CORRECTION: President Uchtdorf's Exact Age From My Last Update

Hello again, everyone! For those of you who didn't know, the updates I periodically provide on the latest apostolic statistics generally contains information from three separate documents, which I copy and paste into the new update. At times, however, the data provided has flaws, generally caused by my failure to double-check the accuracy of such figures before posting them. From time to time, after I have posted such updates, a comment from one of you who has read through the whole thing has alerted me to such errors, which I then strive to correct. It is rare indeed for me to catch my own mistakes in such posts, but it should happen more regularly.

My point in mentioning this is to correct one such error (a rather glaring one) from the information I posted last week. The error involved the long form age of President Dieter F. Uchtdorf. What must have occurred is that I overlooked the fact that, on December 6, President Uchtdorf was 1 month removed from when he observed his 77th birthday. I updated the number of days in his age correctly, but forgot to change his month number from 0 to 1. So his full age as of Christmas Eve should have read 77 years, 1 month, and 18 days.

And that error must have escaped my notice in view of the illness with which I have been battling for the last several weeks. The good news is that, in preparation for New Year's Eve next Sunday, since I was in the process of updating the files from which I pull such data, I  was able to catch this error.

I hope that in the future, I will be able to remember to double-check such facts and figures before posting them here for your perusal. I also wanted to look ahead a bit to the two upcoming apostolic birthdays. As of today, Elder Christofferson's 73rd birthday is merely 27 days away. This means that Elder Rasband's 67th birthday, which is 13 days after that is now 40 days away.

While I do not yet know yet what my 2018 coverage on this blog will look like, one thing I do know is that I am committed to continue doing posts honoring our 14 current apostles on their birthdays (in addition to covering whomever the new apostle will be whenever his birthday occurs.

So stay tuned for those. In the meantime, that does it for this post. Any and all 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 everything you do.

Adjusted Estimated Date for the Concepcion Chile Temple Dedication

Hello again, everyone! As I mentioned I would do in my last post, in view of the altered time-frame within which the Concepcion Chile Temple might  be dedicated, I have been able to make a change for that event. I wanted to pass along the information that I feel that this event could happen on either Sunday September 16 or 23.

In sharing estimate alteration, I want one thing clearly understood: at the moment, it would appear that the time-frames for the rededication of the Frankfurt Germany Temple and the dedication of Chile's second temple could be considered interchangeable, and it has been a while since the status of the Frankfurt renovation process has been updated.

So while I have felt that the Frankfurt rededication could occur up to three or four weeks prior to the dedication of the Concepcion temple, if more progress is made on the latter while nothing changes in the status of the former, then the two may flip in their order. It is also a very real possibility that either or both events could be delayed further, which would likely push back the time-frame of events anticipated at some point after the two.

And I am still trying to gauge how realistic it might be to assert that either or both of the temples under construction in Kinshasa and Rome might be dedicated before the end of next year rather than the beginning of 2019. But I will be keeping my eyes open for any or all information in this regard and will post updates if and when I have them.

That does it for this post. Any and all 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 everything you do.

BREAKING NEWS: Completion Estimate for Concepcion Chile Altered Slightly

Hello again, everyone! I am here with some breaking temple news. It was something that I probably should have noticed and of which I should have made mention in my previous post. For the last little while, I had been operating under the assertion that the dedication of the Concepcion Chile Temple would likely be dedicated sometime during the final quarter of 2018.

But I was surprised and pleased, in looking at it more closely, to find that that estimate has been tweaked somewhat to now be during the "latter half" of 2018, meaning it could potentially be completed any time between July and December of next year.

Because this development is something I just barely noticed, I will be evaluating things and will make any adjustments to my estimates that may be needed as a result of this. I will say that, if both the dedication of the Concepcion Chile and the rededication of the Frankfurt Germany Temple occur in the earlier part of the final six months of next year, that opens the possibility that before the end of next year, in addition to the Kinshasa dedication, Rome could be completed and dedicated in late 2018 as well.

That said, I want to be very clear about one thing: I fully believe the word of those who have offered their opinions on my estimates when they say that the progress of the Rome temple is slow enough in coming that it is more likely that it will not be dedicated until early 2019. So I will be continuing to monitor all of these events and will pass along any updates to my thoughts in this regard as I make them going forward.

