Latest Apostolic Statistics: Part One--Updated Information for the President of the Quorum of the Twelve, Church President, and First Presidency

Hello again, everyone! Another 7 weeks have come and gone since I last posted an update on the latest apostolic statistics, so this will also be my first full update since the death of President Monson and the subsequent reorganization of the First Presidency. Be prepared: getting through it is not for the faint of heart. In beginning my coverage of this subject, I realize there may be some of my readers who have no interest in the minutiae of these details, and if any of you feel that way, I will not be offended in any way if you bypass my posts on this subject..

Having evaluated the best way to go about it, I will do it in two different parts So let’s get into the details, shall we? This first part will cover information about the President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Church President, and current First Presidency, and will be followed up by a second part with the information about the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, the 13 apostles overall, current and future nonagenarian apostles, and some other information I thought you'd find interesting.

This update will be somewhat different from those I have previously done, primarily because there has been a “changing of the guard” in terms of the Church presidency, and also the presidency of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. So in this first update following those changes, I will also be making observations about where Presidents Monson and Nelson stood at the conclusion of their tenures as Church president and President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. 

For those of you that are interested in these details, I first want to note that all the figures and data I will be presenting is, as always, current as of today. And we will start where we always do, by discussing the President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (including where President Nelson stood at the end of his tenure and where his successor, President Oaks, now stands among the other Presidents of that Quorum).

So, as I’m sure is unnecessary to note, but which I want to mention for any who are newer to this blog and these reports I do, although President Monson passed away on January 2, until President Nelson’s ordination as Church President on January 14, he filled a dual role of President of the Quorum of the Twelve and the Acting President of the Church. At the time his tenure as Quorum President ended, the length of that tenure had exceeded that of Marion G. Romney by one day, resulting in President Nelson becoming the 15^th longest serving Quorum President.

Although President Oaks has taken the role of Quorum President, his service in the First Presidency means that President Ballard now serves as Acting President of the Quorum. But since President Oaks’ tenure as Quorum President depends entirely on the length of his own life and that of President Nelson, President Ballard’s service as Acting President (which may or may not last the duration of President Oaks’ tenure as Quorum President) will not be tracked in this update.

That said, with just under a month having passed since President Oaks became the Quorum President (he has had that assignment for exactly 4 weeks, or 28 days), he is the 28^th man to serve in that assignment, and the length of his tenure already puts that tenure as the 27^th longest in Church history.

This is in view of the fact that the shortest tenure for a Quorum President is that of Joseph F. Smith, who served for only a week between the death of Lorenzo Snow and his ordination as Church President. At that time, the calling of an Acting President had not been established, and any senior apostles serving in the First Presidency resulted in the most senior apostle in the Quorum, in this case, Brigham Young Jr., serving as Quorum President. Interestingly enough, one of Joseph F. Smith’s first actions as President of the Church was to officially establish the practice of calling the most senior member of the Twelve the Acting President if the Quorum President was also serving as a counselor in the First Presidency.

Getting back to President Oaks, who is less than a month into his calling as Quorum President, he will reach two other tenure milestones by the end of this year. Those will occur on Sunday September 16, 2018, when his tenure length will exceed that of President David O. McKay (at which time he will have served for 8 months and 2 days), and on Monday October 22, 2018. There are several other milestones President Oaks will observe next year (5 to be exact), and those will be detailed in further updates.

Moving on, we next will explore where President Monson stood in terms of his tenure length and age among the other 15 Church Presidents of this dispensation at the time of his death on January 2, 2018, and then discuss President Nelson’s age and tenure milestones as the new Church President. At the time of President Monson’s passing, his tenure length spanned 9 years, 10 months, and 30 days. 8 days ago (February 3) would have marked his 10 year anniversary as Church President, and, as already noted, a Face-to-Face Event with President Nelson and his wife that was scheduled for that day was subsequently postponed.

At the time of President Monson’s passing, he was also 90 years, 4 months, and 12 days old. In terms of his tenure and age records, he was the 8^th longest-serving Church president, the 16^th in birth chronology (although the subsequent ordination of the older but healthier President Nelson has resulted in President Monson being the 17^th in birth chronology), and he was the 7^th oldest until President Nelson’s ordination as well, and is thus now the 8^th.

Moving on now to President Nelson, he has, of course, been the Church President for 28 days, since his ordination and the setting apart of President Oaks both occurred on January 14 of this year. At the time of his ordination (as I may have already observed), he was the second-oldest but perhaps most healthy man of his age to take the mantle of the Church presidency.

