Wednesday, February 8, 2017

Corrections

There are a couple corrections I need to make based upon inaccurate information I have previously reported.

First, the Church has not realigned the Africa West Area boundaries. In fact, Chad has continued to pertain to the Africa West Area since its organization in 1998. Furthermore, Chad has been assigned to the Africa West Area Branch since the branch's creation in 2011.

Second, the new stake in Montana to be organized this month will be located in Missoula - not Billings.

I apologize for the misinformation.

169 comments:

Eduardo said...

Good catches. We appreciate the updates and the striving for accuracy. Obviously no one is perfect, but people of integrity and due diligence are worth their weight in gold.
I hope, on a side note, that for every minute we spend on this and other blogs that we get out and do home teaching, temple work, and Godly ministering to our families and others.
Blog on.

Andrew Reed said...

We appreciate your updates and corrections, thankyou.

Johnathan Reese Whiting said...

Huzzah! I was actually hoping it was going to be in Missoula, rather than Billings. (No offense to Billings, I just grew up closer to Missoula.)

Eduardo said...

How are the convert numbers in Montana? How is the job and economic scene?
I worked with a young soldier from there by the name of Houck who helped worked on the temple, even though he was not a member.
As a kid I visited Kalispell; the number of members seemed robust compared to Indiana. Have more California move-ins brought the LDS percentages down in the last two decades?
Jared Diamond seems to be a fixture of the state; I doubt that he attends any church. I might be wrong.
Interesting that Ivanka and Jared Kushner will attend a Chabad synagogue in DC. What religious attendance, if any, do the other Trump children do?

Gnesileah said...

I am pleased that Missoula will be getting its 2nd stake. This will be the first new stake in Montana in 20 years, and only the second in 38 years.

The Montana Billings Mission, which presently includes 10 of Montana's 11 stakes, plus 4 Wyoming Stakes, has had the following number of convert baptisms the last four years:

2013: 469
2014: 625
2015: 546
2016: 360

It seems to me, in the two Billings Stakes at least, that we have a lot of out-of-state move-ins throughout the year, but a good number also move out-of-state each year also. But many of our wards, some of which were just split four years ago, are at bursting point again. I work a lot in Eastern Montana (Glendive Stake) and North Dakota, and I have seen the growth brought by the oil boom (which tapered off substantially these last couple years, but the industry is again gearing up for an oil heyday with the new administration. Last month, the number of applications to drill new oil wells on federal lands was 44% higher than the monthly average last year. A lot of oil workers with families choose to live in Billings, commuting weekly to the oil fields. However, a lot of LDS families have also settled in places closer to the oil activity, like in Sidney, MT (which recently enlarged their ward meetinghouse), and throughout western North Dakota, which has seen incredible growth on all fronts. On 9/1/2009, western North Dakota only had 4 wards and 4 branches. Today it has 13 wards and 3 branches.

For all the growth in the oil fields though, the Glendive Stake, which covers the vast expanse of Eastern Montana, still only has four wards.

Unknown said...

There also in 2014 and 2015 had about the same number or what the mission counted as reactives, the stoung place for baptisms have been Billings and Missoula, Stevensville also sees a lot of baptisms in part to the Polygamist joining the church there. In 2014 the collvilles ward had 77 baptisms,

Mike Johnson said...

Bryce, what is the story behind "the Polygamist joining the church there." That sounds interesting.

As is the number of baptisms in a single ward in one year.

Unknown said...

The Polygamist l, our members of the AUB group, the reason behand they members rejoining the church, is after years of changes to the teachings of the church, like a big one is the prisdent pickes the next prisdent with no questions ask, Wich hasent gone over to will,
and there has been a lot of fighting for power and croving up missdilings amoung the leaders, and a whole lot of other things that is making a lot of people question there testimonies of there church, as will the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith.
A good number of the members still believe in the book of Mormon, and Joseph Smith being a prophet, they even believe prisdent Monson is a prophet,
For many they look for the truth and the correct information, and way of the gospel, and that's will they join the church.

Most of the members of the AUB leve in the Corvallis ward.
Any given Sunday there would be 20-30 non-members in sacrament meeting there.
Most come on there own with lilte help,
When I sarved there witch was the last 6 weeks of my Mission, we had 8 baptisms, and one Sunday we had 35 invastagotes in sacrament meeting.
Out of the 35, 20 have been coming long before I got there with 8 of them being baptized when I was there, the remaining 15 that came only 1 we fround the other 14 just started to show up,and take the lessions on their own, it's been a year and a have and I know around 18 or so have been baptized since that Sunday including the 8 that I was there for.
All that was baptized in 2014 except for 1 was active when I left in July of 2015,
The Corvallis ward at that time I believe had around 250 in sacrament meeting everweek.

Johnathan Reese Whiting said...

@ Mike Johnson:

A brief explanation of the Polygamist community in the Bitterroot Valley, MT, based on my 20 years of experience living in that Valley.

A few miles south of Stevensville, MT (my hometown), lies the small town of Corvallis that Bryce mentioned above. To the east of Corvallis (up by the mountain) is the community of Pinesdale, where many of the residents practice Polygamy and belong to the Apostolic United Brethren church (an unofficial off-shoot of Mormonism).

I never really interacted with any of the adults who practiced polygamy (perhaps they just wanted keep to themselves?), but I knew several kids from those families or cousins of those families.

Several of the kids I knew, once they grew up and left home and went to college, still wanted to be Mormon, but recognized that their AUB church didn't really exist in a lot of areas outside of their community, so they decided to join the LDS church. I knew most of these converts up at the Missoula LDS Institute by the University of Montana (I even got to ordain a convert (who became a good friend of mine and married the Stake President's daughter) to the Melchizedek Priesthood). I also attended a few of their baptisms.

