Temple Updates Provided

Hello again, everyone! There have been a few more temple updates reported in the last several hours. I think I can pass them along without having to post my entire report again. So let's get right into all of them. We start with an update on the Kinshasa DR Congo Temple, which will, if all goes well, be the next to have a dedication scheduled. On the grounds of that temple, the installation of pavers and plants continues at a steady rate. The general time-frame for that temple's completion remains early-to-mid 2019, and I have ventured my opinion that a dedication is possible in mid-April.

At the Raleigh North Carolina Temple, stone cladding continues at a steady pace. As some of you may recall, a while ago, based on the progress I saw with the Baton Rouge Louisiana Temple, which has seemed to progress more consistently than the Raleigh Temple, I switched the two. Given the fact that we have seen an increased number of updates on the Raleigh renovation recently, I may be rethinking that.

Now to the big news: According to a report from a Church member in the Abidjan Ivory Coast, a groundbreaking for that temple is anticipated to be held on November 8 of this year. I hope that turns out to be the case. However, I looked for verification of this on the Church News website, and on the Church's official website (on both the News & Events page and the Newsroom), and I even consulted the Newsroom page for the Ivory Coast, which I had Google translate from French to English. The long and the short of it is that I have not yet found confirmation that this report is accurate. And there has been no release of an artist's rendering or an official site announcement.

I hope that this report does turn out to be true. That would give me hope that the Abidjan temple will have a groundbreaking this year in addition to the one in Bangkok. However, until this is officially confirmed in some way through official Church sources, I am taking this information with a grain of salt.

I continue to monitor all Church news and temple developments and will do my level best to pass word of those along to you all as I receive it. That does it for this post. Any and all comments are, as always, welcome and appreciated, on any post at any time. 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.

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 (posted just a few moments ago), 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, and current and future nonagenarians. So let’s get right into all of that. Again, all data is current as of today (Sunday September 23, 2018).

First, I thought it might be appropriate to share an overview of the apostolic birthdays that are coming up in the near future, particularly those which will be observed before I post the next such update, which I will try to do in 6-weeks’ time (around November 4). We have two apostolic birthdays coming up before then. The first will be the 60^th birthday of our youngest apostle, Elder Ulisses Soares, which he will be observing on October 2. Then, as noted towards the end of my last post, President M. Russell Ballard’s 90^th birthday will be observed 6 days later, on October 8. Just by way of reminder, we have two apostles each observing their birthdays in November (Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf’s 78^th on the 6^th, and Elder Dale G. Renlund’s 66^th exactly one week later), while Elders Jeffrey R. Holland and Gerrit W. Gong will observe their respective 78^th and 65^th birthdays on the 3^rd and 23^rd of December respectively.

With that noted, we now move on to some exact figures about the ages (and average ages) of the First Presidency, Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and all 15 apostles as a group. For the First Presidency, President Russell M. Nelson’s long-form age is now 94 years, 0 months, and 14 days, which works out to 94.04 decimal years. President Dallin H. Oaks has reached the age of 86 years, 1 month, and 11 days, which is 86.12 years. President Henry B. Eyring, who, as previously noted, is almost always 0.8 years younger than President Oaks, is now 85 years, 3 months, and 23 days old, which puts him at a decimal age of 85.32 years.

The three Presiding High Priests now have a combined 265.48 years of life experience, which puts their average age at 88.49 years as of today. President Oaks remains closest to that average, still being 2.37 years below it. Obviously, Presidents Nelson and Eyring are still respectively above and below the average.

We move on now to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. First, President Ballard, whose 90^th birthday is, as noted, 15 days away, has a long-form age of 89 years, 11 months, and 15 days old, with a decimal age of 89.96 years. Elder Holland is now 77 years, 9 months, and 20 days old, which puts his decimal age at 77.81 years. Elder Uchtdorf, at just under a month older than Elder Holland, is now 77 years, 10 months, and 17 days old, making him 77.88 in decimal years.

Elder Bednar has a long-form age of 66 years, 3 months, and 8 days, with a decimal age of 66.27 years.  Elder Cook, who also observed a birthday since my last update, is 78 years, 0 months, and 15 days old, making his decimal age 78.04 years. Elder Christofferson is now 73 years, 7 months, and 30 days old, which works out to 73.66 years.

Elder Andersen is now 67 years, 1 month, and 14 days old, which puts his decimal age at 67.12 years. Elder Rasband’s long-form age is 67 years, 7 months, and 17 days, with a decimal age of 67.63 years. Elder Gary E. Stevenson, who was the youngest apostle currently serving until last April, is now 63 years, 1 month, and 17 days old, which is 63.13 in decimal years.

