UPDATED: Current Apostolic Statistics

Hello again, everyone! Recently on this blog, it has become traditional for me to publish updated apostolic statistics relating to both the age and tenures of our current apostles roughly every 7 weeks. Since I last did so on Sunday July 12, it is now time to do so again today. Those updates, as has also been customary, will be featured in two parts: the first and the second. The information speaks for itself. I continue to monitor all Church news and temple updates and will be sure to pass word of those developments along to you all as I become aware of any such reports.

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.

BREAKING NEWS: First Presidency Confirms Arrangements for the October 2020 General Conference

Hello again, everyone! A long-time reader of this blog, Nigel, commented here a short while ago on the arrangements for the October 2020 General Conference. Based on that feedback, I did some digging on my end, and found an official letter from the First Presidency, which confirms the details for that General Conference. It appears that the General Conference will follow the typical October pattern, with four general sessions for all Church members on Saturday and Sunday morning and afternoon, with the standard Women's Session being held Saturday evening. 

The announcement through this letter constitutes a correction to any information I have previously offered on the upcoming General Conference. Accordingly, I will neeed to take some time to update my predictions for the upcoming General Conference, which will be published here ASAP after the appropriate changes are made. In the interim, it seems more likely than not that, with the sessions being closed to the public, that the conference will still originate from the small auditorium on Temple Square, with the First Presidency presiding at the sessions, and only those speaking or praying during each session will be in attendance. 

For the Women's Session, I imagine that it will additionally be attended by whichever General President will conduct the session this go-round. I also imagine, per information that was previously released, that the Tabernacle Choir will participate in all sessions with prerecorded music, unless music is pulled from prior Women's Sessions. There will be a lot to consider in terms of the necessary readjustments to my predictions, and I will be sure to make and pass along those updates as I am able to make them. I also continue to monitor all Church news updates and temple developments and will be sure to bring word of those to you all as I become aware of such information. 

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.

BREAKING TEMPLE NEWS: Groundbreakings Set for Two US Temples; Location Specified for One Other

Hello again, everyone! Today, the Church announced the groundbreakings for two US temples and identified the location of one other. There's a lot to unpack here, so let's get started. With the site for the Bentonville Arkansas Temple having been announced in April of this year, and the site for the McAllen Texas Temple having been announced in December of last year, renderings were released for both temples today, and it was also announced that groundbreakings for both will be held in November of this year, again, with no definitive or specific date clarified.

Elder David A. Bednar, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, will preside over the Bentonville Arkansas Temple groundbreaking remotely. The apostle was the first president of the Bentonville Arkansas Stake after it was split off from the Rogers Arkansas Stake, over which he had been presiding at the time that split occurred. I am not sure how the remote ceremony will work, but I imagine due to local travel restrictions amidst COVID-19, Elder Bednar will offer the prayer to dedicate the site from wherever he will be, and then someone standing in for him (proably an area seventy) will do the actual groundbreaking part of that ceremony. The temple will be a single-story edifice of roughly 25,000 feet, and will share a plot of land with an exisiting meetinghouse.

Meanwhile, for the McAllen Texas Temple, ground will be broken for the single-story edifice of 25,000 feet and an adjacent meetinghouse by Elder Art Rascon, an area seventy living and serving in the greater Houston Texas Area. That groundbreaking will also occur in November. The latest two groundbreakings announced for these temples by the Church will be the twelfth and thirteenth to be held in 2020, leaving a total of 5 temple groundbreakings that will need to occur before the end of this year, as Elder Bednar had indicated would be the case in April. I am grateful for these latest announcements.

Both of those temples were originally announced last year, Bentonville Arkansas in April, and McAllen Texas in October, so two more 2019 temples are out of the queue of those announced. If that was the only temple news, it would be wonderful enough, but the Church has also today identified the site location of and shared the initial details for the Syracuse Utah Temple, which was announced four months ago during the April 2020 General Conference by President Nelson. 

Utah's newest temple will be built on a 12-acre site at the corner of 2500 West 1025 South in Syracuse. Plans call for a three-story edifice of roughly 89,000 square feet. Since the plans are stil in the approval phase for that temple, a rendering and groundbreaking information will be announced later. But at least we have a location and initial details for the newest Utah Temple. The latest announcements mean I will once again need to reconsider thoughts I have previously offered in my temple files. 

But I am grateful to have learned of these latest developments and to have been able to share them with you all here. I continue to monitor all such updates and Church news developments, and will do my level best to pass word of those along to you all 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.

BREAKING TEMPLE NEWS: First Presidency Announces Online System for Temple Prayer Rolls

Hello again, everyone! Earlier today, the First Presidency shared new information about an online system that has been created for the temple prayer rolls of the Church.  The way it willl work is that, on each temple's individual page, or through the "My Temple" section of the Church's "Tools" app for mobile phones, there will be a link on which to click to submit those names. This will be an expansion on the Church's long-standing practice of allowing individuals to call in to individual temples or to put names manually on the prayer roll while performing temple ordinances.

