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Monday, April 9, 2018

Elder and Sister Gerrit W. Gong Asked to Speak at Women's Conference

Hello again, everyone! There has been a prime example today of how the apostles are assisting the First Presidency in the work of the Church. As some of you might recall my mentioning, President and Sister Nelson were going to be the keynote speakers at the annual BYU Women's Conference, which will be held next month. Due to a scheduling conflict (whatever the details of it might be), the Nelsons will not be able to do that. So they reached out to Elder and Sister Gerrit W. Gong and asked them to take that assignment.

As some of you might recall, prior to Elder Gong's service as a General Authority, he was an Assistant to the President for Planning and Assessment, so it makes sense that he, as one familiar with the BYU campus, would be asked to substitute at this BYU gathering since the Church president cannot be there himself.

I was grateful to have learned of this development. The Church News additionally provided these details about the featured speakers at this year's Women's Conference, which I hope will be helpful to some 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.

BREAKING NEWS: Closure Date for the Hamilton New Zealand Temple Confirmed

Hello again, everyone! As implied by the title of this post, the Church has officially confirmed the exact closure date for the Hamilton New Zealand Temple. As I hope some of you might recall, one of the first major temple announcements of President Nelson's administration was this temple's renovation, and was announced 5 days after his ordination and set to occur in July. A few moments ago, I found official confirmation of the exact closure date.

It has been customary for all such closures to occur between Friday & Monday, so I am pleased to share that this temple's 3-year renovation is set to begin on Monday July 23.

I continue to monitor such developments and will do my best to pass them along as I hear of them. That does it for this post. Any & all comments are, as always, welcome & appreciated. Thank you for the privilege of your time. Until my next post, I wish each one of you all the best & pray that the Lord will bless you all in everything you do.

Sunday, April 8, 2018

Latest Apostolic Statistics: Part Two--Updated Ages & Other Important Information

Hello again, everyone! I am back with the second part of my report on the latest apostolic statistics. Let's get right to all of that. talk specifics regarding apostolic statistics, which will include the long form and decimal versions of the ages of all current apostles, and follow that up with a look at some other information, including about the current and future nonagenarian apostles of the Church, and how the calling and ordinations of Elders Gong and Soares has led to an adjustment of the average ages at which all current apostles were married and ordained.

President Nelson is now 93 years, 6 months, and 30 days old, with a decimal age of 93.58 years. President Oaks is 85 years, 7 months, and 27 days old, with a decimal age of 85.65 years. President Eyring, the youngest of the three, is now 84 years, 10 months, and 8 days old, putting his decimal age at 84.85 years. The three have a combined 264.08 years of life experience, which puts their average age at 88.03 years as of today. Of the three, President Eyring is younger than the average, President Oaks is closest to it (although his decimal age is 2.38 years younger than the average), and President Nelson is, of course, the only one of the three that is older than the average.

We move on now to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. President Ballard is exactly 89 years and 6 months old today, which of course puts his decimal age at 89.50 years. Elder Holland is now 77 years, 4 months, and 5 days old, or 77.35 decimal years. Elder Uchtdorf’s long-form age is 77 years, 5 months, and 2 days, which is 77.42 decimal years. Elder Bednar is currently 65 years, 9 months, and 24 days old, or 65.81 years.

In the second group of four apostles, we have Elder Cook, who has a long-form age of 77 years and 7 months exactly, with a decimal age of 77.58 years. For Elder Christofferson, he is 73 years, 2 months, and 15 days old, making his decimal age 73.20 years. Elder Andersen is 66 years, 7 months, and 30 days old, as his birthday will be observed four months from tomorrow, and his decimal age is now 66.66 years. Elder Rasband, who, as previously noted, is roughly six months older than Elder Andersen, is 67 years, 2 months, and 2 days old, which, in decimal years, is 67.17.

Rounding out things with the final four Quorum members, I wanted to note that Elder Stevenson, who was our youngest current apostle until last week, when Elders Gong and Soares were called, is now 62 years, 8 months, and 2 days old, which is 62.67 decimal years. Elder Renlund, who had been the least senior but second youngest apostle until General Conference, is 65 years, 4 months, and 26 days old, or 65.40 in decimal years. As for our final two apostles, Elder Gong fits in age between Elders Renlund and Stevenson, with a long-form age of 64 years, 3 months, and 16 days, which is 64.29 years.  And Elder Soares becomes the new youngest apostle, being 59 years, 6 months, and 6 days old, which works out to 59.52 decimal years.

