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Post by brycen on Apr 1, 2017 17:54:01 GMT
Oops, looks like I missed Elder Mark A Bragg, who has just spoken. I was checking the talks on the Deseret News website. I thought you had listed him for some reason. Also, we both expected Brother Douglas Holmes to speak from the Young Men Presidency, and instead M Joseph Brough has spoken. Well, even patterns only take you so far, there are always minor variations. There's still a lot of time for the other predictions to come true. You got Elders Soares and Weatherford T Clayton in the right session if not the exact speaking slot, that's quite good. And of course President Eyring, which followed the pattern as well.
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Post by brycen on Apr 1, 2017 18:26:31 GMT
You also got President Nelson in the right session, so that's 4 out of your 7 predicted speakers for this session.
I just want to add a note about Elder Zwick. He was called to the First Quorum of the 70 in 1995, and with his Emeritus status this year (in October, I just remembered is the usual time), the longest serving Seventies will be Elders Hallstrom and Robbins in the Presidency of the 70, who were both called to the First Quorum in 2000. Every other Seventy currently serving was called more recently. In the last 6 years, the other Seventies called in the 1980s and 90s all received Emeritus status.
I expect a much smaller group to be called, if new General Authority Seventies are sustained in the next session today, since there were 11 last year, and 4 Emeriti. With the 2 deaths I can think of for actively serving GA Seventies, and 3 called to the Apostleship or to the vacancy in the Presiding Bishopric, the number since 2015 comes out to +5 (including the 2 Emeritus I expect to be announced in October), equal to the number of new GA Seventies called in 2015.
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Post by brycen on Apr 1, 2017 18:47:38 GMT
Sorry for all the short posts. But I just noticed something else.
Next year, there are 7 more GA Seventies who will be turning 70, and 6 the following year. Also, I missed Elder Larry E Lawrence is also turning 70 this year. Jairo Mazzagardi will be 70 also, but he actually received Emeritus status last year, not sure why. I have the Second Quorum of the 70 in a separate tab, which is a little awkward now that there is no distinction, and I had failed to check that tab. So with all those Emeriti (Emerituses?) coming up, perhaps they will be calling a larger group in preparation.
I guess we should save this discussion for when we're getting close to the October conference. I totally spaced out earlier on that being when Seventies are released, sorry about that.
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Post by brycen on Apr 1, 2017 20:29:13 GMT
I have been working on getting the hymns from the last 2 conferences into a spreadsheet, and only 7 hymns were used in both conferences, only one of which was used as a congregational hymn both times. That was #3, Now Let Us Rejoice. Also, in each conference there were two numbers from the Children's Songbook and 2 songs which are not in either church music book.
I'm going to continue adding older conferences into the spreadsheet but I find that I actually had not written down the music from October 2015, so I have to get that information first. When I get that, I'll put together a list of all the hymns that have been used as congregational hymns for the last few years.
I may not post for a while after this. My internet connection is very spotty.
