BREAKING TEMPLE NEWS: Groundbreaking Set for Tallahasse Florida Temple

 Hello again, everyone! Within the last half hour, breaking temple news has been reported. I have previously mentioned that the smaller US temples generally get more swift approval than their international counterparts. The breaking news relates to one of those small temples. Groundbreaking arrangements have been announced for the Tallahassee Florida Temple. The groundbreaking is set to take place in June. As hax been the case with all groundbreakings held during the COVID-19 pandemic, only a general window has been set for the groundbreaking.

That event will occur sometime in June. I believe this marks the first time since the Hinckley-era smaller temples were bu8ilt that more than one temple groundbreaking occcurred in June. Elder James B. Martino, the President of the North America Southeast Area, will preside at that groundbreaking, with COVID-19 protocols leading to a limited in-person attendance. It will be interesting to see when exactly in June that groundbreaking occurs, since the Syracuse Utah Temple groundbreaking is also set to occcur that month.

Based on the temple's previously-announced location, size, and rendering, I imagine that, at most, the temple will take roughly 2-2.5 years to complete. Coverage on this morning's announcement was also shared in the Church News. Full disclosure here: I honestly wasn't expecting the announcement on the Tallahassee Florida Temple to be the next announced groundbreaking. 

Based on the information I had as recently as last night, I was anticipating the next groundbreakings announced would be, in any order, for the Lindon Utah and Pittsburgh Pennsylvania Temples, along with potentia announcemnts for the Pago Pago American Samoa and Neiafu Tonga Temples, before Tallahassee would even be on the horizon.

That being said, I am grateful the Lord continues to prove that His ways and thoughts are higher than mine. And the previous opinons I offered were always subect to official confirmation, clarification, or correction by the Brethren when official announcements come down the pike. With all of that being said, I'm grateful to have learned of this news and to be able to pass it along to you all here.

I continue to monitor all other Church news and temple updates, and will bring you all word of those 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.

UPDATE: Results of My April 2021 General Conference Predictions

Hello again, everyone! Finding myself with some down time this evening, I took the opportunity to analyze my predictions for the April 2021 General Conference and to score the results. I wound up scoring those with a slightly-larger margin of error than usual. That is because I couldn't have anticipated that the Church would have general authorities outside the United States prerecord remarks that were given during that General Conference, nor could I have anticipated that the entire Sunday Morning Session would consist of international speakers and President Neelson. 

Smiliarly, I could not have anticipated that the newly-called aarea seventies would be presented in advance of the General Conference weekend. I also had no way to know that the Church would sustain the new members of the Presidency of the Seventy in advance, or that the only area seventies released would be those called as General Authority Seventies. And I definitely couldn't firmly gauge the full impact of COVID-19 on the Churchwide growth (or lack thereof) for the last year.

With all of that in mind, I want to share a look at the scoring information for wthose predictions. As z refresher course, especially for those following along with these results for the first time, for every predictable element, I utilize a 3-point scale. For the section wherein speakers and those conducting each session are listed, if I had the right person in the right slot in the right session, that was 3 points. Some examples of that would be my correct prediction that President Oaks would conduct the first session, and that the first two speakers would be President Nelson and Elder Uchtdorf. So that would be 3 points for each of those correct predictions.

A 2-point score was assigned where I had the correct individual(s) in the correct session(s), but not in the right order. Examples of that are the other two apostles who spoke in the Saturday Morning Session. Although I successfully predicted all 3 apostles, I had Elders Stevenson and Gong in the wrong order in that session. Meanwhile, 1 point was given for getting a speaker correct at any point in the General Conference, even though those individuals were not placed in the correct session and order in which they wound up speaking.

An example of that would be that I predicted the entire First Presidency would speak at the end of the Sunday Morning Session, but Presidents Oaks and Eyring spoke in their custmoary slots. So I was correct about them speaking, but not about when that would happen. Meanwhile, for anything that occurred which was not predicted, in most cases, that resulted in a score of 0. I mentioned "in most cases" because I did allow a slight margin of error on the predictions, given everything I could not have possibly predicted.

That said, on to the changes in Church leadership. Although the changes in the Presidency of the Seventy were not predicted, I gave myself 1 point for correctly predicting that Elder Palmer would be one of the two new members called whenever the change occurred. I also correctly predicted new general authorities, changes in area seventies, and a new Primary General Presidency, and the Church leadership changes were also scored on a curve.

For the statistical report, each element was worth 3 points. If I was within a fair margin of error (such as for the total number of missions and congregations), I scored those two elements as fully accurate. The children of record, convert baptisms, full-time and Church service missionaries were scored on a slight curve since those numbers were unpredictable. And I was fully correct on the total number of temples dedicated, rededicated, and in operation.

