POTENTIAL BREAKING NEWS: Preliminary Information Unofficially Revealed About the Russia Temple?

Hello again, everyone! In several previous posts (and various comment threads thereof this year and last year), I had mentioned several temples on which I was keeping my eyes for more offical information. For most of those temples, I listed them by their specific names. But I also mentioned that at least one of the temples for which extensive delays in the approvals process were anticipated was on my watchlist for more information in the near term. I didn't identify that temple by name at any point in recent mentions because I didn't have anything official to pass along about that

Fast forward to a short time ago. I have periodically checked the Church's official temple list for any information that has not otherwise been officially confirmed, and I felt impressed to check that again within the last half-hour. I pulled up the list of 48 announced temples. At my last check, that list had not included the 20 new temples announced by President Nelson almost two weeks ago. But when I checked it today, not only were all 48 announced temples listed, but where it had previously listed the Russia Temple, there is now text that reads "Russia Administration Building".

The text for that entry on the list of temples potentially gives us more details on the temple planned for Russia than we've had since that prospect was first announced in General Conference 3 years or so ago. And it suggests to me that perhaps the Church will be successful in getting approval for a Russian mulltipurpose building that includes the temple perhaps more swiftly that would be true if the temple was the only thing planned.

And with the headquarters of the Europe East Area being Moscow Russia, I could see a scenario where the Church takes a similar approach to doing in Russia what has been done previously in Tokyo Japan and what is being planned for Shanghai China, where a multipurpose building would serve as a home base for the area and mission offices, for meetinghouse spaces, and for rooms that could be used for temple worship.

I need to be very clear here that this is no more and no less than a hypothetical theory on my part based on what I'm seeing on the page where the announced temples are listed. It could just as easily be true that the name or specification here is a placeholder, and/or that there will be more work ahead for the Church to do in order to get the temple (and anything else in Russia) approved. When official information is released, that will be the confirmation of the details which are currently lacking.

If nothing else, at least it's a working theory based on what I am seeing on that list, and what I have heard from a couple of sources on my end. I will be most intrigued to see what happens in terms of temple developments in the days, weeks, and months ahead, even if the theory I have posited here turns out to be misguided or ill-conceived on my part. Stay tuned for more informaiton on this (and any other Church news or temple developments) as I become aware of those.

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.

BREAKING TEMPLE NEWS: Groundbreaking Set for Tallahasse Florida Temple

 Hello again, everyone! Within the last half hour, breaking temple news has been reported. I have previously mentioned that the smaller US temples generally get more swift approval than their international counterparts. The breaking news relates to one of those small temples. Groundbreaking arrangements have been announced for the Tallahassee Florida Temple. The groundbreaking is set to take place in June. As hax been the case with all groundbreakings held during the COVID-19 pandemic, only a general window has been set for the groundbreaking.

That event will occur sometime in June. I believe this marks the first time since the Hinckley-era smaller temples were bu8ilt that more than one temple groundbreaking occcurred in June. Elder James B. Martino, the President of the North America Southeast Area, will preside at that groundbreaking, with COVID-19 protocols leading to a limited in-person attendance. It will be interesting to see when exactly in June that groundbreaking occurs, since the Syracuse Utah Temple groundbreaking is also set to occcur that month.

Based on the temple's previously-announced location, size, and rendering, I imagine that, at most, the temple will take roughly 2-2.5 years to complete. Coverage on this morning's announcement was also shared in the Church News. Full disclosure here: I honestly wasn't expecting the announcement on the Tallahassee Florida Temple to be the next announced groundbreaking. 

Based on the information I had as recently as last night, I was anticipating the next groundbreakings announced would be, in any order, for the Lindon Utah and Pittsburgh Pennsylvania Temples, along with potentia announcemnts for the Pago Pago American Samoa and Neiafu Tonga Temples, before Tallahassee would even be on the horizon.

