BREAKING TEMPLE NEWS: Groundbreaking Held for Deseret Peak Utah Temple Today

Hello again, everyone! As previously mentioned in the comment threads of another post on this blog, the groundbreaking for the Deseret Peak Utah Temple occurred as scheduled this morning. Elder Brook P. Hales, a General Authority Seventy who has served/is serving as the Secretary to the First Presidency, presided. Other leaders in attendance were Elder Berne S. Broadbent, an area seventy who resides in nearby South Jordan, and Brother Richard Droubray, who previously served as a stake president and who chaired the groundbreaking committee for the temple. Per the release, video of the groundbreaking ceremony will be made available later today. 

And although it was not explicitly stated, I anticipate that the plan remains to utilize an accelrated construction process for that project. Stay tuned for more on that as i learn about 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.

UPDATE: How My Projected Table of Contents for the May 2021 Liahona Compared with the Actual Version; Possible Changes in the Magazine Advisers' Specific Assignments

Hello again, everyone! My wife and I received our copy of the May 2021 Liahona magazine last week, at which time I took the opportunity to compare how my mockup of the table of contents for the magazine compared with the actual physical copy, since the PDF version thereof remains unavailable due to a likely glitch in the Church's computer servers used to post that information. I had hoped that the PDF version would be up by now, but so far, that has not occurred.

So I decided just now to go ahead and share the report. First, I wanted to comment on a couple of interesting elements to the magazine. With the May 2021 Liahona being the first full General Conference edition, I wasn't quite sure what to expect. So as I was thumbing through it, I noticed something interesting. Where information about the editor and advisers of the magazine are listed, there were only a few nams specified this time, with Elder Randy D. Funk listed as the editor of the magazine, and 4 other leaders (Sharon Eubank, Walter F. Gonzalez, Jan E. Newman, and Michael T. Ringwood).

That was intriguing to me because the January-April and June editions had a longer list of advisers noted. In addition to the 4 names I mentioned above, Elders Marcos A. Aidukaitis, Jeremy R. Jaggi, Adrian Ochoa, Sisters Michelle D. Craig and Becky Craven (the respective First and Second Counselors in the Young Women General Presidency), Sister Cristina B. Franco (the since-released Second Counselor in the Primary General Presidency), and Brother Bradley R. (Brad) Wilcox, Second Counselor in the Young Men General Presidency.

As I was pondering the difference in the lists of advisers in the May vs. June editions of the Liahona, I remembered that each conference edition of each magazine goes to print later than regular editions, due to the increased amount of content that needs to be accounted for. With that in mind, it wouldn't surprise me if the June magazine went to print faster than the May edition, which might explain why the list of advisers mentioned in the May Liahona is different from June.

If that theory proves correct, then in the coming months, we may have more information, but for now, I am wondering if those who have been or will be listed as advisers going forward will be specifically assigned to individual magazines. If I am correct on this theory, then my assumption is that the editor and Elders Ringwood and Gonzalez (who respectively serve as the Executive Director and Assistant Executive Director of the Priesthood and Family Department) will be the only ones listed as serving in a role for all three magazines going forward. 

I further assume that Brother Newman, as the representative from the Sunday School General Presidency, will also be listed as an adviser specifically to the Liahona (but possibly to one or both of the other two magazines), with Sisters Craig and Craven and Brother Wilcox being specifically assigned as advisers to the For the Strength of Youth magazine, and the member of the Primary General Presidency specifically listed as an adviser to The Friend. 

Until further evidence suggests otherwise, the Church may have opted to assign specific advisers to specific magazines, rather than having all of the advisers be assigned to all of the magazines. Aside from that, this edition brought a few other surprises. Given the increased amount of photographs or other images used, more of the talks in General Conference are taking up slightly more spac than usual.

Let me explain what I mean on that further. For talks given by any of our apostles, those have ranged anywhere from 3-4 pages in general. A few more of the apostolic talks shared in the Liahona span 5 pages, including the photographs or images. Meanwhile, with most talks by non-apostolic speakers typically taking 2-3 pages, more of those took 3-4 pages this time around. The conference edition was also a standard 144 pages in length.

Additionally, something else I wasn't anticipating was that the News of the Church section in the back part of the magazine was subdivided into 3 new sections: New Callings (providing brief half-page biographies for newly-called leaders, including the two new incoming members of the Presidency of the Seventy), the News of the Church section covering other developments, and a two-page conclusion sharing some suggestions for those teaching from the General Conference talks.