I really never learned much about their AUB church (other than rumors), because it's a kind of a "don't ask, don't tell" situation. They didn't want to talk about their life in Pinesdale, or even be referred to as people from Pinesdale, because of the stigmas and stereotypes associated with polygamy that might follow. Out of respect, I didn't prod any of my convert friends for details, because it was none of my business.

An interesting thing of note, is that (at least for the converts I knew) they had to have a face-to-face meeting and interview with a Member of the Quorum of the 12 or the First Presidency in order to be baptized in the LDS church.

I had no idea so many from the Pinesdale/Corvallis area were joining the church recently. That is an interesting development. I didn't know the situation up there had changed so drastically. It's good news to me! I just hope their homes didn't all burn down in the Roaring Lion fire there last year.

@ Bryce Gillespie: Any word on the effect on members of the church (or residents in general) from the big fire in Hamilton last year?

P.S. For those interested, here's the Wikipedia article on the Apostolic United Brethren (AUB): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostolic_United_Brethren

Johnathan Reese Whiting said...

Sorry, in my last post, I meant that Pinesdale was "West of Corvallis," and not East. My mistake. Please re-orient your brains accordingly.

Unknown said...

The fire last year I know I had seen somethings on Facebook about it, but I don't think to maney homes was destroyed, at least no one I know,as far as I could till, everything seems to be normal, and OK for everyone.

Everone over the age of 18 still needs to be interviewed by ether a member of the 70, only ones that were in leadership in the AUB, or who had mere then one wife needs to meet with a member of the 12 now.

For missanrys to go up to piensdail thee still need to have one prisdent holder approved by the stack prisdent.
But that's being said we still would go up there 3 or 4 times a week,

A side story the 2nd wife if the prisdent of there 12, was close to baptism not to long ago, and her husband has talked with the missanrrays a couple of times.

James Anderson said...

I mentioned the other day how to figure out some things about the ultimate capacity of a temple, and although temples never right now are ever full every session, or the sealing rooms are not all busy, etc., I will use endowments to illustrate.

Provo City Center has two A rooms, both can seat 90. They run 14 sessions a daym with one moderately attended overflow session, sometimes they don't need to run the overflow but most days they do. Multiply 90 x 14 and you get 1269 plus any pickups during the overflow.

Initiatoriesm I have heard the men do roughly 700 a day, Sealing data widely varies on account of live sealingsm and availability of sealers, they have five rooms.

Information from the family history people has that when a name is sent for anyone at any temple to do, it takes 1-2 weeks to have the baptism done, initiatories are done soon after, but the big backlog is the endowment. Three years for male names, but only about one for females.

All four temples in Utah County are at capacity, but not at the theoretical capacity like that outlined above, After a yearm Provo City Center is at capacity, Provo is very close to that, America Fork is, and Payson is also approaching that,

Anonymous said...

What does a poligamous have to do to join the church? How do they leave poligamy, but still have to care for the family?

Unknown said...

To join the church, they first have to take all the lessions from the missanrrays, then they have to not live in Polygamy, there also have to meet with and work with the Bishop, after there work with the Bishop them they work with the stake presidency, then the stack prisdent with the Bishop and mission prisdent send a baptism recommend to slat lake, will it is decided on who does the interview, after the interview the stak prisdent in then told if they can be baptized or not, if apoved the stake prisdent meets with them again, then it goes to the Bishop and mission prisdent to set the date.

James Anderson said...

A Facebook meme just posted indicates that on 2/1/2018, the Oakland Temple will close for an extended period for major construction, and it will result in an open house and rededication which has not been announced but will be probably in 2020.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1409148755773786&set=gm.1468992316446972&type=3

Mike Johnson said...

Thank you Bryce and Jonathan for the fascinating information. I remember when Rulon Allred was killed in the 1970s. Apparently this is the same sect.

John Pack Lambert said...

I hope Billings does also get a new stake this year. I do hope that the Church starts sending missionaries to Chad. I think the Nigeria Enugu Mission would be a good base for them. the current mission president there, Francis O. Nmerimbe, was head of security for the Africa West Area as his full time job before becoming mission president. I hope President Nmerimbe can find a way to send missionaries into both Chad and Niger.

On the other hand, shifting Chad to the Africa South East Area, and having it along with the Central African Republic put in a new Camerron Yaounde Mission may also have some advantages.

John Pack Lambert said...

On the issue of this being the first new stake in Montana in 20 years. I am 36 years old and the last new stake in Michigan was organized a year before my birth. Although to be fair the Toledo Ohio Stake organized in the early 1980s took some of its units from Michigan stakes (although none of it is in Michigan), and the Green Bay Wisconsin Stake organized in the mid-1990s takes in most of Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

John Pack Lambert said...

From having a friend who served in the Salt Lake South Mission I know that at least when she was in that mission in about 1995-1996 people from a Polygamous background had to be interviewed and approved fairly high up to be baptized. I got the impression that somehow Elder Holland was involved, but I am not sure the people had to interview quite that high up. I know that people from families that practice polygamy can not be baptized until age 18. I am wondering if in Montana they have in place policies to make sure these people understand that polygamy is totally against the teachings of the LDS Church.

John Pack Lambert said...

The Church Histroy Department just released this very moving video https://history.lds.org/article/break-the-soil-of-bitterness/one-womans-quest-for-healing?lang=eng on Julia Mavimbela. They don't get fully into the details here, but it is pretty clear after having watched it that she is the main reason that a Soweto Stake exists. It also illustrates how heartfelt reaching out and providing service can bring about a great change.

