomas S. Monson served as the prophet (from 1995-2017), it was customary, more often than not, for the Church to call upon 2 currently-serving members of the Presidency of the Seventy to speak in each General Conference. During the October 2017 General Conference, the Church did not have any current members of the Presidency of the Seventy speak, instead asking Elders Richard J. Maynes and Donald L. Hallstrom, who had been released from that Presidency in August of that year, to do so instead.

Then, beginning with the April 2018 General Conference, only 1 member of the Presidency of the Seventy has been called upon to speak in each of the 6 General Conferences held between 2018 and 2020. The most recent General Conference was a slight exception to that, since we heard in the Sunday Morning Session from Elder Jose A. Teixeira (a member of the Presidency of the Seventy since August 2018) and also from Elder S. Mark Palmer (who was sustained during last General Conference to begin serving in the Presidency of the Seventy on August 1 of this year).

Other organizaions (primarily the Presiding Bishopric and each of the 5 General Presidencies of the Church) have had General Conferences since 2018 where, on a rotational basis that is hard to gauge, have not spoken in General Conference. With that in mind, my speaking order predictions project that no members of that Presidency will address us this time around. If I am incorrect on that, it's my feeling that Elder Brent H. Nielson could be called upon to speak, which might occur sometime during the Saturday Afternoon Session. But I could be wrong on both counts.

That being said, a word about the Presiding Bishopric. Beginning in October 2015, that group saw a higher-than-usual turnover. That began in October 2015, when the Presiding Bishop, Gary E. Stevenson, was one of 3 called to fill one of the 3 vacancies in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. His former First Counselor, Gerad Causse, succeeded him as Presiding Bishop, with the former Second Counselor, Bishop Dean M. Davies, becoming the First Counselor. The new Second Counselor called was then-Elder W. Christopher Waddell.

Then we came around to last October, when we learned that current First Counselor Dean M. Davies had been dealing with health issues, and was reassigned as a General Authority Seventy. The former Second Counselor, Bishop Waddell, was called as the new First Counselor, and relatively-new GA Seventy Elder L. Todd Budge was called as the new Second Counselor. Each of these changes led to anomalies in the typical rotation of speaking assignments for the Presiding Bishopric.

In October 2019, none of the members of the Presiding Bishopric spoke, and that also proved to be the case in the most recent General Conference. Of the three current members of the Presiding Bishopric, only Bishop Budge has not spoken in General Conference since his call to the Presiding Bishopric. So I figure he will do so this time around, and it seems likely that he will do so during the Sunday Afternoon Session.

That brings me to some thoughts about the General Officers of the Church. Any solid patterns in the typical rotation of general officers speaking in the general sessions of conference have been hard to pin down since President Nelson became the prophet. 5 General Officers spoke in April 2018, with only 3 doing so in each of the two General Conferences following that. In October 2019, April and October 2020, and April 2021, 4 General Officers of the Church spoke to us. While there is a possibility that 4 more could speak to us in October 2021, based on my study, I'm predicting only 3.

The possible number of General Officers speaking in the other 4 sessions are harder to predict in October because there is also the Women's Session that may factor into that. Based on my records there, this time around, I have opted to include 3 General Officers of the Church, which, along with the rest of the layout, leaves plenty of room for new General Authority Seventies to speak, but also leaves plenty of space in the layout for other General Authority Seventies who have not spoken for a while.

Having provided some notes specific to the speaking order, we move on to the list of potential changes in Church leadership. It seems likely that the 7 General Authorities who have turned 70 or will do so later this year are almost certain to be released. Similarly, each of the area seventies who are among the new mission presidents will likely be released, as will the new presidents of the Oaxaca Mexico and Denver Colorado Temples. In keeping with the usual tradition for October, I'm anticipating that there will be more releases of current area seventies than there are new area seventies sustained.

