Multipurpose Church News Post

Hello, all! During the last several days, several items of import on the Church news front have crossed my radar, and I just had to share some of these monumental strides in Church growth. First of all, the majestic figure of the Angel Moroni has been lifted to the top of the Star Valley Wyoming temple. This is a pivotal construction milestone for this temple, which is scheduled to be dedicated on Sunday October 30. So that was excellent to hear. Next news item: the Church Public Affairs department will have a change in its managing director. The current managing director, Michael Otterson, will retire on August 31 after serving as managing director for the past eight years. He will be replaced in that capacity by Richard E. Turley Jr,, who currently serves as the senior of our two Assistant Church Historian and Recorders. In the meantime, Brother Turley will train with Brother Otterson. It was also announced in that same article that Elder Von G. Keetch of the Seventy currently serves as the executive director of the Church Public Affairs Department, which I had suspected after he was present in the news conference in which the 3 newest apostles were presented to the media. That was also good to hear.

The third and final Church growth-related development was that Matthew Martinich has learned through listening to an interview with Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles that 10+ new stakes will be created per week the rest of this year, not including the annual July recess of the apostles, general conference weekend, or the last two weeks of December. It is a mind-boggling and interesting post, well worthy of a read. You can find it at this link.

What monumental strides in Church growth! We live in a wonderful day and age when the gospel is, very literally and figuratively, spreading throughout the earth, and all of us are blessed to be a part of that. Thanks to you all for your readership and friendship.

Star Valley Wyoming Temple will have its Angel Moroni placed on the spire today.

Sorry about two posts in one day. Hope you guys don't mind. I wanted to let you know that at 11:00 AM this morning (11:00 AM our time and Wyoming time. Who knew we were in the same time zone!), the Star Valley Wyoming temple is scheduled to have its angel Moroni placed. What an exciting time we live in when so much is happening on the temple news front! I am keeping a careful eye on all temple-related developments and will put out an updated list whenever there is major temple news (such as a scheduled dedication, rededication, or groundbreaking) announced. Thanks so much to all of you for your readership. I hope my posts are helpful to you all. Have a great day!

PDF of May 2016 Ensign now available/How my predictions for the table of contents panned out

Hello, friends! Hope you all are well. I am posting today something I meant to address yesterday, but I ran out of time to do it then. As soon as the talk transcripts of the April 2016 General Conference were available, I right away did what I have  done for several conferences now--put together my predictions for what a table of contents might look like for the Conference Ensign. I had meant to post that prediction on my blog, but something told me to hold off on doing so. Then yesterday, I was on lds.org and felt impressed to just check and see if the PDF of the May Ensign was available. I'm glad I followed that impression. The PDF was available, and I got an advanced look at what it looked like. I present to you the table of contents I put together, along with the actual page number for each talk or article (actual page numbers will be in parentheses). Since the number of pages of each talk or article is unpredictable, it is always intriguing to see just how right (or wrong) I am. Here's the list. Let me know what you think.

Possible Table of Contents for May 2016 Ensign

(Text in Parentheses indicates what actually was)