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Post by james on Apr 9, 2017 23:28:13 GMT
On your picks for General Authority 70s to speak today and tomorrow (I haven't been watching the current session) I have been keeping a spreadsheet of when all the 70s speak, and I think you skipped over some who will be in the rotation prior to some who you listed, such as Ian S Ardern, Jose L Alonso, O Vincent Haleck and Larry Y Wilson. You included Elder Yoon Hwan Choi, who has actually not spoken in 8 years, not sure why. But hopefully we'll finally hear from him again. But it looks to me like Elders Benjamin De Hoyos and C Scott Grow last spoke 6 years ago and would likely be up before those other 4. I expect to hear from 4 of the remaining Elders called last April, 4 having spoken in October. Besides the ones you listed, we could also hear from Elder Valeri V Cordon, Joaquin E Costa, and/or Massimo De Feo. I don't have much to disagree with about your other speakers you list, except I'm not sure what's going to happen with the women's auxiliaries speaking assignments. Also, based on their ages, it looks like Elders W Craig Zwick (who I actually met when he came to my chapel for a meeting with the Stake President) and Stanley G Ellis will be getting Emeritus status. Hey, brycen! Thanks for your many comments. I'm sorry I have not been able to address them for a while. It was an interesting General Conference to be sure. In looking over your comment above and giving another look at my predictions vs. what actually happened, it turns out I did have Elders Haleck, Ardern, Wilson and Alonso in my predictions, as I had put Elder Haleck in as one of the speakers for Saturday Morning, and Elders Ardern and Wilson in as the GA 70 speakers for Saturday Afternoon, while I had thought and predicted that Elder Alonso would have his turn in the final General Conference session. Clearly, none of that happened. As for Elders De Hoyos and Grow, I should have predicted that, as you were right about them speaking (which they did in the Sunday Afternoon Session). Had my research been more perfect, it would have happened that way. And regarding the new GA 70s sustained last year that had not yet spoken, there is more to that than meets the eye. And the patterns of when newly sustained Seventies speak are not always as cut and dried as they seem to be. It has not been uncommon for a new General Authority to not give his initial General Conference address for as many as 1.5-2 years after he has been sustained. One prime example of that is Elder Kent F. Richards. He was sustained in April of 2009, but because President Monson was inspired to have other GA Seventies speak, he did not give his initial General Conference talk until he had already served for two years. With that in mind, I tried to include in my predictions for this time those that I felt were due to speak. Obviously, I picked some that did not speak, and overlooked a few that actually did. The good news is that we will more than likely see Elder De Feo speak next Conference, along with many who were sustained as new General Authority Seventies 8 days ago. I have also gotten my predictions for October ready already, but will not be releasing those predictions just yet. The thing about factors I get wrong is that it helps me fine-tune my predictions for next time. And I think it made more sense for things to happen the way they did. Since Sister Burton gave her "farewell" address during the Women's Session, since we had not yet heard from the new Primary General President, and in view of the changes that happened in the Primary and Relief Society General Presidencies, especially in light of the fact that the Young Women General Presidency members had not had a "break" in speaking in General Conference for a while, it made sense that Sister Jones was the only female auxiliary presidency member to speak. And it likewise made sense that Bishop Causse, who last spoke in the Sunday Morning Session in April 2015, not only spoke this time, but broke the pattern of Presiding Bishopric members speaking during the Sunday Morning Session. With him speaking in the Priesthood Session, and with that session being of late restricted to 5 speakers rather than the previously standard 6, of course it made sense that the Young Men General Presidency member spoke in the Saturday Morning Session instead. I was surprised that it was Brother Brough rather than Brother Holmes, but it made sense upon further research. Apparently Brother Holmes had his first opportunity to speak as a General Young Men Presidency member to a general congregation at a BYU-Provo Devotional held on January 17 of this year. So it makes sense that President Monson, with that in mind, felt to call on Brother Brough instead. I exactly nailed the sessions in which the First Presidency members would speak, and it was not surprising that President Monson spoke at the top of the Priesthood Session rather than the end of it. I also correctly had the right Presidency of the Seventy members in the right session. As for the apostles, I had President Nelson in the right session but in the wrong position, though I had acknowledged in a previous post on this very thread that President Nelson might be the last speaker in whatever session he spoke. I had Elders Bednar and Renlund reversed in the sessions in which they spoke. The same was true for seatmates Elders Andersen and Rasband. Though I did have Elders Ballard and Holland in the correct session, I had them reversed. I correctly had Elders Hales and Oaks in the exact positions in which they spoke. And I correctly identified the fact that Elders Cook, Christofferson, and Stevenson would speak in the Sunday Afternoon Session, but I had them in a somewhat different order (predicting Stevenson, Cook, and Christofferson, when it was actually Christofferson, Stevenson, and Cook). That said, as I have before noted, it has been customary to have to generally have at least one apostle in each General Conference whose place in the apostolic speaking order for that conference matches their seniority order in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. For this conference, I had President Nelson, our most senior member and therefore the President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles as the first speaker from that quorum. But what actually happened was that our second-to-last of those Twelve was the second-to-last Quorum member to speak. And such coincidences are far from uncommon. This is just my initial response to your comments, brycen. More to come in a minute. Thanks for wading through this, especially those to whom this reply was not directed.
