BREAKING NEWS: 7 New Temples Announced

Hello again, everyone! President Nelson made history again in the closing moments of General Conference by announcing 7 new temples for the following locations: Managua Nicaragua, Cagayan de Oro Philippines, Layton Utah, Bengaluru India, Salta Argentina, Richmond Virginia, and a yet-to-be named city in Russia. This brings the number of temples in any phase to 189. More information will be provided as I can get hold of it.

In the meantime, I wanted to note that 3 of those 7 locations were exactly noted on my list (Managua, Layton and Richmond), and I had also mentioned that other temples were likely to be announced in the Philippines and Argentina (though I had prioritized Neuquen and Davao above Cagayan de Oro and Salta), and I had mentioned the possibility of future temples in India and Russia, although the timing had not seemed right to me for either in the immediate future. But I am glad that we have these new temples announced.

It is also worth noting that President Nelson had publicly proposed a temple for Managua, and that land has been set aside for one for a while now, so it is fitting that he as Church president has made good on his own apostolic proposal.

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.

BREAKING NEWS: Home and Visiting Teaching to Be Discontinued and Replaced with Principle- and Concern-Based Ministry

Hello again, everyone! In a windfall announcement made just moments ago by President Nelson, the discontinuation of home and visiting teaching has been announced, to be replaced with a program focused on ministering efforts, to enable us to watch over each other more effectively.

In subsequent addresses, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and Sister Jean B. Bingham, Relief Society General President, are/will be outlining the principles surrounding the new program.

We have had plenty of examples just this weekend that modern revelation does occur and is occurring. It will be interesting to see how this changes things even further to enable all of us to lift and encourage one another on a larger scale.

More details will be coming in the hours ahead. 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..

Overview of Changes in General Church Leadership

Hello again, everyone! I wanted to provide an overview of resources which the Church has released, particularly those relating to announced leadership changes. The Church has released this summary of the Solemn Assembly (including biographical information for Elders Gong and Soares, our new apostles), along with this one (introducing the new members of the Presidency of the Seventy and new General Authority Seventies).

As anticipated, President Nelson had more than enough time to make all the necessary changes in Church leadership. Let's take a quick look at what has changed (and is going to change) in terms of the Presidency of the Seventy and the new General Authority Seventies that have been called. It is worth noting that, while we sustained two changes in the Presidency of the Seventy that are effective immediately (in view of the calling of the new apostles), in leading the second half of the sustaining of Church officers, President Oaks additionally mentioned that three other members of the current presidency (Elders Craig C. Christensen, Lynn G. Robbins, and Juan A. Uceda) will be released in August, and that Elders Terence M. Vinson, Jose A. Teixeira, and Carlos A. Godoy will begin serving in the Presidency as of August 1, 2018. As we know, this is when the area leadership changes take effect.

The interesting thing about those upcoming changes is that Elder Uceda will have only been in the presidency for a year once his release is effective. I cannot be sure, but I would imagine that Elder Uceda has been asked to fill a special assignment, either at headquarters or in an area presidency, that would prevent him from continuing to serve in the Presidency of the Seventy at that time. It will be interesting to see what happens there.

So let's talk about the General Authority Seventies that were sustained today. Among them are y that had been serving as area seventies at the time of their calls (Elders Steven R. Bangerter, Matthew L. Carpenter, Mathias Held, David P. Homer, Kyle S. McKay, and Juan Pablo Villar), 1 (Elder Jack N. Gerard) who was released as an area seventy two years ago, and 1 other (Elder Takashi Wada) who has served as a director of temportal affairs for three areas of the Church (North America Northwest and West and Asia).

We also saw the calling of a new Young Women's General presidency. As relayed in this article, the former First Counselor in the Primary General Presidency (Bonnie H. Cordon) has been called to serve as the Young Women General President. She has selected as her counselors Michelle D. Craig (who had been serving as a member of the Primary General Board) and Becky Craven, who is, as far as I know, a new face to the general Church membership.

Sister Cordon's call to serve as the Young Women General President has resulted in the call of Lisa Harkness, a member of the Primary General Board, to serve as the new First Counselor. Interestingly enough, Sister Harkness is the third First Counselor for Primary General President Joy D. Jones.

In April 2016, Sister Jones selected Jean B. Bingham and Bonnie H. Cordon as her counselors. In April 2017, Sister Bingham was called as the new Relief Society President, so as a result, Sister Cordon became the new First Counselor, with Cristina B. Franco called as the new Second Counselor. Now that her second First Counselor has been called as the new Young Women General President, for whatever reason, the only change to the Primary General Presidency this go-round is that Sister Harkness has replaced Sister Cordon, while Sister Franco remains the Second Counselor.

There were also a number of area seventies released and sustained as well, and I will have more later this week on how those changes impacted the total number of area seventies. That does it for this overview of the changes to the general leadership of the Church, and therefore, 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.