BREAKING NEWS: Completion Estimate for Concepcion Chile Altered Slightly

Hello again, everyone! I am here with some breaking temple news. It was something that I probably should have noticed and of which I should have made mention in my previous post. For the last little while, I had been operating under the assertion that the dedication of the Concepcion Chile Temple would likely be dedicated sometime during the final quarter of 2018.

But I was surprised and pleased, in looking at it more closely, to find that that estimate has been tweaked somewhat to now be during the "latter half" of 2018, meaning it could potentially be completed any time between July and December of next year.

Because this development is something I just barely noticed, I will be evaluating things and will make any adjustments to my estimates that may be needed as a result of this. I will say that, if both the dedication of the Concepcion Chile and the rededication of the Frankfurt Germany Temple occur in the earlier part of the final six months of next year, that opens the possibility that before the end of next year, in addition to the Kinshasa dedication, Rome could be completed and dedicated in late 2018 as well.

That said, I want to be very clear about one thing: I fully believe the word of those who have offered their opinions on my estimates when they say that the progress of the Rome temple is slow enough in coming that it is more likely that it will not be dedicated until early 2019. So I will be continuing to monitor all of these events and will pass along any updates to my thoughts in this regard as I make them going forward.

That does it for this post. Any and all comments are, as always, welcome and appreciated. Thank you for the privilege of your time. 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.

Temple Updates Noted

Hello again, everyone! I am back, as promised at the end of my last post, to pass along some updated information about temples. So let's get right into all of that. First of all, as of today, the Church now has 12.27 years between now and April 6, 2030, within which to dedicate the 23 temples in various stages and to announce and complete 18 others to give the Church the 200 operating temples by the time of its' bicentennial celebration. This also means that the number of temples the Church would need to complete within that time has increased very slightly, from 3.33 during each of those 12.27 years to 3.34. Not much of an increase, but I still thought it was worth mentioning.

The one other development which I wanted to note was yet another status update for the Barranquilla Colombia Temple, where decorative fencing continues to be installed, and where lamp posts, plants, and sod are also being put in on the temple grounds. This progress is a clear indicator of why this temple has been moved ahead of the one in Kinshasa, and based on the fact that its' status has been updated regularly, I am more confident than ever that this temple's dedication will likely take place on either Sunday November 11 or 18 of next year. If anything delays that process, I could see the dedication being pushed back into the following month, but it does appear at the moment that this temple is staying on track for a dedication sooner rather than later.

As with everything else, I am keeping my eyes open for developments of any kind in regards to temple progress, and I will be sure to pass along any additional updates as I become aware of them. That does it for this post. Any and all comments are, as always, welcome and appreciated. Thank you for the privilege of your time. 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.

Church News Updates

Hello again, everyone! While I continue to welcome and look forward to the comments from any of you regarding any posts in the series I completed early this morning regarding potential future temple locations in each of the Church's 25 geographical areas, and while I hope those conversations will continue into the new year, I wanted to report some Church news updates in this post, and will follow that up with another new post to pass along some updated information of which I became aware regarding temple progress.

So in this post, let's talk about the Church news. As many of you may recall, I did a post a while back to pass along important dates for Church events in 2018. We now know a little more in particular regarding the three Worldwide Devotionals for Young Adults that have been scheduled for next year.

While I have already noted on this blog that President Dieter F. and Sister Harriet R. Uchtdorf will be speaking at the one which is set to be held on January 14, until just recently, there was no word on who might be speaking at the other two devotionals next year.

But in digging a little deeper for information on that, I discovered that Elder Patrick Kearon of the Presidency of the Seventy will address the young adult devotional which is set for May 6, and that the speaker for the September 9th gathering will be Elder Quentin L. Cook of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

I found it interesting that Elder Cook will be the speaker for the last such devotional of 2018 because the date it will be held is the day after his 78th birthday, and the day when President Russell M. Nelson will be observing his 94th birthday. Hopefully those facts interest some of you as well.

Additionally, it is the time of year when BYU-Provo announces its Winter Semester Devotional and Forum speakers. The full schedule detailing who will be speaking and when can be found here. This winter, speakers will include six LDS leaders (two of which are seatmates in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles), a data analyst, and an author. That was fun to read about, and I hope many of you will enjoy it as well.

Next, I wanted to note that Elder Neil L. Andersen and his wife Kathy were the featured speakers at a Christmas Day devotional for MTC missionaries worldwide, which originated from the Provo MTC. Their message to the missionaries was that, since those missionaries were away from their families on that day, each missionary listening to them speak could consider themselves part of the Andersen family for Christmas. They also shared some additional counsel for those preparing to serve all over the world, which you can read more about here.

And, in a somewhat negative Church news development, it has been reported that an LDS missionary has died in his sleep while serving in Nigeria. The elder from Ghana had struggled on and off for years with seizures, but was determined to be well enough to serve in the mission field. While it is tragic when such a death occurs, at least this faithful young elder died while doing what he loved. You can read the Church News coverage of this story here.

Thank you for sticking with me through this somewhat cumbersome news update. It likely would have been much shorter in its length if some of this news had not come to my attention while I was working on this post.

That does it for the moment. Any and all comments are, as always, welcome and appreciated. Thank you for the privilege of your time. Until my next post (which should come in the next few minutes to pass along some temple updates), I wish each one of you all the best and pray that the Lord will bless you all in everything you do.