Unknown said...

A good number of the Allreds have joined the church now.
Ruling Allred death input started some of the movement to the church.

Unknown said...

Yes in a lot of ways it is still the same today.
Most or done by a 70 now.

Mike Johnson said...

When you say the interviews were done by a Seventy, would that be an Area Seventy?

Unknown said...

General authority 70 my bad,
Elder zwick usly does all of the baptism intuviews.

John Pack Lambert said...

This article http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865673007/Elder-Gary-E-Stevenson-visits-South-America.html mentions the Church aquiring property for activities in Uruguay. This is a needed level of deep Church growth on a permanent basis world wide. Although my main take away is, why did these people get an apostle visiting at the For the Strength of Youth Conference, we didnt get anything like that at the EFY I went to in Ohio. On the other hand my first semester at BYU I attended 3 events at BYU where President Hinckley spoke.

Johnathan Reese Whiting said...

@ Bryce:

Thanks for clarifying the current conversion and baptism process. I'm guessing that they changed the process recently from having an Apostle or Prophet do the interview to a General Authority 70 due to the increased amount of investigators and converts from the AUB up there in recent years. It's good for me to know that the situation for the Church is changing up in the area I grew up in, and that our estranged brothers and sisters from the AUB sect are being grafted back into the fold.

@John Pack Lambert:
I do recall at least one of my Pinesdale convert friends saying that they had to speak with Elder Holland personally. Another one kept trying to come down to SLC to keep their interview with one of the higher ups (it was either President Faust or a member of the 12, but not a 70), but had to reschedule due to blizzards at the time. (It can be a pretty long and harsh drive from Missoula to SLC in the Winter.)

@Mike Johnson:
You're welcome. Glad the information was helpful. I was just reading up on Rulon Allred and his brother, Owen, last night to get some historical understanding of the AUB sect.

Eduardo said...

Oh, Michigan! The same state that does not vote for Romney in 2012 but does for Trump in 2016?
I hope Spartans and Wolverines and Chippewas and Cowboys will come to their senses and grow some stakes.
Indiana has had many in my lifetime. What accounts for the differences?
Do the larger urban populations have to do with it? Or the frozen north rural areas?
I wonder what the black population of Indiana has come to conversion as compared to those of Michigan. Same question about Latinos.

David Todd said...

Michigan has had a declining population for a while. Any growth we experience through conversion is lost by people moving away. I don't know about the stakes in the Detroit mission, but as for the stakes in the Lansing mission, most of the growth is in the Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo Stakes. Western Michigan hasn't been hit as hard as the rest of the state. I anticipate that Traverse City will become a stake before one of the others splits, though.

Eduardo said...

Being from Indiana I know a lot more about the Hoosier State. I think it is still true that the South Bend Stake still has a unit on the Michigan side.
In the 1980s Indiana was losing population; the only two cities that grew positively were Indianapolis and Bloomington. I think multiple cities grew/were growing by the 1990s and ever since.
Great point about economy. I know southern Indiana, which is generally more rural than the north part, added a Toyota plant in the last 30 years. The town of Columbus has maintained good plants and businesses. Bloomington and Indy have continued to develop.
Also, in regards to the weather, southern Indiana gets warmer temperatures, which leads to less snow, which over the years leads to more proselyting time.
In the summer I could see Michigan getting more tourists, which is sometimes more difficult to establish LDS invinvestigators for the sake of fellowship and consistency.
I think the Romney family is a good example of what used to be in Michigan: I guess opportunity that was so available 50 years ago can be really hard to sustain.
Also, from my estimation, LDS conversion rates tend to occur more in suburbs. There are wide swaths of Indiana counties that have virtually no LDS presence; missionaries have little or no traction in at least a third of the state, where farms and isolated country homes prevail.
Urban settings of Gary and Hammond, even East Chicago, also present difficulties when it comes to proselyting. Part of that is the LDS intersection of its culture with that of African-American and Latino cultures.
Beyond ethnicity, however, the urban and rural extremes are challenging for LDS families to make effective venues of conversion. But I think these inroads are happoening now more than ever. And the Internet can bring the Gospel to homes that would never have been interested 25 years ago.

John Pack Lambert said...

Today I went to my niece's baptism in the Clarkston Ward in the Grand Blanc Michigan Stake. The Clarkston Ward covers the north-west corner of what I would consider to be metro-Detroit.

A lady and her 11 year-old daughter were confirmed in sacrament meeting. I met members of the ward from Mexico and Zimbabwe. The man who gave the lesson in elder's quorum had served his mission in Haiti. I also met an African-American brother who had been born in New York but raised in part in Germany and Japan because his father was in the military.

Besides my niece another 8-year-old was baptized. This niece is my sister's daughter. My sister's husband did her baptism, and my sister's father-in-law did the other baptism. I got the impression that the other girl comes to Church with her aunt. Several of her family members showed for the baptism that had not been at Church. I didn't try to figure out if it was because they were not members or just inactive.

John Pack Lambert said...

From 2010 to 2013 or so within the boundaries of the Detroit Mission 5 wards and 3 branches were discontinued during which time no new units were formed. Since then the number of units has remained the same, but I have heard speculation that the Sterling Heights Ward might be split.

John Pack Lambert said...

Michigan is significantly more black and Latino than Ohio. So much so that even though Ohio has more people Michigan has more blacks and Latinos. Metro-Detroit was at one point rated the most segregated metro area in the US. That made the outreach to African-Americans a difficult process, and may be one of the reasons why the post-baptism retention rate has at times been so low.

