BREAKING TEMPLE NEWS: Additional Temples to Change Phases As Reopening Process Continues

Hello again, everyone! Tuesday has again rolled around, and with it has come the latest announcements in the week-by-week process to reopen temples worldwide. The most-recently announced changes have been shared within the last half-hour or so. The Church continues to detail them through the official Newsroom release, with more in-depth coverage from the Church News, and an area-by-area update of the latest changes as detailed in the temple reopening status tracker. 

As I have customarily done each Tuesday in recent weeks, let me now share additional analysis on the temple reopenings. First, the Church announced this morning that 4 temples in South America (Concepcion and Santiago Chile, Asuncion Paraguay and Cordoba Argentina) will move to phase 3, allowing all living and proxy ordinances, as early as next Tuesday (August 31). And although the Medford Oregon Temple was announced to reopen in phase 3 at some point before the end of August, that has not yet officially occurred, so hopefully the Church will announce that happening among next week's changes.

In last week's update, I mentioned the details about 10 temples which have not yet opened for proxy work.  This week's update did not affect any of those 10, but hopefully, at least a few of those will transition to proxy work in the next several weeks. With the updates announced today, by next Tuesday (August 31), the Church will have 8 temples closed for renovation (all but two of which, Hong Kong China and Tokyo Japan) have been granted phase 3 designations, which allows the patrons residing in the districts of those temples to schedule limited proxy work at nearby temples which are also in phase 3).

7 other temples remain "paused" in their reopenings (of which 5 were in phase 3, with 1 each in phases 2-B and 2). Only 1 temple is currently in phase 1, with 6 remaining in phase 2, 15 others offering living ordinances and proxy baptisms in phase 2-B; and the remaining 131 have been given phase 3 status, allowing living ordinances and all proxy work by appointment, with limitations and protocols in place. 

As I read about and pass along these reports on this blog, I'm continually blown away by how well the Church is monitoring COVID-19 conditions around the world and making weekly adjustments as necessary. I remain grateful for the moderate, measured, and cautiously-coordinated way in which the Church continues to reopen temples, and to move each temple that much closer to resuming normal operations. We are blessed to see the Lord's hand directing this process every step of the way. 

I 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.

UPDATED: Predictions for the October 2021 General Conference

Hello again, everyone! Within the last couple of months, the First Presidency initiallydiscontinuedthe Priesthood and Women's Sessions (which had respectively been held in April and October on the Saturday Evenings of General Conference weekend). That was done in early June. Roughly 6 weeks later (towards the end of last month), that session wasreinstated, though a change to its' format was announced. Prior to both announcements, I had repeatedly mentioned that each General Conference held under President Nelson has been uniquely different in various ways.

That was certainly true of last April'sGeneral Conference.4 General Officers of the Church spoke. For the members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, 3 spoke in the first and last sessions, 4 others in the Saturday Afternoon Session, and the remaining 2 speak during the Priesthood and Sunday Morning Sessions (1 each). The 3 Saturday Sessions featured 3 General Authority Seventies, 2 of whom pre-recorded their remarks while serving outside the United States.

Meanwhile, the Sunday Sessions included 6 GA Seventies in the Morning Session (3 of whom pre-recorded their remarks). Included among those 6 were also one current member of the Presidency of the Seventy (Elder Jose A. Teixeira) and 1 other GA Seventy who began serving in the Presidency of the Seventy at the beginning of this month (Elder S. Mark Palmer). And the Sunday Afternoon Session featured 2 more GA Seventies, 1 of whom pre-recorded their remarks. With a total of 11 GA Seventies speaking, that marked the highest number of GA Seventies speaking in a single General Conference within the last couple of decades.

It's also worth noting that no representatives from the Presiding Bishopric spoke. Having now laid out what occurred in the last General Conference, I wanted to note I have gotten to the point of reworking my predictions for the October 2021 General Conference that I can now share what I've got so far with you all here. A couple of preliminary notes: Since the Saturday Evening Session has been reinstated and opened to all Church members and friends of other faiths, I've surmised that the entire First Presidency will speak in reverse-seniority order to close out that session, and that 1 member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and 2 other General Authorities or General Officers might also speak then.

With the process of sustaining the general Church leadership during each General Conference having been shortened, I then determined that the Church would most likely have 4 members of the Quorum of the Twelve speak on Saturday Afternoon, which would allow 2 other general leaders to speak as well. And since the average number of members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in the Saturday Morning Session has been just about 3 every time, I think that will also continue.

