Post-Conference Document Analysis: Part One—Predictions & Scoring Results

Hello again, everyone! Although the Church has not released any updates today on the reopening process for temples, the lack of new information there allowed me to focus more fully today on updating several of my files relating to General Conference.As I reported exactly one week ago, tthe Church released the transcripts for the October 2021 General Conference. 

Based on the release of that information, I was able to complete my analysis of that conference. As a reminder, I have links to my predictions for the speaker lineup, the anticipated changes in general Church leadership, and the most likely locations in which a temple could be announced. 

I had previously noted I would give myself a slightly higher margin of error than I usually do, since this was the first General Conference held with a Saturday Evening sesion instead of a Priesthood or Women's Session. That being said, I wanted to share how scoring my predictions worked this time around.

As I mentioned, I gave myself a slightly higher margin of error with these predictions. With that in mind, let me now shed light on what the scoring signifies. For every possible element of my predictions, I use a 3-point scale. In terms of the speaking order, I gave myself 3 points if I had the correct individual in the correct position in the session in which they spoke. 

So for the Saturday Morning, Sunday Morning, and Sunday Afternoon Sessions, 3 points each were awarded by correctly predicting that President Nelson would speak in those slots during that session. 2 points were awarded if I had the correct individual in the right session, but if they spoke in a different slot than I had projected. 

An example of that would be President Eyring in the Satruday Evening Session, since he was the last speaker, or the 3 members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles who spoke during the Saturday Morning Session, but did so in a different order.  I had Christofferson first, then Soares, then Holland, but it was Holland, Soares, and Christofferson). 

Although I was correct about Elder Soares being the second ajpostle, his slot earned me 2 points because I did not have him in the right slot within that session. 1 point was awarded if I correctly predicted a speaker at all, but had them in the wrong slot and in the wrong session. Examples of that from the Sunday Afternoon Session are Elders Sean Douglas and Michael A. Dunn.

I had predicted they would speak in that order in the Saturday Mroning Session, but they did so in the reverse order in the Sunday Afternoon Session, as a result of which I gave myself a score of 1 for each of them. For changes in Church leadership, I gave myself a 3-point score for every GA Seventy I correctly predicted would be granted emeritus status, and 3 points each for the fact that current area seventies have been released while a couple of new ones were sustained.

That brings us to the new temples. I had the exact locations on my list for the newest temples in the Philippines, Liberia, Mexico, Bolivia, Texas, and Utah, each of those were 3 points apiece. Although I had a second Rexburg temple correct, I didn't predict it would be tn the northern area of that city, so it was 2 points, as were the temples announced in Taiwan, the DR Congo, Chile and Wyoming. I correctly surmised that a new Brazilian temple would be built, but Vitoria wasn't on my radar, so that was scored at a 1.

With a possible 3 points for each individual element of these predictions, the grand total I used to determine the accuracy percentage was 204. And the 130 points awarded of that total were based on that 3-point scale, but with a margin of error applied,  I hope that explains my method for scoring these predictions.

That being said, I also have other relevant documents to share. But because I don't want to make this post excessively long, this will conclude part 1 of my Post-Conference Document Analysis. A second part will follow later tonight and will focus on the other updated documents.

As I prepare to wrap up this first part, I wanted to note that this General Conference will likely be a template for others held going forward with the Saturday Evening Session. That means that President Nelson will continue to open and close each conference and conclude the Sunday Morning Session, but that he will also likely take his turn to speak every third Saturday Evening Session. 

The counselors in the First Presidency will rotate between being the final speaker on Saturday Morning or Saturday Evening, or, for conferences in which President Nelson speaks during the Saturday Evening Session, whichever counselor does not speak last in the Saturday Morning Session will speak first Sunday Afternoon.

The five sessions will feature 3 members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles each speaking Saturday Morning, Saturday Afternoon, and Sunday Morning, with 2 members speaking in the final session, and 1 at the beginning of the Saturday Evening Session. The other general leaders of the Church (Presidency of the Seventy, General Authority Seventies, members of the Presiding Bishopric, and General Officers of the Church) will speak in the five general sessions with some degree of rotation that will vary each General Conference.