Even the 2009 decision in the Bloomfield Hills Stake to make 8 Mile (the northern boundary of Detroit) no more a boundary line in the stake had some negative consequences. In the case of the far east section of Detroit it was put in a ward based in the suburbs with an all white bishopric. That ward has had 2 black relief society presidents and the current young men's president (whose wife is one of the mentioned relief society presidents) is black. However I do have the impression some members went inactive when the boundary was changed.

Just north along the center of the boundary an area of the suburbs was assigned to go to a branch (later made a ward) in Detroit. I know of some people who lived north of 8 mile in that area who just flat out refused to go to Church in Detroit. I was also told by missionaries serving in the branch at that time that some of the members from the suburban area would get up in testimony meeting and basically say "we were sent to be part of this branch because it needed fixing up." This highly offended some members in the branch at the time and lead to some going inactive.

John Pack Lambert said...

On the other hand I have known lots of members, including several who are African-American, who moved out to Utah and Idaho. Others have moved to places such as Florida and Texas due to work. At least in my ward the saving grace was the building of a hospital just outside of our ward boundaries that lead to us getting several medical residents. However large number of medical residents is a mixed blessing. The husbands in these families work so many hours that there are limited callings they can be given. Plus the short-term nature of medical residencies leads to high rates of turnover that are difficult on building deep cohesion in the ward. Added to this replacements do not always come in when people leave.

John Pack Lambert said...

Actually at least here in the Detroit Mission in the 1990s the vast majority of baptisms were in urban areas.

While I will say I have known lots of inactive and marginally active Latinos, I have also known many extremely active ones. My sister-in-law who married my brother in the temple and has a brother who served a mission joined the Church with her mom and brother in Lansing Michigan in the mid-1990s. She is a native of Mexico.

The Southfield Ward I currently attend has had 6 baptisms since I started going in November. Every last one of them was an African-American. I also had one funeral, of a white guy whose black grandson performed on the piano. The second counselors in the bishopric, who has been a member 5 years, is African-American, as is the ward chorister. Of course Southfield is a city that is over 70% African-American, the ward includes a section of north-west Detroit, that is probably over 90% African-American, it also includes three other African-American majority communities, but 6 Euro-American majority communities, many of these communities are well under 10% African-American. For example, Berkley, Michigan where the first counselor in the bishopric lives is 3% African-American. Lathrup Village, on the other hand, where a man family where the husband was a counselor in the bishopric back in the early 1990s while his wife was relief society president and who have an adopted at least partially Mexican daughter who in turn has her 3 mixed race biological children (her husband is white) and an adopted black son, is 61% African-American and 34% white (well as of 2010) in 2000 it was 47% white and 49.8% black. That family I mentioned basically everyone else in their neighborhood is black.

Royal Oak, where much of the active membership of the ward including the bishop and another member who is ouyr most recent stake president (the one who pushed oneness across 8 Mile, but was also as bishop of the old Royal Oak Ward in the 1980s a moving force behind getting a seperate branch in Detroit), was in 2010 90.7% White. This was down from 94.8% white in 2000. Royal Oak is 2.4% Asian. Troy, Michigan where the smallest ward in my stake is based is 19.1% Asian.

Eduardo said...

Yes, good insight. I knew some medical students in Los Angeles, including one who was assigned to my then small family as a home teacher, who regretfully explained that his time constraints were so great that he was not able to visit us monthly.
He brought us cookies, and once did enter and inform us about his specialty. He was finishing about 14 years of higher ed, had learned how to reconstruct eyes and faces with plastic surgery, and became one of only like 6 in the world who could do this specialization (in 2002 or so).
Detroit seems to be a tough area but it is nice to see progress continues.
More and more ethnic groups are coming to the faith, and this is the fulfillment of thousands of years of prophecy and the fruition of the last days.
Stay the course, brethren and sisters.

John Pack Lambert said...

Michigan overall is 2.4% Asian while Indiana is 0.7% Asian. There have always been active Asian members in the Sterling Heights Ward. The Hui family from Hong Kong were the constants when I was growing up, but we did from time to time have others. The Huis are now snow birds, but Sister Gertsch, who is a native of South Korea, is a constant now. There was also the Kim family, and we have had others, but the rest seem to come and go.

In Troy Ward they have active Latino members in a city that is 2.1% Latino. The Ward Executive secretary is Mexican. Of course he is a BYU grad with a white wife, so from a very different socio-economic background than some Mexicans. On the other hand in Sterling Heights Ward the Ward Clerk is half Mexican, and his mother came to Michigan as the daughter of migrant farm laborers. There is another active Mexican family where the husband moved to Michigan for an engineering job. Another two sisters in the ward are half Mexican, there is a 15-year-old girl who I had in my primary class a few years back whose biological father was from Mexico. There is also a half Guatemalan sister who comes to church once in a while. Steling Heights is 1.9% Hispanic. One of the half Mexican sisters I mentioned has 3 daugters who are members of the ward, one of whom was in the same primary class with the other girl I mentioned. The ward clerk has 2 children, including a boy who was in my primary class the next year. Also in my class the next year was a set of twins whose inactive father is half Cuban. I think the ward is well above 1.9% Latino. I am not sure if we are anywhere near 5.2% African-American, but we have made progress in Sterling Heights Ward in baptizing African-Americans. I think close to half the convert baptisms in the last 3 years have been African-American. I think we are below the 6.7% Asian level, but there is a Filipino woman who comes with her American husband almost all the time so if she gets baptized things will be in good shape.