And that brings me to my last note about my initial predictions for this General Conference, potential new temples. I don't anticipate a hiatus on the announcement of new temples anytime soon, but anticipate instead that most new temples coming down the pike will be a smaller design that are more easily approved and have construction begin sooner as a result. If that happens, I don't see it as impossible to surmise that another double-digit number of new temples could be announced. I haven't yet added any new locations to the list, so I'm hoping comments on that list might yield a few more candidate cities I can add.

That concludes my preliminary notes on the predictions I have formulated for the October 2021 General Conference. The predictions themselves will be shared as three separate documents very shortly here. 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.

POTENTIAL BREAKING NEWS: Preliminary Information Unofficially Revealed About the Russia Temple?

Hello again, everyone! In several previous posts (and various comment threads thereof this year and last year), I had mentioned several temples on which I was keeping my eyes for more offical information. For most of those temples, I listed them by their specific names. But I also mentioned that at least one of the temples for which extensive delays in the approvals process were anticipated was on my watchlist for more information in the near term. I didn't identify that temple by name at any point in recent mentions because I didn't have anything official to pass along about that

Fast forward to a short time ago. I have periodically checked the Church's official temple list for any information that has not otherwise been officially confirmed, and I felt impressed to check that again within the last half-hour. I pulled up the list of 48 announced temples. At my last check, that list had not included the 20 new temples announced by President Nelson almost two weeks ago. But when I checked it today, not only were all 48 announced temples listed, but where it had previously listed the Russia Temple, there is now text that reads "Russia Administration Building".

The text for that entry on the list of temples potentially gives us more details on the temple planned for Russia than we've had since that prospect was first announced in General Conference 3 years or so ago. And it suggests to me that perhaps the Church will be successful in getting approval for a Russian mulltipurpose building that includes the temple perhaps more swiftly that would be true if the temple was the only thing planned.

And with the headquarters of the Europe East Area being Moscow Russia, I could see a scenario where the Church takes a similar approach to doing in Russia what has been done previously in Tokyo Japan and what is being planned for Shanghai China, where a multipurpose building would serve as a home base for the area and mission offices, for meetinghouse spaces, and for rooms that could be used for temple worship.

I need to be very clear here that this is no more and no less than a hypothetical theory on my part based on what I'm seeing on the page where the announced temples are listed. It could just as easily be true that the name or specification here is a placeholder, and/or that there will be more work ahead for the Church to do in order to get the temple (and anything else in Russia) approved. When official information is released, that will be the confirmation of the details which are currently lacking.

If nothing else, at least it's a working theory based on what I am seeing on that list, and what I have heard from a couple of sources on my end. I will be most intrigued to see what happens in terms of temple developments in the days, weeks, and months ahead, even if the theory I have posited here turns out to be misguided or ill-conceived on my part. Stay tuned for more informaiton on this (and any other Church news or temple developments) as I become aware of those.

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.

UPDATE: Results of My April 2021 General Conference Predictions

Hello again, everyone! Finding myself with some down time this evening, I took the opportunity to analyze my predictions for the April 2021 General Conference and to score the results. I wound up scoring those with a slightly-larger margin of error than usual. That is because I couldn't have anticipated that the Church would have general authorities outside the United States prerecord remarks that were given during that General Conference, nor could I have anticipated that the entire Sunday Morning Session would consist of international speakers and President Neelson. 

Smiliarly, I could not have anticipated that the newly-called aarea seventies would be presented in advance of the General Conference weekend. I also had no way to know that the Church would sustain the new members of the Presidency of the Seventy in advance, or that the only area seventies released would be those called as General Authority Seventies. And I definitely couldn't firmly gauge the full impact of COVID-19 on the Churchwide growth (or lack thereof) for the last year.

With all of that in mind, I want to share a look at the scoring information for wthose predictions. As z refresher course, especially for those following along with these results for the first time, for every predictable element, I utilize a 3-point scale. For the section wherein speakers and those conducting each session are listed, if I had the right person in the right slot in the right session, that was 3 points. Some examples of that would be my correct prediction that President Oaks would conduct the first session, and that the first two speakers would be President Nelson and Elder Uchtdorf. So that would be 3 points for each of those correct predictions.