The new total amount of life experience for the now-filled Quorum of the Twelve Apostles stands at 846.57 years, which puts the average age of these 12 men at 70.55, with that average going down roughly 5 years as a result of the apostolic calls of Elders Gong and Soares. 5 of those 12 are older than the average: the remaining 7 are all below it, with Elder Christofferson being the youngest of those 5 oldest, and Elder Rasband being the oldest of the youngest 7.

And for the first time since Elder Andersen was called in April 2009, we have a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles that is under 60, although Elder Soares will be celebrating his 60th birthday on October 2 of this year.

This means that all 15 apostles have a combined 1,110.65 years of life experience, and their average life length stands at 74.04 years. That average has also gone down since Elders Gong and Soares were sustained. That average did not change which apostles are closest to it. Elder Holland, who is the 7th oldest apostle overall, is the youngest of the oldest apostles, and Elder Christofferson is the oldest of the 8 youngest apostles. And for the first time in a while, almost half of those 15 (7 to be exact) are under the age of 70.

President Nelson still continues to be the 7th oldest apostle, and he will become the 6th oldest around 1 year and 3 months from now. As previously noted, President Ballard will join the list of nonagenarians on October 8 of this year, which is half a year away. The other 13 apostles will join the list at varying intervals, with Elder Soares, as the new youngest apostle, set to mark his 90th birthday 30 years, 5 months, and 24 days from now. The age difference between our oldest apostle, President Nelson, and Elder Soares is 34 years and 23 days.

With the calls of Elders Soares and Gong, the average age of our current apostles at the time of their first (which for 13 of them is their current) marriage stands at 23.40 years, with Elders Andersen and Christofferson on the oldest and youngest side of that average respectively.

While the recent calls of Elders Gong and Soares, the average age of the 15 apostles at the time of their ordinations now stands at 59.96 years, which has gone up slightly from what it was prior to the announcement of those calls. That also means that Elder Stevenson and President Nelson, who were 60.17 and 59.59 respectively when they were ordained, are now on the respective oldest and youngest sides of that average. In addition to Elder Stevenson, 7 others are on the older side of that average, which means that President Nelson and the remaining 6 apostles were on the younger side of that average.

This concludes my report on the latest averages, so 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.

Latest Apostolic Statistics: Part One--Updated Information for the President of the Quorum of the Twelve, Church President, and First Presidency

Hello again, everyone! It has been 8 weeks since I last posted an update on the latest apostolic statistics. Given the announcement last week that Elders Gerrit W. Gong and Ulisses Soares were called to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and that so much time has passed since I last posted on this subject, there have been a number of changes to note.

Before we begin discussing that information, I wanted to note, as I always do, that I recognize that not all who regularly read this blog might find this information as interesting as I do. So I will not in any way be bothered or offended if any of you choose to bypass this post, as there is always a lot of information in it. For those of you who are staying with me for this information, let’s dive right in to this subject.

First, I wanted to provide some thoughts about apostolic birthdays. As some of you might recall me mentioning earlier, before the deaths of President Monson and Elder Hales, we had 1 apostle born in January, 1 other the following month, 1 each in May and June, 5 more in August, 2 in September, 1 in October, 2 in November, and 1 in December.

Given the changes in Church leadership, while nothing has changed in terms of the number of apostles born in January, February, May, or June, (which are Elders Christofferson and Rasband, President Eyring, and Elder Bednar respectively) the number of current apostles born in August is down to 3 (Elders Stevenson and Andersen and President Oaks). 

We still have the two in September (Elder Cook and President Nelson) and November (Elders Uchtdorf and Renlund), but the calling of Elders Soares and Gong has meant that 2 apostles (Elder Soares and President Ballard) will celebrate their birthdays in October, while the remaining two (Elders Holland and Gong) will do so in December.

With Elder Christofferson marking his birthday on January 24, Elder Rasband follows with his birthday 13 days later, on February 6. Almost four months later, on the final day of May, President Eyring marks his birthday, and Elder Bednar marks his 15 days later in mid-June. 

Our three apostles born in August celebrate their birthdays on August 6, 9, and 12, respectively. Elder Cook marks his on September 8, with President Nelson having his birthday the next day. Elders Uchtdorf and Renlund are just a week apart in their birthdays, (on November 6 and 13 respectively). Rounding out the year, Elder Holland marks his 20 days after Elder Renlund on December 3, and Elder Gong marks his 2 days before Christmas.

