If you have not purchased your own Kindle edition of Reaching the Nations: International Church Growth Almanac: 2014 Edition, I recommend that you acquire a copy on amazon.com. We have reduced the price to $1.99 per volume. Although some of the material may be outdated for some nations, this 1,900 page work represents the most thorough and comprehensive analysis of LDS growth trends to date. In the next couple years, we plan to update the almanac to reflect church growth developments and additional research conducted since mid-2013. See below for links to these volumes:
Volume I
Volume II
76 comments:
I've been too busy to follow this blog lately, but a quick search indicates this hasn't been noticed yet (it was just announced today on the Newsroom, albeit months after the fact). However, the change seems to be noted in Cumorah.com's country atlas.
The Saint-Raphaël Branch (Nice France Stake) became the Saint-Raphaël Ward on March 20, 2016. It's great to see some growth in France. Slow and steady.
This article on the growth of Christianity in China was published yesterday in The Week; it's interesting:
http://theweek.com/articles/635668/christianity-save-china
Gracie: That was a very interesting article. It seems that China is growing in Christianity. The article mentioned that the number of Christians in China, most likely Protestant Christians, could read 300 million by the year 2026. That is amazing.
The church at some point we can faithfully pray, will be able to have full time missionaries throughout the country, not just in Hong Kong. I had a friend visit from Hong Kong. She told me that many Chinese come to Hong Kong from throughout the country. They have already heard about the church from family that are members who were baptized in other parts of the world. They are given the missionary lessons in a few days or less and then baptized, according to my Chinese friend, who is a student at BYU-I. I am not sure of all of the specifics and I do not want to spread false rumors. So, I will leave the speculation about units and growth and numbers to others. She did not have specifics and did not know exactly what happens to these members. It would make sense that many stay in the Hong Kong area. Hopefully official recognition of the church will happen in the next few years.
I like reading blogs online but not to buy/rent. I pay enough for service. I love having Church almanacs on my shelves. I miss them since 2013.
Scott: I have heard the same report about Chinese converts from friends of mine who've served missions in Hong Kong. Many Chinese nationals come there to be baptized and then return to China.
Scott: I have heard the same report about Chinese converts from friends of mine who've served missions in Hong Kong. Many Chinese nationals come there to be baptized and then return to China.
Look up the official church website for members in China. It details rules set for the church for both non-chinease and Chinese nationals returning to China. www.mormonsandchina.org
Last Sunday in my ward the speaker who accompanied the high council member was an 18-year-old who just got called to serve in the China Hong Kong Mission Mandarin Speaking. Since most Hong Kongers speak Cantonese this may be part of a program to better reach out to those from other parts of China there on a short term basis, or at least likely to return to other parts of China.
I was actually under the impression that Chinese nationals taught by family members in Mainland China could be baptized in mainland China and did not have to go to Hong Kong to be baptized.
I do know we have a missionary here in the Michigan Detroit Mission who came on his mission directly from China. We also have at least one missionary from Taiwan. They have been assigned together in Ann Arbor (the location of the University of Michigan) and among other things have been working to strengthen the Chinese speaking members and investigators there. I think they have a seperate Sunday School class in Chinese, and maybe soon will progress to having a Chinese speaking branch.
As we know, the Church operates separate branches throughout mainland China for foreigners and Chinese nationals, in accordance with Chinese laws and regulations. There are four districts and 18 branches established for foreigners, and at least seven districts and 55 branches for nationals. It appears that there are also numerous groups for both foreigners and nationals, meeting separately, throughout the country as well. During the past year, several of these groups have advanced to branches.
A visiting Seventy here in Logan (I forget which, sorry) mentioned a few years ago that the activity rate of mainland Chinese members was around eighty-five percent, and he was candid enough to attribute this to the lack of missionaries.
Mormonsandchina.org explains a lot except sensitive info.
Only immediate family members can be taught and baptised in China. According to the website.
The Stafford Virginia Stake is to be created on 21 August 2016. This was announced over the pulpit by our bishop reading a letter from the Fredericksburg Stake Presidency announcing that the stake is being split during stake conference. Last week they announced that a general authority and an area seventy were coming to stake conference and I had wondered if the stake would be split. Now it is official. The letter did say that the new stake will be named the Stafford Virginia Stake.
My guess:
Stafford Stake: Accokeek, Aquia, Garrisonville, Hartwood, Rock Hill, White Oak, and King George wards and the Stafford Spanish Branch.
Fredericksburg Stake: Fredericksburg, Chancellor, Spotsylvania, Massaponax, Culpeper, and Piedmont wards and the Rappahannock YSA Branch.
This is based on the Rappahannock River being the boundary. The assignment of the two branches (which cover all or most of the stake-there is a Spanish group in the Culpeper Ward) will depend on factors, but from my perspective the bulk of the YSA branch members live south of the Rappahannock and the bulk of the Spanish branch members live north--thus my guess.
