Honoring Elder Ulisses Soares on His 63rd Birthday

Hello again, everyone! With the first session of the October 2021 General Conference a little over an hour from now, I am pleased to bring you all a post honoring Elder Ulisses Soares, who is celebrating his 62nd birthday today. Unless I am mistaken on this, it has been several years since any General Conference has coincided with an apostle’s birthday. And among the current members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Elder Soares is the only one who has not spoken in the first session since the April 2019 General Conference. If, as I have predicted, Elder Soares does wind up speaking in the Saturday Morning Session of General Conference, he would be the first apostle in a while (if not the first one ever) to have the opportunity to address the General Conference audience on his birthday.

As I've mentioned previously, Elder Soares has a most unique life story and background, and I am grateful to share some thoughts about him with you all today. He was born on this day in 1958 in São Paulo Brazil to Apparecido Soares and Mercedes Carecho Soares. He has European and Amerindian ancestry. When an aunt joined the Church, that was how the Soares' family first learned of the gospel. His parents, after being taught by the missionaries, were baptized when young Ulisses was five years old.;

Regarding his experience with worshipping in the Church during his growing-up years, his small branch would meet in a tiny rental place that was located above a bakery. He served a full-time mission in Rio de Janeiro, Upon his return, he connected with;Rosana Fernandes Morgado, who had served in the same mission at around the same time, but whom he had not met until after they both had returned. The two were married in the Sao Paulo Temple, and together they raised three children

His academic experience involved studying at the;;Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo, from which, in 1985, he received a bachelor's degree in economics and accounting. He then continued his studies at the;National Institute of Postgraduate Study, where he earned a Master's Degree in Business Administration. He spent his professional career working for several multinational companies (one of which was Pirelli Tire Company) as an accountant and an auditor. Donald L. Clark, who at that time was serving as director of temporal affairs for the Church in Brazil, convinced him to take a job with the Church as a senior auditor.

When Brother Clark was asked to serve as a mission president, Brother Soares took over for him as director of temporal affairs. He went on to fill a special assignment for the Church's Presiding Bishopric. Within the Church, Elder Soares has served as an elder's quorum president, counselor in a bishopric, stake high councilman, and as a regional welfare agent.

When the;São Paulo Brazil Cotia Stake was created in 1995, Elder Soares was called as the first president thereof. 5 years later, he served a three-year term as president of the Porto Portugal Mission. Less than two years after his return (during the April 2005 General Conference), he was called as a General Authority Seventy.

As a General Authority Seventy, he served as First Counselor in the Brazil South Area.from 2005-2007, as First Counselor in the Brazil Area from 2007-2009, and as President of that area from 2009-2011. He served from August 2011-January 2013 as First Counselor in the Africa Southeast Area Presidency, at which point he was called to serve in the Presidency of the Seventy, with responsibility for the North America Southeast Area; Then, in November 2015, Elder Soares was reassigned to oversee the Idaho and North America Central Areas of the Church. He still had oversight of both of those areas in 2018.

On March 31, 2018, Elder Soares was sustained to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and he was ordained an apostle on Thursday April 5, 2018. He thus became both the first Latter-day Saint apostle from Brazil and the first one from Latin America. Elder Soares has had many opportunities to grow into his new assignment. In the last 1.5 decades in which has has served as a general authority, he has given a total of;12 General Conference addresses, with the first 2 given as a General Authority Seventy, 3 more as a member of the Presidency of the Seventy, and the remaining 7 given since his 2018 call to the apostleship. He will, of course, be speaking to us again in General Conference either later today, or at some point tomorrow,, which will mark his eighth address as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and his eleventh overall.

At this point, I wanted to mention one additional thing: Both the Deseret News and the Church News published articles about the recently-released biography of President Dallin H. Oaks. One of the elements featured in those articles about President Oaks’ biography detailed the conditions under which President Nelson called Presidents Oaks and Eyring as his counselors: Those callings were only made after President Nelson had personally met individually with each of his other 12 apostles. President Nelson requested these interviews with each of his fellow apostles with a desire to have his Brethren’s best thoughts about which two of them should serve as his counselors and who should be called to fill the vacancies in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

While we don’t know specifically how Presidents Oaks and Eyring were selected, iit seems to be a safe conclusion that most of the apostles felt those two should be his counselors. And with that being the apparent outcome there, I am reasonably certain that a high percentage of those 12 apostles recommended that Elders Gong and Soares be called to fill the resulting vacancies in the apostleship.

In any case, if nothing else, we know that the Lord inspired the calls of Elders Gong and Soares. I gratefully and wholeheartedly sustain all 15 “special witnesses of Christ” in their divinely-inspired and doctrinally-supported roles prophets, seers, and revelators in their roles and responsibilities as special witnesses of Christ, and am grateful to have been able to provide this birthday tribute to him today. I continue to monitor all Church news and temple updates and will be sure to bring you all word of the major developments as I learn thereof, particularly those that will occur during this weekend of the October 2021 General Coferece.