It has been interesting to see how the lengths between these birthdays change as apostles pass away and new ones are appointed. And I am grateful to be able to track information such as this and pass it along to you. Just wanted to note that before I move on.

Having provided that background, let’s begin as we always do, by talking about President Oaks’ tenure as President of the Quorum of the Twelve. We will then turn our attention to President Nelson’s age and tenure status among the previous 16 Church Presidents. We will then conclude with a discussion about the current long- and decimal forms of the ages of our current apostles, and I will also address how other apostolic averages I have previously mentioned have either been raised or lowered based on the addition of the newest apostles.

I also probably should note that I recently had to recreate much of this data due to a crashed hard drive and getting a new computer, and part of recreating these documents involved double-checking data I had previously provided. I now believe that, if there were any errors in previous updates, those should be corrected in this one. If any of you see anything that doesn’t look right in this report, I always appreciate any corrections and clarifications. And, as always, all data presented here is current as of today.

We start with President Oaks’ current tenure length as President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, which will include exploring how soon he will move up on this list. With the 8 weeks that have passed since my last report, President Oaks has served for just short of 3 full months as Quorum President. The exact length of that service has spanned 2 months and 25 days, and he remains the 27th longest-serving Quorum President among the 28 that have served.

As noted in the previous update, he will be marking 2 additional tenure milestones before the end of this year, and will be marking 5 others in 2019. In terms of those he will observe in 2018, on Sunday September 16, he will become the 26th longest-serving Quorum President, with his tenure being longer than that of President David O. McKay. 

Just over a month later, on October 22, with his tenure length exceeding that of President Gordon B. Hinckley, he will become the 25th longest-serving Quorum President. Looking ahead to next year, he will mark other milestones in April, July (in which he will observe two milestones two days apart), November, and December. I will mention the specifics of those milestones closer to that time.

Moving on now to President Nelson, since he was ordained and set apart as Church president on the same day he set apart President Oaks as Quorum President, his tenure has spanned 2 months and 25 days as well. Nothing has changed since my last report regarding where he stands among the 16 other Church presidents in terms of his tenure length or age.

He will observe the first tenure length milestone of his presidency in roughly six months, on Thursday October 11. He will observe both another tenure-related and his first age-related milestone two days apart in July of 2019, with subsequent milestones more spread out in the years following that.

In order to prevent this post from being too lengthy, I will put the second part of this update in a new post, which will be posted in the next few minutes. 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.

Thursday, April 5, 2018

BREAKING NEWS: Church Announces 2018 Area Leadership Assignments; Reinstates Area Presidencies in North America

Hello again, everyone! For the first time (at least in my recent recollection), the Church announced changes in area leadership less than a week after General Conference. As some of you may be aware, such announcements have typically been published on the Church News website towards the end of April or in early May of each year.

But it gets even more interesting. In this announcement of the changes, the First Presidency announced that areas in the US and Canada, which had been supervised by members of the Presidency of the Seventy since August 2004, will once again have full area presidencies, with a president and two counselors, all of which will be administered from Church headquarters. 

According to the news release and a quote from President M. Russell Ballard, the number of areas in the US and Canada will be reduced from 10 to 6, which will be defined as follows: Idaho/North America Central, North America Northeast, North America Southeast, North America Northwest/West, and Utah. This also means that, for the areas that have been combined, the area seventies serving in the 5th and 6th Quorums of the Seventy will be in larger groups.

This is being done as the Church continues to find ways to reduce and simplify how the work of the Lord is being administered. And this move will free up members of the Presidency of the Seventy for other assignments, including assisting the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in the work of administering the Church and for "other assignments", about which I am assuming we will learn more in the days, weeks, and months ahead.

For the benefit of all who are interested, I have assembled a list of the new assignments, which follows below. 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.

Changes in Area Leadership August 2018

Presidency of the Seventy:
All members will, as noted above, be released from their assignments to oversee the 10 (now 6) areas in the US and Canada.
Craig C. Christensen, Lynn G. Robbins, and Juan A. Uceda will, as noted in the April General Conference, be released from the Presidency, with Terence M. Vinson, Jose A. Teixeira, and Carlos A. Godoy sustained in their stead.
In view of those changes, the three newest members of the Presidency of the Seventy will be released as Presidents of the Africa West, South America South, and South America Northwest Areas respectively.