It is possible that a ward will come from a neighboring stake. We were about 300 members short of being able to split a few months ago.
Good news, Mike!
Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh. (High pitched noise of angels singing!).
Awesome and marvelous. Will Stafford Stake go to the DC South Mission like Woodbridge just did?
Thank you Rick and Eduardo.
I think the Fredericksburg Stake embraced the move to Richmond and Woodbridge never liked it. We have missionaries that have served in the Shenandoah Valley and around Richmond and Charlottesville. I think Woodbridge people like the shorter distances to transfer missionaries. But for us in Stafford, the difference isn't that significant and although shorter to the north involves must more congested traffic. The boundary between the South and North goes through Stafford County. There are only two roads north I-95 and US 1, both of which are often heavily congested between Stafford and Prince William counties.
I think it possible Woodbridge moved into the Washington DC South Mission because Richmond was getting another stake. Of course, it is possible that the new Stafford Stake will be part of the DC South Mission. Who knows.
Is there some place where I can go to find the year end 2015 statistics broken down by area?
A new stake was created yesterday in Taravao on the island of Tahiti.
what is the price of the almanacs should I want to purchase a paper copy?
I have purchased both books, and I intend to use information contained therein to update the statistics on the Area (LDS Church) page on Wikipedia. Thanks for letting us know about the price reduction.
In other news, I am trying to whittle down my list of potential temples to the 10-15 most likely ones, which I will be using to make my final selections for those temples I'm predicting to be announced during October General Conference. Your insights on that would be appreciated. See the link below for details.
http://stokessoundsoff.blogspot.com/2016/07/whittling-down-list-of-cities-that.html
I have also received feedback from Rick Satterfield, webmaster of the most excellent LDS Church temples website, about my list of posted temple progress. To read about what he told me, please see the link below. Again, feedback is always appreciated.
http://stokessoundsoff.blogspot.com/2016/07/interesting-temple-tidbits-from-rick.html.
I will be posting a link about the Kindle books in a few minutes. Thanks.
John Pack Lambert, I assume that you are the same John Pack Lambert that is a Wikipedia editor. I edit Wikipedia under the user name Jgstokes. I have taken preliminary steps to assemble statistics about the Church areas, but that got kind of put on hold when I lost my job on Friday. I will be using the time while I don't have work to post a lot about Church News and assemble the statistics. I have also sought out a response from Church headquarters regarding getting the exact area statistics. I will post on the Wikipedia LDS Area page when I get those statistics. Hope this information is helpful to you.
In thinking further about my list of temples, I have whittled down the list to the top 20, which I think I will keep for this time. Let me know if you disagree with my list. Thanks.
http://stokessoundsoff.blogspot.com/2016/07/down-to-top-20-most-likely.html
Click on the links to the Kindle Editions to find information on ordering paper copies. The paper copies are substantially more expensive due to printing costs and the enormous size of each almanac (approximately 900 pages each).
On potential temple sites, with 3 new wards having been created in Tooelle County in the last few months I am beginning to think it is a prime target for a new temple. Actually growth trends and membership might favor Lehi/Saratoga Springs more, but Tooelle is I believe further from its temple, and would also represent a helpful cut in travel times for members in Elko, Nevada.
I am wondering if the new stake in Virginia makes a Richmond Temple more likely.
James, you are right I am a Wikipedia editor under the same name. I am still cheering that the article on Octaviano Tenorio, which I created some years ago, survived the recent deletion attempt. Elder Tenorio has done yeoman's work in the international growth of the Church. He headed the first Genealogical Service Center outside the US. This was the first step of decentralizing the processing of names for temple work outside of Salt Lake City, and may have also represented moving towards supervision of microfilming at the area levels.
The Church may have fewer areas today than it did 15 years ago, but the areas outside the US have had more responsibilities devolved onto them, while in the US some things that were at one point handled on an area basis are now done by stake presidents.
Elder Octaviano Tenorio is not quite in the 1st cadre of Latino general authorities, the first ethnically Mexican general authority was a different unrelated Elder Tenorio, and Elder de Hoyos was called before Elder Tenorio. However General Authorities from outside the US are still a fairly short list. Elder Tenorio has now been emeritized, but he is the president of the Mexico City MTC. I believe MTCs more so than temples and missions are disproportionately presided over by US nationals. I would not be at all surprised if after President and Sister Tenorio finish their term with the MTC they are called to preside over a temple, Mexico City Temple would not surprise me but any temple in Mexico or actually any temple period would not.
Why would anyone delete an accurate article about Brother Tenorio or anyone else? Money funding?
Reminds me of some blogs I had a few years back on Foxsports that were erased somewhere. I called it the blogicide. The sad thing is that many of them had specific LDS content them, and I wish I could access it, particulary the papaclinchsaint'sit blog.