Aside from these notes, the table of contents document to which I linked above is pretty self-explanatory. Hopefully whatever is causing the problems with the Church website server might soon be resolved, which will hopefully allow the PDF versions of the magazines to be published as usual. I continue to monitor all Church news updates and temple developments, and will be sure to pass word of those along 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: 8 Temples in North America and Europe to Offer Proxy Work; 5 Latin American Temples to Unpause Operations

Hello again, everyone! As I noted yesterday, temple reopening announcements will now be made on Tuesday, although they will continue to go into effect on Monday as specified in their announcements, unless otherwise noted. The Newsroom and the Church News have announced changes affecting a total of 13 temples this week in Latin America, North America and Europe, with those changes confimed by the status tracker

First, the Helsinki Finland Temple will offer all proxy ordinances, effective Monday May 24. Meanwhile, the temples in Idaho Falls and Rexburg Idaho, Anchorage Alaska, Chicago Illinois, Montreal Quebec, and Regina Saskatchewan will move to phase 2-B, offering all living ordinances in addition to proxy baptisms. Meanwhile, the temples in Columbus Ohio and Washington D.C. are being given phase 2-B status as well, which will allow patrons in those districts to schedule proxy baptisms at the nearest open temples.

And 5 more temples in Latin America (Concepcion and Santiago Chile, Porto Alegre Brazil, Quetzeltenango Guatemala, and Trujillo Peru) were confirmed to have resumed all phase 2 operations following their recent respective pauses. 

As previously announced last week, the Kansas City Missouri and London and Preston England As of May 17, the Church's temple reopenings will stand as follows: 8 closed for major renovations; 1 (Kyiv Ukraine) which has still not opened in any phase since all temples were closed last year; 4 temples "paused" in their reopenings (1 in phase 1,  1 in phase 2, and 2 in phase 3); 4 in phase 1; 49 in phase 2; 75 in phase 2-B; and 27 in phase 3. Further information on these updates can be found in the links I shared at the beginning of this post.

I continue to monitor all Church news updates and temple developments, 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.

BREAKING TEMPLE NEWS: Exact Groundbreaking Dates Unofficially Confirmed for 3 Temples in the United States

Hello again, everyone! As some of you might recall, a comment on this blog on Saturday that was posted by Eric S. noted the report that the groundbreaking for the Deseret Peak Utah Temple was scheduled to occur this Saturday (May 15). Today, the construction status page for the Church Temples site unofficially confirmed that information. But more than that, the page in question also noted exact dates for next month's groundbreakings for the Talahassee Florida Temple (Saturdy June 5) and the Syracuse Utah Temple (Saturday June 12).

Although the Church won't be officially confirming the dates of each of these groundbreakings until the exact days on which they each occur, generally, if the Church Temples site notes a date in advance of that confirmation, that information has traditionally proven correct. So I have no doubts that each of these temples will have their groundbreakings on those exact dates. I continue to also believe that the probability that other temples could have groundbreakings in June, July, or August remains relatively high.

Particularly, any of the remaining 6 or 7 temples for which sites have been confirmed or renderings have been released could have groundbreakings set, which also applies to any temples that could have sites confirmed, renderings released and even groundbreakings set in one go. Again, in my opinion, we have barely scratched the surface of the major temple announcements which will come down the pike throughout the rest of the year. I will do my best to track all of that aand bring you word on the latest developments as I am able to put that analysis together.

I likewise continue to follow all major Church news updates and will be sure to pass along my take on those as they are reported also. 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 NEWS: Elder Clark G. Gilbert To Serve as New Commissioner of Church Education

 Hello again, everyone! As some of you might be aware, when the Church announced changes in the Presidency of the Seventy that would be effective August 1, the first new member of that Presidency who was announced was Elder Paul V. Johnson, who currently serves as Commissioner of Church Education. Although it has been customary for a member of the Presidency of the Seventy to serve on the Church Board of Education (with Elder Robert/ C. Gay currently filling that assignment, and Elder Johnson likely to succeed him in doing so in August), generally, a call to the Presidency of the Seventy makes necessary a release from assignments like the Comissioner of Church Education.

So I had privately theorized that Elder Clark G. Gilbert, a new General Authority Seventy currently serving as president of BYU--Pathway Worldwide, might succeed Elder Johnson as the Comissioner of Church Education. A new biographical article on Elder Gilbert through the Church News confirms that theory: Elder Clark G. Gilbert will begin serving as the new Comissioner of Church Education, effective August 1. I imagine this in turn will necessitate a change in the presidency of BYU-Pathway Worldwide, but the Commissioner of Church Education usually plays a role in recommending a change in the presidency of any Church schools, so no doubt Elder Gilbert is qualified to know who his best successor may be.

I am grateful to have learned of this news and to be able to pass it along to you all. I continue to monitor all Church news and temple updates and will pass word of those along 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.