First Presidency Calls New President for the Taipei Taiwan Temple

Hello again, everyone! Among the many interesting Church News stories I have referenced which I want to mention here on this blog is one published late yesterday noting that the First Presidency had called a new president and matron for the Taipei Taiwan Temple.

This brings the number of temple presidents called this year so far to a grand total of 57, and, excluding the 3-6 new temples that are likely to have a new president announced prior to the end of this year, there are 2 others remaining on my list of currently operating temples that may still have a new president announced at some point this year, namely: Veracruz Mexico and (possibly) Washington D. C., though it wouldn't surprise me if the Church held off on calling a new president for the latter until either next year or the year after, just before that temple is rededicated.

I continue to monitor all Church news and temple developments and will do my level best to bring word of those to you 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.

Latest Apostolic Statistics: Part Two--Updated Ages & Other Important Information

Hello again, everyone! Having set the stage in the first part of this apostolic age update, we now move on to talk specifics regarding the long-form and decimal ages of our current apostles, which will also include updated information on the average ages of the First Presidency, Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and the 15 apostles as a group, current and future nonagenarians, and any other pertinent information. So let’s get right into all of that.  Again, all data is current as of today.

We start with the First Presidency. As noted near the end of my previous post, President Nelson is now 93 years, 9 months, and 22 days old, which is 93.81 decimal years. President Oaks, who will have his 86th birthday by the time I provide my next update, is now 85 years, 10 months, and 19 days old, with a decimal age of 85.88 years. President Eyring, who observed his 85th birthday on the last day of May, is now 85 years, 1 month, and 1 day old, putting his decimal age at 85.08 years.

The three now have a combined 264.77 years of life experience, which puts their average age at 88.26 years as of today. President Oaks remains closest to that average, with his age now being 2.38 years below that average. Obviously, Presidents Nelson and Eyring are still respectively above and below the average.

We move on now to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. As I did for the first time in the update posted six weeks ago, I will again be sharing the data about these 12 Brethren in groups of three.

President Ballard has now reached a long-form age of 89 years, 8 months, and 23 days old, with a decimal age of 89.73 years. Elder Holland is now 77 years, 6 months, and 28 days old, which puts his decimal age at 77.58 years. Elder Uchtdorf, at just under a month older than Elder Holland, is now 77 years, 7 months, and 25 days old, or 77.65 in decimal years.

As noted previously, Elder Bednar recently celebrated his 66th birthday, which puts his long-form age at 66 years, 0 months, and 16 days, which is 66.04 in decimal years. The oldest but least-senior of our three apostles born in 1940 is Elder Cook, who is now 77 years, 9 months, and 23 days, which is 77.81 years. His seatmate, Elder Christofferson, is 73 years, 5 months, and 7 days old, or 73.43 in decimal years.

Elder Andersen, who, as mentioned in the previous post, will have his birthday in just over a month, is currently 66 years, 10 months, and 22 days old, making his decimal age 66.89 years. Elder Rasband, who is only about six months older than Elder Andersen, has a long-form age of 67 years, 4 months, and 25 days, which puts his decimal age at 67.40 years. Elder Gary E. Stevenson, whose birthday is a mere three days before that of Elder Andersen, is currently 62 years, 10 months, and 25 days old, or 62.90 decimal years.

We now come to the final three apostles. Elder Renlund’s long-form age now stands at 65 years, 7 months, and 18 days old, with a decimal age of 65.63 years. Elder Gong is now 64 years, 6 months, and 8 days old, which puts him at 64.52 decimal years.  Elder Soares, whose 60th birthday is now 3 months and 1 day away, has a long-form age of 59 years, 8 months, and 29 days old, making his decimal age 59.75 years.

The current members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles have a combined 849.33 years, which averages out to 70.78 years. What I noted in my last update 6 weeks ago in terms of who is closest to that average and how many apostles fall above and below that average remains true today.

Among all 15 apostles, there is a combined 1114.1 years of life experience, which averages out to 74.27 years. The corrections I provided 6 weeks ago regarding how many of those 15 fall above and below that average, and the two apostles who are closest to it, remain unchanged.

We now move on to the nonagenarians. President Nelson remains the 7th oldest apostle in Church history, and now has just over a year before he moves up on that list. President Ballard will join that list 3 months and 1 week from now. Elder Soares, who marks his birthday six days before President Ballard, will mark his 90th birthday in roughly 30.25 years, with the other 12 apostles doing so at various times in between now and then.