I have already noted that he is the 16^th in birth chronology, and he ranks as the 5^th oldest Church president overall. I am confident we will see him reach many milestones. He seems to keep himself busy, as my blog posts since his ordination have shown that his Brethren have trouble keeping up with him. And I am glad that he has announced his intention to live as long as the Lord wills him to, so I feel confident he will reach many milestones.

Looking towards the future, he will only observe one milestone this year, and that will occur exactly 8 months from today, when his tenure length will have exceeded that of President Howard W. Hunter. But in 2019, he will observe one age milestone and one tenure milestone merely 2 days apart in July.

Turning our attention now to a discussion of the updated apostolic statistics, at the time of President Monson’s passing, he and his counselors still ranked as the 3^rd longest continuously-serving First Presidency in history. President Nelson and his counselors will have a long time to wait before their service length even reaches the top 13 longest periods in Church history. The current 13^th longest tenure is held by the First Presidency that consisted of Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, and Willard Richards, with a length of 6 years, 3 months, and 6 days.

Our current First Presidency will thus only join this list of what will then be the top 14 on Monday May 6, 2024, by which time President Nelson would be just 4 months and 3 days away from becoming the first centenarian Church president. Given his health and vigor, he and his counselors could reach that milestone or any of the three others they would observe later that year. It will be interesting to see what happens there.

That wraps up my coverage of the President of the Quorum of the Twelve, the Church President, and the First Presidency, so that's all 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 Update

Hello again, everyone! After taking a couple of days to get some personal challenges handled, I wanted to post again now to pass along some Church News stories which have touched and impacted me. So let's get right into that.

First of all, continuing the series of articles on the new Church leadership announced almost a month ago, the Church News published this one to familiarize all of us with President M. Russell Ballard, who has been Acting President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles for just under a month now, and who, as noted late last week, will preside at the first temple-related event of President Nelson's administration (the private rededication of the Houston Texas Temple on Sunday April 22).

President Ballard, as some of you may know, was the final apostle called during President Spencer W. Kimball's prophetic administration, and his call came a year and a half after that of Presidents Nelson and Oaks (although, as noted, President Oaks had to wait just under a month to be ordained an apostle in view of his judicial obligations.)

It is interesting to me that the three most senior apostles all hold the title of "President" now, which we have not seen since late 2007, when Presidents Hinckley, Monson, and Packer filled identical roles as the three senior apostles now. In that previous case, the ordinations of the three were far more separated than those of Presidents Nelson, Oaks and Ballard. But since these newest three "senior apostles" have served side-by-side for so long, they are not only well-known to the Church, but will continue to work together to move it forward in their new roles and responsibilities.

That said, we now move on to the next bit of news. Some of you may be familiar with Jon M. Huntsman and his family, who are well-known in the Church in general and here in Utah in particular. He was a billionaire who more importantly had the heart of and acted foremost as a philanthropist. Amidst founding other organizations (including Huntsman Chemical Corporation, for which Elder Rasband worked professionally prior to his call to full-time Church service), he is perhaps best known for founding the Huntsman Cancer Institute, which he did with a view to eradicating cancer.

Though I had no idea it would be so at the time, the founding of that Cancer Institute wound up impacting me in a couple of ways. First, as I have previously noted, my pediatric neurosurgeon referred me to the neurologist I currently see, who also works for the University of Utah and for the Huntsman Cancer Institute.

Second, if my memory serves me correctly, when a dear family friend was diagnosed with the cancer that eventually took her life, she spent some of her final days at the Huntsman Institute, where they ensured she was comfortable and well cared for.

So I found it more than fitting that when Jon M. Huntsman, who has the longest recorded tenure as an Area Seventy for the Church, passed away, his funeral was naturally attended by many Church leaders.

In addition to tributes from all but 2 of his children (one of whom preceded him in death and the other of whom is serving as a mission president), there were also addresses given by Presidents Nelson and Ballard.

Elders Uchtdorf and Rasband, at the family's request, gave the invocation and benediction respectively. The interesting thing to me about Brother Huntsman is that he married the daughter of Elder David B. Haight, and one of his daughters married a son of President Ballard.

So Brother Huntsman is well connected to the top leadership of the Church, and that was reflected in the fact that Elder Stevenson was also in attendance, in addition to many other general and auxiliary leaders.You can find more information on this noble servant of the Lord with a heart for humanity in this article.

