Hello again, everyone! As first reported by the Newsroom and corroborated by the Church News, the Church was able to use a mix of in-person attendance at the Church Office Building Auditorium and remote participation through technology in order to hold General Conference Leadership Sessions for the first time since April 2019. Key counsel was provided to general Church leaders by the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. The counsel is highlighted and summarized in the articles to which I linked above, and that information is well worthy of your time and attention.
But I'm focusing this post on a new standard protocol the Church will use, effective immediately, going forward, pertaining to the sustaining of Church officers. During the leadership meeting, Elder D. Todd Christofferson read a list of 77 new area seventies who have been called to serve. Following that, President Russell M. Nelson stood up and called for a sustaining vote of those named. The vote was unanimous in the affirmative. So this is a major change in the way that area seventy sustainings will take place. The Church announcement today notes that, once the list of names have been presented and unanimously sustained in the General Conference Leadership Session, during the regular Sustaining of Church Officers that is held in conjunction with General Conference weekend, Church members will be asked to sustain the new leaders as a previously-presented group.
This change is being made not only to save time in the Saturday Afternoon Session, but also to be more consistent with scripture. The Church will be releasing information about new area seventies earlier so that, as they are sustained in General Conference as a group, Church members will have some familiarity with their names, even if they don't know the individuals behind the names.
The Church has also made the new list available according to the Quorums under which each area seventy falls, which will simplify the organization of lists for those of us keeping track of that information. So with these 77 new area seventies sustained, it appears that those who are released will be the only ones mentioned by name during the usual Saturday afternoon sustaining vote.
So already in the first General Conference Leadership Session in two years, the Church has hit the ground running and announced a major change. I am not quite sure why it was Elder Christofferson who read the list and President Nelson who called for the sustaining vote, but we may find out more about that this weekend. In the meantime, this action probably takes some pressure off of Presidents Oaks and Eyring, who will no longer have to worry about potentially mispronouncing the names on the list every six months.
I am grateful to have been able to learn about this development and to pass word of it along to you all. If the General Conference Leadership Sessions yield any other major news, I will be sure to pass that information along to you all here. In the meantime, there may or may not be other major news between now and General Conference weekend, which I will pass along to you all here as I become aware of such reports.
The commenting period for my General Conference predictions will conclude at 10:00 PM tonight, so I welcome any additional feedback on those before that window closes. I have a feeling we are just seeing the beginning of signficant developments which will be reported in the coming weekend. Stay tuned for more information and analysis as I can make that happen.
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.
