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Sunday, April 26, 2020

Prayers Would Be Appreciated (Yet Again)

Hello again, everyone! Earlier this afternoon, my wife Amy got an update on her dad, who is around the same age as Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. While we may not have all the details at present, what we do know about her dad's present health isutaion troubles us deeply. As a result of Amy having chatted with one of her brothers (who lives next door to her dad), they have made the determination that she needs to go stay with her dad. She will be heading out to do so later this evening. Because we have a cat here at home, and due to my not feeling well, I will be staying here at our house during the time she is gone. Your prayers woul again be very much appreciated on behalf of her dad (Gene Nuttall), and on behalf of my wife and myself during this time, especially since, with all temples still closed due to COVID-19, we will not be able to put our names and her dad's name on the prayer roll at the present time. Although there may be logistical changes to my availability to report Church news and temple developments during the period of time when my wife will be staying with her dad,  I will still do my level best to bring you all word of any Church news, temple updates, or anything else, as I become aware of such things. In the meantime, that does it for now. Any and all comments are, as always, welcome and appreciated, on any post at any time, as long as such comments are made in accordance with the established guidelines. Thank you for the privilege of your time. If you enjoyed what you read here and would like to stay informed of newly added content, please feel free to subscribe. 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.

Friday, April 24, 2020

BREAKING NEWS: PDF Version of May 2020 Ensign Now Available

Hello again, everyone! I am pleased to be able to report a breaking news development. The PDF version of the May 2020 Ensign is now available. Aside from my running a comparison between how my mock-up of the possible table of contents for this Ensign compared to the actual thing, I gleaned a couple more interesting insights from that layout. First of all, the Church managed to pack all the content from the conference into a 128-page magazine, rather than using the 144 pges which have been somewhat standard for the May Ensign most years, and occasionally has been the case for the November edition. That suggests to me that a 128-page edition may be the new standard going forward. As a result of it being a 128 page edition, the chart showing the current General Authorities and General Officers of the Church was on pages 64-65, not 72-73 as I had conjectured. And oddly enough, rather than having two full-page images on either side of that chart, this edition saw the text of General Conference messages take up pages 63 and 66. There were some talks by the First Presidency, Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, GA Seventies, Presiding Bishopric, and General Officers of the Church which also took up a different amount of space (some more, and some less) than I had predicted. But one of my biggest takeaways from this General Conference edition is something in the photographs that I had not anticipated. We had been aware, of course, that the Church had requested images from members of them watching General Conference in their homes, of which many were featured. But I wasn't exactly sure how the First Presidency had handled the positioning of those who spoke or prayed in each session. We did see in the sessions that the First Presidency members were observing a 6-foot distance between each other, and that the apostles were seated the same way by seniority per session. But apparently, aside from the apostolic participants, the decision was made to have all other speakers and the two leaders giving the prayers in each session sit in the audience seats of the auditorium, then come up to the podium from there when it was their turn to speak or pray. That ensured that any who were participating in any manner were always at least 6 feet apart. It makes sense that was done, but I hadn't considered it as a possibility. With that said, I did want to note that I am still working on some of the other projects to which I have previously referred, and which I hope to post ASAP.

I have even put together a preliminary edition of my predictions for the October 2020 General Conference. I may hold off on publishing that here for the time being so I can continue to make any necessary adjustments. As of right now, it is my hope that the October 2020 General Conference may be more of a normal one, being able to convene in the Conference Center without limitations on attendees or the number of participants taking part in each session, but I am holding off on putting anything solid in that respect up on this blog until more is known about any adjusted meeting regulations. The Utah Governor, Gary Herbert, spoke during a press conference earlier this afternoon, nd stated he hoped to be able to initiate a soft reopening of some of this state one week from today. If that happens, and is a successful step in opening Utah fully, that might lift restrictions on social distancing, and would enable the October 2020 General Conference to proceed with the standard number of participants (with most General Authorities and General Officers able to attend most sessions) and being able to be held in the Conference Center for a capacity congregation (21,000 individuals). Stay tuned for those predictions once I figure that out, and for all other projects as I am able to complete them.

I also continue to monitor all Church news and temple developments and will be sure to pass word of those along to you all here as I become aware of them. That does it for now. Any and all comments are, as always, welcome and appreciated, on any post at any time, as long as such comments are made in accordance with the established guidelines. Thank you for the privilege of your time. If you enjoyed what you read here and would like to stay informed of newly added content, please feel free to subscribe. 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 23, 2020

BREAKING TEMPLE NEWS: Site Location and Preliminary Details Confirmed for the Bentonville Arkansas Temple

Hello again, everyone! Right after publishing my most recent comment in the threads of the previous post, something prompted me to refresh my browser on the Newsroom website. When I did, I came across a brand new breaking news development. The First Presidency has confirmed the location and preliminary details for the Bentonville Arkansas Temple. It will be built on an 8.8 acre site at 1101 McCollum Road. In addition to retaining the on-site meetinghouse, the site will feature a single-story temple of roughly 25,000 square feet. Project leaders in the coming months will work with city leaders through the approvals process. And it would not shock me at all if a groundbreaking for this temple could take place before the end of this year, which seems more likely than not. The temple, originally announced in October 2019, becomes the fourth of the eight announced during that General Conference, to have preliminary details officially confirmed.

As anticipated, President Nelson is not letting the proverbial moss grow under his feet, and is taking serious action on the backlog queue of announced temples. I continue to monitor all such developments and will be sure to pass word of those along to you all as I become aware of such things.

