The March 2026 updates to the Church’s General Handbook have been published. A major update includes the ability for women to serve in ward Sunday School Presidencies.

Ward Sunday School Presidencies

Effective immediately, the bishop may call a man or a woman to serve as ward Sunday School president (see General Handbook, 13.2.2.1).

• If a woman is called as Sunday School president, her counselors and secretary must be female members of the ward.
• If a man is called as Sunday School president, he must hold the Melchizedek Priesthood, and his counselors and secretary must be male members of the ward.

In any given ward, Sunday School presidencies may at times be composed of men and at other times of women, based on circumstances in the unit and the inspiration of leaders.

The stake Sunday School president will continue to be a high councilor called and set apart by the stake president (see General Handbook, 13.6).

Other Handbook Updates

Some of the updates in the latest release are summarized below. More details about all the updates are listed in the “Summary of Recent Updates” at the beginning of the handbook. These updates are online and will appear in the Gospel Library app in the next 24 to 48 hours. To update the text in your app, pull down from the top of the home page, or wait 24 to 48 hours for it to update automatically.

• 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 notice).
• 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).

See all updates here.

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.