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Post by james on Apr 9, 2017 23:39:24 GMT
I also wanted to note that while some of those General Authority Seventies you mentioned were 70 already before General Conference, there has only been one occasion in recent years when General Authorities were granted emeritus status in April. And that last happened in 2012, when the members of the Presiding Bishopric were so released and granted that status, being the only ones besides the Patriarch Emeritus, Eldred G. Smith, to have been granted emeritus status in the last 35 years or so without having first served as General Authority Seventies.
That said, you can count on the fact that Elders Stanley G. Ellis, Larry R. Lawrence, and W. Craig Zwick will be granted emeritus status this October, as all of them all or will be 70 by then. It is still unclear why Elder Mazzagardi was granted emeritus status when he was because, as you say, he will only be 70 later this year. It might have had more to do with the fact that Elder Mazzagardi was not only close enough to 70, but might have also been in ill health, which is a consideration in such decisions, and, as a member of the Second Quorum of the Seventy, had served for the period of 6 years that has been lately common for such members. All of these factors together seem to be good reasons for that happening. In the case of the Presiding Bishopric that was comprised of H. David Burton, Richard C. Edgley, and Keith B. McMullin, the first two had been 70+ for several years prior to their release, and Bishop McMullin was the very last one to turn 70, which happened the August prior to his March 2012 release with the rest of that bishopric.
More to come in a minute.
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Post by james on Apr 10, 2017 0:59:20 GMT
You also got President Nelson in the right session, so that's 4 out of your 7 predicted speakers for this session. I just want to add a note about Elder Zwick. He was called to the First Quorum of the 70 in 1995, and with his Emeritus status this year (in October, I just remembered is the usual time), the longest serving Seventies will be Elders Hallstrom and Robbins in the Presidency of the 70, who were both called to the First Quorum in 2000. Every other Seventy currently serving was called more recently. In the last 6 years, the other Seventies called in the 1980s and 90s all received Emeritus status. I expect a much smaller group to be called, if new General Authority Seventies are sustained in the next session today, since there were 11 last year, and 4 Emeriti. With the 2 deaths I can think of for actively serving GA Seventies, and 3 called to the Apostleship or to the vacancy in the Presiding Bishopric, the number since 2015 comes out to +5 (including the 2 Emeritus I expect to be announced in October), equal to the number of new GA Seventies called in 2015. Thanks for this additional insight, brycen. While Elder Zwick may be the longest serving First Quorum GA Seventy, Elder Claudio R. M. Costa is currently the longest serving GA Seventy overall, having been called as a GA Seventy (in the Second Quorum) in 1994, and subsequently called to the First Quorum 7 years later. Elder Zwick was called a year later, and his entire tenure has been in the First Quorum. And in addition to Elders Zwick and Costa, among the "most tenured" General Authority Seventies are Elders Golden, Gonzalez, and Snow (all of whom were called to the First Quorum when Elder Costa was in 2001), and, as you noted, Elders Robbins and Hallstrom (with Elder Robbins called to the First Quorum in 2000 after 3 years of service in the Second, and Elder Hallstrom having only served in the First Quorum since his call in 2000). Another one you missed is Elder Maynes, called to the Second Quorum in 1997 and to the First Quorum of the Seventy at the same conference as Elders Hallstrom and Robbins. It is interesting to look at the Presidency of the Seventy as being senior to their General Authority Seventy counterparts, but to observe the different paths that have taken them to their new callings. Elders Maynes and Robbins have each served as General Authority Seventies for the last 20 years, with Elder Maynes having just over 5 years in the Presidency and Elder Robbins having 3 as of this conference. Elder Hallstrom has 17 years as a GA Seventy, 8 of those in the Presidency. Elder Clayton marked 16 years as a GA Seventy this conference, and is the Senior President of all seventies, generally and locally, having been called 9 years ago to the Presidency, and having been Senior President for 1.5 of those years. Elder Christensen is another Seventy who has served in both the Second and First Quorums. He marked 14.5 years as a GA Seventy this April, and has been a member of the Presidency for nearly 5 years. Elder Soares has been a GA Seventy for exactly 12 years today, with just over 4 of