BREAKING NEWS: 6 Women in Europe Called as International Area Organization Advisers

Hello again, everyone! This morning, in addition to the update about the renovation of pioneer-era temples, the Church News shared that the First Presidency has authorized the creation of a new position for female leaders at the area level, which was first reported in United Kingdom edition of the Church's official Newsroom page. Six women in the Europe Area of the Church wil now serve as international area advisers. What does this mean? Let's break it down.

Area presidencies outside the United States, at their discretion and with the approval of Church headquarters, may recommend and call women to serve as international area advisers. Women called to these positions will participate in area councils ad will coordinate with leaders at the ward and stake levels to provide training and support for all women serving at the ward and stake level as leaders in the Relief Society, Young Women, and Primary organizations. 

The hope is that those who are called to serve in that capcity will be able to give women more of a voice and bridge that gap in reprensation between the general Church level and at the congregational level. Insofar as I can ascertain, those called to that position in Europe are the first to be publicly announced. Other international areas may subsequently call women to these roles. It is not clear why that applies specifically to areas outside North America and not to the 6 areas that cover the continent. It has been an exciting day for reported breaking developments, and it's not very far into this Friday afternoon. 

I continue to monitor all such Church news and temple updates and will be sure to pass along word of those developments 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: Updates Announced for Salt Lake Temple Renovation;Mantis Utah Temple To Be Renovated Later This Year

NOTE: This post was originally published not long after the announcement was made, with subsequent edits added roughly 2 hours later.

Hello again, everyone!  The Newsroom has shared new information (which was also shared in the Church News) on the Salt Lake Temple renovation, with today's announced changes likely to extend the duration of that project. That announcement also noted that the Manti Utah Temple will also close for renovation later this year. There's a lot of information to get to, so let's break it down.  

First, for the Salt Lake Temple, continuing revelation has been sought regarding that process since well before that temple's renovation got underway in December of 2019, and the Church has continued to evaluate the best options to keep that temple up and running in the future, and to serve the needs of an expanding Church at its' headquarters. Consequently, a decision has been made to add two more instruction rooms, additional sealing rooms, and a second baptistry.

Next, rather than involving a room-to-room (progressive) endowment session that involves live performances from the ordinance workers, those live presentations of that ceremony will now be replaced by single-stage endowment rooms and include the incorporation of video presentations instead of the live performances. That will expand the temple's capacity for sessions each day.  Meanwhile, to free up space for the anticipated increased capacity of that temple, the cafeteria will no longer be part of that temple's facilities, and will be repurposed. The change in plans also means that the temple murals will need to be moved and either repaired or replaced, especially to accommodate a layout change for each endowment room now that those will be stationary rather than four-stage progressive. 

Also, since these particular additions to that project were added recently through revelation and were not part of the original plans, it seems likely that the renovation process for this temple may be extended to allow for the additional alterations. I previously shared my opinion that the Church would likely complete the renovation in mid-2024, with the open house and rededication likely to follow in the third or fourth quarter of that year. But in view of the adjusted and expanded renovation plans, the estimate for the completion may be more reasonably anticipated as late 2024-early 2025, though the Church will need to confirm or correct that, if that's not the case.

Having provided details on the Salt Lake Temple renovation updates, we now turn our attention to the part of the announcement relating to the Manti Utah Temple. The Church announced today that the temple will close for its' major renovation later this year, for a multi-year project. Aside from mechanical, electrical, seismic, and systemic updates, the Church plans to shift the Manti Temple from live presentations of the endowment in a multi-stage progressive style to a stationary endowment presented by video, which will expand the availiablity of the endowment in other languages at this temple.

The murals will also be documented, photographed, and removed, and some elements of the interior and exterior of that temple will also be altered and updated, with specifications on those to be provided as those plans are developed and as the scheduled renovations begin, which, again, will occur later this year. I am anticipating that the renovation on that temple will last a minium of 3-4 years, which will put its' completion sometime in late 2024-early 2025 as well. 