That does it for now. Any and all comments are, as always, welcome and appreciated, on any post at any time, as long as such comments are made in accordance with the established guidelines. Thank you for the privilege of your time. If you enjoyed what you read here and would like to stay informed of newly added content, please feel free to subscribe. 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.

Tuesday, April 21, 2020

Updates Made to Temple Construction Progress Report

Hello again, everyone! In this post-General Conference season, I have kept somewhat busy updating many of my files with relevant information. Among those files has been my temple construction progress report. Above and beyond sharing those updates, some of the work I have done requires additional context.  Firstly, as previously noted when I last shared the full version of this report, I have post-dated it in order to negate the need to continuously update thaat date. As a result, the information about the amount of time between that date and the bicentennial anniversary of the Church is ahead of what it actually is as of today. If anyone wants the current data in that respect, please let me know. Next, new information on the Puebla Mexico Tmple has clarified that site clearing is complete, but that full-scale construction on the temple is pending, and, as a result, I have moved that temple from the queue of those under construction to those for which full-scale construction is pending, and have followed the example of the sources available to me for temple information in removing a more general completion estimate for that temple for the time being. As previously noted, because the report is post-dated to May 24, I have also put information in that report as if the groundbreaking for the Alabang Philippines Tempale has already taken place, because it is set to occur on May 2, with the date on the report being 22 days after that groundbreaking will have taken place. An update has slso been provided on the Layton Utah Temple, for which a groundbreaking will be held on the Saturday following the date currently noted on that report. The next major revisions involved a complete reworking of the "Groundbreaking Anticipated" section. With the approval process for the Tooele Valley Utah Temple anticipated to be expedited, it seems very liely that temple could be the next to have a groundbreaking set. And with the updated information that has been shared within the last week regarding approvals for the Washington County and Orem Utah Temples, it seems likely either or both of those could be next to have a groundbreaking. Depending on how quickly things happen for the Taylorsville Utah Temple following the demolition this month of the on-site meetinghouse, the groundbreaking for that temple could very well be one of the next ones to have a groundbreaking. if the next phases of approval for the Brasilia Brazil and McAllen Texas Temples go quickly, those two could each have their groundbreakings, and the same applies to the Feather River California and Moses Lake Washington Temples. In the meantime, I also anticipate more official details to be announced for the Phnom Pehn Cambodia and Bengaluru India Temples, in addition to the Harare Zimbabwe, Nairobi Kenya, San Pedro Sula Honduras, Coban Guatemala, and Managua Nicaragua Temples.

Moving on to temples undergoing renovation, I realized that new information on the Mesa Arizona Temple may confirm my previously-offered theory that that temple could (and likely will) be rededicated before the rededication of the Tokyo Japan Temple occurs, so I have adjusted that accordingly. A new update has also been reported on the Salt Lake Temple, so that is included as well. And the final updates to my report involved a thorough review of the extent of the information I had for the temples that have not yet gone beyond an announcement. Information that was more speculative (such as when more than one potential location may be under consideration for any on the list), or that was subject to future confirmation (such as the timing of the Dubai 2020 Expo, which will impact how soon that temple could have a groundbreaking), that led me to reorder some temples, moving them up or down as was appropriate based on that analysis. And of course, any information I offer is subject to change as official announcements are subsequently made.I will be sure to keep my eyes open for all such updates and will pass them on to you all here, along with any additional Church news, as I become aware of such developments. That does it for now. Any and all comments are, as always, welcome and appreciated, on any post at any time, as long as such comments are made in accordance with the established guidelines. Thank you for the privilege of your time. If you enjoyed what you read here and would like to stay informed of newly added content, please feel free to subscribe. 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 16, 2020

BREAKING NEWS: First Presidency Announces 2020 Area Leadership Assignments

Hello again, everyone! A short while ago, I was notified of a breaking news update through the Church News app. This afternoon/evening, the First Presidency announced the changes in area leadership that will go into effect on August 1. For the first time, the leadership assignments included some demographic data and notes about unique elements related to these changes. Although a more complete analysis will be added  to this post later on tonight as I have a chance to complete that, I wanted to note the news for now. And I also wanted to note that, as expected, Elder L. Whitney Clayton is being released as Senior President of the Seventy and will almost certainly be released from active service and desiganted an emeritus General Authority in October. That results in Elder Patrick Kearon officially becoming the first intternationally-born Senior President of the Seventy. But the big surprise came with the announcement of the new member of that Presidency who will begin serving on August 1. The First Presidency announced that Elder Brent H. Nielson, who was called as a GA Seventy in April 2009, and currently serves as the Executive Director of the Church Missionary Department, will be the new member of that Presidency. So it appears there will be a reshuffling in the leadership of the Missionary Department. More information on that, and my more in-depth and specific analysis on this will be added to this post later today. For now, my thanks to you all. (Added at 8:57 PM) I have been able to complete my analysis of changes in area leadership. I have set up a new shareable document detailing those changes. There was a lot to unpack, above and beyond what the Church News reported on these changes. I also wanted to present again the document showing the most likely changes I had anticipated being announced.  I have not had a chance to run any analysis on the accuracy of the changes I had predicted vs. those that wound up actually being announced, but it appears I did have quite a few of those predictions correct. I continue to monitor all Church news and temple updates and will be sure to bring word of all such developments to you here as I become aware of them. That does it for now. Any and all comments are, as always, welcome and appreciated, on any post at any time, as long as such comments are made in accordance with the established guidelines. Thank you for the privilege of your time. If you enjoyed what you read here and would like to stay informed of newly added content, please feel free to subscribe. 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. data-ad-slot="7053987612">