If anybody could retrieve my two blogs I would pay money for it.
There have been many Latino general authorities since the 1980s, including Eduardo Ayala from Chile.
Apparently, there has been a complete and utter failure on the part of Wikipedia editors who care enough about it to prove that LDS leaders are notable. One editor in particular seems to have a vendetta against those of us who voice concerns about the many deletion nominations he's made. It's actually kind of creepy. This particular individual seems to be monitoring the Wikipedia activity of JPL and myself and immediately raises issues about our objectivity and motivation for wanting the articles to be kept. It's frustrating.
In other news, I have now added Tooele and Sandy Utah along with Richmond Virginia and Cody Wyoming to my list of temples that may be announced soon. The list now totals 30. For a look at the newest changes to the list, please see the link below.
http://stokessoundsoff.blogspot.com/2016/07/list-of-temples-that-may-be-announced.html
Wow, it seems you should be able to appeal to a higher court on that count, I don't simply mean prayer to the Divine. Wikipedia ought to have better checks and balances. If people wish to put who the Presbyterian congress people are, (which I think my old neighbors in Bloomington were), then why would someone erase or suppress their information? Wow, paging George Orwell!
It reminds me of in the past when especially ESPN (when they had no contract with BYU) would scroll the top 25 football scores on the bottom of the screen but mysteriously skip Brigham Young, who would be ranked #17 or 21 or definitely in the top 25. I know the PAC 12 can be purposefully judgmental of BYU in a few ways, but it seems some people do not want Mormon influence to be notable or noticeable.
And then there is the radio host Delilah! Wow, what delightful Christian lady she is! She pulled her kids from a school that had LDS teachers, because she did not want any "non-Christian" influence on them.
Signs of the times, signs of a power to be respected. And perhaps people will see the good beyond all the rumors and hearsay. Jesus and His teachings have been treated the same way. Always.
I was making my reservations to attend the Philadelphia Temple Open House and noticed that there is only nine days between the conclusion of the Open House and the scheduled dedication. This is a considerably shorter time period than is normal (based upon the other currently scheduled dedications and others that I remember recently). Does anyone know why this is the case? What takes place between the Open House and Dedication? I presume there is a thorough cleaning, but is there anything else?
The LDS Church no longer has missionaries in Russia, it has "volunteers". See this article for more explanation http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865658292/LDS-Church-missionaries-in-Russia-now-to-be-known-as-volunteers.html?pg=all
It appears this may alter what the volunteers can do from what they could do under their previous title, but exactly how is not explained in the article. It is not fully clear to me, but all even semi-formal teaching by volunteers may have to be done in chapels. Volunteers probably can stop by and visit the homes of people who they are teaching, but they probably have to make sure it could not be construed as teaching. They may still be able to invite people to meetings on the streets, but might be very restricted what they can say. As a Church member one could probably tell their friend "it would be nice to see you at Church on Sunday" or "It would be nice to see you at our Church picnic this Saturday" but one probably should avoid any religious explanation. Probably no giving the Book of Mormon out to a classmate at school during passing time as I once did in high school.
On the open house to dedication time frame, you need enough trained temple workers assigned and enough ordained sealers (which I know can only be done by general authorities, maybe only by apostles). However none of this has to happen during that time frame. One time in Salt Lake City in late 2003 I met a group of people who had been brought from Ghana to train as temple workers and among the first ones in the Accra Ghana Temple. I believe this was in November 2003 and the temple I know was dedicated in January 2004.
In the case of Philadelphia they may have multiple members in the temple district who have been temple workers in the Washington DC Temple, and maybe even a few ordained sealers. I had an institute teacher whose father is a sealer at the Detroit Temple and has been since it was dedicated. His father was ordained a sealer by Gordon B. Hinckley on the day of the temple dedication.
So actually I am not seeing anything besides very deep cleaning that needs to be done in the interim between open house and dedication.
At Provo City Center, there were some garden-variety furniture placements that had to be done after the open house, mainly the seating for typically the mothers of the bride and groom traditionally at the other end of the room from the officiator, and some other furnishings. The carpet in the Celestial Room matched the carpet in the sealing rooms, so due to the traffic that went through, it was not in the room at the time of the open house, but laid down between that and the dedication.
Other than that, some cleaning, and some additional fixture placement in mundane areas such as even restrooms and other facilities, and a quick double-check of everything to be sure, that is all that needs to be done prior to the dedication.
On the article on President Tenorio (since he is President of the Mexico City MTC) the no consensus decision to keep it is being appealed (there are ways to appeal, but you are not supposed to just appeal the decision, and while Wikipedia insists that it is neither a beureacracy nor a set of courts governed by law and creating decisions, it at times comes down to this.)