Session	Page	Title	Speaker
	2	Conference Summary for the 186th Annual General Conference
	3	Indexes
	4	Highlights from the 186th Annual General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
GW	8 (6)	He Asks Us to Be His Hands	Cheryl A. Esplin
	11 (10)	What Shall We Do?	Neill F. Marriott
	14 (13)	“I Was a Stranger”	Linda K. Burton
	17 (16)	Trust in That Spirit Which Leadeth to Do Good	President Henry B. Eyring
SAM	21 (19)	Where Two or Three Are Gathered	President Henry B. Eyring
	25 (23)	A Child’s Guiding Gift	Mary R. Durham
	27 (26)	I Am a Child of God	Elder Donald L. Hallstrom
	29	Where are the Keys and Authority of the Priesthood?	Elder Gary E. Stevenson
	33	The Healing Ointment of Forgiveness	Elder Kevin R. Duncan
	36	Be Thou Humble	Elder Steven E. Snow
	39	“That I Might Draw All Men unto Me”	Elder Dale G. Renlund
SAA	43	The Sustaining of Church Officers	President Dieter F. Uchtdorf
	45	Church Auditing Department Report, 2015	Kevin R. Jergensen
	45	Statistical Report, 2015	Brook P. Hales
	46	Standing with the Leaders of the Church	Elder Ronald A. Rasband
	49	“Whoso Receiveth Them, Receiveth Me”	Elder Neil L. Andersen
	53	To the Rescue: We Can Do It	Elder Mervyn B. Arnold
	56	The Sacred Place of Restoration	Elder Jairo Mazzagardi
	59	Always Retain a Remission of Your Sins	Elder David A. Bednar
	63	Family Councils	Elder M. Russell Ballard
SPH	67 (66)	The Price of Priesthood Power	President Russell M. Nelson
	75 (70)	The Greatest Leaders are the Greatest Followers	Stephen W. Owen
	78 (77)	In Praise of Those Who Save	President Dieter F. Uchtdorf
	82 (81)	Eternal Families	President Henry B. Eyring
	86 (85)	A Sacred Trust	President Thomas S. Monson
SUM	87 (86)	Choices	President Thomas S. Monson
	88 (87)	Do I Believe?	Bonnie L. Oscarson
	90	Learn, Listen, and Walk	Bishop W. Christopher Waddell
	93	Fathers	Elder D. Todd Christofferson
	97	See Yourself in the Temple	Elder Quentin L. Cook
	101	He Will Place You on His Shoulders and Carry You Home	President Dieter F. Uchtdorf
SUA	105	The Holy Ghost	Elder Robert D. Hales
	108	Always Remember Him	Elder Gerrit W. Gong
	111	Refuge from the Storm	Elder Patrick Kearon
	113 (114)	Opposition in All Things	Elder Dallin H. Oaks
	117 (118)	The Power of Godliness	Elder Kent F. Richards
	119 (121)	And There Shall Be No More Death	Elder Paul V. Johnson
	122 (124)	Tomorrow the Lord Will Do Wonders among You	Elder Jeffrey R. Holland
	72	General Authorities and General Officers of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
	126 (128)	Conference Story Index (They Spoke to Us)
	127 (130)	They Spoke to Us: Making Conference Part of Our Lives (Conference Story Index)
	128 (131)	News of the Church 128: Conference Summary 128: New temples 129 (130): W. Mark Bassett/Mark A. Bragg 130 (131): Weatherford T. Clayton/Valeri V. Cordon 131 (132): Joaquin A. Costa/Massimo De Feo 132 (133): Peter F. Meurs/K. Brett Nattress 133 (134): S. Mark Palmer/Gary B. Sabin 134 (135): Evan A. Schmutz/Joy D. Jones 135 (136): Jean B. Bingham/Bonnie H. Cordon 136-144 (137-144): Other Church News (Included all facets of temple-related progress made since last conference, including those announced during this conference)
	144	Last Page of Conference Ensign

Official Name Announced for the second Lima Peru Temple

Hello, dear readers. Just wanted to let you know the latest on the temple news front. The LDS Church Temples site reports that the Church has announced the official name for the second temple announced for Lima Peru. The temple will be known as the Lima Peru Los Olivos Temple. I was surprised when I looked at the Church's Newsroom at lds.org and there was no mention of this. I did a little digging, and it turns out that the news item posted about the announcement of the four new temples had been updated to include the name of the temple in question. I will update this information on my personal temple construction progress list and post that list the next time there are  any major changes to report. Hope you all are well. Thanks so much to all of you for your interest and readership. Have a good weekend.

KSL Features Two Church-related videos

Hello, all. I was just sitting here when I realized I forgot to post about two fun Church-related videos I've recently come across on KSL.com. The first features a darling toddler girl who became an internet sensation after the video of her singing "Part of Your World", In this sequel news story, the little girl offers an Easter tribute to the Savior with her sweet rendition of "Gethsemane". A link to the story and the video follows.

3 year-old star of "Little Mermaid" video sings song about Christ for Easter

The second is a parody of Adele's classic "Hello" song, written by two BYU students and featuring an excellent vocalist that strangely reminded me of my good friend Kent Willis. It's a genius video that some of you have no doubt heard about, but I just wanted to share it for the benefit of those who haven't had a chance to enjoy it yet.

BYU students create missionary parody of Adele's "Hello"

Enjoy!