those as a member of the Presidency of the Seventy. Our junior member of the Presidency, Elder Gong, marked 7 years since his call as a General Authority this April, and has spent just 1.5 years of that in the Presidency. It is interesting to note the paths that took each Presidency member to their current position. Elders Clayton, Hallstrom, and Gong's calls resulted from the apostolic calls of Elders Christofferson, Andersen, and Rasband respectively, with Elder Clayton's current status as Senior President of the Seventy also resulting from Elder Rasband's call to the apostleship. The calls of Elders Maynes and Soares (who succeeded Elders Snow and Gonzalez respectively) came when their predecessors were released to accept other assignments (Elder Snow as Church Historian and Recorder and Elder Gonzalez in the assignment of Area President (first in the South America South Area from January 2013 to August 2016, then for the Caribbean Area since then) were effective outside of the usual change occurrences during either the April or October General Conferences or when changes in Area Leadership are effected, which was usually on August 15 of each year but have in recent years happened on August 1. Elder Robbins, the one Presidency member whom I have not mentioned above, was also sustained to succeed another member of the Presidency, Elder Tad R. Callister, who was released as both a Presidency member and a General Authority Seventy member in 2014, but that change was the one example not cited above that did happen in an April General Conference. But getting back to General Authority Seventies sustained earlier than the period you indicated, Elder Arnold is the one other example I can think of who was called as a General Authority Seventy before 2005, as he served in the Second Quorum for 6 years before being called to the First Quorum in the same General Conference that Elder Andersen was called to the Twelve, that Elder Rasband, now also an apostle, took his place as the Senior President of the Seventy, and that Elder Hallstrom was called to the Presidency. But I realize that some might consider my comment to be somewhat nitpicking. I only am making it because it seems that in talking about General Authority Seventies, you have not differentiated whether you are talking about any call to serve at all, or specifically service in the First Quorum of the Seventy. But my line of reasoning is that since we do not know the Quorum affiliation of those called as General Authority Seventies last year and this year (though I do know they are assigned to a specific quorum, even if the Church is not now differentiating or making that public), then all General Authorities should be considered under the exact same criteria in speaking of their tenures. Hope that is all right. I don't mean to annoy or offend, and I hope I didn't. As to the number of General Authority Seventies, I have additional thoughts in that regard. It used to be that the Church studiously avoided having the number of First Quorum members (with the 7 Presidency members generally counted among that number, unless they had been called from the Second Quorum) exceed 70. But without knowing the Quorum affiliation of those called in the last two years, I can tell you that our current General Authority Seventies (Presidency members included) is 96. If we knew to which quorum the 16 members belonged, since we have the quorum affiliations of the others still (or at least I do), we'd have a better sense of how that is divided up. One last comment, and that will do it for this response. Gregory A. Schwitzer, the only other GA Seventy who is anywhere close to 70 will only reach that age next year. And it is possible, based on past precedent, that we might also see a release and emeritus status for 5 General Authority Seventies in addition to the 3 I mentioned above as being a sure thing (including Elders Wilford W. Andersen, Bradley D. Foster, James B. Martino, and Greogory A. Schwitzer, sustained in April 2009, and Larry R. Lawrence, the only one the three sustained in 2010), who would be, if the Church had not discontinued quorum affiliation identification last year, eligible for release and/or emeritus status simply by virtue of having been General Authority Seventies previously assigned to and identified as members of the Second Quorum who have served for what has been the traditional 6-7 year tenure length. But it seems that instead of just having to do with that, emeritus status is now simply granted to those who have reached 70, are physically unable to carry on their duties as General Authority Seventies in view of their health, have received a different full- or part-time assignment as either one of the Church's general officers or as a temple president, etc. Anyways, those are some additional thoughts, for what they may be worth to any who read them. Thanks again. More to come in a minute.