A 2-point score was assigned where I had the correct individual(s) in the correct session(s), but not in the right order. Examples of that are the other two apostles who spoke in the Saturday Morning Session. Although I successfully predicted all 3 apostles, I had Elders Stevenson and Gong in the wrong order in that session. Meanwhile, 1 point was given for getting a speaker correct at any point in the General Conference, even though those individuals were not placed in the correct session and order in which they wound up speaking.

An example of that would be that I predicted the entire First Presidency would speak at the end of the Sunday Morning Session, but Presidents Oaks and Eyring spoke in their custmoary slots. So I was correct about them speaking, but not about when that would happen. Meanwhile, for anything that occurred which was not predicted, in most cases, that resulted in a score of 0. I mentioned "in most cases" because I did allow a slight margin of error on the predictions, given everything I could not have possibly predicted.

That said, on to the changes in Church leadership. Although the changes in the Presidency of the Seventy were not predicted, I gave myself 1 point for correctly predicting that Elder Palmer would be one of the two new members called whenever the change occurred. I also correctly predicted new general authorities, changes in area seventies, and a new Primary General Presidency, and the Church leadership changes were also scored on a curve.

For the statistical report, each element was worth 3 points. If I was within a fair margin of error (such as for the total number of missions and congregations), I scored those two elements as fully accurate. The children of record, convert baptisms, full-time and Church service missionaries were scored on a slight curve since those numbers were unpredictable. And I was fully correct on the total number of temples dedicated, rededicated, and in operation.

And finally, for the temple predictions, if I correctly predicted the exact location for any of the new temples, a score of 3 points were given for each of those. For the rest (where I had the right state or nation, but the wrong exact city), each of those were worth 2 points. As mentioned in the document showing my scoring breakdown, the overall percentage of accuracy on these predictions came out to 64.61%, putting me in the lower end of my usual range of 60-80& accuracy.

Hopefully everything I have laid out here makes sense to you all. Feel free to ask for clarification on anything that may be confusing. I would also just add that I antiicipate the annouoncement of new area leadership assignments for this ear to be made any day now. If that doesn't happen tomorrow, it will probably occur towards he mid-to-late part of next week. Hopefully I can get my list of the most likely changes that could be announced published to this blog before the announcement is offiicially made, but we'll have to see what happens there.

I also continue to monitor all Church news reports and temple updates and will be sure to bring you all word of those as I become aware thereof. 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: General Conference Talk Transcripts Are Now Available

Hello again, everyone! This is a very quick breaking news update. In recent years, the Church has made video/audio versions of each General Conference talk available shortly after each session concludes, and has had the transcripts for the talks available for online viewing on Wednesday or Thursday. This post is being published to advise my readers that the transcripts from last weekend's General Conference are already available. I will be analyzing some data from that, and will be sure to post updated content based on my usual traditions (including a look at the lengths of each talk given by any of our apostles and also an update on the individual and total number of talks given by our apostles).

I will have that analysis ready to post ASAP. In the meantime, I am still working on the process of scoring the accuracy of my General Conference predictions and will also post that once I have it completed. There are also a few other projects I have coming down the pipeline which I will be detailing more fully when I have the opportunity to assess their readiness towards completion. 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 TEMPLE NEWS: President Nelson Announces 20 New Temples as the April 2021 General Conference Concludes

Hello again, everyone! I am still attempting to put together my thoughts on the General Conference weekend that just concluded, but I do have some breaking news to report as well. During President Nelson's concluding remarks, the prophet 20 new temples that will be built in the following locations: 

In Europe: Oslo Norway; Burssels Belgium; and Vienna Austria. In Africa: Kumasi Ghana; Beira Mozambique; and Cape Town South Africa. In Asia: Singapore, Singapore.In South America: Belo Horizonte Brazil; Cali Colombia; Queretaro and Torreon Mexico. And in the Central and Western United States: Helena Montana; Casper Wyoming; Grand Junction Colorado; Farmington New Mexico; Burley Idaho; Eugene Oregon; Elko Nevada; Yorba Linda Califronia; and Smithfield Utah.