That being said, I am grateful the Lord continues to prove that His ways and thoughts are higher than mine. And the previous opinons I offered were always subect to official confirmation, clarification, or correction by the Brethren when official announcements come down the pike. With all of that being said, I'm grateful to have learned of this news and to be able to pass it along to you all here.

I continue to monitor all other Church news and temple updates, and will bring you all word of those as I become aware thereof. 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.

UPDATE: Results of My April 2021 General Conference Predictions

Hello again, everyone! Finding myself with some down time this evening, I took the opportunity to analyze my predictions for the April 2021 General Conference and to score the results. I wound up scoring those with a slightly-larger margin of error than usual. That is because I couldn't have anticipated that the Church would have general authorities outside the United States prerecord remarks that were given during that General Conference, nor could I have anticipated that the entire Sunday Morning Session would consist of international speakers and President Neelson. 

Smiliarly, I could not have anticipated that the newly-called aarea seventies would be presented in advance of the General Conference weekend. I also had no way to know that the Church would sustain the new members of the Presidency of the Seventy in advance, or that the only area seventies released would be those called as General Authority Seventies. And I definitely couldn't firmly gauge the full impact of COVID-19 on the Churchwide growth (or lack thereof) for the last year.

With all of that in mind, I want to share a look at the scoring information for wthose predictions. As z refresher course, especially for those following along with these results for the first time, for every predictable element, I utilize a 3-point scale. For the section wherein speakers and those conducting each session are listed, if I had the right person in the right slot in the right session, that was 3 points. Some examples of that would be my correct prediction that President Oaks would conduct the first session, and that the first two speakers would be President Nelson and Elder Uchtdorf. So that would be 3 points for each of those correct predictions.

A 2-point score was assigned where I had the correct individual(s) in the correct session(s), but not in the right order. Examples of that are the other two apostles who spoke in the Saturday Morning Session. Although I successfully predicted all 3 apostles, I had Elders Stevenson and Gong in the wrong order in that session. Meanwhile, 1 point was given for getting a speaker correct at any point in the General Conference, even though those individuals were not placed in the correct session and order in which they wound up speaking.

An example of that would be that I predicted the entire First Presidency would speak at the end of the Sunday Morning Session, but Presidents Oaks and Eyring spoke in their custmoary slots. So I was correct about them speaking, but not about when that would happen. Meanwhile, for anything that occurred which was not predicted, in most cases, that resulted in a score of 0. I mentioned "in most cases" because I did allow a slight margin of error on the predictions, given everything I could not have possibly predicted.

That said, on to the changes in Church leadership. Although the changes in the Presidency of the Seventy were not predicted, I gave myself 1 point for correctly predicting that Elder Palmer would be one of the two new members called whenever the change occurred. I also correctly predicted new general authorities, changes in area seventies, and a new Primary General Presidency, and the Church leadership changes were also scored on a curve.

For the statistical report, each element was worth 3 points. If I was within a fair margin of error (such as for the total number of missions and congregations), I scored those two elements as fully accurate. The children of record, convert baptisms, full-time and Church service missionaries were scored on a slight curve since those numbers were unpredictable. And I was fully correct on the total number of temples dedicated, rededicated, and in operation.

And finally, for the temple predictions, if I correctly predicted the exact location for any of the new temples, a score of 3 points were given for each of those. For the rest (where I had the right state or nation, but the wrong exact city), each of those were worth 2 points. As mentioned in the document showing my scoring breakdown, the overall percentage of accuracy on these predictions came out to 64.61%, putting me in the lower end of my usual range of 60-80& accuracy.

Hopefully everything I have laid out here makes sense to you all. Feel free to ask for clarification on anything that may be confusing. I would also just add that I antiicipate the annouoncement of new area leadership assignments for this ear to be made any day now. If that doesn't happen tomorrow, it will probably occur towards he mid-to-late part of next week. Hopefully I can get my list of the most likely changes that could be announced published to this blog before the announcement is offiicially made, but we'll have to see what happens there.

I also continue to monitor all Church news reports and temple updates and will be sure to bring you all word of those as I become aware thereof. 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..