So that seems to be what we will be looking at going forward for General Conferences. Of course, it's also possible that there will be different speaker lineups for April vs. October, but until that is proven to be correct, I think the October 2021 General Conference will be the standard template. I will be back shortly with the second part of my analysis.

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.

Tribute to President M. Russell Ballard on His 93rd Birthday

Hello again, everyone! With the wonderful spirit of the October 2021 General Confeence still strongly impacting all of us, I wanted to post in honor of President M. Russell Ballard, Acting President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, who is observing his 93rd birthday today. Among the total of 19 nonagenarian apostles, President Ballard is currently the tenth-oldest and he will next move up on that list in March of next year. That said, let's get to some biographical details.

Melvin Russell Ballard Jr. was born in Salt Lake City Utah to Melvin Russell Sr. & Geraldine Smith Ballard, on this day in 1928. Both his paternal and maternal grandfathers (Melvin J. Ballard and Hyrum M. Smith) were apostles, and Elder Ballard is thus a direct descendant of the early leaders of the Church (Hyrum M. was the son of Joseph F., who was the son of Hyrum Smith, brother of the Prophet Joseph.

As I previously mentioned, the Church has, by tradition, had at least one apostle currently serving who has ancestral ties to the Smith family. It is further interesting to note that Bruce R. McConkie, who was the last apostle indirectly related to the Smith family (being the son-in-law of Joseph Fielding Smith, who was the son of Joseph F. who was the son of Hyrum, who was the brother of the Prophet Joseph Smith), was the apostle whose death resulted in the apostolic vacancy that necessitated Elder Ballard's call.

As a young man, now-President Ballard served as a missionary in England, as has been noted in previous blog posts. Upon his return, he served in the US Army Reserves, where he rose to the rank of First Lieutenant. As a result of obtaining his secondary education from the University of Utah, he met a young lady named Barbara Bowen, whom he married on August 8, 1951 in the Salt Lake Temple. Sister Ballard passed away roughly three years ago.

They became the parents of 7 children, and one of their daughters, Brynn, married Peter Huntsman, whose mother, Karen Haight Huntsman, is the daughter of Elder David B. Haight, one of Elder Ballard's apostolic colleagues. It is interesting to see the additional relationship Elder Ballard has to other LDS apostles. Brother Ballard worked professionally in auto sales. His Church service included serving as a counselor to his mission president, as a bishop twice, and as president of the Canada Toronto Mission. He completed the final year of that assignment as a General Authority Seventy, having received that call in April 1976.

Less than four years later, on February 20, 1980, he was called to the Presidency of the Seventy. Both before and as a result of that assignment, he served in a wide variety of capacities. Particularly, the Church had established an International Mission in the late 1970s, and in 1985 then-Elder M. Russsell Ballard was called to serve as president of that mission, overseeing the isolated congregations within it from Church headquarters. During his roughly 5 years and 7 months or so in the Presidency of the Seventy, he had moved up in that Presidency from being the junior member thereof to the third most senior member.

A few short weeks after rising from his sickbed to give a his powerful final testimony, Elder Bruce R. McConkie passed away, and Elder Ballard was then called to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Now-President Ballard is known and respected for the emphasis he has placed on missionary work in his apostolic ministry. Since October 1985, he has moved from the position of the junior apostle to now being the third in apostolic seniority. In his 43 years as a general authority (with 36 years as an apostle),, he has given a grand total of  82 addresses in General Conference, including the one he gave just this last weekend. Of those 80, 7 were given prior to his apostolic call.

And, as we know, the death of President Thomas S. Monson in early January of 2018 resulted in the First Presidency being reorganized on January 14, with President Russell M. Nelson choosing his apostolic seatmate and the new President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Dallin H. Oaks, as his First Counselor. Consequently, President M. Russell Ballard was set apart as Acting President of the Quorum of the Twelve. He thus is tasked, with the approval of the First Presidency, with giving the other 11 members of that Quorum their various assignments around the world and at Church headquarters. I am grateful for the life and apostolic ministry of President M. Russell Ballard, and on this, his 93rd birthday, testify of the divine inspiration that attended both his apostolic call and the way and timing by which he has moved up in ranks of apostolic seniority and among all apostolic nonagenarians.