Of those new temples, I correcttly predicted the following temple: Oslo Norway, Brussels Belgium, Vienna Austria,, Kumasi Ghana, Cape Town South Africa, Singapore City Singapore, Belo Horizonte Brazil, Cali Colombia, Queretaro and Torreon Mexico,  Eugene Oregon, Elko Nevada

I had the following general regions correct, but not the specific locations: Beira Mozambique (I opted for Maputo), Helena Montana (I opted for Missoula), Casper Wyoming (my choice was Evanston), Grand Junction Colorado (I had Colorado Springs),  Farmington New Mexico (I had Las Cruces), Burley Idaho (I had Preston), Yurba Linda California (Bakersfield was on my list), and Smithfield. 

Apparently, I need to do even more to listen to the opinions of others. That being siad, I'm satisfied and surprised that we go a full 20, which is the new highest number of temples announced by President Nelson at one time. I very much appreciate President Nelson's prophetic dedication to bring the temples to the people. The total number of temples in any phase has now reached 251. I am grateful to have been able to learn of (and pass along) this information to you all. I continue to monitor all Church news updates and reported developments and will be sure to pass word of those along to you all here as I become aware thereof. 

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.

April 2021 General Conference Predictions Final Edition

Hello again, everyone! Now that the countdown to the Saturday Morning Session of the April 2021 General Conference is down to just over 10 hours, I have finalized my predictions for this upcoming General Conference. The document to which I linked in the previous sentence replaces the three separate documents to which I previously linked. I'd like to thank all who participated in the dialogue about these predictions in every stage thereof.

With the upcoming General Conferenc anticipated to have a key focus on Easter, it will be interesting to see what happns therein. To the best of my ability, I will keep tabs on all such news and will pass my analysis of those developments along as I am able to do so. That will include up-to-the-minute coverage of any developments that constitute breaking news. I have a feeling this will be yet another unforgettable conference for a variety of reasons that we cannot presently discern right now.

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.

Review of Temple Construction Progress During the First Quarter of 2021

Hello again, everyone! As the final minutes of March draw to a close, I am pleased to take a look back at the progress that has been made on temple construction efforts throghout the world during this first quarter of 2021. The information is fairly straightforward and largely speaks for itself. That said, the first report shows how the temple construction efforts looked as 2021 began, while the second demonstrates where things stand in that respect as this first quarter concludes. I have no doubt that we are just seeing the beginning of the wonderful developments that will occur in temple construction throughtout this year.

I fully anticipate that this weekend's General Conference will bring with it the announcement of several new temples. As I've previously noted, my gut feeling is that a double-digit number of temples may be announced, but that will be up to the Lord, through President Nelson, to either confirm, correct, or deny. I will be sure to bring you all my analysis on any such announcement here ASAP after it it made, in addition to covering any other breaking developments that may occur during General Conference. I likewise continue to monitor temple construction updates and general Church news, and remain committed to bringing the latest updates on those developments to you all here as I become aware thereof.

Parenthetically, I should also note that today marks 3 yhears exactly since Elders Gerrit W. Gong and Ulisses Soares were sustained to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles as the first Asian-Ameerican and Latin-American apostles, fulfilling President Nelson's promise that there would one day be "more flavors in the mix" among the top leadership Quorums of the Church. I support and sustain each of our current apostles and on this anniversary of the calls of Elders Gong and Soares testify again of the inspiration behind their calls to that role as special witnesses of Christ.

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.

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 TEMPLE NEWS: Exterior Rendering Released for the Syracuse Utah Temple

Hello again, everyone!Breaking news has been reported by the Church within the last hour. As some of you might recall, in late August of last year, groundbreakings were set and renderings released for the Bentonville Arkansas and McAllen Texas Temples. In that same announcement, the location and preliminary details were revealed for the Syracuse Utah Temple. Fast forward to around half an hour ago. The Church News noted that the exterior rendering for the Syracuse Utah Temple has been released. Interestingly enough, on the Newsroom, rather that providing a new press release specifically relating to this temple's new rendering, it appears that the late August release, which showed information about that temple, has since been updated with the exterior rendering.