That is at DRV. If anyone wants to read through the whole discussion, go to DRV and follow the whole thing.
Brownhairedgirl is an editor who I would not say has a particular bias against Latter-day Saints in general, but I unwisely thought she would at lest find Purplebackpack's attempt to call me out as "convassing" for mentioning the Tenorio article debate in a very non-biased way, I literally said "There is a discussion a Article for deletion on the inclusion of the article on Octaviano Tenorio.John Pack Lambert (talk) 17:44, 8 July 2016 (UTC)" I see not how this is at all biased.
Brownhairedgirl has now joined Purplebackpack in a crusade against LDS articles. In doing so she has tried to call into question the integrity of the Deseret News, attacking the fact that it will not publish "advertisements against the teachings of the LDS Church" as reason to say it is somehow not indepedent of Tenorio.
Sources need to be indepedent of the subject, but several people have argued against Purplebackpack and Brownhairedgirl's claims that the Deseret News should be considered as non-independent of in BHG's view all employees and officials of the Church, although I am not sure how far this spreads, and in PBP's view all members of the Church.
PBP has particular biases against the Church. He has on one occasion engaged in the common anti-Mormon canard of accusing the Church of suppressing sources. He attacked any source "written by people who have access to materials I do not have access to." When pressed he argued that one example was that he could not access a made of local ward boundaries. I can not see how this is at all relevant to an article on President Tenorio.
I can not quite prove it, but some things give me the impression that PBP has a grudge against the LDS Church stemming from Proposition 8.
At one point he tried to attack articles on LDS Temples arguing they are not grand historical buildings like Catholic Cathedrals. His arguments started with attempts to delete the article on the Medford Oregon Temple. The problem was they failed because he was not informed enough to realize Portland Oregon newspapers would not count as at all local.
One time on Christmas Day PBP started an attempt to try to get me banned from editing much of Wikipedia, although to be fair that had more to do with our disagreements on categorizing people and some other categorizing issues. Then five months later he joined on a ban attempt totally ignoring the issue at hand. The specific prompt of that ban attempt was that I had recategorized an article that said the subject was a pornographic actress to saying the subject was a pornographic actress from the regular actress category. Evidently I had neglected to look through the article history and see that the article was switched to say pornographic with no good reason. However while I guess the films the woman was involved with are not technically considered pornography, their titles certainly sound like they could be (I had never heard of the titles, and have since forgotten both her name and the titles), however one of the reasoned editors who stopped the overreaction involved there who evidently was in some way familiar with the films in question said they were borderline enough that some could reasonably argue they counted as pornography, and using that term in the case was at least not enough to constitute clear vandalism, which is contributions to Wikipedia that are intentionally meant to disrupt.
The DRV on Tenorio was made by BHG, with support from PBP. However several editors not involved in the original debate have endorsed at least the close to no consensus, and one said that if it is not no consensus it is a clear keep.
However the tone of DRV suggests we will see more debates on the notability of general authorities. The GNG requires multiple indepth sources that are indepdent from the subject. Normally non-indepdent sources are things like an individauls website, which will often include a bio section. State legislators have default notability even though many of their articles are based on their published state bios, which are directly provided by them, and by all accounts less independent than the Deseret News and Ensign are from specific general authortities.
At one time I though a Deseret News and an Ensign article would pass GNG. These will be two distinct articles that are indepth on the subject. However PBP supported by a few others has generally managed to argue that these are not enough. In the case of the most recently called general authorities I have created articles on Elder Cordon (although this was only because the New York Times ran an article on MIT's Executive MBA program a few years ago which heavily focused on Elder Cordon's monthly commutes from Costa Rica to Massachusetts, staying 2 days and then going back to his family). The other was the article on Peter F. Meurs, whose call as a General Authority received coverage in articles in Australia since te business he was the head of was so major.
Massimo de Feo does have an article, created by an editor whose willingness to include sources that I consider anti-Mormon, and his continued attempt to tag Evan Stephens with the category for LDS and Homosexuality, although all of D. Michale Quinn's arguements on the matter can be shown to be false, if we were consistent we would also tag Joseph Smith because Quinn also argued that Joseph Smith was sexually attracted to males and acted on this sexual attraction by lending his arm as a pillow when they were cramed together on cold hard jail cells. Quinn attributed words to Stephens that were not his words and ignored that fact that in 1916 "gay" had no reference to homosexual behavior. He also tried to publish as the cover picture to his book a recropped picture that included Evan Stephens and his female housekeeper/after death sealed wife on a trip as well as one of Stephens male students, and by cutting out the housekeeper make the picture show a sexual connection with that student, which is an example of pictures can lie without using developing techniques or photoshop to make them lie (the former such as the case of Stalin and the vanishing comissars). It is one of my two examples, the other being Goldhagen's anti-Catholic screed "Hitler's Pope" that claims to have on the cover a picture of the Pope during the later part of World War II being saluted by Nazi German officials. That is a total lie. The picture is of that man being in Germany for the ignaguaration of Hindenburg as president, the officials saluting an officials of the Weimar Republic.