I gladly sustain him and the other apostles in their foreordained roles. I continue to monitor all Church news and temple updates and will bring word of all such developments to you all here as I learn about them.

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: Location Confirmed, Rendering Released, and Groundbreaking Scheduled for the Bacolod Phlippines Temple

Hello again, everyone! Within the last hour or so, the Church's official Newsroom announced official details for the Bacolod Philippines Temple. The released information includes a location, exterior rendering, and the announcement that ground will be broken for that temple on Saturday December 11, 2021. Elder Taniela B. Wakolo, the pesident of the Philippines Area of the Church, will preside thereat.

The temple will be situatted on the Bacolod Airport Access Road, North of Buri Road in Bacolod. The single-story edifice of 26,700 square feet will be joined by patron housing, an arrival center and a distribution center, all of which will be found in the ancillary building adjacent to the temple. The Bacolod Philippines Temple was one of 2 announced originally in October 2019. for which no official information had been announced. The only one now remaining from that group is now the Freetown Sierra Leone Temple.

I wanted to quickly note here something related to the timing: Although this temple will not have a groundbreaking until December 11, I am reasonably certain that the Church will announce groundbreakings for quite a few temples that will wind up occurring between the last currently-scheduled groundbreaking (for the Pago Pago American Samoa Temple on October 30 of this year) and the groundbreaking for the newest temple in the Philippines on December 11.

I will be sure to keep my eyes open for any update in that regard, and will pass that along to you all here as needed. 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: Transcripts of General Conference Now Available

Hello again, everyone! This is just a quick note to confirm that the transcripts of talks given during last weekend's General Conference are now available. President Nelson has invited us to regularly review those addresses for the next six months, so I'd urge all mty readers to follow and take advantage of that invitation.

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: Temple Reopenings To Continue Throughout October

 Hello again, everyone! A shot time ago, the Church released its' weekly update on temple reopenings. Aside from the main Church News report, updates have also been relfected in the temple reopening status tracker and were documented in the updated Newsroom release.  Let's get into the details. Two temples, which had previously paused their reopening due to COVID-19 conditions, regulations, and restrictions, have reopened in phase 3: Duban South Africa and Papeete Tahiti.

Additionally, several weeks ago, the Church announced that, following the dedication of the Pocatello Idaho Temple (which is set to occur on Saturday November 7), that temple will open in phase 3 right off the bat. The Church also announced this morning that the Winnipeg Manitoba Temple, which is scheduled to be dedicated on October 31 (with that announcement coming after the information about Pocatello's opening was announced) will also start operations in phase 3.

The Medford Oregon Temple, which had originally been projected to move to phase 3 in August,  has not yet transitioned to that phase, and no new updates are available on when that might occur.  The Church also has 7 temples remaining in phases 1 or 2 (neither of which opens those temples for proxy work), among which 2 temples are closed for renovations.

It may also be of interest to some of you that, with the recent renovation closure of the Manti Utah Temple going into effect over General Conference weekend, the Church has given that temple a phase 3 designation so that patrons within that temple district can schedule living and proxy ordinances at the temples nearest to them. 

The latest announcements leaves the reopening status of temples worldwide as follows: 9 closed for renovation (all but 2 of which of those districts have been granted phase 3 designations); with 3 more each either paused (2 in phase 3 and 1 in phase 2) or in phases 1 & 2; 4 temples operating in phase 2-B (allowing all living ordinances in priority order in addition to limited poxy baptisms by appointmen); and the remaining 146 are in phase 3.

The Church continues to monitor conditions and restrictions relating to COVID-19 and to adjust temple reopening plans accordingly in a cautious and carefully-coordinated manner, which continues to be wonderful to observe. I testify The inspired nature of thsese reopening announcements week-to-week have been both humbling and gratifying to see. I testify that the Lord, though inspiration and providing good information to our apostles in the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve, is directly effecting the miraculous circumstances under which each week's announcements are made.

On my end, I continue to monitor all Church news updates and temple developments and remain committed to bringing 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.