The Syracuse Utah Temple was announced in April of last year. The site location for it was then confirmed in August, and the rendering has been released now in February, so four months passed between the temple's announcement and the release of the preliminary information, with four more months passing between the release of that preliminary information and today's release of that rendering. As I have previously mentioned, it is currently anticipated that the Syracuse Utah Temple will be one of the first (if not the very first) to have a groundbreaking this year.

The Church News update on this temple notes that no groundbreaking date has been set yet, but given that a window for that is anticipated in the spring, we might hear of formal arrangements being set for that temple within the next month or two, with the groundbreaking itself perhaps set for April, May, or June. In 2019, as some of you might recall, there were several cases where the Church released a rendering for a temple a few weeks prior to subsequently announcing the groundbreaking information for it, so something similar could happen here.

The one difference between most of the temples that had that happen 2 years ago and the Syracuse Utah Temple is that the latter is going to be a comparatively larger temple. Set to rise at the intersection of 2500 West and 1025 South in Syracuse, plans call for a three-story temple of roughly 89,00 square feet. The rendering in this case shows yet another temple that will not feature the angel Moroni, suggesting that the new trend will be towards not including it in most cases for future temples of the Church.

A couple of additional thoughts, if I may offer them. I know that I am one who has been surprised that no groundbreakings have been set to occur this year yet. Last year, the first groundbreakings were announced in mid-to-late January, and set to occur in April and May, but wound up occurring in April, May, and June, due to COVID-19 conditions. 

Last year also saw several other groundbreaking arrangements reshuffled. So while I am surprised no arrangements have been formally announced thus far, I understand that it may be wiser to factor in COVID-19 conditions when making those arrangements. And the way things worked out last year, the Church had originally planned to conduct 18 temple groundbreakings (per Elder Bednar's remarks in the April 2020 General Conference). That number was increased to 20 (per President Nelson's opening remarks in October), and the Church actually wound up being able to carry out 21 groundbreakings by the end of the year. Of those 21, 16 wound up occurring during the final 4 months of the year.

My reason for mentioning that is that, even if the Church does not wind up announcing the first groundbreaking(s) this year for another month or two, a slow start on announcing them may not equate to a smaller number of groundbreakings occurring during this year.  In fact, I think the opposite may turn out to be true. For the upcoming April General Conference, among other things, I have predicted that Elder Bednar may be one of the three members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles who might speak in the final session thereof.

If that happens, I think it may also be safe to assume that Elder Bednar might mention an exact number of temples for which the Church is hoping to break ground by the end of this year, and that, as President Nelson speaks to close out the conference, he may then announce several new temples. Given what we know about the potential for temple events this year, there are at least 8 thus far that will almost certainly have a groundbreaking, and I have at least 6 or 7 others on my radar as well.

As a result, I think we might safely anticipate new temples being announced in the double-digits this time around, marking the first time since October 2018 that more than 10 temples might be announced. It will be interesting to see all of that unfold this year. I continue to monitor all temple developments, major Church news, and many other factors as well, and will do my best to continue to bring word of those to you all as I become aware of all such updates.

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.

Initial Predictions for the April 2021 General Conference

Hello again, everyone! As we begin this second month of 2021, I have a few different projects in the pipeline. Among those on which I have had to put in frequent but sporadic work are my initial predictions for the April 2021 General Conference. I am pleased to present those to you today for your review and feedback. I will do so by sharing links to the relevant files. I will note at the outset that my predictions for the speaker layout are based on the announced parameters for the upcoming General Conference, and that the changes in Church leadership have been based on the announcement of new mission and temple presidents

Additionally, the projected numbers for the statistical report (which are featured in the same document covering anticipated Church leadership changes) are based on what has been confirmed, what can be calculated, or otherwise, thorugh a complex algorithm that hasn't always worked. In the meantime, new to the initial draft of my predictions this go-round, I have adjusted my list of potential locations in which a temple could be announced.

