Friday, April 15, 2016
First LDS Stake in Benin to be Created on April 24th
I have received confirmation that the Church will organized its first stake in the West African country of Benin on April 24th. The Church in Benin has experienced some of its most rapid growth among nations that have opened to missionary work since 2005. Currently the Church reports one district, 14 branches, and 2,255 members. To contrast, the Church reported only one branch and 95 members in 2005. The Church organized the Benin Cotonou Mission in 2011.
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17 comments:
Cool that this is not another South Sudan; no more April Fools I hope. Francophone Africa is doing really well. Tre bonne.
Of the countries that gained more than 200 new LDS members, Benin was the second fastest growing in the world, barely being beaten out by The Ivory Coast. I was incredibly impressed when I read, maybe here, that the activity rate in the country was 95% a year or two ago.
It's sort of come out of nowhere in a very short time to achieve this landmark. I have a feeling this will be the first of many stakes to come.
Benin would be the 1st country to have its first stake created this year. I wonder how many others will get their first this year?
Dave, the Church is doing much better with active retention worldwide, but especially in Africa.I heard the other day a from a friend " the church growth in Africa is like South America in the early 80s." Actually, it is much stronger than that. Most all of the people being baptized continue to attend church. These are individuals who want the blessings of the temple. They bring thier stories, thier experiences, and thier amazing culture with them.
Has the Church yet moved to establish itself outside the capitals of Togo and Benin, or is church presence still only in existence in the capitals of these countries?
Unit Update
March 27
Bouake 4th Branch, Cote d'Ivoire Abidjan West Mission (B:9, D:5, S:5)
Apr 3
Akuse Branch, Kpong Ghana District (B:7)
Blankro 2nd Branch, Cote d'Ivoire Abidjan Mission (B:10, D:2, S:4)
Apr 10
Queen Creek Arizona Central Stake (W:6)
Creekside Ward
Desert Wells Ward
Founders Park Ward
Hastings Farms Ward
Montelena Ward
Stonecrest Ward
Reno Nevada Mount Rose Stake (B:1, W:6)
Sierra Branch (Spanish)
Foothill Ward
Galena Ward
Lakeside Ward
Mount Rose Ward
South Meadows Ward
Washoe Valley Ward
Arrazola Ward, Guatemala City Stake (B:2, W:10)
Central Falls 3rd Branch (Portuguese), Providence Rhode Island Stake (B:6, W:10)
Kpong 2nd Branch, Kpong Ghana District (B:7)
Los Amates Branch, Puerto Barrios Guatemala District (B:4)
Palouse Ward, Spokane Washington Stake (B:1, W:10)
Progreso Ward, Tezontepec México Stake (B:2, W;8)
Rockaway Ward, Rio Rancho New Mexico Stake (B:3, W:7)
Salt Lake YSA 1st Ward (Tongan), Taylorsville Utah YSA Stake (W:11)
Villa Parque Santa Ana Branch, Córdoba Argentina South Stake (B:4, W:5)
West Bridgewater 2nd Branch (Haitian-Creole), Hingham Massachusetts Stake (B:7, W:7)
YTD 207(13.8/week*15) +16 - Total 34,345(+7) (Net 143 69%)
Africa 60, 29.0% (+5) - Total 1829 (+5)
Asia 3, 1.4% (0) - Total 934 (0)
America Central 15, 7.2% (+3) - Total 3932 (+2)
America North 72, 34.8% (+6) - Total 9380 (+1)
America South 11, 5.3% (+1) - Total 6338 (-1)
Europe 6, 3.0% (0) - Total 1714 (0)
Pacific 14, 6.8% (0) - Total 2746 (0)
Utah & Idaho 26(20), 12.6(9.7)% (+1) - Total 6930(5717)(0)
Totals no-sensitive (Net +7)
Areas Temples Miss Stakes Dist Wards Branch Totals
Global 25 150 419 3,196 549 22,677 7,354 34,370
Us/Can 10 82 131 1,612 10 12,634 2,053 16,532
US n/a 74 124 1,564 7 12,296 1,904 15,969
Utah n/a 16 10 579 1 4,717 327 5,650
Canada n/a 8 7 48 3 338 149 553
Out 15 68 288 1,584 539 10,043 5,301 17,838
The new president of the Botswana/Namibia Mission, Dunstan George Bernard Tiwayi Chadambuka, is from Mutare, Zimbabwe. It is encoraging to see more and more mission presidents from outside the United States.