And finally, for the temple predictions, if I correctly predicted the exact location for any of the new temples, a score of 3 points were given for each of those. For the rest (where I had the right state or nation, but the wrong exact city), each of those were worth 2 points. As mentioned in the document showing my scoring breakdown, the overall percentage of accuracy on these predictions came out to 64.61%, putting me in the lower end of my usual range of 60-80& accuracy.

Hopefully everything I have laid out here makes sense to you all. Feel free to ask for clarification on anything that may be confusing. I would also just add that I antiicipate the annouoncement of new area leadership assignments for this ear to be made any day now. If that doesn't happen tomorrow, it will probably occur towards he mid-to-late part of next week. Hopefully I can get my list of the most likely changes that could be announced published to this blog before the announcement is offiicially made, but we'll have to see what happens there.

I also continue to monitor all Church news reports and temple updates and will be sure to bring you all word of those 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..

Documnts Relating to the April 2021 General Conference

Hello again, everyone! I am still working on scoring my General Conference predictions before I share those results here, and I anticipate that within the next week or two (if not sooner), we will see the Church announce the area leadership assignments that will go into effect on August 1. So I am in the process of preparing a document to show the most likely changes I believe will be announced in area assignments. In the interim, with the transcripts from General Conference addresses now available, I was able to gather some information and make some updates to information I have previously provided. So I will share those updates in this post.

First up, we have the customary document showing the length of each talk given by each of the 15 apostles who spoke to us this weekend. I've also updated the total number of talks given by each apostle, along with the relevant grand totals thereof.

And although it might be a little early to consider this, I also had time to put together a document showing what I believe the table of contents for the May 2021 Liahona may look like. I'd just add that, with the release of the three new global magazines that began this year, the new magazines have been shorter than their previous counterparts, but I don't believe that will apply to the General Conference edition. And with the Church no longer reading either the Statistical Report or the list of newly-sustained area seventies over the pulpit, there will need to be more room in the magazine for that content.

I will publish the results of my General Conference predictions once I have those analyzed, and will also provide my thoughts on area leadership changes, both in advance of and following the offical release of those changes as soon as I can make that happen. I also continue to monitor all Church news and templ developments and will pass word of htose 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 NEWS: General Conference Talk Transcripts Are Now Available

Hello again, everyone! This is a very quick breaking news update. In recent years, the Church has made video/audio versions of each General Conference talk available shortly after each session concludes, and has had the transcripts for the talks available for online viewing on Wednesday or Thursday. This post is being published to advise my readers that the transcripts from last weekend's General Conference are already available. I will be analyzing some data from that, and will be sure to post updated content based on my usual traditions (including a look at the lengths of each talk given by any of our apostles and also an update on the individual and total number of talks given by our apostles).

I will have that analysis ready to post ASAP. In the meantime, I am still working on the process of scoring the accuracy of my General Conference predictions and will also post that once I have it completed. There are also a few other projects I have coming down the pipeline which I will be detailing more fully when I have the opportunity to assess their readiness towards completion. 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: President Nelson Announces 20 New Temples as the April 2021 General Conference Concludes

Hello again, everyone! I am still attempting to put together my thoughts on the General Conference weekend that just concluded, but I do have some breaking news to report as well. During President Nelson's concluding remarks, the prophet 20 new temples that will be built in the following locations: 

In Europe: Oslo Norway; Burssels Belgium; and Vienna Austria. In Africa: Kumasi Ghana; Beira Mozambique; and Cape Town South Africa. In Asia: Singapore, Singapore.In South America: Belo Horizonte Brazil; Cali Colombia; Queretaro and Torreon Mexico. And in the Central and Western United States: Helena Montana; Casper Wyoming; Grand Junction Colorado; Farmington New Mexico; Burley Idaho; Eugene Oregon; Elko Nevada; Yorba Linda Califronia; and Smithfield Utah.

Of those new temples, I correcttly predicted the following temple: Oslo Norway, Brussels Belgium, Vienna Austria,, Kumasi Ghana, Cape Town South Africa, Singapore City Singapore, Belo Horizonte Brazil, Cali Colombia, Queretaro and Torreon Mexico,  Eugene Oregon, Elko Nevada

I had the following general regions correct, but not the specific locations: Beira Mozambique (I opted for Maputo), Helena Montana (I opted for Missoula), Casper Wyoming (my choice was Evanston), Grand Junction Colorado (I had Colorado Springs),  Farmington New Mexico (I had Las Cruces), Burley Idaho (I had Preston), Yurba Linda California (Bakersfield was on my list), and Smithfield. 

Apparently, I need to do even more to listen to the opinions of others. That being siad, I'm satisfied and surprised that we go a full 20, which is the new highest number of temples announced by President Nelson at one time. I very much appreciate President Nelson's prophetic dedication to bring the temples to the people. The total number of temples in any phase has now reached 251. I am grateful to have been able to learn of (and pass along) this information to you all. I continue to monitor all Church news updates and reported developments and will be sure to pass word of those along 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.