1000th Blog Post Some Thoughts About Prophetic Succession and Upcoming Scheduled Church Events

Hello again, everyone! I am back (with my 1000th post on this blog) to pass along some thoughts about prophetic succession and upcoming scheduled Church events. In doing so, I begin by sharing something that first occurred to me early on last night following the breaking news of President Monson's passing. When he became President of the Church, at that February 3, 2008 meeting in the temple, there were four apostles appointed during the presidency of his predecessor that were participating in that process for the first time, Elders Eyring, Uchtdorf, Bednar and Cook, and the reorganization that will likely occur in the next little while will be their second such opportunity.

Whenever the First Presidency is reorganized again, the five apostles appointed during President Monson's almost-10-year administration (Elders Christofferson, Andersen, Rasband, Stevenson, and Renlund) will be part of that process for the first time. That means that 9 of the 13 have had their calls to the apostleship within the last 10 years alone. That is pretty significant.

Again, while I am not sure at all (with official information still pending, as this occurred over the last 15 hours or so) how soon the funeral arrangements for President Monson may be announced, I am thinking, if the precedent of the past holds that we could see the funeral be set for either Saturday this week or the following Monday.

If the funeral is held this Saturday, I feel safe in assuming that, as was the case when President Hinckley died just about 10 years ago, then the reorganization of the First Presidency will likely take place this Sunday, January 7, with the newly constituted First Presidency meeting the press the following day, in company with the 10 remaining members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

I also wanted to mention a couple of other things: As I previously posted on this blog when these events were first announced, President Uchtdorf and his wife had been announced as the speakers for the January 2018 Worldwide Devotional for Young Adults, which was scheduled to occur on Sunday January 14.

The Church also recently announced that Elder Christofferson has been asked to represent the Brethren at the annual broadcast for religious instructors serving in Seminaries and Institutes of Religion on Friday January 26, and President Nelson and his wife had been asked to represent the First Presidency in the worldwide Face-to-Face event for the youth of the Church that has been set for Saturday February 3.

My reason for mentioning all of this is to note that new Church presidents almost always honor such arrangements that were originally made by their predecessors. There was, however, one notable exception that occurred in 2008. Because of President Hinckley's death on January 27, the apostles, under the leadership of President Monson as Quorum President, announced that the Rexburg Idaho Temple dedication, which had originally been set for February 3, would be pushed back to the following Sunday to allow the 14 remaining apostles to make funeral arrangements and to reorganize the First Presidency.

That said, while our current 13 apostles under the leadership of President Nelson are certainly at liberty to alter both the sequence and circumstances of these upcoming events, I imagine President Nelson will want to honor those assignments that were given with President Monson's consent. And whether or not the funeral occurs near the end of this week, whenever such arrangements are announced, you can count on my bringing them to you here.

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.

Continuing Coverage of President Thomas S. Monson's Death

Hello again, everyone! Continuing now my coverage of President Monson's passing, the Church News released this story about how President Monson enjoyed the counsel he once heard to take an older person to lunch. and this story in which his counselors have released a statement. That is not, in my recollection, something we have seen with the passing of previous Church presidents, and it is great to hear from them. The First Presidency, as noted last night, is now dissolved. With funeral arrangements still pending, but with the Church generally having a precedent of not waiting too long to announce such arrangements, it will be interesting to see ongoing developments in this regard, and I will do my best to bring all of that to each of you. 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.

Added at 12:40 PM Utah time: The Quorum of the Twelve Apostles has released this statement, and it is great to hear from them. And it probably goes without saying, but the Church has also released this article outlining the procedure through which the Church presidency passes from a deceased prophet to his successor. It is always amazing to see that occur. I did want to note that, in recent transitions, President Hunter died on March 3, and President Hinckley became Church President 9 days later, on March 12. Then following the passing of President Hinckley on January 27, 2008, the First Presidency was reorganized on February 3, 2008. While it is up to President Monson's family how soon his funeral will be held, 9 days between the passing of one Church president and the ordination of another has been the longest such period in recent years. So we will have to see how soon it all take place. Stay tuned for more here on that as I learn it. Thanks again.