Johnathan Reese Whiting said...

@John Pack Lambert:

Thank you for your insights on Michigan, Ohio, and Detroit especially.

It's hard in wards where the Church tries to mix two cultures together into one Gospel family, but the members are unwilling to cooperate and leave their prejudices behind. A similar thing happened recently with my Stake here in Ogden, when we had a mixed Hispanic and English Primary from the English and Spanish-Speaking wards. People just couldn't reconcile their differences, so it was dissolved.

I've thought a lot about the announcement of the Priesthood being made available to all worthy Males, and I've talked to many people who lived through the era when it was not. (The
Official Declaration was made in 1978, four years before I was born.)

This is really my own thought on the matter, and the opinion of a few others I've discussed it with, but I wonder if the Lord didn't hold back the Priesthood integration to all males due to the strong cultural prejudices on all sides of the issue (with strong examples being my own stake and the ward in 8-Mile that you mentioned above).

My own experience is that there is prejudice on all sides: whites against blacks, blacks against Hispanics or Asians, Hispanics against whites, rich against poor and vise versa, ad infinitum.

With these strong prejudices, many members of the church (especially of the white majority, but not limited to them) were not ready to accept our brothers and sisters into the fold (believing them to be cursed, or inferior, or whatever), and many of these prejudices are still alive today, unfortunately.

I wonder if many more members of the Church would have left in droves had the announcement that Blacks could receive the Priesthood and receive their Temple Blessings been made years or decades earlier? Probably, in my opinion.

My only hope is that (like the immature Children of Israel who couldn't give up their wicked practices and traditions and ideas, and had to wander in the wilderness for 40 years until they died off so that their more righteous children could inherit the Promised Land); that like them, the old generation and old ideas will one day die off (or change, hopefully) so that the more accepting children can integrate with our fellow brothers and sisters, no matter what differences of color, eye-shape, language, or background they may have.

John Pack Lambert said...

Actually, because of mixed race not counting towards the 6.7% Asian, but getting subsumed in the 2.2% mixed race, I am sure Sterling Heights Ward is way below on Asian. Because of the different way Latino/Hispanic is counted, a person like the ward clerk counts towards such, so we are clearly above that figure.

Troy ward as far as I could tell the last time I was there only had one active Asian member. clearly noting close to the 1/5th of the population that is Asian. We did for a while have an Asian Indian family in Sterling Heights Ward, but they moved to the North Shores Ward the opposite way as Troy. The ward chorister in Sterling Heights Ward is partially of Indian descent, as in she has an ancestor who joined the Church in India in the 1800s whose father was a British soldier but whose mother was a native Indian lady.

Well, Troy Ward does have a lady who was born in 1927 in Michigan and is 1/4th Chinese, but she would count towards the 2.0% more than one race. Although she lives in Clawson, a city all in Troy Ward that is 93.4% white, 1.9% two or more race, 1.9% African-American and 2.0% Asian.

At the 2010 census Troy was 4.0% black. Yet in the ward there is a black brother who has served on the high council (his wife is white), another black family where I think the husband has been ward mission leader, and not actually counting towards the 4.0% (sort of like how the 5 children of the brother who served on the high council don't count) is a sister from Swaziland, who is "coloured", that is of mixed white and black ancestry. I believe her father was an Afrikaans man from South Africa, her mother is coloured and both her grandmothers were black Swazi women while both her grandfathers were British men. To make things even more fun this woman is married to a man from Asia, but since he is from Iraq, he does not count towards the "Asian" population.

John Pack Lambert said...

The high number of immigrants from south-west Asia (primarily Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen, but also Syria, those who are Palestinian, and others) and also immigrants from Egypt, who get classed by the census as white make understanding metro-Detroit difficult if you do not know this.

I have known Church members from these backgrounds, primarily converts from Christian backgrounds in South-west Asia. However retaining them is hard because there is such strong ethno-religious pressure on them, and some who do want to stay strong in the gospel move elsewhere deleberately to cut ties with that background.

One of the counselors in the one ward based in Detroit (another 3 wards that meet in the suburbs cover large chunks of Detroit, and 2 branches exist in Detroit) is I believe originally from Lebanon, but he might be from Iraq.

On the other hand the Church has not made any progress in converting the overwhelmingly Muslim Arab population of Dearborn. This may have been one of the factors that lead to the Dearborn Ward expanding through 2 units by it being discontinued. However I have been told the ward also had a bishop who alienated people.

The Church also seems to have made little progress with the overwhelmingly Muslim population of Hamtramck, the first city in the US to have a majority Muslim city council. The Church evidently has made some progess converting Muslims in California, or at least one Iranian Muslim family that joined the Church in California has produced multiple law professors.

The Chicago area probably has nearly as high a percentage of Muslims as metro-Detroit, but more so Pakistani than Arab ones. Although in my high school, which had students from parts of both Sterling Heights and Troy, almost all of our Muslims were Indian or Pakistani and almost all of our Arabs were Christians. 44% of my high school had a language other than English spoken in their household. I think the percentage grew after I graduated.

John Pack Lambert said...

On the issue of the Romneys, Mitt Romney's brother Scott is still a member of my stake. Mitt's sister Lynn was a member of our stake untill about 2010 when she moved to Utah.

Up until this week Scott's daughter Ronna Romney McDaniel was head of the Rpeublican Party in Michigan. My understanding though is that this woman's mother, Ronna Romney, left the Church after she and Scott got divorced. My mom has a story about going to a fireside entitled "Making Your Marriage Last" given by Scott and Ronna Romney. I do not know what Ronna Romney McDaniel's standing with the Church is, but I have no strong information that she has remained active.