So, with 3 Quorum members predicted to speak on Saturday Morning, with 4 more that afternoon, and 1 in the evening, that's a total of 8. For Sunday's sessions, my research shows that having 2 apostles speak in each of those sessions, with President Nelson closing out both, and with his counselors alternating as the first speakers ion Saturday Afternoon, that would open the prospect that more non-apostolic speakers would be able to address each General Conference, particularly the last two sessions.

I apologize for that lengthy introduction, but I wanted to set the background for my predictions. I suppose there is more than a slight chance that the speaker lineup in all General Conferences might be more in line with what happened inApril 2019andApril 2020. The biggest question mark will be how and to what extent the new Saturday Evening format might affect the rest of the conference. All that remains now for this post is for me to share the specific predictions I have assembled. First up is theprojected speaker lineup(with notes providing additional context, when needed), the anticipated changes ingeneral Church leadership, and my revised list of locations in which I have felt a new templecould be announced.

Regarding the last item on the list, I have some additional information to share. Followers of theChurch Growth Blogknow that the blog author, Matthew Martinich, offers his list of the top ten locations in which a temple could be announced just before each General Conference. While I'm not comfortable narrowing my list to the top ten candidates, what I have done is created a breakdown of the most likely places in which a temple could be announced this time around based on the geographical area of the Church under which each location falls.

Unless I have miscounted what's on my list, I have a total of 24 candidates that seem most likely to have a temple announced. Here is a copy of that list:

October 2021 Top Temple Candidate Locations (projected):

Africa Central—Kampala Uganda
Africa South—Antananarivo Madagascar
Africa West—Monrovia Liberia<
Asia—Jakarta Indonesia
Asia North—Ulaanbaatar Mongólia
Brazil—Florianópolis João Pessoa/Ribeirão Preto Brazil
Caribbean—Kingston Jamaica<
Europe—Edinburgh Scotland
Mexico—Durango Mexico
North America Central—Green Bay Wisconsin & Wichita Kansas
North America Northeast—East Brunswick New Jersey
North America Southeast—Jackson Mississippi
North America Southwest—Queen Creek Arizona
North America West—Fairbanks Alaska & Bakersfield California
Philippines—Tacloban & Angeles Philippines
South America Northwest—Iquitos Peru & La Paz Bolivia<
South America South—Osorno Chile
Utah—Herriman & Lehi Utah

So those are my updated predictions for the October 2021 General Conference. An open commenting period remains in effect on these predictions until 10:00 PM on Thursday September 30, which will allow me roughly 36 hours to carry out any needed updates. I look forward to any feedback any of you have on these predictions. I continue to monitor all Church news and temple updates and will be sure to bring word of those to you all 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.

BREAKING TEMPLE NEWS: First Presidency Announces Groundbreaking for the Phnom Penh Cambodia Temple

Hello again, everyone! Within the last few minutes, breaking news has again been reported by the Church. The First Presidency has just confirmed the groundbreaking arrangements for the Phnom Pehn Cambodia Temple. The groundbreaking has been set to occur on Saturday September 18, 2021. In an interesting development that I personally did not see coming, instead of having a member of the Asia Area Presidency or an area seventy preside at that groundbreaking, the Church has assigned the president of the Cambodia Phnom Pehn Mission, Veasna Kuonno Neang, whose service just began in July, to preside at the event.

I suppose that shouldn't be a huge surprise to me, as COVID-19 and governmental red tape has led the Church to do things differently in recent years than they have. Oddly enough, the size of the temple was also clarified. It is anticipated to be a single-story edifice of roughly 10.000 square feet, which I would not have guessed from the rendering when it was originally released during the November 2019 visit from the prophet to the Saints in that nation. 

But hopefully, that also means that work on the temple might only take 18-24 months, which I'm sure would be wonderful for the Saints in that nation. The temple site will also include an ancillary building. I was also surprised at the timing of this groundbreaking. My research had led me to conclude that this temple's groundbreaking might be a little further out than it wound up being. But I am pleased to have been able to learn about it and share that information with you all. 

With 5 temple groundbreakings now scheduled, in addition to the 5 which have already taken place thus far this year, the total number of groundbreakings to occur in 2021 will have risen to at least 10 by the week after the October 2021 General Conference. But I have a feeling other groundbreaking announcements could come down the pike relatively soon here, and I don't think it is out of the question for the Church to remain on track this year to the point of exceeding the 21 groundbreakings which occurred last year.

I will continue to monitor all Church news and temple updates on an ongoing basis, and remain committed to bringing word of all such news to you here as I become aware of it. 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.