Although this is a relatively minor change, it is long overdue, in my opinion. This is also another change that I think was specifically meant to be done under President Nelson's dynamic leadership. This is also in line with his ongoing efforts to determine what is needful, what is a doctrinally-based practice, and what needs to be adjusted, expanded, changed or tweaked. As such, this is another example verifyIng that he is truly the prophet inspired for our time.

By saying so, I do not mean to imply that other prophets who have preceded our current one would have been incapable or not inspired to make the changes we continue to see under President Nelson, but rather that there were many things held in reserve for President Nelson to do at this time that are uniquely suited to his capabiilities and skill set. In other words, it's time for all of these changes to occur, and President Nelson has the prophetic insight and inspiration to implement all such adjustments, both major and minor, that we have seen under his leadership within roughly the last 2.5 years since his ordination and setting apart.

This also marks the first breaking temple development that is not related to the Church's phased temple reopenings currently ongoing, or to a temple construction annoucnement, since the July 20 announcement about changes to the temple endowment. It appears that there is much more ahead in terms of changes and improvements to the Church than any of us may have thought possible. I 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 learn 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.

UPDATED: October 2020 General Conference Predictions

 Hello again, everyone! As some of you might recall, less than two months after the April 2020 General Conference was held, the First Presidency announced that the October 2020 General Conference would be virtual only, and would follow the "same pattern" as the April General Conference. In the interim, as I have also recently mentioned here, in conjunction with the cancellation of all Temple Square activities relating to the Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square, and the Bells on Temple Square, the releiase noted that the Choir would participate in the October 2020 General Conference via archived performances.

Although confirmation through an official announcement from the First Presidency is pending on the arrangements for the next General Conference, the event page entry for General Conference implies that a Saturday evening session for all Church members and friends of other faiths will be held in place of the traditional Women's Session, and that the sessions will again originate from a small auditorium on Temple Square, and that, aside from the First Presidency, only those speaking or praying during each session will be in attendance thereat.

Based on those assumptions, as circumstances have allowed, I have taken time to overhaul my predictions for the next General Conference. Since I can share the content of those predictions in a single post, I have them split into three distinct documents. The first highlights what I anticipate will be the potential speaking order for the conference; the second highlights the anticipated changes in general Church leadership; and the third takes a look at the list I have assembled of locations in which a temple seems most likely to be announced.

Each of the three predictions documents for next conference come complete with their own sets of notes, which I have striven to keep as brief and concise as possible. I am pleased to reopen a commenting period on these predictions that is effective from now until 10:00 PM on Thursday October 1, at which point I will need to make the final adjustments to each prediction set before General Conference weekend occurs. I look forward to the input I will get on these. While that feedback period is ongoing, I will be sure to also monitor any Church news updates and all major temple developments and will be sure to bring word of those to you all here as I become aware of all 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.

UPDATED: Temple Documents

Hello again, everyone! As a result of the flood of temple announcements which have come down the pike within the last two weeks, I thoughtitwould be a good idea to update the documents I most recently shared just over two weeks ago. The documents largely speak for themselves, and include the following details: updated sections of my temple construction progress report;  announced temples for which no official information has been confirmed; temples most likely to have groundbreakings occur in 2020 and 2021; the probable timing for temple groundbreakings within the next year or so; some updated analysis on the Church's progress towards having 18 temple groundbreakings occur in 2020; and adjusted estimates for the probable timing of all known temple events.

Some brief contextual information may be helpful. Firstly, as always, the timing for all temple events is determined by the prophet as revealed to him through the Spirit. As such, absent of official announcements, the information in those documents is largely conjecture or predictions, and will be subject to correction, clarification, or amendement as more is known. Secondly, one big unknown at the moment is COVID-19. Depending on how the pandemic impacts each nation iand location in which any temples have been or will be announced, that will obviously impact timing and progress. But the global pademic was the chief factor I used in determining the potential timing for some temple groundbreakings, dedications, or rededications based on what was known at the time, or what I could find out about each location in personal research.

It is possible that the pandemic may preclude the Church's ability to break ground on the 18 temples mentioned by Elder Bednar. It is also possible that with flexibility in arrangements, other temples may climb up the queue in unexpected ways and at unexpected times. Trying to determine how, if, and to what extent any temple event (groundbreaking, dedication, or rededication) will potentially be delayed is above my personal proverbial pay grade. That being said, I have a feeling that when the time is right for all such events, the Lord will open a way for them to occur, whether on original schedules or delayed as needed. And we have seen mountains moved in temple construction on a continual basis, so miracles aren't off the table or out of the equation either.