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Post by james on Apr 10, 2017 2:23:22 GMT
Sorry for all the short posts. But I just noticed something else. Next year, there are 7 more GA Seventies who will be turning 70, and 6 the following year. Also, I missed Elder Larry E Lawrence is also turning 70 this year. Jairo Mazzagardi will be 70 also, but he actually received Emeritus status last year, not sure why. I have the Second Quorum of the 70 in a separate tab, which is a little awkward now that there is no distinction, and I had failed to check that tab. So with all those Emeriti (Emerituses?) coming up, perhaps they will be calling a larger group in preparation. I guess we should save this discussion for when we're getting close to the October conference. I totally spaced out earlier on that being when Seventies are released, sorry about that. One thing I did not note in my previous reply that I meant to say was that there has not seemed to be any correlation or relationship between the number of seventies that are or will be released and granted emeritus status during any October General Conference and those that are called in any subsequent or prior April General Conference. In the interim, I also track when each General Authority Seventy will turn 70, and, according to my records, we will indeed have 7 next year (though it is anyone's guess whether or not the First Presidency will elect to retain those whose 70th birthdays fall after General Conference (there are 2 next year: Claudio D. Zivic (on December 19) and Craig A. Cardon (December 30). Sometimes they retain such brethren an additional year, but other times, it is decided that a birthday within three months or less of a conference is enough of a criteria. So there are indeed 6 others, as reported, the following year (2019). I have tried to include in my personal list the current members of the Presidency of the Seventy, who may either be released from their assignment in the Presidency prior to turning 70 (if they receive another assignment), or when area leadership changes occur in August (for those still in the Presidency following their 70th birthdays). Assuming no other current Presidency members are released from their Presidency assignment until the August 1 prior to them receiving emeritus status, as a matter of interest, we will see Elder Hallstrom released in 2019, Elder Clayton (and possibly Elder Maynes, if they count his 70th on October 29) in 2020, Elder Robbins in 2022, Elder Gong in 2023, Elder Christensen in 2026 and Elder Soares in 2028, which, if Elder Soares is still in the Presidency of the Seventy prior to that, will make him, to my knowledge, one of the longest (if not the very longest) tenured Presidency of the Seventy members in Church history, having served for 15 years, and thus breaking any previous records for that milestone. If it would be of interest to you, I include a copy of my version of what I use to track when each current General Authority Seventy will be 70. I should also note that, up until tonight, I hadn't realized how much I needed to update that list. The last time I did so was when the new General Authority Seventies were sustained in April 2015, so I was two years behind. Up until this General Conference, Elder Klebingat had been the youngest General Authority Seventy, but now it appears we have 2 younger, Elder Godoy (sustained last conference) and Elder Valeri V. Cordon (sustained a year ago), with Elder Godoy set to turn 70 on July 10, 2038, and Elder Cordon doing the same roughly 7 months and 9 days later. My list, though not as accurate as a spreadsheet, (still trying to figure those out) is still informative, I hope.Enjoy! Year when each GA Seventy turns 70.docx (13.61 KB)
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Post by james on Apr 10, 2017 2:31:40 GMT
As a sidenote, the correct pluralization of more than one emeritus general authority is "emeritus general authorities" or "general authorities emeritus." Hope that helps. I do also want to note that my predictions, such as they were, averaged out to a very solid and respectable 68.21%, which, though on the low side of what my typical average has been in recent years, is still right in line with that average of the 60-80% range I usually get on my predictions every time. And again, I am constantly using things I do not get correctly to allow me to make my predictions for the next time much better. I might take time to post my initial predictions for October in two new topics (for speaking order and changes in general Church leadership) and in the existing one (for the part about my temple selections). Stay tuned for those.