In looking over the article on De Feo I found this reference http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/09/28/a-mormon-st-peter-s-in-rome.html
It is not in my view a good article, but it could be worse. It never adequately bothers to describe the functions of a temple. It never explains the diferences between a temple and a chapel. One should not insert their own work (inagurated) for a process that has a clear current work (dedicated).
The explanation of the open house (which is also not properly named) is atrocious. It makes it sound like you will have to walk past the cranes. The article also seems to imply that living people are baptized in the temple, which is false under current regulations. My grandmother was actually baptized for herself in the Logan Temple in 1933, but that is the only time I have ever heard of such a thing.
The articles quotes from Catholic leaders are even more blather. It seems to be an attempt to find the most crochety people who will say the things most inflamatory against Mormons. It does not reflect an era when Cardinals have come to speak at BYU among other things.
On a related note the article is a little funny/sad. It predicts a dedication of the temple in 2015, and here we are in 2016 with no dedication dates known.
One has to bear in mind that Wikipedia wants to be able to avoid articles written for the purpose of business promotion. It also wants to be able to avoid articles on 15-year-old kids who are not at all notable.
I also support things like getting rid of lots of articles on members of most city councils.
I have even come around to seeing that my attempt to create articles on every area seventy who had been in an area presidency, and at least the first area seventy from every country was overly ambitious. Also some of my articles on BYU professors may have well been on people below a good notability threshold.
On the other hand, the fact that my article on Camille Fronk Olson was deleted, then she became department chair and I was able to recreate it, or the fact that I started the articles on the 3 newly called apostles all back in 2008 suggests that I was not as out of line as some may have thought I was.
Amazingly enough my article on Flora Amussen Benson, Ezra Taft Benson's wife, has survived for years. Arguably my creation of articles on wives of presidents of the Church is motivated by a desire to have gender and the LDS Church rethought from all sides.
Wikipedia has policies against original research, which is why I think some articles that seem to have been written by an editor directly extracting information from the census violate this policy.
Right now the article on Camilla Eyring Kimball is a redirect. Since there was actually a biography of Camilla written, comercially published as well, I think she is probably more notable than Flora, although Flora presided over the European Mission (a super mission over the local missions) with her husband in the 1960s, so she may have had a clearer role there, and she got a fairly public role as wife of the Secretary of Agriculture of the US.
At any given time there are well over 300 articles on Wikipedia under consideration for deletion, and normally none of these are on Latter-day Saint leaders. Right now a lot of them are on minor league hockey players, or on people who are in business with heavily promotional articles who are over small companies. I can not tell you the number of times I have seen a Wikipedia article where the only source was the subject's own personal website.
I'm also a Wikipedia editor. They prefer multiple sources to help establish someone's notability. It also helps to validate the articles relevance if multiple editors make positive contributions in quick succession.
However, most of my articles are on lesser known LDS individuals from early church and American history where I post frequent updates to Familypedia. Just this week I've been posting articles on the G.B. Hinckley and his extended family.
http://familypedia.wikia.com/wiki/Gordon_Bitner_Hinckley_(1910-2008)
Is Pokemon GO a secret missionary endeavor of the LDS Church???
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865658398/LDSorg-post-opens-arms-to-Pokemon-Go-players.html
Many LDS sites, churches, temples are hotspots in the Pokemon GO and LDS.org just posted an article encourage members to welcome visitors with open arms.
Familypedia article for Camilla Eyring Kimball. (No Wikipedia deletions or redirects here.)
http://familypedia.wikia.com/wiki/Camilla_Eyring_(1894-1987)
A graduate student at Indiana University back around 1998 did research on Hebrew embedded in Japanese characters, so using my Wiki logic, not to be disputed, I can safely conclude that Pokemon Go is an LDS plan from above.
Maybe we could use a mapping tool app to better document our missionary efforts? We could set up a nice reward system beyond heavenly blessings, maybe ... tickets to General Conference? Or trip to a temple? In Tahiti?
I have learned that a 16th unit is being created this weekend in the Fredericksburg Virginia stake in preparation for the stake split next month. Other than that change, I have confirmed my guess as to which units are going into each stake. The new unit will be south of the Rappahannock River, will remain in the Fredericksburg Stake, and will be the Fall River Branch.
As far as how busy temples are in Utah, I just went to Provo City Center Temple (ten-minute walk, even less by bus or car), and the 10am session was totally full. Not a seat left. Almost any daytime session I've done so far has been full or nearly so. Evenings are full for sure save maybe for during specific events where a lot may go elsewhere for that event.
