Utah
The Church recently discontinued the Salt Lake 1st Stake. Originally organized in 1950, the stake had five wards and one branch prior to its consolidation with the Salt Lake Married Student 2nd Stake (renamed the Salt Lake Married Student Stake). The small number of wards in the stake and the closure of two of the five wards appeared responsible for the discontinuation of the stake. The last stake to be discontinued in Utah was in 2011.
There are now 575 stakes and one district in Utah.
Mexico
The Church organized a new stake in Xalapa, Veracruz State last Sunday. The Xalapa México Macuiltepetl Stake was organized from the Xalapa México Stake and includes the following six wards: Casa Blanca, Estación, Macuiltepetl, Museo, Olivo, and San Bruno Wards. The Church has organized three new wads in Xalapa within recent months suggesting increasing numbers of active members. The original Xalapa México Stake was organized in 1986.
There are now 230 stakes and 37 districts in Mexico.
Namibia
The Church organized a new district in Namibia last Sunday from the Botswana/Namibia Mission. The Windhoek Namibia District appears to include two branches in Windhoek and a member group in Swakopmund. The Church once operated a district in Namibia during the early 1990s but discontinued it after one of the two branches in the district was discontinued. Prior to the organization of the new district, Namibia was the country or territory with the sixth most members without a stake or district. The Church has experienced slow but steady growth in Namibia. The Church has experienced chronic problems with obtaining foreign missionary visas and consequently full-time missionaries have inconsistently served within the country during the past decade.
22 comments:
Just learned this morning of a boundary realignment in my stake, the first time we've had a new unit created since the stake was formed in 1996.
North Park Stake.
North Park 1st
North Park 2nd
North Park 3rd
North Park 4th (Spanish)
Provo 3rd
Provo 4th
There had been a previous North Park 5th but it was a Native American unit, lack of members had been the cited reason, but a stake south of us created a unit within a very short time thereafter for them.
A presumed name would be reconstituting the North Park 5th name, but we won't know that until next week and I may not know the unit's name until days after that.
That's Provo North Park Stake by the way, found I'd left out the city name.
Unit Creation update
08 March 2015
Windhoek Namibia District
Unit list pending
Danfa Branch, Accra Ghana Adenta Stake (3 Branch, 9 Wards)
Sunyani Ghana District Branch,
Kenyasi No. 2 Branch, Sunyani Ghana District (7 Branch)
15 March 2015
Llano Branch, Austin Texas Oak Hills Stake (1 branch, 10 Wards)
Elder Runia of the Seventy spoke at our stake conference this past weekend and said that they are expected to announce some new temples this next General Conference. I don't mind because of all the temples that still aren't making progress years after being announced, but it'll be nice to have some announced for the first time in a while.
With each group of temples announced there are at least a couple that have considerable challenges just getting to the construction stage where they are actually building it. Once those early hurdles are past, they usually only need 2-3 years to actually finish it. Rome being the odd duck in the current grouping.
That said, they probably want to have a number always underway at any given time, and this means that there may be more challenges than normal for some of the remaining in the last groupings that have to be resolved, hopefully it's nothing more than some of the governmental approvals, which seem in most cases to be the biggest thing they have to get done before the contractors actually begin the work.
The other matter is the explosive growth of family history work generally, a 40 percent increase in name submissions in the last two years (2013, 2014) and other factors have left some Utah temples very busy at some times and in some areas of the temples themselves. Payson and Provo City Center will relieve Provo, but if reports are true about very heavy use some evenings/days, it's not going to be long until they are back at capacity, it's happened before, it will happen again even with the smaller districts. With the mission activity in Utah County, it is going to be interesting what else results after that gets fully involved as well.
The continued report on the origins of newly called mission presidents. This week 7 of the 8 newly called were resident in the US. The other couple are from the Phillipines. However another couple are natives of Hong Kong but currently resident in California.
Why did they have a specifically Native American unit in Provo?
My short prediction of new temples, probably not all for this conference, follows:
Brasilia, Brazil
Layton, Utah
Lehi, Utah
Tooelle, Utah
Heber City, Utah
Laramie, Wyoming
Pocatello, Idaho
Richmond, Virginia
Fayetteville, Arkansas
Quetaro, Mexico
Torreon, Mexico
Managua, Nicaragua
Abijan, Ivory Coast
Nairobi, Kenya
Harare, Zimbabwe
Auckland, New Zealand
Sunyani continues to rapidly grow. The creation of the district branch implies one or more groups have been created in addition to the now six regular branches in the district.
I am wondering why Kenyasi No. 2 Branch, but no Kenyasi No. 1 unless one of the other branches has changed its name.
Abesim Branch
Estates Branch
Fiapre Branch
Kenyasi No. 2 Branch
Nkwabeng Branch
Penkwase Branch
Sunyani Ghana District Branch
I think the main change with temple announcements is that they will be announced later in the planning process than they used to be. And this might be to avoid premature announcements that don't materialize. My guess is any new announcements this April will be for temples that have already progressed further than some of those announced years ago with no progress.
I too look forward to new announcements. We will soon have our semiannual guess the new temples thread here and it has been getting old not having new temples.
The original unit created in Provo was a split of the old Provo 33rd Ward, in existence earlier than 1993.
Provo 33rd took in both Spanish speakers and Native Americans. Am not sure what the criteria was for the ward's creation or what specific group it targeted, but when formed, which was before 1996 under another name, it covered the entire Utah Valley area.
