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| A physical representation of apostolic "power." Check out those guns! |
As you may recall, back in June the LDS Church created official Facebook pages for all members of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and in July I posted the first ever APR. That post included my projected order and my personal order, along with the actual results, so check it out. It's a fun read.
This time around, it's straight-up statistical analysis. (It will be all words, though; if anyone wants to take the time to create some charts and graphs for this or future APR posts, that would be awesome.) On the morning of the first day of General Conference (October 5), I recorded the current number of Likes each of the 15 pages had. This was exactly three months since the earlier post, and in that time Elder Holland's Like total had gone up 203%, the smallest proportional increase. All others ranged from 247-287% growth, led by President Packer.
Now, five weeks later, church members in even the most remote branches have had a chance to watch Conference. The full text and video of each talk has been available on LDS.org for weeks, and my Conference Ensign even arrived a few days ago, so I feel sufficient time has passed to include any Conference-related "Like spike" on the Facebook pages.
The current standings, in ascending order (numbers current as of approximately 2:30 PM MT, on November 8, 2013):
15. Robert D. Hales: 34,959 Likes, gain of 13.3% since October 5
Down one spot. Years of poor health and a good dose of meekness prevent Elder Hales from standing out much. I don't think he minds.
14. Quentin L. Cook: 36,223, 12.7%
Down one spot. He's the most tenured of the three newbies, so I'm a little surprised he places below them. But the numbers are incredibly close, and he could easily jump a few spots.
13. Neil L. Andersen: 36,352, 12.8%
Down two spots. Elder Andersen is the only one to drop at least one spot from July to October and from October to now.
12. D. Todd Christofferson: 36,488, 13.7%
Down four spots...but on the rise. He went from 8th in July, to 14th in October, and now up to 12th, by far the most variable ranking of any of the 15. Not sure what to attribute it to.
11. M. Russell Ballard: 36,679, 13.4%
Down one spot. Geez, everyone is dropping; I wonder why? Oh yeah, it's because of...
10. Boyd K. Packer: 38,481, 14.9%
Up five spots! It was surprising to see him in last place in July, but the market has corrected itself, it appears. President Packer's increase over the last five weeks isn't as impressive as his July-to-October bump, but it was still the 4th-highest percentage increase.
9. Russell M. Nelson: 38,664, 15.2%
No change, despite the third-best improvement rate (and despite the lack of a meme-able missionary catchphrase in his Conference talk).
8. L. Tom Perry: 38,741, 14.0%
Up two spots. He leapfrogged Elder Nelson (now that's some fun imagery) since July, but boy, is that margin narrow!
7. Richard G. Scott: 39,458, 14.6%
No change. Elder Scott makes an appearance in the great "How General Authorities Eat Their Reese's" video which, coincidentally, debuted on YouTube on the same day the first APR post went up. What a great day for borderline sacrilege! I wonder if we'll get another companion video today?
6. Dallin H. Oaks: 40,623, 14.2%
No change. At Conference, Elder Oaks gave the talk that people were most likely to take issue with (I do not take issue with it, for the record), but as I pointed out frequently in the last post, there's currently no "Dislike" option on Facebook, so his steadiness on the list isn't surprising.
5. David A. Bednar: 45,902, 13.8%
No change. Everyone still loves him.
4. Henry B. Eyring: 54,576, 11.6%
No change from July...but down one spot since October 5th. President Eyring had briefly passed Elder Holland, due to the latter's "small" 203% growth mentioned above.
3. Jeffrey R. Holland: 56,436, 16.8%
Down one spot since July, up one since October. Elder Holland had the second-best October-to-now improvement, and it's no surprise, since his frank discussion on mental illness got a lot of attention at Conference, second only to the talk from this next guy.
2. Dieter F. Uchtdorf: 69,155, 22.7%
Up one spot. These numbers are staggering but not surprising. His talk in the Saturday morning session of Conference was widely shared, even getting coverage in the New York Times. The 22.7% increase is phenomenal, but what stands out even more--in the last five weeks, President Uchtdorf has more total Likes than President Monson.
1. Thomas S. Monson: 138,529, 9.6%
No change. By far the smallest percentage increase, but still almost a full tithe's worth, and for all of President Uchtdorf's new "fans," President Monson still has twice as many Likes. Though I'm sure he's too kind to rub it in.
So there's the most up-to-date Apostolic Power Rankings. If you want to increase God's power in your own life, study their words. The links above are a great start, and over the next six months I encourage you to refer frequently to the talks these men gave at General Conference. This week's Sunday School lesson is on continuing revelation to latter-day prophets, so study that too. It's an even better way to show these prophets and apostles that you like them than clicking a button on Facebook.
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