I continue to track all of this information, and will do my level best to pass updates on to you regularly. As I mentioned in my previous post, my hope is to post on this subject once every month or two. 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.

Latest Apostolic Statistics: Part One--Updated Data for President Oaks, President Nelson, and Longest-Serving Apostolic Groups

Hello again, everyone! It has been 6 weeks since I last posted updated information on the latest apostolic statistics (which was done on May 20, 2018). So I have determined that today would be the best day to do so again. First, as always, I wanted to again mention that I will not be in any way offended if those of you who are not interested in this information skip over the data I will share in this update. Also, as I have previously done, I will split this update into two parts. That said, let’s get right into this first part.

With the birthdays of President Eyring and Elder Bednar having come and gone within this last 1.5 months, the next apostolic birthdays will not occur for another 5 weeks or so (36 days, to be exact). In light of the deaths of 2 apostles that had their birthdays in August, only 3 of those remain (for Elders Stevenson and Andersen and President Oaks, which will occur in the course of a 6-day period on August 6, 9, and 12 respectively).

As usual, all data is current as of today (Sunday July 1, 2018). This update will again feature the data in the same order as previous updates. We will start with some data about the Presidents of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, then turn our attention to the Presidents of the Church. After discussing those things, the first post will end, and the second (to be published shortly after the first) will then highlight the latest data about all 15 of our apostles.

So let’s address President Oaks’ current tenure length as President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, which will include exploring how soon he will move up on this list. The length of his service has currently spanned 5 months and 17 days. As noted in previous updates, he will be marking 2 additional tenure milestones before the end of this year, and will be marking 5 others in 2019.

To review the milestones he will reach by the last day of 2018, on Sunday September 16, he will become the 26^th longest-serving Quorum President, as by that time he will have served longer than President David O. McKay. Just over a month later, on October 22, he will become the 25^th longest-serving Quorum President, having served longer in that capacity than President Gordon B. Hinckley. Then in 2019, he will mark 5 milestones, one in April, two others in July (which will be observed two days apart), and the remaining two in November, and December. I will mention the specifics of those milestones closer to that time.

Moving on now to President Nelson, since he was ordained and set apart as Church president on the same day he set apart President Oaks as Quorum President, his tenure has spanned 5 months and 17 days as well. He has now reached the age of 93 years, 9 months, and 22 days old. Nothing has changed since my last report regarding where he stands among the 16 other Church presidents in terms of his tenure length or age rank.

He will observe the first tenure length milestone of his presidency roughly 3.5 months from now, on Thursday October 11 (when he will have served longer than President Howard W. Hunter). He will observe both another tenure-related and his first age-related milestone two days apart in July of 2019, with subsequent milestones more spread out in the years following that. And again, I will be detailing those more specifically closer to the time when they will be reached.

Let me now close out this portion of the update by reiterating very briefly some of the information I shared for the first time in the previous update. By all accounts, President Nelson remains healthy, vigorous, and fully involved in the day-to-day work of moving the Church forward. And as far as I know, neither of his counselors (who are both around 7-9 years younger than he is) are suffering from any major health issues.

With that in mind, I have no doubt these Brethren will be serving together for at least the next several years, and I could easily see them at least making the list of the longest-serving First Presidencies in the Church, which will, as previous noted, occur on Sunday April 1, 2024.

And by the end of that same year, not only will the current First Presidency reach a couple of other milestones, but President Nelson will by then have become the first centenarian apostle and Church president.

As for the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, except for President Ballard (who will be 90 on October 8, which is 3 months and 1 week from today, and who appears to be in good health as well), all other apostles are younger than 80.  With that in mind, the current members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, who have served together since March 31 of this year, will most likely easily make the list of the longest-serving apostles on that same day in 2021. By the end of that year, same year, they will have moved up 3 spots on the list. I will give more specific data in this regard closer to that time.

By the end of 2021, the current group of apostles in the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles will have made and moved up on the list of other apostolic groups to become the 12th longest-serving such group in Church history, and other milestones will be reached in the years following. All of those milestones will depend on how long Presidents Nelson and Ballard live and serve, and on how much they (or anyone else) are affected by health issues. I continue to track the health and ministry of these Brethren and will keep you posted.

With that said, I want to conclude this portion of the update. 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 (which should be the second one on this subject and will be published here within the next few minutes), I wish each one of you all the best and pray that the Lord will bless you all in everything you do.