Book Progress

Though I have not worked solidly on adding any scenes to my first book, a couple of developments have been made. I had originally titled the first book in the series "The Lord Looks on the Heart Book 1--The Teenage Years". But I felt that since this is a book about LDS teens growing up, I wanted something different that sounded better. In doing some research, I have come up with a better title. I thought I remembered in the scriptures something about someone "growing up unto the Lord." The more I thought about it, the more that made sense as a subtitle for my book. For those who aren't aware, I am writing a series of books chronicling the adventures of a group of friends. I had originally envisioned having this book encompass from the teenage years to when my characters paired off with other characters (in the book or yet to be introduced) in marriage, but when I shared what I had written with Brandon Sanderson, he suggested that I divvy up the book into a series: the first discussing the teenage years, the second on missions, the third on marriage, and so on to include their posterities. I liked that idea so much that this is what I am going to do. I will keep you posted on the progress I make towards making this series a reality. When I get closer to publishing it, I will plan on posting excerpts of the book on this blog. That's the latest on my writing. Thanks so much for your kind attention.

Average Ages of the Brethren

Hello, all! Though the next apostolic birthdays are not until next month (President Uchtdorf's 76th two weeks from today and Elder Renlund's 64th exactly one week later), I wanted to bring you up-to-date on the latest apostolic age averages. As of about an hour ago when Sunday the 23rd of October 2016 was born, the average age of the First Presidency is 82.84 (with just President Uchtdorf being younger). The average age of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles is 74.39, with half of those 12 being younger than the average. Finally, the average age of the apostles overall is 76.08, with 8 of the apostles (53.33%) being younger than the average. Again, not sure how those averages compare historically with the average throughout the ages, but there it is, such as it is. Thanks so much to you all for your readership and support.

Big news

As all of you who have been following my blog know, I lost my job in the middle of July. With my health not improving, and with Amy's health not being good as well, I have been praying about what to do to make money. The Lord has indicated to me that the time has come for me to turn my full energy to my writing. He has promised me that if I apply myself, I will finish my book in no time. In the meantime, I will be working on some minor writing projects to submit to the Church once they are accepting manuscripts again. I have one or two such articles already written. I am glad I will be able to focus on my writing. I know that the Lord will help me support my family through this, because I was promised in a pre-wedding father's blessing that I would be able to find a job to support my family. Now that I know what I need to do, it's just a matter of doing it. Because I will be focusing on my writing, I can't promise how consistent I will be in posting on this blog. But I believe everything will come together as I take this leap of faith and do as the Lord has instructed. Thanks to you all for your faith, prayers, and support at this time.

Important posts by Matthew Martinich

Matthew Martinich, who does many blogs, including one for LDS Church Growth, has done several important posts lately. Among the highlights have been the creation of stakes in Arizona (2), Florida, and Idaho, a new district in Brazil, a second stake in the Marshall Islands, and many more milestones. To review these posts, please click here. Thanks.

Church News Conglomeration

It has been a while since my last Church news update, so here goes!

Latter-day Saints have responded en masse to the Church's request for help following severe storms in the US and Caribbean. Click here for a report on the relief efforts.

The Church in South Korea recently celebrated its 60th anniversary. Click here to read about that.

In scriptural news, the Church announced the translation of  the triple combination into Croatian. The new Croatian tripe combination will be available at the end of March 2017. Also, the triple combination is now available for purchase in Russian and Icelandic. For more details, click here.

The Church announced recently that Rolando Villazon, one of the leading tenors in the world, will join the Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square for their annual Christmas concert. Click here to read more.

Five apostles and two general women leaders spoke recently in a video on the subjects of diversity, love, inclusion, hope, and personal responsibility. To read what they said and to watch the accompanying video clips of their remarks, click here.

It is almost time for the PDF versions of the General Conference magazines to be available. In preparation for that, I have prepared a document showing what I think the table of contents for that magazine will look like. I will post that on this blog as soon as the PDF version of the magazine is available in full.

In the meantime, I will keep my eyes peeled for more Church news and let you know about all the good stuff as I can. Thanks.