Was the case at Provo for the football season, the temple would practically be empty for the football games.
Eduardo, there are groups that promote an ancient relationship between Israel and Japan. Consider http://www2.biglobe.ne.jp/~remnant/isracame.htm which shows a lot of interesting "coincidence.
A member from our stake was just called to Chile Concepcion Mission, with another one serving there already. Then another sister from my mission area is called to Brazil. It's amazing young men and women here in the Philippines are being sent in South America more frequently. Usually, most missionaries assigned outside are either in Australia (a lot of them) or USA. But now it's more diverse. Some are even assigned in Madagascar and Accara, Ghana.
I served in the Concepcion Mission in 90-91 when we covered the bottom of the 7th Region, all of the 8th Region, and a little of the 9th. I also lived there in 1994 and 2005, which gave me additional insight to the area.
By 2005 (maybe it happened in '03-'04?) they created the Concepcion South Mission, plus the Rancagua Mission to the north. Now the Concepcion Mission does not cover any of the 9th, and the cities of Concepcion and Talcahuano, both having approximately 250,000 people, share the the two sides and then switch out to the interior, if that makes sense. Great people, great converts over the years. Although many have fallen away!
My areas: Mulchen, Los Angeles Stake (now South Stake, I think); Pedro de Valdivia (where the temple is)Concepcion Stake; Santa Juana, San Pedro Stake; Angol Stake (now new mission); and Coihueco, Chillan Stake.
I hope he loves Spanish and loves the people. He will have a great time bumping into long time members and hopefully teaching and baptizing and re-activating many. !Que Dios le bendiga siempre!
With James Anderson's report on how busy the Provo City Center Temple is, I am thinking both an Orem Utah Temple and a Springville Utah Temple are potential additional temple candidates.
When I served in Las Vegas Nevada we had missionaries from the USA, Canada, Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, Brazil, France, the United Kingdom, Japan, Yap, Australia and Samoa. We also had a missionary born in Nicaragua but his family moved to the USA when he was very little. We had one born in the Dominican Republic whose family had moved to the USA at some point, but I think more when he was a teenager.
Still when we had a missionary from the Philippines serving in my ward last year it was the first time I had met someone from the Philippines serving as a missionary in the USA. They were also the first missionary who I have met who visa waited to come to the USA instead of the other way around. Here in the Michigan Detroit Mission we have also had missionaries from Uganda, Taiwan, China (not from Hong Kong, but elsewhere in the country, a Chinese national not an expatriate), the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Tonga. In my ward about a year ago we had a missionary originally from Zambia but he had joined the Church in Florida after moving them at about age 10. We also had a sister missionary whose family was Danish but they had been living in Greenland when she left on her mission.
I forgot to mention we had missionaries in my mission from Mongolia. About 10 at one point, and my last companion was from Mongolia. We also had a missionary from Russia. Here in the Detroit Mission we recently had a missionary from Russia. We also had a missionary from Liberia, although his family had come to the US as refugees before he left on his mission.
However my count of locations for the Detroit Mission is missing places. I remember best those who have served in the ward I was in.
I think I mis-heard the name of the new branch to be created tomorrow in the Fredericksburg Virginia Stake. While I recognized the name Fall River, it is of course in Massachusetts. I could not find anything named Fall River inside the stake south of the Rappahannock. Instead, I think it might be the Fall Hill Branch--Fall Hill being an important road connecting Fredericksburg with a major shopping area west of I-95.
As far as the Provo City Center Temple being busy, the comparison must be made with how busy Provo, Payson, and Mount Timp are. If the other three are also very busy, whci I don't know yet, that is going to be the measure of where and when to put a new temple in.
Putting the temple in Lehi would ease pressure on Mount Timp. If Provo is still busy, that would make the case for an Orem temple, and if Payson were busy, that would make the case for a Springville temple, although that would take away also from Provo City Center.
Any thoughts on a possible renovation or rebuild of the Provo Temple? Since it and the former Ogden Temple have similar designs that were not/ aren't up to current earthquake codes, and now that the Provo City Temple is in use, might the church do a rebuild?
I did hear they found some issues with the seismic thinhgs, but they hold six-week shutdowns every year or every other year, usually the summer one, to do work, and since about 2000 they have done a lot of things to update and fix things.
Last I heard they had to go in and do some of the seismic 'interleaving', under it, that is part of what they have been doing. Other things done are more noticeable such as replacing just about all the lighting except for what's in the endowment rooms themselves. A new mural was also installed in the chapel along with lighting for that. All the sealing rooms got new lighting about two years ago.
I would expect an Orem Utah Temple to be built before a multi-month remodeling of the Provo Temple was undertaken.