Aside from some new locations making the list for the first time, I have in some cases provided two or more potential locations for a specific nation or state because I had a hard time narrowing them down further than that. I have also opted, for this initial draft, to eliminate the accompanying references for context, because I want the list to be able to speak for itself until I have it slimmed down a bit more. I also hope that without the distraction of the lengthy notes section for the temple locations, that might more fully open up the conversation about these predictions. At some point, should the need arise to do so, I will add any adjusted notes for context.

That said, I am pleased to declare the commenting period on these predictions is open, effective immediately, through Thursday April 1 at 10:00 PM, which will give me 36 hours to make any final adjustments to these predictions. Between now and then, when appropriate, I will be providing updates that may be needed based on the feedback I receive on them here. Thanks for your consideration of these predictions. I look forward to your input.

I will also continue to monitor all Church news updates and temple developments, and will be sure to pass word of those along to you all as I become aware of them. For the immediate future, I am planning on providing a new post on Saturday in honor of Elder Ronald A. Rasband's 70th birthday, and have a couple of apostolic tenure milestones to cover before I provide the next full apostolic data update on March 14. Stay tuned for all of that.

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 TEMPLE NEWS: Groundbreaking Held for the McAllen Texas Temple

Hello again, everyone! As confirmed in a new report from the Newsroom a short while ago, this morning, ground was officially broken for the McAllen Texas Temple by Elder Art Rascon, an area seventy. Since Texas is one state that has seen severe outbreaks of COVID-19, local regulations prevented a large gathering, so a video of the proceedings will be made available later this week. In a recent comment about that temple on the Church Growth Blog, someone living in Texas noted that the temple was anticipated to be completed in late 2022. It seems as though a lot of temples have a window of late 2022-early 2023, so it will be interesting to see what actually happens in that respect.

As previously announced, the temple is anticipated to be one story, and approximately 25,000 square feet in area, and will include an adjacent meetinghouse on the site. It will be interesting to see how quickly full-scale construction can begin for this temple. As some of you might recall, in the days leading up to this groundbreaking, the Church was still working on obtaining a conditional use permit for the property. Insofar as I am aware, that permit has not yet been obtained, which may or may not lead to a delay in the construction for that temple.

The McAllen Texas Temple, in addition to being the fifth for the state of Texas, is also the sixteenth temple to have a groundbreaking this year alone. The Church now has five temples left that are on the docket for a groundbreaking this year. And for the first time since Halloween, this week ground was broken for only one temple. I had mentioned in the threads of my previous post that the exact date of the groundbreaking ceremony for the Antofagasta Chile Temple had been confirmed as this upcoming Friday, November 27. That means that only the Mendoza Argentina Temple groundbreaking remains in the queue for November, and will occur at an as-yet unspecified date.

One other note may be of interest to you all here: with this latest groundbreaking, there are now 30 temples in the current construction queue, and 33 others are announced. If the Church remains on track in breaking ground for the other five temples this year (Antofagasta Chile, Mendoza Argentina, Okinawa Japan, Harare Zimbabwe, and Bengaluru India), then the Church will end the year with more temples under construction than there will be just in the announced section. 

With that in mind, given the efforts this year to clear that queue in the midst of a global pandemic, and in consideration of the number of temples for which groundbreakings might soon be announced, we could easily see a large number of new temples announced during the April 2021 General Conference. I am still putting together some updates on my temple files, and evaluating how and to what extent recent precedents and developments might factor into my April 2021 General Conference predictions, but if all goes well, hopefully, I'll have something posted soon.

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 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.

UPDATED: Report on How My Predictions for the November 2020 Ensign Table of Contents Turned Out

Hello again, everyone! Between the apostolic birthdays coming up later this month, and the exact dates being confirmed for 2 of the 8 temple groundbreakings within just the last 48 hours or less, I wanted to get ahead of the rush on everything else I'll need to cover. Although the PDF version of the Novembmer 2020 Ensign is not yet available for online viewing or downloading, I received my physical copy of the magazine in the mail today.

