As directed by the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, “General Handbook: Serving in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” continues to be updated as needed to provide ministerial guidance, clarity, and inspiration to local leaders. Some of the updates in the latest release are listed below.
More details about these and other updates are listed in the “Summary of Recent Updates” at the beginning of the handbook. See also the notice sent to Church leaders. These updates are online and will appear in the Gospel Library app in the next 24 to 48 hours.
- Reorganized and revised language emphasizing ordinances and covenants as central in God’s work of salvation and exaltation (see chapter 1).
- Added clear explanations of the covenants and blessings associated with each ordinance necessary for salvation and exaltation (see 3.5).
- Clarified who presides at district and branch conferences (see 6.3).
- Added information about the length of Aaronic Priesthood and Young Women camps (see 10.2.1.3, 11.2.1.3).
- Updated information about Valiant super activities, previously called day camps (see 12.2.1.3).
- Updated information about calling men or women to ward Sunday School presidencies (see 13.2.2.1 and the official First Presidency letter).
- Added information about accessing patriarchal blessings digitally (see 18.17.2).
- Clarified policies about meetinghouse use on Monday nights (see 20.5.3).
- Updated information about the missionary age for young women and single men serving as senior missionaries (see 24.2).
- Added a new section about caring for the earth (see 38.8.6).
These revisions are being published in the following languages on ChurchofJesusChrist.org and in the Gospel Library app as they become available: Albanian, Bislama, Cambodian (Khmer), Cebuano, Chinese — Simplified, Chinese —Traditional, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Fijian, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Kiribati, Korean, Malagasy, Marshallese, Mongolian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Samoan, Spanish, Swedish, Tagalog, Tahitian, Thai, Tongan, Ukrainian, and Vietnamese.