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Post by james on Apr 10, 2017 2:49:06 GMT
Since I cited in my response above the percentage of accuracy I got on these predictions this time, I felt it would be appropriate to post a link to the file on which I tracked how my predictions compared to what actually happened. I hope it may be of interest to some of you. Before sharing a link to that attachment, I did want to note something which I have stated before. For each available slot of predictions that could be filled (one each for each speaker and whoever is conducting each session, or, for non-speaking predictions (changes in general Church leadership, statistics, or temple picks), I used a scoring system of 3 points possible. A 3 means I got the correct name, location, or statistical figure in the correct slot (and, where applicable, in terms of speakers, in the correct session). A 2 means I got a speaker in the wrong slot within a session or that I was in the correct range for statistics (which, depending on what numbers were involved, had a differing margin of error). A 1 was assigned to those slots that featured speakers I had predicted for other sessions, but still predicted that they would speak at all. And a 0 meant I was off base. For temple site selections, I gave myself a 3 for each of the sites of Nairobi Kenya and Pocatello Idaho, a 2 for the Philippines and Utah temples (as I had the right state (Utah) or nation (Philippines) but the wrong city), and a 1 for the Brasilia Brazil temple, which, though I had it listed as the next Brazil temple that would be announced, was not on my specific predictions this go round. Hope that explains the scoring. The file follows. Enjoy, and let me know your thoughts. All predictions relating to this conference.docx (18.39 KB)
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Post by brycen on Apr 10, 2017 6:41:45 GMT
I admit I was working off a list of members of the First Quorum of the Seventy, and forgot to check who had previously served in the Second Quorum. I think my current spreadsheet is incomplete, at any rate, and it may not have had the information I would have needed to spot those errors. It didn't annoy me to be corrected, rather it annoyed me that I posted something that was wrong.
Thanks for posting all those documents. Looks like I need to register in order to download them, but I should have done that already anyway. Hopefully I can open them, since I use OpenOffice.org rather than Excel.
I was also surprised at Brother Brough being the speaker from the Young Men. They travel and speak all the time, so that I don't know that I would have expected this just because the other counselor did the meeting in January.
This was the first time in many years that we had only one woman speaker (not counting the Women's Meeting, of course). However, they only started counting that meeting as part of the General Conference about 2-3 years ago, if I recall correctly. So perhaps this is the start of a new pattern.
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Post by james on Apr 11, 2017 6:48:28 GMT
I admit I was working off a list of members of the First Quorum of the Seventy, and forgot to check who had previously served in the Second Quorum. I think my current spreadsheet is incomplete, at any rate, and it may not have had the information I would have needed to spot those errors. It didn't annoy me to be corrected, rather it annoyed me that I posted something that was wrong. Thanks for posting all those documents. Looks like I need to register in order to download them, but I should have done that already anyway. Hopefully I can open them, since I use OpenOffice.org rather than Excel. I was also surprised at Brother Brough being the speaker from the Young Men. They travel and speak all the time, so that I don't know that I would have expected this just because the other counselor did the meeting in January. This was the first time in many years that we had only one woman speaker (not counting the Women's Meeting, of course). However, they only started counting that meeting as part of the General Conference about 2-3 years ago, if I recall correctly. So perhaps this is the start of a new pattern. I hear what you are saying about General Conference speakers. And I would not say that Brother Holmes's talk at BYU-Provo in January factored in any way into the decision to have Brother Brough speak this go-round. But it could have been a contributing factor. I have also kept a faithful record (manually of course, since I am not good with spreadsheets) of when our auxiliary leaders have spoken to us during General Conference (including the Women's session speakers in a separate document), and I can tell you that, while it is not unheard of to have only one female auxiliary presidency member speak during the 4 general sessions of General Conference is rare indeed. But I think I know why they did it that way. Sister Jones had to speak during the general sessions because she had not yet "responded to the call" as our new Primary General President, though both of her counselors had spoken in the last two Women's sessions before a change was made there. Let me tell you what my research has uncovered. Sister Bingham, who has not yet had a chance to publicly respond to her new calling as the General Relief Society President, will likely speak to us in that capacity next October. In the meantime, if, as I anticipate, the Young Women General Presidency will be changed next April, the second counselor (Neill F. Marriott) will need a chance to give her second talk in a general session next October, and her president, Sister Oscarson, will give her final address in the following conference. So that is what I am anticipating: that we will hear from Sisters Bingham and Marriott in two of the sessions, and that the Sunday School General President, Tad R. Callister, will give his second address in that calling as well. But that is a discussion we can go into more on the topic where I have posted those predictions. For now, that is probably why they had only one female auxiliary member speak. It was an anomaly for sure, but was likely just a one-time thing. Does that help?
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