Due to those upcoming projects that will come down the pike in the next couple of weeks, I wanted to provide a comparative look at how my projected table of contents for this issue compared with the actual layout. As has been the case for previous General Conference editions of the Ensign, any differences between what I had predicted and what the magazine actually shows is in parentheses.

The one other note I have on this document (which largely speaks for itself aside from that) is that this will, of course, consittute my final analysis of General Conference editions of the Ensign. That's true because, as of January 2021, The Liahona will be the standard monthly magazine for adults, and the next analysis of a General Conference magazine will be the first General Conference edition of the Liahona after those changes go into effect.

Aside from these notes, the information largely speaks for itself. 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.

October 2020 General Conference Predictions Results

Hello again, everyone! With almost 3 full weeks having passed since the October 2020 General Conference took place, I am pleased to now provide the resultp s of my predictions for it. First, I felt that it might be helpful for many of you if I provided more specific information and examples on what I score, how it is scored, and how that leads to the overall point total and accuracy percentage for them. That new section sets the backdrop for the results of the predicted speaking order, those of the projected changes in general Church leadership and a look at how my list of prospective temple lcations compared to the locations in which a temple was officially announced.

The information largely speaks for itself, but if any of you have questions about any of that, I'd welcome the chance to address 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.

BREAKING TEMPLE NEWS: President Nelson Announces 6 New Temples As the October 2020 General Conference Concludes

Hello again, everyone! I have breaking news to share from the Sunday Afternoon Session of General Conference that has just concluded. During his remarks that served as the capstone to this conference, President Nelson announced 6 new temples, which will be built in the following locations: Tarawa Kiribati; Port Villa Vanuatu; Lindon Utah; Greater Guatemala City Guatemala; East Sao Paulo Brazil; and Santa Cruz Bolivia. Along with covering this announcement, I wanted to share some preliminary information based on what is known about each of these new temples. First, the Church News also covered this announcement. Secondly, when Church Growth expert Matthew Martinich last updated his list of the top ten natons with the strongest Church presence without a temple last April, Kiribati and Vanuatu were on that list in the first and eighth positions.

Additionally, some have offered the opinion in the past that the forecasted sinking of both Kiribati and Vanuatu within the next hundred years or so might deter the Church from building a temple in either or both places. I am grateful that the Lord moved upon His prophet to announce temples for both island nations, and I look forward to seeing how the construction of both temples may lead to a change in those mortal opinions.

Lindon may or may not have been on my list, given that two temples are operating in Provo, with one more currently under construction in Orem, but it's clearly needed in this part of Utah County. Bolivia's second temple being announced for Santa Cruz was expected, as were additional temples in Guatemala and Brazil, but I didn't anticipate the announcement of general rather than specific locations for those. Overall, without conducting a more thorough analysis of the locations announced vs. what I predicted, I probably came close to my 60-80% accuracy rate for that part of my predictions.

I am grateful to have been able to learn of this development and pass word of it along to you all. I am confident the remainder of this year will see several other breaking Church news updates and temple developments, and I will be sure to bring word of those to you all as I become aware of such news in the future.

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.

Review of Temple Construction Progress During the Third Quarter of 2020

Hello again, everyone! As the final minutes of September 2020 move ever closer towards their conclusion here in Utah, I am pleased to provide a look back at temple construction progress which has occurred during this third quarter of this year (spanning from June 1 until today). During that time, the opening of the Winnipeg Manitoba Temple, and its' subsequent dedication, which had been announced at the end of April, has been postponed. During the third quarter of this year, groundbreakings have been held for seven temples (Alabang Philippines, Auckland New Zealand, Feather River California, Orem Utah, San Pedro Sula Honduras, and Brasilia Brazil).