We now come to the final three apostles. Elder Renlund now has a long-form age of 65 years, 10 months, and 10 days old, which is 65.86 years. Elder Gong is now exactly 64 years and 9 months old, with a resulting decimal age of 64.75 years.  Elder Soares, whose 60^th birthday is coming up, as noted earlier, on October 2, is now 59 years, 11 months, and 21 days old, with a resulting decimal age of 59.98 years.

The current members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles have a combined life experience of 852.09 years, which averages out to 71.01 years for each of those 12 Brethren. As I noted previously, the ages of Elders Christofferson and Rasband put them above and below that average respectively, with Elder Christofferson now being 2.65 years older and Elder Rasband remaining roughly 3.38 years younger.

Based on the information I provided earlier about the members of the First Presidency, the 15 apostles have a combined 1117.57 years of life experience, which averages out to 74.5 years. Elders Holland and Christofferson stand closest to that average, with the former being 3.31 years older, and the latter remaining 0.84 years younger.

We now move on to the nonagenarians. President Nelson remains the 7^th oldest apostle in Church history, and now has just over 9 months before he will move up on that list. President Ballard will join that list in just 15 days. This means that by the time I post these statistics again, not only will President Ballard have joined the list of nonagenarians, but he will be 10 days away from when he will first move up on it.  While 12 other apostles will join the list at various intervals, Elder Soares now has 30 years and 9 days until his 90^th birthday.

I continue to track all of this information, and will do my level best to pass updates on to you regularly, with my hope being to post the next such update roughly 6 weeks from now, which I hope to continue to do for the foreseeable future. That does it for this post. Any and all comments are, as always, welcome and appreciated on any post at any time. 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.

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

Hello again, everyone! While I hope any or all of you would feel free to continue to comment on any previous posts published on this blog, another 6 weeks have come and gone since I last posted updated information on the latest apostolic statistics (with that last update occurring on Sunday August 12, 2018). Since there have been an impressive number of changes in that information in the 1.5 months which have come and gone, it seems appropriate to focus on it again now.

As always, before we begin the discussion of that updated data, I wanted to recognize that there may be many of you who are not interested in the information I will be providing. So I will not in any way be offended or bothered if any of you prefer to bypass this information (which will, as always, be covered over the course of two posts).

As usual, all data is current as of today (Sunday September 23, 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, including information on those who have had a birthday recently and those whose birthdays are getting closer.

So let’s begin with some information on 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 8 months and 9 days. As I noted in a post done on Friday September 14, last Sunday (September 16), the length of President Oaks’ tenure as President of the Quorum of the Twelve surpassed that of President David O. McKay, so President Oaks then became the 26^th longest-serving Quorum President.

Just less than one month from today (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, as previously noted, 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.

Insofar as I have been able to determine, President Oaks does not appear to have any significant health issues, and if that continues to be the case, he is almost certain to be around for at least the next 5-7 years, if not longer. And of course, the length of his tenure as President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles will depend on both the length of President Oaks’ life and that of President Nelson. But by all appearances, President Nelson could be around for the next decade or two.

And speaking of 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 8 months and 9 days as well. He is now 94 years, 0 months, and 14 days old.

He will observe the first tenure length milestone of his presidency roughly 2.5 weeks from today, 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.

As I have also noted before, 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 7-8 years younger than he is) are suffering from any major health issues either, which means that these Brethren will likely 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 also become the first centenarian apostle and Church president. I know that, as recently as last year, I had offered my opinion that, if President Nelson became president of the Church, he would likely not serve for very long, given his age. But by all reports, when meeting with Church members and other leaders, people have observed he seems 20-30 years younger than he actually is. As a former heart surgeon, it has been very rightly pointed out that President Nelson would know how to take care of himself, and that, due to his testimony of gospel principles (particularly those relating to health), he is one of the few heart surgeons self-disciplined enough to actually do those things. With that in mind, I would not be surprised if, as Elder Andersen expressed his hope last conference, he will be around for the next decade or two.

As for the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, except for President Ballard (who will be 90 on October 8, which is 15 days away), and who appears to be in fairly good health as well, though he may not be as healthy as President Nelson), all other apostles are younger than 80, though within the next 2 years and 3 months, we will have 3 other octogenarians in the Quorum. 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 March 31, 2021. By the end of that 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 groups of ordained apostles 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 each of our apostles 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, on this or any other post at any time. 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 (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.