Spencer L. Kimball, a son of Spewncer W. Kimball, was another totally inactive member of a prominent family that lived in Michigan. On the other hand Clark B. Hinckley lived in my stake and served as a seminary teacher, I had a bishop who had served as the other seminary teacher in the same ward at the time and told me once President Hinckley, then in the 1st Presidentcy, came and taught their seminary classes. Clark Hinckley had previously been bishop in the Grand Rapids Area, and had an Afircan-American man as one of his counselors. Of course this African-American man carried around his birth certificate to prove he was black, because he was so light complexioned people sometimes would not believe him.

John Pack Lambert said...

I had an elder's quorum president who compared medical residency to being deployed in the military.

When I was a teenager one of the members of our bishopric was named Ceasar Ricardo Gonzalez. He was born in Holland, Michigan and I think when he was a child his family was migrant agricultural laborers. His wife was Anglo.

Ohhappydane33 said...

Oh Lord here we go again. Board crackpot Lambert up all night in a tailspin of incessant and barely coherent ramblings about the sizes, shapes and colors of every Church member of southeast Michigan. Please don't encourage him!!

Michael Worley said...

Dane, why do you insist on insulting multiple board members? You've asserted this is a boring site and yet you come back. That said, yu are welcome to post on the core topic.

Ohhappydane33 said...

Michael: Lambert, in his typically self-righteous and judgmental manner, labeled me an apostate and never apologized. You have to admit that his posts get out of hand, and this is yet another perfect example. I called this site boring? Not sure in what context, but even if I did, so what? I have offered opinions before on the core topic and have been called an apostate by Lambert and have been under the influence of Lucifer according to Eduardo Clinch, just because I offered opinions they don't agree with. Some folks around here really need to grow up...

Anonymous said...

Let's be civil here. Try not to offend or be offended. I enjoy this site and the comments made. Let's all try to be Christ-like here.

Eduardo said...

To be candid, we all are under the influence of the Enemy, because that is part of the purpose of life. God allowed us to be tempted by nodes of power. So Dane, don't take my warnings of the Adversary too personally, although take it seriously.
Good and bad are real, and I hope you can distinguish the differences, which can be nuanced and minute.
I don't know what all the academic and professional backgrounds of those who contribute here are, but to attack others here for discussion about sociological and culturally geographic factors of LDS growth in the present and past strikes me as anti-intellectual or at best, snarky.
Great job FelizDane, don't hold back in your first rate buffoonery. That could be taken as sarcasm, perhaps the spirit of Lucifer.
But taking judgments of spiritual acumen aside, thanks for participating in the ever evolving dialectic of LDS peoples kicking against the pricks.
I would love to know what your current superior research is involved in.
Me, I do quite a bit of socio-economic and cultural research and analysis. Religiob aside, there are people who care about such matters beyond the apparent near sighted ignorance of people like yourself.
Thanks for compelling me to address your (our) issues rather than engage in fascinating dialogs about Church growth.
Par for the course, I suppose.
A good friend of mine who is African-American is now helping her serious boyfriend reconcile the past with males and the priesthood. Northern Virginia. Dane, you may care less, but there is a world of people who care about knowledge and nuance beyond your sophmoric complaints and diatribes.
Devils and angels fight it out in my mind all the time. Blog on, simpaticos.

Eduardo said...

Ahh, my addendum was nullified, apparently. Maybe for the best.
Pardon for my typo of religion.
Irony, most likely.

Eduardo said...

The nullification was not pjorative towards anyone, I hold malice towards none.
Pro church,pro people, pro good will. And knowledge.

John Pack Lambert said...

Another factor at least in metro-Detroit is few inroads among the South and east European immigrant populations. My schhols were chalk full of the grandchildren and great grandchildren pf Polish and Italian immigrants. My ward had very few. Even less so the equally numerous Greeks, Albanians and Serbians. The only active Albanian members we have had were one sister who moved out shortly after her baptism and a family where the husband had been district president in Albania but they moved to Florida after two years.

John Pack Lambert said...

Dane, I was too quick to make my past statement. I apologize for speaking without thinking things through.

John Pack Lambert said...

To understand the contrast of Southfield and Berkley which neighbor in 2010 Southfield was 70% black while Berkley was 3% black.

John Pack Lambert said...

Still even Berkley had seen a major change since 2000 when only 0.7% of the population was black.

John Pack Lambert said...

Still even Berkley had seen a major change since 2000 when only 0.7% of the population was black.

James Anderson said...

The Canadian units across the St. Clair River at one time were associated with Detroit stakes, but that was done away with in about the 1980s, inckyded everything from Sarnia to south of Windsor, Where do those sit now as far as the Canadian organization of units goes?

Mike Johnson said...

The Sarnia and Windsor wards and the Chatham and Leamington branches are in the London Ontario Stake. Other units in the stake are: London 1st and 2nd and St. Thomas wards and the London 4th (Spanish) and YSA branches and the Tillsonburg Branch.

Ryan Searcy said...

I wonder what the long-term effects of the Oroville Dam crisis will be on the wards and stakes in that area. A majority of the areas in the Gridley and Yuba City Stakes are being evacuated and told to head north towards Chico. Parts of the area in Woodland Stake are under voluntary evacuation. Although Lake Oroville has been sufficiently drained, is is not yet safe to return home, while they repair the spillway, address the amount of erosion that has taken place, and assess the damages of some flooded areas in Oroville.

John Pack Lambert said...