I am grateful to have been able to learn about and pass along these updates to you all. I continue to monitor all Church news and temple updates and wil also pass those along as well as I learn about 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: 5 More Temples Will Move to Phase 3 on March 15

Hello again, everyone! This morning, the Church News noted status changes for 4 temples, with 2 previously-"paused" temples resuming operations, and with 2 others being "paused" in their reopening status due to COVID-19 conditions and local regulations. While I had intended just now to note those minor changes in the comment threads of my previous post (since those changes were not necessarily breaking news), as I was preparing to do so, the Church News happened to provide a breaking update on temple reopenings.

Those updates came through less than an hour ago. So let's break down the announcement: 2 weeks from today (on Monday March 15), 5 additional temples will transition to phase 3 of reopening, which allows all ordinances for the living in priority order, but also allows all proxy ordinances to be done on a limited scale by appointment. The 5 temples that will transition to phase 3 in two weeks include the first 3 in North America (Kona and Laie Hawaii and Cardston Alberta in Canada), the first one in Central America (San Salvador El Salvador), and 1 more in the Pacific (Papeete Tahiti).

With the announcement about the Papeete Tahiti Temple transitioning to phase 3, on March 15, 9 of the 10 temples in the Pacific will be in phase 3. The only Pacific Area temple not currently in any phase of operation is the Hamilton New Zealand Temple, which remains closed for renovation, and for which the open house and rededication is anticipated to be the first held later this year (likely towards the end of the third quarter of this year, or the beginning of the fourth quarter of this year). Time will tell how soon following its rededication the Hamilton temple will transition from phase 1 to phase 2, and then on to phase 3 with the other temples in the Pacific.

Having noted that, the other changes which were noted in the original announcement from the Church this morning (roughly 4 hours before the subsequent phase 3 announcement) are that the Guadalajara and Monterrey Mexico Temples will both resume their former phase 1 reopening status, which will allow the living husband-to-wife sealings where both are previously endowed, with limited guests in attendance. Meanwhile, due to local COVID-19 conditions and new governmental regulations, the Curitiba and Porto Alegre Brazil Temples, which had been in phase 2, will now pause operations.

The Church News has updated their temple status tracker, which lists the status of each temple, grouped by the geographical boundaries for each area of the Church under which each temple falls. The Church News further notes that, by March 15, there will be 19 temples in phase 3, 119 more in phase 2, 12 others in phase 1, 9 in a "paused" status due to local restrictions and regulations, and 1 still closed (Kyiv Ukraine, which has not reopened in any phase since the First Presidency announced the closure of all operating temples roughly 1 year ago).

The other 8 temples are closed for renovation, with 2 of those (Washington D.C. and Tokyo Japan) completed and awaiting their rededications. The same updates I reoprted here are also available through the Newsroom's official release and the corresponding reopening status list, which presents the temples in alphabetical order I am grateful to have learned of and been able to pass on these updates here. I continue to monitor all Church news and any additional temple updates, and will be sure to continue to pass those along as I learn about 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: Exterior Rendering Released for the Syracuse Utah Temple

Hello again, everyone!Breaking news has been reported by the Church within the last hour. As some of you might recall, in late August of last year, groundbreakings were set and renderings released for the Bentonville Arkansas and McAllen Texas Temples. In that same announcement, the location and preliminary details were revealed for the Syracuse Utah Temple. Fast forward to around half an hour ago. The Church News noted that the exterior rendering for the Syracuse Utah Temple has been released. Interestingly enough, on the Newsroom, rather that providing a new press release specifically relating to this temple's new rendering, it appears that the late August release, which showed information about that temple, has since been updated with the exterior rendering.

The Syracuse Utah Temple was announced in April of last year. The site location for it was then confirmed in August, and the rendering has been released now in February, so four months passed between the temple's announcement and the release of the preliminary information, with four more months passing between the release of that preliminary information and today's release of that rendering. As I have previously mentioned, it is currently anticipated that the Syracuse Utah Temple will be one of the first (if not the very first) to have a groundbreaking this year.