Additional resources on the passing of President Thomas S. Monson

Hello again, everyone! I had originally added a bit to my post about President Monson's passing, as I found a link to an article written about him. But as I found several others as well, I thought I would include them all here in another post. So here goes!

From the Church News; this article is the introduction to the others. This article spoke of his ministry as a bishop to the widows of his ward. this one discusses his love for the people of Germany, this one  pays tribute to his time as a bishop, aside from his care for the widows in his ward, this one talks about his childhood, this one contains tributes from his family members, this one pays tribute to his service in the First Presidency, including his prophetic tenure, this one discusses his work on the Scripture Publication Committee, and this one is a Church news viewpoint containing even more tributes to him.

This is the summary article from the Church News & Events page on LDS.org, in addition to this one about his youth, this one (which may be a duplicate from the Church News about his service to the widows in his ward), and this one, likely a duplicate about his time on the scriptures committee. And this will contain Mormon Newsroom's coverage, which will no doubt be wide-spread in coming days, so you can catch the latest there.

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: President Thomas S. Monson Passes Away

Hello again, everyone! I am here with some late-breaking news. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has confirmed a report that President Thomas S. Monson has passed away. With his passing, the First Presidency is now dissolved, and President Nelson and the remaining 12 apostles take over Church leadership, which will more than likely involve a reorganization of the First Presidency, probably within the next week.

Since this is a very late-breaking development, more information about the circumstances of President Monson's passing will be forthcoming. For now, I pass along this article, published by KSL. It appears his passing occurred at 10:01 PM, though the announcement came just barely over the airwaves, and I had just by chance pulled up KSL's website. I am sure more developments will be made known tomorrow, once the Church has a chance to process this news . And we will look for President Nelson to be sustained as the new Church President in General Conference next April. But he will have to act to fill two apostolic vacancies now.

With President Monson's passing, our most senior apostles are those three appointed during President Kimball's administration. How blessed it must be for this wonderful man to be free of his mortal mission to lead the Church, from which he stepped back less than one year ago today. He did not have to suffer long.

I could go on to share my feelings about our beloved prophet's passing, but I want to get this posted. So that does it for now. Any and all comments are, as always, welcome and appreciated, but I would ask that we all remain respectful of this man's wonderful life and those Brethren who will now have to carry on without him. May God bless the memory of our prophet dear, and prosper those left to carry on without him, I humbly pray in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Estimated 2017 Year-End Church Statistics

Hello again, everyone! On this second day of 2018, and at a time when Church and temple news has slowed somewhat in view of the Christmas and New Year holidays we have recently observed (though there are two meaningful articles from the Church News that were published earlier today, which I will cover in a post later on tonight), I am pleased to bring you my estimates for the 2017 year-end statistics of the Church.

There is some information among these estimates that will likely be spot on, since the figures were pulled from sources in the public domain. Others, by the same token, are more guesstimates which I have ventured based on both observed trends and averages from the statistical reports of previous years during President Monson's presidency.

As a quick sidenote, he and his counselors will be marking a full decade of service together in just 3.5 weeks (which is exactly 32 days from today), and they will thus become only the third First Presidency in the history of the Church to serve together for 10 years. While it will be 32 days until they reach that decade mark for their service together, they have already become the third longest continuously-serving First Presidency, having marked that milestone less than six months ago, on Monday July 31, 2017.

But in getting back to the statistics, I hope you enjoy reading what I have put together in terms of how the 2017 Statistical Report might look. You can find those statistics in the table below. I look forward to any feedback you might have, which is always welcome and appreciated.

That does it for this post. 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.

2017 Statistical Report (some figures projected)

Stakes	3,341
Missions	421
Districts	540
Wards and Branches	30,510
Total Church Membership	16,149,214
Increase in Children of Record	107,166
Converts Baptized	225,859
Full-Time Missionaries	56,745
Church Service Missionaries	35,974
Temples Dedicated during 2017 (Paris France, Tucson Arizona, Meridian Idaho, Cedar City Utah)	4
Temples Rededicated during 2017 (Idaho Falls Idaho)	1
Temples in Operation by the end of 2016	159