Ikot Ekpene Stake, centered in the historical cultural capital of the Annang people of Nigeria, has just got 2 new wards bringing it to 10 wards and 1 branch.

St. George Utah Bloomington Hills Ward just got its 12th ward, which means it may well be split this year. Praia Cape Verde Stake is now to 10 wards and 3 branches, in theory enough to split.

The Heber City Utah East Stake got an additional ward.

Still the most exciting development to me is a Spanish-speaking branch in Filmore Utah. Up until a year ago Filmore had the exact same units it did in 1930. Then it got a correctional facility branch and now a Spanish branch. The Church is doing Spanish-speaking outreach in more parts of Utah. I just hope Trump's deportationist policies do not disrupt the work too much.

Eduardo said...

Has the population of Fillmore gone up, like so much of the rest of the state? Good economies attract people, and I think faithfulness and tithing have a correlation as well.
I know a couple retiring this summer in northern Virginia who will return back to Utah after 30 plus years in the capital area (people call it the DMV for the 3 jurisdictions around the District of Columbia). Utahns like them help the Beehive State remain so strong. I do hope that they submit papers to serve a mission.
If my mom did two after age 60 then most people can do one.
We need more senior missionaries.
And more youthful missionaries. I can think of dozens who never served who really should have.
The Church will still grow, but many members and subsequent generations lose out on blessings.

Unknown said...

"Has the population of Fillmore gone up, like so much of the rest of the state?"

Not really. While it once was the capital of the Utah territory, there is very little economic and population growth. Most of the population in Millard County depends on ranching and hospitality for those traveling along I-15. In general, most of Utah's population growth has been concentrated along the Wasatch Front and Washington County. Not much happening elsewhere. In fact, most other towns outside the I-15 corridor (and Cache Valley) have seen population declines. Price, as well as surrounding communities in Carbon and Emery counties, is probably the most extreme example. And this is why I believe Price will not get a temple in the foreseeable future. But back to topic.

"We need more senior missionaries.
And more youthful missionaries. I can think of dozens who never served who really should have.
The Church will still grow, but many members and subsequent generations lose out on blessings."

The other day, I was thinking about how much better we could reach vast unreached and underreached parts of the world with more full-time missionaries. I figured that we would probably need 30,000 additional missionaries to appropriately serve these areas mostly in Africa, Asia and the Pacific. This sounds like a tremendous number, but it really means adding one missionary per unit of the Church. Looking at it this way, it seems much more feasible.

James Anderson said...

For senior couples, there is apparently an option on the table that might be happening in some areas that I did not know about until Sunday, and that is to call senior couples to serve full-time locally for up to eighteen months. This has been done for four years now, we have one in Provo North Park Stake, which covers part of downtown and with an arm west to the stake center that takes in everything between center street and 2nd north, and between 150 East and 500 West other than that arm up to 123- North, some of that area includes the high school and the hospital

coachodeeps said...

Numerous stakes in the Salt Lake Valley have senior couples living at home serving in their home stake or a neighboring stake. They serve in many capacities and are a great boost to what the wards/stake or full time younger missionaries are able to do.

coachodeeps said...

As per the Senior Missionary Opportunity booklet, as of May 20, 2014 local priesthood leaders now have
the ability to select an additional option in the Mission-
ary Online Recommendation System for prospective
senior missionaries to serve a full-time live-at-home
mission.
Please review the following expectations with prospec-
tive senior missionaries before recommending them to
serve a live-at-home mission:
•They should be 40 years of age or older.
•They should not have any dependent children under
the age of 18 living at home.
•They should not be employed (either full or part-
time) while serving.
•They will continue to be responsible for all their liv-
ing expenses (e.g., food, housing, medical, insurance,
transportation, etc.) and will not receive any financial
support since they are serving while living at home.

Eduardo said...

There was a couple from Bloomington IN that did a full time mission in Indianapolis at the end of the 1990s. They were close friends of my mom and step-dad, who ended up doing an 18 month mission in Cambodia, and later a 2 year mission in Java. In the case of the more local Indiana missionaries, they got fulfillment and enjoyment from it, and I'm not sure how many hours they spent per day or per week, or how often they saw their grandkids.
For me and my kids, at least, I am glad my mom and her husband went away and served abroad, and gained those experiences.
But all the service rendered is of great worth.
More should do it.

John Pack Lambert said...

There were 1,374 people in Fillmore, Utah in 1930. As of 2010 there were 2,435 people. The population grew over 8% from 2000 to 2010. The population of Fillmore, Utah was in 2010 over 17% Hispanic/Latino, so maybe I should be surprised that a Spanish-speaking branch did not exist until just now. Delta Utah has had a Spanish-speaking branch longer. It is 36 miles between the two cities.

Back in 1930 Delta Utah had 1,183 people. So it was slightly smaller than Fillmore. In 2010 it had 3,436 people. Delta is 20.5% Hispanic/Latino. Of course many Hispanics and Latinos are not fluent at all in Spanish, and others are more fluent in English. So the number of Hispanics/Latinos and the ability to make a Spanish-speaking unit if enough are Church members are two different issues. In my girlfriend's branch there is a man from Arizona who is of Mexican descent who knows no Spanish at all. 0 people in Fillmore identified as being of African descent in any way, but 2 in Delta marked being black and a further 4 marked black as well as other races.


Millard County had 9,945 people in 1930. By 1970 it had fallen to 6,988. Since then the population has expanded, reaching 12,503 in 2010 and an estimated 12,645 in 2015. The county overall is 12.8% Hispanic/Latino.