The Manila Philippines Temple is said to undergo a 2 month renovation and I just wonder all those 109 units under the temple district will need to travel to Cebu Temple and that's a total of 178 stakes and districts. The Urdaneta temple is long overdued already almost 7 years already. A temple in the bottom island will surely help the saints over there (Davao or Cagayan de Oro).
What about a potential second temple in Cache valley Utah? How busy is the Logan temple? What about a temple in General area. That could taken stakes from both the Salt Lake and Provo temples.
What about a potential second temple in Cache valley Utah? How busy is the Logan temple? What about a temple in General area. That could taken stakes from both the Salt Lake and Provo temples.
Brigham City is mighty close to Cache Valley. Would a 2nd temple be better closer or farther to the north for people closer to Idaho near Bear Lake? I like the idea of having rural getting easier access to a temple than driving that long river canyon north of Logan.
I thought Smithfield. Some of those Idaho stakes will go to Star Valley.
I thought Smithfield. Some of those Idaho stakes will go to Star Valley.
Brigham City did take stakes from Logan in 2012 when it opened, and from both Idaho and Utah.
The building of Brigham City eliminated a bad winter trip either through Sardine Canyon or around by the U-30 highway to Downtown Logan at the very north end of the mountains.
Basically, the mountains are the west boundary of the Logan Temple district now.
A Smithfield Utah Temple could probably take in 7-9 Utah stakes, and 4 or 5 Idaho ones. I really am not sure which way Soda Springs Idaho Stake would go, to Smithfield or Starr Valley.
The Arimo, 2 Preston and Franklin stakes I would expect to go to Smithfield. The rest in Idaho more around Bear Lake I would expect to go to Starr Valley, but I am not too familiar with winter driving conditions. In Utah a Smithfield Temple would take in the Benson, Richmond, 4 Smithfield, Hyde Park and maybe the North Logan Stakes. That would leave Logan Temple with 22 to 24 stakes. Dallas Temple has 25 stakes in it district. Logan currently has 42 stakes compared to Ogden Temple's 63 and Bountiful Temples 49. While I could see Benson and Richmond stakes 20 wards rearanged into 3 stakes, and an additional stake for Smithfield, there is also growth in Northern Davis County and in some of the I think especially western suburbs of Ogden.
Hamilton New Zealand has 31 stakes and 2 districts assigned to it. This is one more than Accra Ghana's 30 stakes, but Accra also has 28 districts assigned. Ivory Coast also evidently has a higher than average rate of members submitting names for temple work. Bogota Columbia only has 29 stakes and there is a new temple being built in Columbia, but there are also 10 districts. Still everything makes me think that New Zealand is a leading candidate for another temple.
Boise is a 30 stakes and getting a new temple, and in that case distance is not at all a factor considering how close Meridian is to Boise. Buenos Aires still has 50 stakes and 14 districts in its temple district. This makes me wonder if a 3rd temple will be announced for Argentina soon. Venezuela is a 34 stakes and 6 districts, so it might be about ready to get a new temple. Ecuador has 36 stakes and 9 districts and is getting a second temple. Idaho Falls has 46 stakes in the temple district. This is 4 more than Logan, but it will loose at least 2 stakes to the Starr Valley Temple district.
I did a closer map inspection. I also ran the trips through an online distance calculator that has programed into it temple locations. I am not sure how well it estimates actual traffic conditions, and I have no clue how passable any roads are in winter.
What I came up with is the Montpelier Stakes are almost certainly going to be assigned to the Starr Valley Temple. Paris Idaho Stake is another matter. Paris is 3 miles closer drive to Star Valley (56 to 59 miles). However many of the wards are south of Paris. St Charles it is clearly shorter to Logan than to Star Valley. By the time you are in Garden City it is almost twice as long a drive to Star Valley Temple as to Logan Temple. From Laketown it is 49 miles to Logan Temple and 92 to Star Valley Temple. However the comparison is only 1 hour five minutes to 1 hour 30 minutes. Kemmerer Wyoming is a two hour drive from the Ogden Temple where it is currently assigned, but only an hour and a half to Star Valley so I am guessing it will be reassigned.
On the other hand from Evanston Wyoming it is an hour and 15 minutes to Ogden Temple and two hours to Star Valley Temple so it will probably stay with its current assignment.
Lyman Wyoming the center of another stake in the Ogden Temple district is 1 hour 47 minutes from the Ogden Temple but it would be 2 hours 6 minutes to Star Valley.
The Riverton Wyoming Stake might be reassigned. The Travel time from Riverton to the Star Valley Temple is 4 hours and 9 minutes, down from 4 hours and 36 minutes to get to the Ogden Temple.
By comparison it is only 49 minutes drive from Cheyenne to the Fort Collins Temple.
Actually it is only 4 hours and 35 minutes from Riverton to the Ogden Temple. 4 hours and 36 minutes is how long it would take a person to drive from Riverton to the Fort Collins Temple. Riverton is in the Fort Collins Mission.
