The Church has posted on their news site that the third and fourth quorums of the seventy have been split to create the seventh and eighth quorums of the seventy.
With the additional members of the Fourth Quorum of the Seventy approved at a recent general conference, the Seventh Quorum of the Seventy has been organized from a division of the Fourth Quorum.
Members of the Seventh Quorum are drawn from the Brazil North, Brazil South, Chile, and South America South Areas. The Fourth Quorum is composed of brethren serving in the Central America, Mexico north, Mexico south, South America North, and South America West Areas.
In addition, the large geographic area covered by the Third Quorum of the Seventy has made it advisable to create the Eighth Quorum of the Seventy. The new quorum is composed of Area Seventies from the Asia, Asia North, Australia, New Zealand/Pacific islands, and Philippines Areas. The Third quorum consists of brethren serving in the Africa Southeast, Africa West, Europe Central, Europe east, and Europe West Areas.
Great write up. Still, I can’t imagine covering as much area as the 3rd quorum presidancy has to.
I still remember when the stake Seventies quorums were disbanded and the General Authority Seventies became the only ones. I wrote in my journal about how this development actually seemed to bring the Church more in line with the description in the Doctrine & Covenants. I wrote that I could imagine a future day when there would be seven full quorums of seventy members each, functioning under the direction of the seven presidents.
But I had never expected that more than seven Quorums of Seventy would be organized. The wording seemed to limit it to that many quorums. I was wrong. I guess the wording “And also other seventy, until seven times seventy, if the labor in the vineyard of necessity requires it,” (D&C 107:96) didn’t mean exactly what I thought it meant. Maybe it means we can have seven-times-seventy quorums of seventy. Or maybe it just means we can have as many as are needed.