Providence Stake looks like it is almost to the level it could split. In fact, maybe it could split if it did take a few units from Hingham Stake. However it would be nice to see both stakes move more of their branches to being wards.
New stake created in Washington today, the Tacoma South Stake, per Facebook reports.
Peter Meurs, one of the new general authorities who is from Australia, is notable enough in the mining industry there that his leaving it recived notice in the business and mining press in Australia. Australian Mining phrased it in the first paragraph "Fortescue Metals executive director Peter Meurs has quit the miner to join The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints." Which makes it sound like he just became a member of the Church. The article ends up giving the impression that if one is a member of the Church one cannot have normal employment.
Joseph-
Could you send me an email at Matt.Martinich@gmail.com? Thanks!
If there is a new branch in Los Amates in the Puerto Barrios District, that is wonderful news! I served in the Santo Tomas branch for 8 and half months back in 1999 as my first area. There are great people there. The first week I attended there were only 6 members and my companion that came to church. The Branch President worked Sundays and my companion and I were the counselors in the Branch Presidency. The Branch President and the Elders Quorum President along with one sister (I believe she was the Young Women's President and her mom was the Relief Society President) were the only returned missionaries from the branch.
We had great success in the area with numerous baptisms, mostly families and lots of men. (I know that most of these converts are still active, for which I am eternally grateful. However, the branch roster had over a thousand names. This was disheartening. We spent much of my time in the area working through the roster and trying to locate the families. This was used for various reasons: Find the members and invite the back, find out if anyone knew where they had moved to clean up the records, and last to have a indirect way to introduce ourselves to non-members and begin a conversation with them. Soon after I arrived the Branch President had, with great faith, asked not to be scheduled on Sunday, though he feared they may fire him. He had been granted permission to have a different schedule. When I left, there were 80 people attending in the small rented home. That was such an amazing sight! We had to set up chairs outside and into most of the joining rooms. A year or ss after I returned home, a chapel was build in the nicer neighborhood near the Branch President's home but not near the main part of town.
The district was one of the largest area districts in Guatemala, as it covers all of Izabal. The travel time was significant for us to go from Santo Tomas to Morales where the District building was located at the time. We visted Los Amates one P-day on our way out to see the Ruins in Quirigua and it took most of the morning to get there. There were some very humble, good members in Los Amates and I was told (not sure if it is true) that there had been a group meeting there previously. The leaders of the district were novices in the gospel, but were strong leaders.
I returned to Guatemala a year ago with my wife, but we were unable to make it out that far east. I hope to one day return and see a stake there.
I heard that day 24.04.2016 will be organized Stake Colombo Brazil , this information accurate?
I assume this is Colombo just outside of Curitiba (the only Colombo I could find in Brazil)? There are not enough wards in that area, nor any to spare in any of the surrounding stakes. Most of the stakes in Curitiba has 5 or 6 wards each. The Curitiba Brazil Boa Vista Stake has 8 wards, but only 1 neighboring stake has 6 wards, the rest all have 5. Unless there would be a ward created in the area, or they are going to do some major boundary changes, or one of the stakes end up with only 4 wards, it doesn't seem likely to happen.
Do many of these stakes have several branches? If so I could imagine they may be about to upgrade branches to wards.
What do you make of Elder Holland's comments about new stakes created every week?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrYpRzi6xtY
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