Dieter Update

I am with you Roadrunner. The man is probably joyfully packing and heading home.

When all’s said and done, youthwork is one of the best things they could have demoted him to.

I agree amount making the difference. The “head missionary” is a very high profile job, just vacated by Oaks. I see this as very good for Uchtdorf and us. And he’s the boss of correlation – another biggie. I couldn’t think of a better person for that job – very influential in what’s taught.

FWIW, overseeing Europe doesn’t necessarily mean living there. Many of them have assignments to oversee areas (each area of the world has an apostle overseeing it), it’s just an apostle assignment.

overseeing Europe doesn’t necessarily mean living there.

Hi DJ,

Yes, I agree – but if he wanted to live in Europe he could. Oaks lived in the Philippines with his wife from 2002 to 2004 when he oversaw that area.

I’d be all “hey I want to preside over the South Pacific. You can find me correlating in Tahiti.”

😆 I think the South Pacific area folks tend to live in Australia or New Zealand, which wouldn’t be bad either, especially considering that they travel to the other places frequently.

As I recall, I think it was Nelson who lived in Chile for awhile when he oversaw that area and there was a huge concern about activity/retention there. That concern still exists. I think the only thing we’d have to worry about with DFU living is Europe is what they might do in his absence. Legend has it that some key apostles were on assignment overseas when the priesthood revelation came.

This is wonderful news. Truly wonderful news.

If Nelson is trying to lesson Uchtdorf’s influence, is putting him in charge of correlation the answer to that concern or is it overblown?

I assume correlation isn’t easy to change. Over here we imagine manuals being overhauled, etc. I don’t picture that happening. I think his job will be to just make sure the standard stuff gets printed. He is warm, popular, easy going. They just want him to be down the hall, that’s all. Or in Europe.

I am happy to be wrong on this. But it would take an earthquake to change correlation.

Correlation: When I taught gospel principles about 10 years ago they replaced the manual. There were some slight textual changes but the vast majority of the changes were to the footnotes. Every quote from BY that used to refer to Journal or Discourses or Discourses of Brigham Young where then changed to refer to Teachings of the Presidents of the Church: Brigham Young. The reason that was given for this was to allow the average member to have a complete and correlated gospel library.

I can’t help but see the added benefit of adding yet another layer of filters on the actual words of BY. BY died in 1877. Discourses of Brigham Young was published in 1925 and had an opportunity to correlate and round off all the hard edges of his speeches and doctrines. Then in 1997 the book Teachings of the Presidents of the Church: Brigham Young is published that is even more selective and seems to be cherry picking BY’s words. An obvious example is to never give a hint to BY’s fervent belief in, practice of, or defense of polygamy. Then a few years later an update to the Gospel Principles manual happens and all the footnotes refer to the newest TOTPOTC:BY – adding yet another layer of correlation on BY and another barrier to trying to understand these Prophets as flawed men living in the context of their historical environment.