We believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God.
Also a nice side-benefit of going through old Ensign issues, I see news updates and either remember when that changed or realize that I did not know something had changed.
When I was younger, Relief Society (for women) was on Tuesdays, Primary (for children) was on Wednesdays, and Sunday School (everyone but in different age groups), Priesthood (for men) and Sacrament Meeting (for everyone together) were on Sunday, but not consecutively. I am assuming there were youth group meetings on some night (maybe Thursday), but I don't remember.
That's multiple trips back and forth in a week. It may matter less if you all live close to the church, but that was certainly not true in some areas. In addition, when fewer women were working, there was less interference with that schedule. That was changing in the 80s.
They changed to a block meeting where it was three hours consecutively: Sacrament Meeting, Sunday school (still divided by age) and then the third hour had Primary, Relief Society, Priesthood, and Youth. I remember people making fun of how long Mormons spent in church on Sundays, but at the time it was easier to get all of the church meetings into a single three-hour block.
A few years ago it was changed to two hours. That was just adjusted again. Instead of alternating weeks on what had been the second and third hours, we now have everything each week, but compressed to half hours.
That may not sound that great and important, but there are always questions of how to make things work. People get busier and more stressed, so you want to help with that. If the answer is eliminating something, that can have other issues.
No one wants to go back to three hours; I know that. If we had never changed, how would that have worked out? There were people who skipped hours on the three-hour block, but there were people who skipped weeks with the alternating schedule.
A lot of the changes that get made are trying to get people to rely on the Spirit more, helping to meet individual and local needs at that level rather than having to be told everything from the top. That would be very helpful and valuable, but is also remarkably hard to get people to do. Sometimes there are people who think they already know everything, so they don't see the need to change. Often there are people who worry that they are not good enough to get inspiration.
Ultimately the kingdom is full of people, and they are imperfect. The attempts to help them and work with them may seem confusing or weird or ineffective, but there is a room for a lot of beauty.
And I firmly believe in the availability of divine help throughout all of the levels.
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