In the case of Lander Wyoming, which if I am understanding things right has 2 wards in it that stretch huge directions either way.
One, the Wind River ward covers about half the developed part of Lander. Lander's population is 88% White, 7% Native American and 5% Latino. Fort Washakie, one of the main places on the Reservation and in the Wind River Ward Boundaries is 92% Native American, 6% White and 3% Latino. Lander has roughtly 7,500 people and Fort Washakie has 1,500 or so. The fact that they have two wards meeting in the chapel in Lander and split the wards through Lander may indicate that most members live in Lander, otherwise they might have created 1 ward and 2 outlying branches. On the other hand it is only a 16 mile drive into Lander from Fort Washakie.
Only 28.9% of those who live on the Wind River Indian Reservation report any Native Ancestry. Lander is clearly off the Reservation, but Riverton is in a swath of land that was opened to Euro-American settlement in 1906, but the EPA granted environmental oversight to the whole 1868 area of the reservation to the Native Americans in 2013. The state of Wyoming has challenged this in court.
In theory the large interactions between Mormons and Native Americans in Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming and Idaho would lead to large numbers of Native American converts. There has been some success, I had a classmate in multiple history classes at BYU whose father was president of the Chinle Stake, entirely on the Navajo Reservation. Her father was white but her mother was Navajo and her maternal grandfather had been one of the Navajo Code Talkers.
However at times it seems that Mormons as ranchers and farmers have high levels of inter-group conflict with Native Americans. There have also been places in New Mexico where it has been alleged that school districts sought to reduce the number of Mormons employed so they could higher more Native Americans.
I had an uncle who moved from the LA Area to Mesa, Arizona and he commented how the Church was just so much more white in Arizona than in the LA Area. On the other hand the only Native Americans I knew growing up where LDS. It was a family who moved to Michigan because the father was working as a designer for General Motors. He was my Deacon's Quorum Advisor.
On another note, I think the only American at BYU I knew who was not LDS, not on a sports scholarship, and not there because they were dating someone who decided to go there, was a Navajo lady from Shiprock, New Mexico.
The Riverton Wyoming Stake appears to be coterminous with Fremont County, Wyoming. Fremont County has just over 9,000 square miles and around 40,000 people. 10,000 people live in RIverton itself. There are 3 wards based in Riverton, with very complex boundaries, one largely existing as a finger sticking into a different ward and then meandering out of town. I have still to figure out why this ward is assigned the roughly 30 by 25 mile area to the south-east of Riverton. It looks to be totally empty in a way that baffles the mind of those of us who live in an unban area surrounded by agricultural areas in the great lakes state. If I calculated it correctly the unihabited eastern region of the ward is roughly the size of my county, but bigger because they don't have a lake cutting off a corner. My county has over 800,000 people in it, but the northern third is esssentially rural with a few small cities. The least populous 6 mile by 6 mile township in my county has 3,739 people and I think it is very under populated. Yet the only place I can find on the map in the Riverton Ward that goes south-east is Sand Draw, and it is too insignificant to rate an article in Wikipedia. With 12,000 or maybe a little bit more people split between the 3 Riverton Wards and the student single branch, probably roughly 10% of the population is Latter-day Saints, depending on the specific size of the wards and activity rates. That is a lot higher than in my ward, where we have rougly 200,000 or maybe even a little more people in our ward boundary. On the other hand Uinta County, Wyoming has half the population of Fremont County, although in less than a fifth the area, but it has 3 stakes.
Apart from some BYU students that I personally knew in the 1990s who were Sikh (2), Muslim (approx 30), and Arab Christian (maybe 20), I also knew Chinese non-members and a guy from the South, who was a huge Florida St. and Billy Graham guy who as an evangelical (Baptist, pretty sure) who was in Provo to do more Bible research. I am also related to BYU alumni who are atheist, Muslim convert, and Hari Krishna convert. Cougars can be diverse.
The world is our campus.
I spent 5 months on my mission as a district leader in the Riverton stack and saved in Riverton and lander, the activity rate in the wards our all over the place wend river ward has about 1000 members and only 200 come were the sinks cannon ward has 450 members and 200 active Riverton gets even mere out of places the Aspen park ward had like 350 members and 100 active the other two Ward's I don't know how maney members they had bit each would had around 200 each Sunday, the branch's all had around 100-200 members with about 40-70 active, there was hopes to bring a 3rd ward to lander not to lung ago, back in the 80s there was 3 wards and a branch out in fort Washakie, there has been a decline over the years in stack membership as will the activity, in order the get active priesthood numbers for each ward they had to do some odd boundaries to do so, and in Wyoming there is a lot of times a whole bunch of members right next door to each other most of the time it was familys.
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