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Wednesday, April 8, 2020

BREAKING NEWS: Transcripts of All April 2020 General Conference Talks Are Now Available; Updated Documents Related to the April 2020 General Conference and the Latest Temple Updates

Hello again, everyone! I have late breaking news to share here again tonight. Although the April 2020 General Conference concluded around 63 hours ago, the Church must have worked lightning fast, and the transcripts for all talks given during the five General Sessions last weekend are now officially availableAside from the quick turnaround effort on the part of the Church to make those available online so quickly in this case, one other thing surprised me.  I have previously commented on the fact that the Church sometimes experiences a delay in making the video archives of some General Conference talks available following the General Conference session in which they were given. There were similar lags in that respect this go-round. It wasn't until almost an hour after the Sunday Morning Session this weekend that the video archives of all addresses given on Saturday were made available. Similarly, it was a couple of hours after the General Conference concluded that the video archives for the Sunday Morning Session were made available. It wasn't until sometime yesterday that all but the final address given by President Nelson were made available. And as things now stand, with the transcripts available for all of the General Conference talks, the video of President Nelson's closing remarks in the last session of conference still appears to be missing from the Church's official General Conference site. But I was able to pull a rough estimate on the length of that address from the video archive of that final session via Youtube.So this post is primarily being published to share that news, but also to share the document on which I tracked the length of each apostolic address. I also have updates on the total number of talks given by each of our apostles, both prior to and since their calls to the apostleship, have spoken during General Conference. And I also wanted to present as well the updated sections of my temple construction progress report (which I have completely restructured as a result of what is known and unknown. Additionally, I have finished my work for now on the possible table of contents layout for the May 2020 Ensign, which will be subject to change as more information comes to light. And, since I anticipate that the changes in area leadership for 2020 will be announced by the Church anytime between this upcoming Thursday (April 9) and the final Friday of this month (April 24), I have additionally assembled a list of the most likely changes that may be made in conjunction with that announcement.


Finally, I wanted to provide an updated link to my April 2020 General Conference predictions, which indicate what I got right and wrong through the usage of brackets, parentheses, and the relevant notes. I will have a total score and accuracy percentage for those predictions later this week. I know that this post packs a lot of new content, and I thank you for your interest in everything I am providing here. That does it for now. Any and all comments are, as always, welcome and appreciated, on any post at any time, as long as such comments are made in accordance with the established guidelines. 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.


Tuesday, April 7, 2020

BREAKING TEMPLE NEWS: Exterior Renderings Released for Three Temples In the Western United States

Hello again, everyone! An hour or two ago, my phone lit up with a massive amount of notifications, and some of those and other priorities demanded my immediate attention, But I wanted to share my analysis on some breaking temple news to which long-time reader Eric S. referred in the comments of the previous post. That comment was made at around the same time I received notice from the Church News app that this news has been reported. The Church today released three renderings for temples here in the western United States, namely: Moses Lake Washington, Tooele Valley Utah, and Washingtton County Utah Temples. In the coming months, project leaders will file public documents with city councils/planning and zoning commissions for the approrpriate approvals. The site locations for Moses Lake WashingtonTooele Valley Utah, and Washington County Utah temples were previously confirmed, so this is the next logical step. The addresses thereof and the sizes as detailed in those prior announcements have not changed very much. In fact, Moses Lake and Tooele Valley's detaied aniticipated sizes have not changed at all, period. The former will still be a single-story temple of approximately 20,000 feet. Although the newest release doesn't mention the adjoining meetinghouses for Moses Lake or Tooele Valley, barring anything unexpected, it appears the general plans for both of those will not change too much from the original announcements. As for the Washington County Utah Temple, we do not as yet have a more official name for it. (If that eventually happens, it will make sense, because according to what Elder Steven E. Snow said to Saints in Washington County within the last couple of years, a third temple to serve the Saints there will almost certainly be needed in the not-too-distant future, so the more general name for the second templehat county is not likely to stick.)  That said, the release in which the site for what will be the second  temple of the Church in the city of St. George was announced noted that the size of that temple was anticipated to be roughly 88,000 feet. Today's release adjusts that number slightly to 90,000 square feet, so either number, or anywhere in between the two, may be the temple's actual size.

A few other thoughts struck me about these newest announcements. First of all, President Nelson did not let the moss grrow under his feet too much following this weekend's General Conference. And with Elder Bednar's statement made on Sunday that a total of 18 new temples would have a groundbreaking during this year, these 3 can safely be added to the queue. Above and beyond that, since the temple in Tooele Valley Utah is going to be built at an accelerated pace, that temple probably will move to the top of the "Groundbreaking Anticipated" section of my temple construction progress report. With Moses Lake Washington's planned size, that may not be far behind other US temples I currently have listed in that section. And with Washington County's larger size likely resulting in approval taking slightly longer, that temple may be slightly lower in that section. I will be reworking that and get it published here by way of a new post or comment on this post hopefully later today or ASAP tomorrow at latest.

In the meantime, that does it for now. Any and all comments are, as always, welcome and appreciated, on any post at any time, as long as such comments are made in accordance with the established guidelines. 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.

Sunday, April 5, 2020

UPDATED: Current Apostolic Statistics

Hello again, everyone! With the last session of General Conference having wrapped up less than an hour ago, I wanted to take the chance now to provide the latest apostolic statistics. I have come to the conclusion that the best way to do so is to provide shareable links to those updates, so that anyone with those links can read them in their current forms. And that will also eliminate the need to publish two posts for this update. The updated data comprises two parts, the first and the second. The information largely speaks for itself. I will, of course, pass along any additional Church news or temple developments, as I become aware of such things. That does it for now. Any and all comments are, as always, welcome and appreciated, on any post at any time, as long as such comments are made in accordance with the established guidelines. 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.