Meridian Idaho Temple Set to Begin Its Final Week of Open House Tours

Hello, everyone! With today being November 6, I have a post in the works for President Uchtdorf's birthday, which will be published within the next 12 hours or so, if not sooner. But I wanted to post now to note that the Meridian Idaho Temple is beginning its final week of open house tours. The dedication is two weeks from yesterday. After the open house concludes, the Church will ensure that the temple is ready for the dedication. Still no word on who will be in attendance from the leadership of the Church, but I will post information on that as soon as I find it. That does it for this post. Any comments are, as always, welcome and appreciated. Thank you for the privilege of your time. Until my next post, I wish each one of you all the best and pray that the Lord will bless all of you in everything you do.

Apostolic Age Averages Updated; Summary of Remaining Apostolic Birthdays in 2017

Hello again, everyone! This has been a busy day for temple-related news and developments, but I wanted to switch directions, if I may, and focus a post on the remaining apostolic birthdays that will be observed before the end of this year, and to pass along updated averages for the First Presidency, 11 members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and the 14 apostles as a group.
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During the remainder of this year, two of our apostles will observe their 77th birthdays, President Uchtdorf tomorrow, and Elder Holland on December 3. Additionally, one week from tomorrow, the second apostolic birthday in November will occur when Elder Renlund observes his 65th.  I will be honoring each of these men with a birthday tribute on or around each of these days. Stay tuned for that.

In the meantime, before mentioning the apostolic averages, I wanted to mention one interesting anomaly regarding President Uchtdorf. When doing my weekly update of the apostolic decimal and full ages, I discovered that President Uchtdorf today has a decimal age of 77.00, even though his actual birthday will, as noted, not be until tomorrow, which makes his full age today 76 years, 11 months, and 30 days old.

That said, here are the apostolic averages of which I spoke, current as of today. With the First Presidency having aged .06 decimal years since last Sunday (if we round up), they now have a combined 251.64 decimal years of life experience, giving them an average age of 83.88 years, to which President Eyring is the closest of the three.

With no word yet on who the newest apostle might be, the 11 members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles has seen an increase of their combined life experience of .22 years (.02 for each member), making that new number 819.94, which averages out to 74.54 years per member. Of those 11, those closest to the average are Elder Holland on the older side (at 76.92 years) and Elder Christofferson on the younger side (at 72.78 years). The two are currently 5th and 6th oldest respectively among those 11.

With the fact that the 14 apostles have each aged approximately .02 years within this last week, that puts the total life experience of them all at 1,071.58 years. And because of that, their average age individually sits at 76.54 years. The same apostles that are closest to the average age of the 11 are also closest to the average age of the 14.

As I may have previously mentioned, while there is always a chance that an older man could be called, I don't see anyone over the age of 70. The new apostle could fit anywhere between the youngest five apostles currently serving, from Elder Rasband's 66.75 years to Elder Stevenson's 62.25 years, or could even be younger than Elder Stevenson or slightly older than Elder Rasband.

I have mentioned this as well, but the oldest apostle called of the current group was Elder Cook at 67 years old. The youngest was, of course, President Monson at 36. By contrast, the youngest apostle called by President Monson was Elder Andersen, who, as already mentioned, was 57 at the time of his call. And the oldest called during President Monson's administration so far was Elder Rasband at 64. Of course, the age of any new apostle does not matter as much as his qualifications for the office, but it is interesting to think about where the newest apostle may fit among the others in age.

Enough of my ramblings. That does it for this post. Any comments are welcome and appreciated. Thank you for the privilege of your time. Until my next post, I wish each one of you all the best and pray that the Lord will bless you all in all that you do.

Additional Update Reported on the Fortaleza Brazil Temple

Hello again, everyone! It has been an interesting day because updates on temple-related progress keep coming in. I heard from a few sources just a short while ago that a vapor barrier and stone cladding was being attached to the Fortaleza Brazil Temple, and that is an additional development to the earlier report I received about the roof trusses being set for the adjoining meetinghouse (which I had mistakenly reported as having occurred for the temple instead; I apologize for the unintentionally provided misinformation, and am grateful to readers who have been good enough to catch this and other errors on my part and let me know about them. That aside, I have not seen anything that would indicate that this temple will be completed any earlier than mid-to-late 2019, and, as I have previously stated, I see that happening in either June or August (note that if it does happen in August, it wouldn't surprise me, as I have previously stated, if the open house is held in June, prior to the annual July recess for our General Authorities.

I am keeping my eyes open for any and all temple-related news, and I will continue to do my level best to post updates, including any changes to estimates I have previously provided, along with any clarifications or corrections of previously posted content, as I become aware of all of that. That does it for this update. Any comments continue to be welcome and appreciated. Thank you for the privilege of your time. Until my next post, I wish each one of you all the best and pray that the Lord will bless you all in all that you do.

Additional Temple Progress

Hello again, everyone! Today was a prime example of how things can change in terms of reported temple progress in a matter of a few short hours. In doing my second check of sources available to me on the subject of temple construction progress, I found the following additional updates:

In Rome Italy, scaffolding has been removed from the towers of the temple, and interior work is underway. After not having any progress reported on this temple for so long, this is tremendous  news. There is still not sufficient reason (in my opinion) to assume that Rome will be completed by the end of 2018, but I could see that temple being dedicated in the very early months of 2019, as I already observed.

In Durban South Africa, roof decking has been attached to the trusses, signalling a major milestone in that temple's progress. The one question in my mind is what the sequence of events might wind up being for early 2019, with the dedication of at least three temples anticipated, along with the rededication of at least three others. It will be interesting to see how that shapes out.

And in Fortaleza Brazil, roof trusses are being set. It still seems likely that the dedication of this temple will not happen until mid-to-late 2019. But the construction efforts on this temple have stayed on track, so I cannot rule out the possibility that that event could happen sooner, all going well.

As with everything else I pass along on this blog, you can depend on my keeping an eye out for continued developments in the process of construction, and on my passing those along as soon as I am able to do so after learning about them.

That does it for this post. Any comments are, as always, welcome and appreciated. Thank you for the privilege of your time. Until my next post, I wish each one of you all the best and pray that the Lord will bless you all in all that you do.

Significant Progress Reported on the Arequipa Peru Temple

Hello again, everyone! Hope you are well. In checking, as I always do, for any progress on temples worldwide, I learned that the construction of the Arequipa Peru Temple has reached a new wonderful milestone. The concrete exterior walls of the temple are completely finished, and the tower crane has been removed. It was great to hear about all of that, because it demonstrates to me that this temple could easily be completed before the end of 2019. That said, I did want to note that, while this is a great milestone for this temple, there are other projects planned for the complex of which this temple is only one of a few parts. As far as I can tell, none of the other projects have been started as of yet. But I am keeping an eye on all  of this and will pass along any new information as I become aware of it.

That does it for this post. Any comments are, as always, welcome and appreciated. Thank you for the privilege of your time. Until my next post, I wish each one of you all the best, especially for an inspiring Sabbath Day, and pray that the Lord will bless you all in all that you do.