The Church News update on this temple notes that no groundbreaking date has been set yet, but given that a window for that is anticipated in the spring, we might hear of formal arrangements being set for that temple within the next month or two, with the groundbreaking itself perhaps set for April, May, or June. In 2019, as some of you might recall, there were several cases where the Church released a rendering for a temple a few weeks prior to subsequently announcing the groundbreaking information for it, so something similar could happen here.

The one difference between most of the temples that had that happen 2 years ago and the Syracuse Utah Temple is that the latter is going to be a comparatively larger temple. Set to rise at the intersection of 2500 West and 1025 South in Syracuse, plans call for a three-story temple of roughly 89,00 square feet. The rendering in this case shows yet another temple that will not feature the angel Moroni, suggesting that the new trend will be towards not including it in most cases for future temples of the Church.

A couple of additional thoughts, if I may offer them. I know that I am one who has been surprised that no groundbreakings have been set to occur this year yet. Last year, the first groundbreakings were announced in mid-to-late January, and set to occur in April and May, but wound up occurring in April, May, and June, due to COVID-19 conditions. 

Last year also saw several other groundbreaking arrangements reshuffled. So while I am surprised no arrangements have been formally announced thus far, I understand that it may be wiser to factor in COVID-19 conditions when making those arrangements. And the way things worked out last year, the Church had originally planned to conduct 18 temple groundbreakings (per Elder Bednar's remarks in the April 2020 General Conference). That number was increased to 20 (per President Nelson's opening remarks in October), and the Church actually wound up being able to carry out 21 groundbreakings by the end of the year. Of those 21, 16 wound up occurring during the final 4 months of the year.

My reason for mentioning that is that, even if the Church does not wind up announcing the first groundbreaking(s) this year for another month or two, a slow start on announcing them may not equate to a smaller number of groundbreakings occurring during this year.  In fact, I think the opposite may turn out to be true. For the upcoming April General Conference, among other things, I have predicted that Elder Bednar may be one of the three members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles who might speak in the final session thereof.

If that happens, I think it may also be safe to assume that Elder Bednar might mention an exact number of temples for which the Church is hoping to break ground by the end of this year, and that, as President Nelson speaks to close out the conference, he may then announce several new temples. Given what we know about the potential for temple events this year, there are at least 8 thus far that will almost certainly have a groundbreaking, and I have at least 6 or 7 others on my radar as well.

As a result, I think we might safely anticipate new temples being announced in the double-digits this time around, marking the first time since October 2018 that more than 10 temples might be announced. It will be interesting to see all of that unfold this year. I continue to monitor all temple developments, major Church news, and many other factors as well, and will do my best to continue to bring word of those to you all as I become aware of all such updates.

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.

Temple Construction Progress Report Overhauled as Completion Order and Estimates Are Frequently Adjusted

Hello again, everyone! As we near the half-way point of the second month in 2021, I wanted to publish new content today. I have mentioned repeatedly in recent threads of several of my previous posts that the completion order for temples now under construction, along with their completion estimates, have been fluctuating frequently of late. In consideration of the massive and significant nature of those changes, I wanted to provide two links to my temple construction progress report

The first shows the changes that have been made as of today, and as of the time at which this post is being published. And the second link I wanted to share today is for the version of my report that will be continuously updated from today until my first-quarter temple construction progress report is shared (which I am planning to take care of on either March 31 or April 1).

It appears that there will be a need to keep tabs on the queue of temples which are now or may soon be under full-scale construction, since there will surely be many more such changes in the days ahead. As the saying goes, "The only thing that's truly constant is change." Within the last couple of weeks alone, on several of the days therein, there have even been multiple chnages to the queue in a single day. That will no doubt continue to be the case for the foreseeable future.

I remain committed to continuing to track those changes, and will do my level best to continue to bring word of those to you all here as I become aware of them. I also will be monitoring all other Church news updates and will similarly bring you summaries thereof as I am able to do so.

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.