During this quarter, groundbreakings have been announced for the Brasilia Brazil, Taylorsville Utah, Moses Lake Washington, Red Cliffs Utah, Bentonville Arkansas, McAllen Texas, Coban Guatemala, and Okinawa City Japan Temples. Meanwhile, the arrangements for the groundbreaking of the Salta Argentina Temple were originally announced (with that event first scheduled to be held on Saturday August 15), but twice postponed due to COVID-19 conditions, being pushed back first to Friday October 9, then to an unspecified date in November. And this quarter saw all groundbreakings following that of the Brasilia Brazil Temple scheduled to occur during a general month, rather than a specific and exact date, which will result in us not knowing the specifics of when each of those will take place until the Newsroom reports that each has been conducted.

In addition, sites have been  confirmed for 6 more temples during this third quarter, 5 of which have also had a rendering released. As I've previously noted, in last April's General Conference, Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles noted that the Church was planning to break ground on 18 temples this year, and with those scheduled thus far, there will have been 16 temple groundbreakings when each of those have taken place.  At this point in time, it's just about impossible to know how feasible it would be for the Church to plan 1 of the other 2 groundbreakings for sometime in October, or if subsequent groundbreakings could take place in November above and beyond the 5 already scheduled. 

It is similarly hard to know for sure whether one or both of the remaining 2 could take place in December, since the Church would need to make arrangements for those around Christmas and New Year's festitivities. But I have also previously cited the example of how President Hinckley's goal to have 100 operating temples dedication prior to the end of the year 2000 was able to not only be met, but also exceeded by 2. Due to that past precedent related to temple construction, I have perhaps wondered whether the Lord, seeing how diligent His servants have been in working towards that goal despite the complications caused by both the COVID-19 pandemic and other disasters and calamities throughout the world, will open the way for more than 18 temples to have a groundbreaking.

Whatever might occur in that regard, given the fact that Elder Bednar, who chairs the Temple and Family History Executive Council, publicly (and for what I believe was the first time it had ever happened) announced a specific number of temples would have a gorundbreaking this year, it wouldn't shock me if, whenever he speaks during General Conference next weekend, he was to give a progress update on this year's efforts and outline any preliminary plans the Church has for any number of groundbreakings next year. It could also be possible that either President Nelson, or Elder Bednar with the prophet's approval, could make an announcement about any other groundbreakings that will take place before the end of this year, and/or that revised dates for the open houses and dedications/rededications of temples could be noted as well.

And of course, with General Conference set to get underway in less than 72 hours, there will almost certainly be more new temples announced. It will be interesting to see all of that unfold, and to the best of my ability, I will continue to document those events as they happen. With those preliminary comments in mind, I'd like to remind you all where the Church stood in terms of temple developments as 2020 began and where things stood by the end of the first quarter of 2020, just 3 days prior to the April 2020 General Conference, where things stood at the end of the second quarter (also first half) of 2020, and how things look today as 2020's third quarter concludes.

With the sheer number of breaking news developments relating to temples that have been shared by the Church since June 1 of this year (which marked the start of the most recent quarter) it will be interesting to see what announcements come down the pike through the remainder of this year. Whether or not any other temple groundbreakings take place beyond what has already been announced, I personally hope that for some of the smaller temples nearing completion (Winnipeg Manitoba, Yigo Guam, and Praia Cabo Verde) could have some carefully-controlled openings of some kind announced, even if that meant strict regulations on the number of people attending at one time, which could be achieved by having more extensive open houses.

But in any case, in addition to those 3, it will be interesting to see if, when, and how soon the Church is also able to reopen the Washington DC, Tokyo Japan, Mesa Arizona, and Hamilton New Zealand Temples. The leading Brethren of the Church, and all who continue to assist them in the work, have become very experienced at rolling with the punches as far as working through COVID-19 circumstances as that has become necessary, and I'm sure that will continue to be the case going forward. Either way, with what we know so far, 2021 is shaping up to be a big year for temple dedications, rededications, and groundbreakings.

You can depend on my monitoring all such developments, along with any updates in any respect related to general Church news, and that I will provide those updates ASAP as I hear about them. 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 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.