Stokes Sounds Off

Search This Blog

Sunday, May 24, 2020

UPDATED: Current Apostolic Statistics

Hello again, everyone! I last posted an apostolic statistical update the Sunday evening following the final session of the April 2020 General Conference. So it's time to do so again now. As per my new tradition, I have assembled the updated data in shareable documents. The updated data is in 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.

Saturday, May 23, 2020

BREAKING TEMPLE NEWS: Small-Scale Private Groundbreaking Held Today For the Layton Utah Temple

Hello again, everyone! As some of you may be aware, the Church had previously announced that the groundbreaking for the Layton Utah Temple was set to be held on Saturday May 30, one week from today. I was absolutely blown away, therefore, when I just heard a report from KSL, which was soon verified by the Church's official Newsroom that, due to ongoing COVID-19 concerns, the First Presidency instead instructed the Utah Area to conduct a small-scale private event earlier today. The official word from the Newsroom is that images and video from those proceedings will be published on the Newsroom in the coming week. I am hopeful that means that similar surprise announcements are in store about scheduled and unscheduled groundbreakings taking place on a small-scale might be possible. This means that the next scheduled groundbreaking is now two weeks away, assuming the groundbreaking for the Alabang Philippines Temple is able to take place on its' newly-scheduled date. For my part, I continue to monitor all Church news and temple updates and will bring word of those to you all as I become aware of them.

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.

Wednesday, May 20, 2020

UPDATED: Two Different Speaking Order Scenarios for the October 2020 General Conference

Hello again, everyone!  Yesterday, the First Presidency made their announcement about the phased return to worship services and other meetings. Subsequently, I provided some insight in the threads of another post into what that process will look like in my neck of the woods, as a result of guidance given by the Utah Area Presidency. In the day or so since that time, I have been led to revisit some of my previously-offered thoughts regarding if, how, and in what manner COVID-19 may impact business as usual for the October 2020 General Conference. The initial draft of those predictions was assembled with the assumption that that General Conference would be similar or identical to what we saw with the April 2020 General Confernce. I subsequently began to reason through how I might arrange those predictions if the October 2020 General Conference were able to be more towards a normal status quo situation. After doing additional research, I set up an alternate projection for the potential speaker layout based on what I believe conference might look like should we be able to have a more normalized one. If anything more official is noted about that conference, that information will need to be factored in to any predictions I provide here. But for now, with what is and is not known, I wanted to provide a look at both projections and see if input from any of you can provide some perspective on which of those two scenarios may be more likely.

I'd just note here that for either predicted scenario, I will be using the exact same set of predictions for the changes in general Church leadership and the potential future locations for which I feel a temple could be announced this go-round, so I did not duplicate that information in both. Whichever speaking order is used will be attached to the other assembled predictions as detailed in the first document. And again, an open commenting period on these predictions remains effective anytime from now through 10:00 PM MDT on Thursday October 1. I look forward to your input.

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.