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 (Final Version)

Hello again, everyone! Given the fact that first session of General Conference is now only 12 hours away, I am back to post the final version of my General Conference predictions. First up, as always, is the potential speaker lineup. As I've previously mentioned, if the Church has 2 members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles speak during each of the two sessions on Sunday, that will allow for around 4-5 additional speakers aside from the members of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Aposttles.

Next up are my predictions for changes in general Church leadership. (including 6 current GA Seventies, with the possibility that 1 other who is under 70 but in ill health, might also be released and granted emeritus status. There is also a possibility, in my mind, that the Church could call current BYU-Provo President Kevin J Worthen to finish his term as president thereof with the additional role as  a GA  Seventy. The acknowledgement of the previously-announced releases for area seventies will likely be followed by a sustaining vote for a few new area seventies.

And the third and final part of my predictions shows a revised list of locations in which new temples could be announced. In the updates to that list, I have taken some of the feedback I had received under advisement. In particular, I used a comment made by Steven Cuff to guide my research into those prospects. So if any temples not on the previous list is now featured on this one, that is because I discovered strong reasons to add those locations to the list.

I still believe that a double-digit number of temples will be announced, and that the number will likely be between 12 on the low end and 20 on the high end (which averages out to 16 additional temples this time around). That will be especially trrue if many of those tempjles are on the smaller end of the scale as is the case with Helena Montana, Casper Wyoming, and Elko Nevada. 

Having seen the succesful ways that the temples with modular components worked in the US, that will also be true of the temple in Torreon Mexico. So if those smaller temples with modular components are used around the wrld, that will cut cost and the amount of time needed to build them, which could then allow crews to quickly move on to the next project.

I have also been thinking ni preparation for this General Conference that , in view of the fact that Saturday Evening Sessions going forward will not be directed to any particular group, whatever does wind up happening this time around might give uw a better idea of how that change impacted the number of speakers and anyt noticeable rotations.

I am very much looking forward to this General Conference weekend, and I also look forward to bringing you all word of the latest developments, especially in terms of breaking news, throughout the General Conference weekend as those developments are reported. If nothing else, we know President Nelson will likely announce more new temples, most likely doing so during his address to conclude the General Conference.

)I am hopeful (but not necessarily convinced] that perhaps his concluding remarks might be slightly longer, and that that would give him a chance to explain his temple construction plan, but I also have thought that would be possible in the lead-up to the last 3-4 General Conferences. I was also considering whether there would be any other announcements.or major developments.

If that is the case, I don't know what might be left that needs to bie changed or corrected. I wouldn't be surprised at some point if the Church took a look at the current organization of areas and made some changes there, but the question would be, why would those changes be necessary? It's possible that we could perhaps get updates on the new Church hymnbook and children's song book, and there may be other things in the Churc that are more tradition than doctrine. 

It would also, in my opinion, be good to see the poetntial canonization of either the Family Proclamation and/or The Living Christ. especially since a majority of the apostles serrving at the time both documents were released. But there is also less of a need to canonize something as scripture given that basicallym anything the apostles and prophets say publicly in their assignments as such is defined by the Lord as scripture.

I will be sure to cover anything that comes up in that respect throhgout this weekend. 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.

2100th Blog Post: CORRECTION: New Area Seventies Sustained; Others Released

Hello again, everyone! You may recall that in a new post published yesterday, I mentioned that the leadership session for General Conference included some changes for the area seventies of the Church. The link I shared in that post has since been taken down, which means it might only be during General Conference weekend itself that we hear anything about what was said during the leadership training sessions.

In the interim, the Newsroom has provided a new article about the changes in area seventies. Part of that article clarified that the previously-announced releases were ratified in that session. So those for whom a release was granted received a vote of gratitude for their service. As far as the new area seventies are concerned, in what I believe is a first for the Church, the new area seventies have beeen designated to replace a couple of those previously called. 

Elder Charden Ndinga will replace Elder Gaëtan Kelounou. As near as I can figure out, Elder Kelounou, called as an area seventy just six months ago, was released from that assignment to assume oversight for the Republic of the Congo Brazaville Mission. Elder Pedro E. Hernández has been called to serve in the Seventh Quorum of the Seventy, replacing Elder Guillermo I. Guardia, who has served since April 2017. Not sure why Elder Guardia will be replaced by Elder Hernandez, as I wasn't able to find anything on that.

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With all of that in mind, I also continue to monitor all Church news updates and temple developments, and will do my best to bring word of those to you 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.