General Authority Seventies:
Jose L. Alonso will be released as Second Counselor and will serve as First Counselor in the Caribbean Area.
Wilford W. Andersen will continue to serve as the Senior Administrator of the Middle East/Africa North Area, but will also serve as President of the Idaho/North America Central Area.
Ian S. Ardern will be released as Second Counselor and will serve as First Counselor in the Pacific Area.
Mark A. Bragg will be released as Second Counselor and will serve as First Counselor in the South America South Area.
Randall K. Bennett will serve as President of the North America Northeast Area.
Shayne M. Bowen will be released as President of the Philippines Area and will serve as First Counselor in the North America Southeast Area.
Craig A. Cardon will be released as First Counselor in the Pacific Area.
Yoon Hwan Choi will be released as Second Counselor and will serve as President of the Asia North Area.
Craig C. Christensen will serve as President of the Utah Area.
Claudio R. M. Costa will serve as President of the North America Southeast Area.
Joaquin E. Costa will be released as Second Counselor in the Brazil Area.
LeGrand R. Curtis Jr. will serve as First Counselor in the Utah Area.
Benjamin De Hoyos will serve as President of the South America South Area,
Edward Dube will serve as Second Counselor in the Africa West Area.
David F. Evans will be released as First Counselor and will serve as President of the Asia Area.
Enrique R. Falabella will be released as First Counselor and will serve as President of the South America Northwest Area.
Randy D. Funk will be released as President of the Asia Area and will serve as Second Counselor in the Utah Area.
Eduardo Gavarret will serve as Second Counselor in the Caribbean Area.
Kevin S. Hamilton will be released as President of the Africa Southeast Area and will serve as First Counselor in the North America Northeast Area.
Mathias Held will serve as Second Counselor in the South America Northwest Area.
David P. Homer will serve as Second Counselor in the Asia Area.
Allen D. Haynie will be released as First Counselor in the Philippines Area and will serve as Second Counselor in the North America Northeast Area.
Larry S. Kacher will be released as Second Counselor and will serve as First Counselor in the Africa West Area.
Jörg Klebingat will serve as Second Counselor in the North America Northwest/West Area.
Peter F. Meurs will be released as Second Counselor and will serve as First Counselor in the Asia Area.
Hugo Montoya will be released as Second Counselor and will serve as First Counselor in the South America Northwest Area.
Marcus B. Nash will be released as First Counselor and will serve as President of the Africa West Area.
K. Brett Nattress will serve as Second Counselor in the Pacific Area.
S. Gifford Nielsen will serve as First Counselor in the Idaho/North America Central Area.
Adrian Ochoa will be released as President of the Central America Area and will serve as Second Counselor in the North America Southwest Area.
Allan F. Packer will be released as First Counselor in the South America South Area.
S. Mark Palmer will be released as First Counselor and will serve as President of the Africa Southeast Area.
Adilson de Paula Parrella will serve as Second Counselor in the Brazil Area.
Kevin W. Pearson will serve as President of the North America Northwest/West Area.
Paul B. Pieper will be released as President of the Mexico Area and will serve as First Counselor in the North America Southwest Area.
John C. Pingree Jr. will serve as Second Counselor in the Mexico Area.
Rafael E. Pino will be released as Second Counselor and will serve as First Counselor in the Mexico Area.
Lynn G. Robbins will serve as President of the North America Southwest Area.
Evan A. Schmutz will be released as Second Counselor and will serve as President of the Philippines Area.
Joseph W. Sitati will serve as First Counselor in the Africa Southeast Area.
Vern P. Stanfill will serve as Second Counselor in the North America Southeast Area.
Brian K. Taylor will serve as Second Counselor in the Idaho/North America Central Area.
Michael J. Teh will be released as President of the Taiwan Taichung Mission and will serve as First Counselor in the Philippines Area.
Juan A. Uceda will serve as President of the Central America Area.
Arnulfo Valenzuela will be released as First Counselor and will serve as President of the Mexico Area.
Takashi Wada will serve as Second Counselor in the Asia North Area.
Taniela B. Wakolo will serve as Second Counselor in the Philippines Area.
Scott D. Whiting will serve as First Counselor of the North America Northwest/West Area.
Juan Pablo Villar will serve as Second Counselor in the South America South Area.
Claudio D. Zivic will be released as First Counselor in the Caribbean Area.