Whatever might  wind up happening with respect to temple developments, you can count on my covering it all here. I continue to monitor all Church news as well, and will bring you all world of the important highlights as time and circumstances allow. 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.

POSSIBLE BREAKING NEWS: Arrangements Confirmed for the October 2020 General Conference?

Hello again, everyone! As some of you might recall, almost one month ago, I detailed new evidence pointing to the possible arrangements being announced for the October 2020 General Conference. Then, this morning, as reported in the threads of my most recent post, the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square announced the cancellation of this year's Christmas concert due to ongoing COVID-19 factors and resulting restrictions. As part of that article, the news release specifically noted the following: 

"As it did in April 2020, the Choir will participate in the October 2020 general conference meetings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints through use of its prerecorded performances." That sentence included a link to the events page entry for the upcoming General Conference. The page notes that the conference "will focus on the Savior’s messages of love, understanding, acceptance, hope, connection, and inclusion." It also included the following direct quote from the First Presidency:

“We will focus on Him by elevating our use of the name He revealed for His restored Church. We will recognize major events of the ongoing Restoration to celebrate our history and future. We will become even more 'converted unto the Lord' and invite all to come and find enduring joy on His covenant path.” The page further notes that all sessions will be for all Church members and their friends of other faiths, including the two sessions each on Saturday and Sunday October 3 and 4 at 10:00 AM MDT and 2:00 PM MDT, with an evening session on Saturday at 6:00 PM MDT for all members and friends of the Church.

The events page then concludes with the note that the upcoming General Conference will consist of prerecorded music, as confirmed in the release about the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square's 2020 Christmas Concert, and finally notes that, aside from the First Presidency, who will preside at and conduct each session, only those speaking or praying in each session will be in attendance, with those sessions being carried live from a small auditorium on Temple Square.

This is more detail than we have previously been given on this upcoming General Conference, so I think it's safe to assume that, unless we hear anything more official from the First Presidency through a Newsroom release that these will be the plans for General Conference in roughly six weeks from today. Therefore, this latest information supercedes and replaces any previous information I have provided in that respect.

But whether or not anything more official does come down the pike soon, if this is the plan, it's also probably safe to surmise that the General Conference leadership sessions will again be deferred for six months, and that all Church leaders and members outside of Utah will be invited to participate remotely. I continue to monitor all Church news updates and temple developments and will be sure to bring word of those to you all here as I become aware thereof.

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.

CORRECTION: Status Update on the Tooele Valley Utah Temple

Hello again, everyone! I need to publish a correction today to something I had previously reported which turned out to not be accurate. In that earlier post, I had conjectured that Church-owned land in Grantsville,m which was reportedly being annexed elsewhere in the Tooele Valley, might help to deal with residential concerns in Erda relative to any delays to the commencement of construction for the Tooele Valley Utah Temple. Then, two days after that post was published here, I became aware of another article on the matter of the Tooele Valley Utah Temple. 

With that article being published on Friday, the day before the pre-appointed deadline for the signatures on the matter of the referendum, the article clarified that the annexation of the land on which I had reported was not connected in any way to the property on which the Church would like to bu8ild the temple, with an assist in the form of the residential development in Erda. The Deseret News article noted that some citizens who objected to the development but not the temple and had signed the referendum requested the removal of their signatures when they internalized that opposing the development would also delay or change the feasible prospect of a temple on that spot.

For some, the realization (which in my opinion should have been obvious) that the temple is a package deal was enough to retract their opposition to all of it and remove their signatures from the referendum. Time will tell if that will be enough to allow work to proceed on the full package, which in turn will impact the groundbreaking's timing. The article also noted that the Church's original hope and plan was to break ground for the temple in March, but that residential concerns had to be taken into account, and that the development as noted in the Newsroom release from May of this year was the compromised agreement and middle-ground on the matter.

So there is a lot of give-and-take push-and-pull still related to this matter, and the status of the Tooele Valley Utah Temple is still very much up in the air. The new information will be a consideration in my net round of analysis on and changes to the temple documents I have previously shared here. Hopefully, you all will be able to review those updates in the next week or two. Also, before the end of this month, I hope to have my October 2020 General Conference predictions more solidly put together and published on this blog, to allow for roughly a month-long discussion of them if needed before General Conference weekend.

I am also hoping for some additional temple developments to be reported, and some Church news updates, which I will cover as I can. And I have prepared already a scheduled post for publication two weeks from today that will serve as the next 2020 apostolic milestone update, in addition to putting together a preliminary plan for blog projects here that will cover known updates for next year. All that and more will be coming your way as I can make it happen. 

In the menatime, 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.

BREAKING NEWS: Major Changes Coming to Church Magazines Effective 2021

Hello again, everyoe! Next year will mark the 50th anniversary of most the current Church magazines, which were last renamed in 1971, with the titles thereof being The Ensign, The New Era, and the Friend. Later on, in May 1995, the Liahona as it is currently known was first published as a country-and-area specific magazine with targeted content for the same.

