Latest from Mormon Land: Whom you voted for as conference speakers; a Gilbert presidency is likely

The Mormon Land newsletter is The Salt Lake Tribune’s weekly highlight reel of news in and about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Join us on Patreon to receive ad-free podcast episodes, the full newsletter and access to all of our religion content.

Knight, Bushman, Romney and Gray at the pulpit

We asked. You delivered.

Here are the top four vote-getters of notable Latter-day Saints — from outside the ranks of the church’s general authorities and officers — whom you would like to have speak at next month’s General Conference.

Maybe we slot one in each of the four sessions.

Saturday morning • Grammy-winning “Empress of Soul” Gladys Knight (39% of the vote).

Saturday afternoon • Latter-day Saint historian Richard Bushman (39%).

Sunday morning • Former presidential nominee and retired Sen. Mitt Romney (40%).

Sunday afternoon • Genesis Group co-founder Darius Gray (40%).

On standby: Poet Carol Lynn Pearson (37%).

President Gilbert … someday?

Clark Gilbert may be the newest apostle, but he already has a 56% chance of becoming church president someday.

That’s according to calculations by Ziff, the pen name for a data blogger at the Zelophehad’s Daughters website, based partly on a mortality table from the Society of Actuaries.

Gilbert’s prospects are better than every fellow apostle, save for 73-year-old David Bednar (78%) and 85-year-old Dieter Uchtdorf (58%).

“It’s not a surprise that, as the most junior member, he’s the youngest,” Ziff notes. “But he’s the youngest by seven years, an unusually large gap.”

Gilbert is 55. Gérald Caussé, one step above him on the leadership ladder, is 62.

French connections

Speaking of Gérald Caussé, his first trip abroad as a recently anointed apostle took him to familiar turf: his French homeland.

The Utah-based faith is “seeing a surge of baptisms in France right now,” Caussé said in Paris this past weekend.

The news release about his visit offered no statistics about that growth. The church reported having nearly 40,000 members in France at the end of 2024 — up 1.79% from the previous year and its highest jump since 2007. New figures are expected at April’s General Conference.

“The best way to present the church is through its members,” Caussé told the French Latter-day Saints. “The church is you.”

Texas temple gets off the ground

It was renegotiated, redesigned and renamed, but Texas’ Fairview Temple — the source of sometimes-heated community backlash — is moving closer to construction after Saturday’s groundbreaking.

Lingering community concerns may be reflected in the ceremony’s dedicatory plea for peace:

“We pray a blessing to be upon all thy children in this beautiful community of Fairview, Texas, and surrounding municipalities,” general authority Seventy Jonathan Schmitt implored. “We pray that hearts will be softened and that all thy children will feel of thy light, grace and goodness that will emanate from this holy place.”

$250,000 for a Book of Mormon

Those gold plates still bring in the gold.

Last week, a first edition of the faith’s foundational text fetched $250,000 at an auction in Connecticut.

That’s a record high at a public auction for the 1830 volume.

“It is one of the most consequential printed works produced in 19th-century America,” said the buyer, dealer Adam Fleischer. “The market continues to recognize that significance.”

Last summer, a first edition earned $240,000 at a Chicago auction.

The volume finds its value not in its scarcity — about 5,000 were printed — but in being “the holy grail,” of Latter-day Saint book collecting, Ken Sanders, owner of Salt Lake City’s Ken Sanders Rare Books, told The Tribune then. “It’s the book every LDS person knows.”

From The Tribune

• We are in mourning at The Tribune upon the death of our cherished guest columnist Ardis Parshall, a research historian who gave voice to so many voiceless Latter-day Saints. You can hear her talk about the pioneers in this “Mormon Land” podcast.

• During the evolution of garments, members had to be reminded at times that they could remove them during sex with a spouse. Listen to our podcast. Read the excerpts.

• Members are talking more openly about sex, therapist Jennifer Finlayson-Fife tells religion columnist Jana Riess.

• The green leaf that has Latter-day Saints debating what they can — and can’t — drink.

• The Conference Center in downtown Salt Lake City is closing for nearly a year — save for General Conferences and a few other major events.

• Judging faithfulness and orthodoxy, says Tribune columnist Gordon Monson, can be tricky.

First Presidency’s Easter message

“As Mary Magdalene and her companions mournfully approached the Garden Tomb, two angels appeared to them and shared the clarion call of all Christianity:

‘Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen (Luke 24:5–6).’

“This Easter season we also joyfully testify of this same eternal truth — Jesus Christ is risen. He lives! The Savior of the world was crucified and, on the third day, rose from the dead, ‘the firstfruits of them that slept’ (1 Corinthians 15:20). His resurrection allows all to be resurrected, and through his grace, we can find peace ‘which passeth all understanding’ (Philippians 4:7) and ‘be perfected in him’ (Moroni 10:32).

“We invite each of you during this Easter season to ‘seek this Jesus of whom the prophets and apostles have written’ (Ether 12:41). As you do so, we testify that your Easter celebrations can strengthen your own faith and testimony that ‘death is conquered; man is free. Christ has won the victory’ (‘He Is Risen!,’ Hymns, No. 199).”