Update Reported on the Baton Rouge Louisiana Temple

Hello again, everyone! In literally the first few minutes after I last posted, I discovered an update on the status of the renovation process that has been underway on the Baton Rouge Louisiana Temple since the end of January.

It is wonderful to be able to pass this update along, as we have not seen much of a change in that temple's status for quite a while now. The new information shows that the temple has been stripped to the framing studs, and that mildew and foundation issues are currently being remedied.

As some of you might recall, the Raleigh North Carolina Temple closed on Sunday January 7, and the closure of the Baton Rouge Louisiana Temple occurred 3 weeks later. The renovation process in Raleigh has been quite impressive, but by comparison, this may only be the second or third update on the Baton Rouge renovation process.

That said, with this update noted, it is my hope that anything that may have been preventing the renovation process of the temple from making progress might have been resolved since its' status was last updated.

As I noted in my last post, I continue to monitor all developments in that regard and will do my level best to pass those along to you as I receive word 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.

Neighborhood Meeting to Be Held Later This Month Prior to the Mesa Arizona Temple Renovation

Hello again, everyone! This is just a quick post to note that, because of concerns that have been raised by local preservation societies regarding the approved plans for the Mesa Arizona Temple renovation process, a meeting will be held for the community to share their concerns at some point within the next week or two before the May 20th closure date. You can find more details here.

On a note unrelated to this subject, but regarding temples in general, another report just came in that Elder and Sister Renlund have toured the Rome Italy Temple site during their time in Europe. It is great to hear of all that is occurring in terms of the ministry of our apostles.

I continue to monitor all Church and temple developments and will pass those along to you as I receive 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.

Apostolic Ministry Updates

Hello again, everyone! This is the second of the two posts I mentioned previously, and will cover some updates on the ministry of our apostles. Those updates have been reported on Mormon Newsroom. So let's get right into those.

As some of you may be aware, although Elder Dale G. Renlund was born in the United States, his parents emigrated here. His mother is Swedish and his father comes from Finland. He grew up speaking Swedish, and he later served his full-time mission in Sweden. The reason I mention all of this is that Elder Renlund return to his mother's homeland on April 28 & 29, accompanied by his wife, Ruth. They had a meeting with Church leaders, missionaries, and members that was simulcast over the web to other congregations in the area. You can find more details on that visit here.

In the meantime, Elder D. Todd Christofferson spoke yesterday in London to the All-Party Parliamentary Group at one of their meetings. Mormon Newsroom shares this story highlighting the remarks he made during that time.

As always, I continue to monitor all Church and temple developments and will pass those along to you all as I receive word 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.

Construction Updates Provided for Two Temples Currently Undergoing Renovation

Hello again, everyone! This will be one of two posts I will be publishing within the next half hour or so. I wanted to note in this post that, while no updates of which I am aware have been reported on new temples under construction, there have been developments and updates reported on the status of two of the temples currently undergoing renovation.

We start first with the Raleigh North Carolina Temple. The last time I posted an update on that temple appears to have been exactly one month ago today, at which time I noted that plywood panels were being attached to the temple's exterior. The latest information I have is that sheathing has been completed on the temple's exterior walls, and that new architectural elements are currently being framed.

The other temple for which I have an update is the one in Tokyo Japan. It was just over one month ago (on March 28) that I passed along news that the renovation process had formally begun. The commencement of that process had seen the annex building razed and surface parking removed. While that part of the status of this temple is still noted by many sources available to me, it has additionally been noted that interior renovations are now underway.

It was great to learn of these updates, and I am grateful to have been able to pass them along to you all here. I continue to monitor all such developments and will pass them along as I become aware of them in the future.

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: Social Media Sites Will No Longer Be Accessible In Church Meetinghouses Starting This Month

Hello again, everyone! Breaking news from the Church today. In an effort to encourage members to place appropriate focus on Sabbath Day observance and to encourage greater attention to what is said in Church meetings, the Church has announced that, beginning in this month, many social media sites will be blocked on the Church's internet networks.

In my humble opinion, this is a move that is long overdue. I was brought up on the notion that, even as technology evolved, it was not right to use social media at Church, as that would distract both myself and those around me from the appropriate focus that should be placed on learning of the Savior, worshiping Him, and renewing the covenants made at baptism.

This is yet another example of how the Church continues to simplify things, in the hopes of allowing all members to focus on what is most important about the gospel. And I welcome and embrace this news with all my heart.

At the same time, however, it grieves me to realize that the Church would not have needed to take this step if more of the Church members had had common sense enough to put aside their participation on such social media sites.

If we really stop and think about it, the Lord requires relatively little of us. 3 hours a day for most of the 52 or 53 Sundays that are in a year is not a lot of time for which the Lord and the leaders of His Church are asking us to focus on Him and the principles of the gospel. That some people have failed to allow themselves to focus on that for such a short period of time during any given week makes me wonder if social media use and addiction thereunto may be more detrimental to the efforts the people of this Church should be making in their worship of the Savior than any other aspect.

At some point in the last few years, I made the determination that I was spending far too much time on social media. So I determined to gradually decrease the time I spent there. At this time, I am only really on social media once or twice every month or two, and I have not felt as though that is any great loss.

If anything, reducing that time, in my personal opinion, has allowed me to focus on more important things, not the least of which has been the ongoing Church and temple developments that I have read about and passed along to you all.

That is not to say that social media is not an important way to keep in touch with people. But in the "age of information", any one of us, myself included, may be in danger of over-utilizing any one of the many technological advances of this modern age.

So on that level, this is a development that, in my mind, truly is long overdue, and I welcome the opportunity we all, especially those who have been focused more on social media than on the spirit of worship that should attend what has traditionally been called "the most important three hours of the week".

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.