In the years that have passed between 1971 and 1995, and between 1995 and now, those 3 (and later 4) magazi.nes were the normal status quo with long-standing precedent in practice, but not in doctrine. In the interim, we have been the recipients of sieveral significant revelations from our current prophet, President Russell M. Nelson. And the efforts he has undertaken have attempted to unify and streamline Church policies, procedures, and practices in a time when the reach of the Church is and will be ever further.

With those preceding paragraphs as a preamble to this post, I am pleased to share some breaking news that changes are again coming to the magazines of the Church. In this morning's announcement, the First Presidency noted that, effective January 2021, the Ensign magazine as we know it will be retired. The Liahona will now be the global magazine for all adult members of the Church. Similarly, the New Era name will also be changed, and the magazine for youth will now be known as For the Strength of Youth. The name of the magazine for Primary-aged children will continue to use the moniker: "The Friend."

In accordance with these changes, the length and format of each magazine will also change, with the Church expanding additional content that is available in digital formats. The First Presidency also noted that the now-three monthly magazines will be available in 23 languages, also expanding the Church's global reach. Bimonthly (six times per year), magazine content will be available in 24 other languages, with online content bridging the gap for months when no print edition is available. And in 40 other languages, the Church will provide content solely through digital means. 

The letter and associated FAQs sharing this development also notes subscription-specific information. For current subscribers to any magazines, at the end of this year, the time remaining on all current subscriptions will roll over onto the equivalent magazines. The Church also noted that, because the Liahona will now be the standard magazine for the adults of the Church, the previous content once conttained in the Liahona specifically for the children and youth of the Church will now appear in "For the Strength of Youth" and "The Friend" as part of the Church's process of streamlining all of this.

For that reason, subscriptions to any or all of the now-three magazines will need to be acquired. But if changes are coming to the format and layout of these magazines, and if the Church is reducing the number of magazines from 4 to 3 global editions, there may be adjustments made on the prices for these magazines. In either case, the digital versions will remain accessible to all free of charge. Additional information on these changes willl be made available through the Church's social media channels, through the Church website, and in the December 2020 issues of the current magazines.

It has been somewhat of a whirlwind 16 hours or so since I found out about the two Utah temple groundbreakings. In the interim, the Church has released the renderings for two temples in the Pacific Islands, and now this announcement of the changes to Church magazines. President Nelson truly was not kidding when he noted that things would be moving at an accelerated pace. I look forward to seeing whatever else may be ahead, and I will do my level best to keep bringing word of those to you all here as I become aware of all 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.

BREAKING TEMPLE NEWS: Exterior Renderings Released and Site Locations Confirmed for Two Temples in the Pacific Islands

Hello again, everyone! I am back again now with another breaking temple development. From the Auckland New Zealand Newsroom comes information about the location, size, and renderings for two temples in the Pacific Islands, namely, the Neiafu Tonga and Pago Pago American Samoa Temples. With both temples announced in April 2019, the Church is wasting no time on getting more temples underway ASAP. That said, let's get into specifics about these temples.

The Neiafu Tonga Temple will be a single-story edifice of approximately 17,000 square feet. It will be built on the site of theChurch-owned Saineha High School in Neiafu. The project will also include a distribution center, missionary housing, and a residence for the temple president. It should be noted that none of the buildings pertaining to the high school will be impacted at all by the construction of these additional buildings at that location. Apparently, the high school configuration had been planned with room to grow.

In the meantime, for the Pago Pago American Samoa Temple, it will be built on the site of the Pago Pago Samoa Central Stake Center on Ottoville Road in Tafuna, American Samoa. The same ancillary facilities I described above relative to Tonga's next temple will also all be included in the plans for American Samoa's first temple (missionary housing, temple president's residence, and a distribution center). The Church is planning for the temple in Pago Pago to be a single-story edifice that will also be roughly 17,000 square feet in area.

The two temples have vaguely similar design styles, both to each other and to other temples that have been previously constructed. I will leave it to others far more qualified than I am to provide more specific analysis on these temples' designs. But given the release of these renderings, and the relatively straightforward site plans, it seems possible that one or both of these temples could have a groundbreaking within the next six months or less, if all goes well. In the meantime, that means that the total number of temples originally announced in April 2019 which have not had any official information confirmed yet down to two.

In the meantime, by way of a teaser, t.here are currently 38 announced temples. 6 of those (Orem Utah, San Pedro Sula Honduras, Brasilia Brazil, Taylorsville Utah, and Salta Argentina) have had groundbreakings officially confirmed. 21 of the remaining 32 temples have not yet had any official information confirmed. I do continue to monitor any and all Church news updates and temple developments and will be sure to bring word of those to you all here 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.