Sacrament attendance was known to be low, from those who met in the same building with them apparently. I heard 20 percent was not uncommon. When Provo Central Stake hit 6200 members they got the OK to split it and it was a huge deal, every ward's boundaries changed, Elder Hales was the presiding authority who organized the new North Park Stake, and he took back with him nine recommendations for new bishops, he said never had he heard of that many being taken back from a stake organization before that point, and he obviously himself had worked a few, Elder Hafen was on his very first general authority assignment, we held the meeting at UVU (then UVSC), in the arena by the freeway. Provo 33rd became North Park 4th, the Native American unit became North Park 5th.
Temples: Definitely think Abidjan Ivory Coast, but due to pending temple district realignments in Utah County not quite yet on new ones in the north of the county, they'll want to see what happens once the construction dust settles.
For any temples in Mexico, I am not expecting any until the MEXICO DF temple is finished up in September...
Nevertheless, while the Mexico City Temple was not in use, the Area decided to redirect everyone in the area to the Oaxaca temple to see the continued use of the ordinances there.
In the last Stake Conference we had they gave us the figures of ordinances done in the Oaxaca temple in 2014 versus 2013.
In 2013 there were 14,000 ordinances performed. In 2014, 176,000. And that is not a typo.
Queretaro is possible due to its distance from Mexico City but I favor more Pachuca for its position on Arco Norte and having more stakes in the zone, or even Puebla who has more stakes still than Pachuca or Queretaro and was the bulk in the ordinances done in Oaxaca.
Torreon seems like a place for a temple in the near term. Culiacan too.
Ivory Coast also looks quite obvious as well as Zimbabwe for the construction of temples there in the near term. The areas that are not so obvious would be McAllen/Reynosa, NW Arkansas, Hyderabad, India, Ullanbataar Mongolia, or even Budapest, Hungary.
@Bryan Dorman-Eh, the problem with Mexico are the tithepayers more then anything. I'd call a temple in Puebla over anywhere else in the region as well. It would be interesting to do a study on where it would be more appropriate for the surrounding area between Queretaro and Pachuca especially since Pachuca is closer to the city and temple by no more than two hours in traffic if I remember right, perhaps Queretaro would be more central to that area.
My mother-in-law and a convert I have were both temple workers in DF before it closed. It would be interesting to see what they know.
I always thought it would be cool to have a mini temple by the MTC there since it takes a while to get to the temple from there for the missionaries. There has already been supposed prophecies in that area especially Cuautepec, where I first served, where it's like Lil Utah, and the strongest stake in all of Mexico City. Lots of Church history there.
I'd say Budapest is a strong candidate especially with the unrest in Ukraine they could take in most of Eastern Europe but this would leave Freiberg and Bern under utilized although I believe Frankfurt and Bern get many members from the Middle East. Other candidates I see are Layton Utah, another temple in Mexico, Ivory Coast with a dark horse for an additional Brazilian Temple
08 March 2015
Windhoek Namibia District -Unit list
Katutura Branch (27 Aug 2006)
Swakopmund Branch (New 8th)
Wanaheda Branch (New 8th)
Windhoek Branch (19 Dec 1983)
Leganes 2nd Ward, Iloilo Philippines North Stake (3 Branches, 8 Wards)
March 15th 2015
Highlands Ward,Kennewick Washington East Stake (1 Branch, 10 Ward)
Kisangani Branch, Democratic Republic of the Congo Kinshasa Mission (3 Branches)
Moroni 4th Branch (Spanish), Moroni Utah Stake (2 Branches, 5 Wards)
Palouse Ward, Kennewick Washington East Stake (2 Branches, 10 Wards)
Puerto Viejo Branch, San José Costa Rica Los Yoses Stake (3 Branches, 10 Wards)
Weslaco 2nd Branch, (2 Branches, 6 Wards)
@Iris and Craig:
The reason why I thought of Pachuca is that there is a freeway that completely bypasses Mexico City to the north, running from near Puebla City north through Calpulalpan, before turning northwest towards Pachuca before turning due west going through Tula and Queretaro. Pachuca is the central city on that route.
There is a similar southern bypass that runs from Puebla through Atlixco before going through Cuautla, Cuernavaca before going to Toluca Edomex. That route was taken by many when the snowstorm cut off the main route to Mexico City just a few days ago.
Queretaro might make sense for the surrounding stakes in San Luis Potosi and Guanajuato but Pachuca has as many stakes in its state as Queretaro would have combined between those three stakes. And Puebla METRO has nine stakes plus two more in nearby Tlaxcala.
Looks like two new branches were created for the Windhoek Namibia District, making it twice as big as the original. Yay!
Interestingly enough when I was a student at BYU in 2003 there was a Provo 33rd Ward that was the Spanish-speaking ward in the Provo East Stake. It has since been renamed the Provo Peak 8th Ward. I think there were about 7 Spanish-speaking wards and brnaches in Provo then. I believe the number has risen a few since then.
Considering there was a new stake formed in McAllen recently, I would not be surprised by a temple announced for there. If the district in Laredo is elevated to a stake I will expect a temple announced very soon after that.
Here http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865624568/Sciptures-committee-announces-exciting-deveopments-in-standard-works-translations.html is an article about the announcement of a translation of the Book of Mormon into Kosraen, a language with less than 10,000 speakers. I think the Church has had more successful true growth in the Pacific Islands than other areas because of the translation of matierials into Native languages. I am also encouraged about the plans to announce more trnaslations soon.
I was thinking about the issue of Native American wards and branches. Since the reality is that most Native Americans at present are fluent in English, I am thinking that outside of areas with reservations, it would be more useful to have Native American groups like the Genesis Group, where they meet seperately from wards, the members are in various wards in an area, and it serves as an additional connection to the Church, supplementing and not replacing the ward.
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