Moving on to news stories that I hope to get through more quickly, this article covers auxiliary leaders who were invited to address women of various faiths in Wales, and this one describes how a Mormon Helping Hands Center was set up in Pyeongchang South Korea for use by athletes and people of all faiths who need it during the Olympics (which will likely be repurposed after the Olympics), this one shares enrollment numbers at BYU-Idaho which indicate that men outnumber women there, this one which focuses on new mission presidents called to serve in Nigeria and in my current city of residence, Orem Utah, and this one covering the Church's yearly musical production which pays tribute to the cultures and family histories of those born in Latin America.

And, rounding out this Church news update are this article, in which the Young Men General Presidency describes what led up to and what is hoped for in the recently-announced policy that priest-aged young men will now be able to baptize and serve as witnesses for baptisms for the dead, and this report of a guest lecture at BYU, wherein the presenter described ten simple ways in which Church leaders and members could create a sense of belonging for children and adults with disabilities.

In reference to that last article, I wanted to personally note (since I have dealt with lifelong disabilities) that I was blessed to grow up in wards where those disabilities were not seen as a reason to exclude me, and where inspired leaders instead regularly touched bases with both my parents and myself to determine how best to meet my needs, and how they could work around my situation. In short, these inspired leaders were following the principles mentioned by this guest lecturer long before they were being emphasized so strongly, and I am most grateful for that.

I apologize for the long post. There was a lot to cover. That does it for now. 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.

Musings on the Progress of the Arequipa Peru Temple & Potential New Temples

Hello again, everyone! Yesterday, I passed along (among other things) an update on the Arequipa Peru Temple. I wanted to post a brief note to share something I did not notice until today. It would appear that with exterior work nearing its' completion for that temple, attention will turn to the temple's interior work. I also heard in passing that this temple may be slightly ahead of schedule, and depending on the degree to which that may be true, I might have to rethink yet again those estimates I have offered for anticipated temple-related events.

It continues to amaze me how temple progress has evolved, even at times on a day-to-day basis. I will be keeping my eyes open for any and all related temple information and pass those updates along as I become aware of them. In the meantime, I continue to work on my list of potential temple locations in preparation for General Conference.

In that regard, it has been a while since we have seen a new Church President announce new temples in his first General Conference. As some of you may recall, the first temples announced during President Monson's administration came between late April and late May 2008, and the first three locations were all in Arizona.

So it would be understandable if President Nelson opted to not announce any new temples until either sometime after General Conference or until his second General Conference as Church president.

With that said, I don't anticipate that occurring for President Nelson. Both Presidents Nelson and Monson acted fairly quickly (in President Monson's case, prior to his ordination as Church President) to announce the first temple news of their administrations. Many of you may recall my mentioning that the Rexburg Idaho Temple was originally scheduled to be dedicated on February 3, which was postponed one week in view of President Hinckley's passing, making the Rexburg dedication the first over which President Monson presided.

And while no temple event had to be shifted in view of this year's reorganization of the First Presidency, it is interesting to note that this new First Presidency acted right away in making major announcements related to temples, including the closure of the Hamilton New Zealand Temple (which was likely in the works prior to President Monson's death), the closure of temple visitor's centers in conjunction with their nearby temples, and, just yesterday, the rededication announcement for the Houston Texas Temple, it very much seems as though the first temple announcements during President Nelson's administration are likely to occur at his first general conference.

This is especially true when we consider that President Monson was 85 days into his presidency when he made the first temple announcements of his administration. Based on the volume of temple news that  we have seen released by the Church since President Nelson became the Church President on January 14 of this year, it wouldn't surprise me to see him announce new temples at his first General Conference as such, although he will only have been Church President for 77 days when that occurs.

When we add to that Elder Wilson's statement (made last April a couple of weeks after General Conference) to the effect that 80 potential locations were under consideration to be announced in the 15 years following (which would be late April 2032), I very much doubt that President Nelson would opt to delay announcing temples in his first General Conference. And since he is taking such an active role for someone who is the second oldest man to ever become Church president, I feel confident that we will see such announcements during this General Conference.

Regarding the subject of future temples, I also should note that I have been hard at work in the last little while to fine-tune my list of potential locations in which a temple may be built. I know I promised to post it before now, but the need to extensively overhaul the format of the list has delayed my ability to do so. Just know that I am in the process of getting that ready to publish here, which I hope to do before the end of this month, if not sooner. Just wanted to note that it is in progress.

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.