That does it for this post. Any and all 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 everything you do.

Temple Updates Noted

Hello again, everyone! I am back, as promised at the end of my last post, to pass along some updated information about temples. So let's get right into all of that. First of all, as of today, the Church now has 12.27 years between now and April 6, 2030, within which to dedicate the 23 temples in various stages and to announce and complete 18 others to give the Church the 200 operating temples by the time of its' bicentennial celebration. This also means that the number of temples the Church would need to complete within that time has increased very slightly, from 3.33 during each of those 12.27 years to 3.34. Not much of an increase, but I still thought it was worth mentioning.

The one other development which I wanted to note was yet another status update for the Barranquilla Colombia Temple, where decorative fencing continues to be installed, and where lamp posts, plants, and sod are also being put in on the temple grounds. This progress is a clear indicator of why this temple has been moved ahead of the one in Kinshasa, and based on the fact that its' status has been updated regularly, I am more confident than ever that this temple's dedication will likely take place on either Sunday November 11 or 18 of next year. If anything delays that process, I could see the dedication being pushed back into the following month, but it does appear at the moment that this temple is staying on track for a dedication sooner rather than later.

As with everything else, I am keeping my eyes open for developments of any kind in regards to temple progress, and I will be sure to pass along any additional updates as I become aware of them. That does it for this post. Any and all 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 everything you do.

Church News Updates

Hello again, everyone! While I continue to welcome and look forward to the comments from any of you regarding any posts in the series I completed early this morning regarding potential future temple locations in each of the Church's 25 geographical areas, and while I hope those conversations will continue into the new year, I wanted to report some Church news updates in this post, and will follow that up with another new post to pass along some updated information of which I became aware regarding temple progress.

So in this post, let's talk about the Church news. As many of you may recall, I did a post a while back to pass along important dates for Church events in 2018. We now know a little more in particular regarding the three Worldwide Devotionals for Young Adults that have been scheduled for next year.

While I have already noted on this blog that President Dieter F. and Sister Harriet R. Uchtdorf will be speaking at the one which is set to be held on January 14, until just recently, there was no word on who might be speaking at the other two devotionals next year.

But in digging a little deeper for information on that, I discovered that Elder Patrick Kearon of the Presidency of the Seventy will address the young adult devotional which is set for May 6, and that the speaker for the September 9th gathering will be Elder Quentin L. Cook of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

I found it interesting that Elder Cook will be the speaker for the last such devotional of 2018 because the date it will be held is the day after his 78th birthday, and the day when President Russell M. Nelson will be observing his 94th birthday. Hopefully those facts interest some of you as well.

Additionally, it is the time of year when BYU-Provo announces its Winter Semester Devotional and Forum speakers. The full schedule detailing who will be speaking and when can be found here. This winter, speakers will include six LDS leaders (two of which are seatmates in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles), a data analyst, and an author. That was fun to read about, and I hope many of you will enjoy it as well.

Next, I wanted to note that Elder Neil L. Andersen and his wife Kathy were the featured speakers at a Christmas Day devotional for MTC missionaries worldwide, which originated from the Provo MTC. Their message to the missionaries was that, since those missionaries were away from their families on that day, each missionary listening to them speak could consider themselves part of the Andersen family for Christmas. They also shared some additional counsel for those preparing to serve all over the world, which you can read more about here.

And, in a somewhat negative Church news development, it has been reported that an LDS missionary has died in his sleep while serving in Nigeria. The elder from Ghana had struggled on and off for years with seizures, but was determined to be well enough to serve in the mission field. While it is tragic when such a death occurs, at least this faithful young elder died while doing what he loved. You can read the Church News coverage of this story here.

Thank you for sticking with me through this somewhat cumbersome news update. It likely would have been much shorter in its length if some of this news had not come to my attention while I was working on this post.

That does it for the moment. Any and all comments are, as always, welcome and appreciated. Thank you for the privilege of your time. Until my next post (which should come in the next few minutes to pass along some temple updates), I wish each one of you all the best and pray that the Lord will bless you all in everything you do.