On the other hand in 1930 Davis County, Utah, what is arguably the most suburban of the Wasatch Front counties, only had 14,000 people. As of 2015 it was estimated to have 336,000 people. So it went from no where near twice Millard Counties population to more than 20 times the population.

Utah County had just under 50,000 people in 1930. The 2015 population estimate was over 575,000 people. In 2010 Utah County's population was 10.8% Latino/Hispanic, so slightly below the level in Millard County.

However Utah County was 84.2% non-Hispanic white to Millard County's 84.7%, so they were essentially the same, but the 0.5% African-American and the 0.8% Pacific Islanders far exceeded the 0.1% in those categories in Millard County. Millard County's 1.0% Native American did exceed Utah County's 0.6%.

Utah County's 0.5% non-Hispanic Native American was exceeded by Millard County's 0.8% figure. I believe in Millard County some people whose ancestors were part of Kanosh's Native American band still reside, while my impression is that all Native American groups were removed from Utah County.

If you compare some numbers they are really start. There were 12 black people in Millard County in 2010, while there were 2,799 in Utah County (this figure would not include Mia Love's mixed race children though, so it might not be the most useable, the 4,795 which is 0.9% of the population seems more what people would focus on), makes it clear we are dealing with different situations.

Utah County's 1.4% Asian exceeds 0.6% Asian. The Utah County figure is fairly low for a county with two major universities, although I might still be overstating the standing of UVU in 2010. Storey County, Iowa where Iowa State is was 6% Asian in 2010 (but only 3% Hispanic, but 2.5% black). However Story County only had 89,000 inhabitants.

Washtenaw County, Michigan with both the University of Michigan and Eastern Michigan University was 7.9% Asian. I am actually a little surprised it was that low, but have to admit EMU which I attended did not have a disproprotionately high number of Asian students. Also the number is kept low because Arabs are counted as white. The Pacfic Islander percentages is Washtenaw county rounds to 0.0%. Native Americans are only 0.3%. Hispanic/Latino 4.0%. Blacks are 12.7%, which is very close to the national average. Non-Hispanic whites are 72.1%. However Washtenaw County only has 344,000 people, so the University impact is greater than in Utah County. Still BYU clearly has a much less African-American and Asian student body than UofM. I am guessing it might have a more Latino student body, but that is harder to say.

John Pack Lambert said...

Iron County, Utah (where Cedar City is) has experienced some growth. It grew over 60% in the 1990s and over 35% from 2000 to 2010. During these same times Washington County saw 86% and then 52% growth, so even bigger percentages. In 1930 Washington County had 7,420 people, so fewer than Millard County. In 2010 the population was 138,000.

Kane County, Utah saw 17% growth both in the 1990s and the next decade. Still that only put it to just over 7,000 people.

However it is Uintah County where Vernal is that might be the most under detected growth area in Utah. It had 9,035 people in 1930, so a little less than Millard County and as of 2015 had an estimated 37,000 people. Its 2010 to 2015 growth alone was 16%.

Also, Logan is not generally counted as part of the Wasatch Front and that area is also growing.

John Pack Lambert said...

Carbon County where Price is has no overwhelming decline trend. Its population fell about 4% from 2010 to 2015, but had risen about the same amount from 2000 to 2010. The population was 17,000 some odd in 1930 and was estimated at 20,000 some odd in 2015. From 1950 to 1970 the population essentially fell from 25,000 to 15,000 but since 1970 has gone up and down, but seems to have geneally been in the range of 20,000 to 22,000.

One finds a much different story in say Marion County, Kansas. This is what a place with constant population decline looks like. In 1930 there were 20,000 people. As of 2015 there were 12,000. Every single decade the population went down. Another example would be Edwards County Kansas that went from just over 7,000 people in 1930 to under 3,000 people in the most recent estimates.

John Pack Lambert said...

I have mainly known of cases of local part time missionaries here in Michigan.

Do local fulltime missionaries report to the regular mission president?

John Pack Lambert said...

I should have made it clear that I meant senior missionaries in all cases in my above statement.

James G. Stokes said...

I have missed the conversations on this blog. I have stepped away from this blog and its comments for personal reasons of late, but I have enjoyed what I have read. Dane, if you do not want others to call your posts for the blatant unrighteous nature by which they have been characterized, you might try exercising a bit of tolerance and understanding for those whose right to post what they know is no less significant than your right to make a nuisance and a bigot of yourself. As for me myself, I prefer to stay within the Lord's standards for attitude and behavior. And before speaking out in judgement against others, and speaking ill of them or their comments, I would urge you to evaluate your own motivations and attitude about those comments. The beam that is biggest is often seen in those who try to cast a mote out of their brother's eye, not realizing that the beam is much bigger than the mote.

That's all I will say on that subject. On more relevant matters, I have enjoyed hearing of the Church growth developments reported here. I cannot wait to hear official confirmation of the renovation for the Oakland temple, along with the many other temple renovations that are all most certain to come. I have greatly enjoyed this conversation, and I thank all who have contributed.

I also wanted to mention that I have done a number of blog posts personally, and urge any who may be interested to check out the latest posts of interest at the link below, and to leave any comments you might have for me there. In consideration of those who do not enjoy wading through lengthy comments I make. I don't want this one to run on much longer than that. Thanks again.

http://stokessoundsoff.blogspot.com

Eduardo said...

I have plenty and motes and beams in my eyes. But like the cursing GA, was it J. Golden Kimball? I repent really fast to receive some grace and peace of opprobrium from God.
Love the Gospel, thanks for knowledge and kind words.
What about the Molaccas in Indonesia?

ScottS said...

Eduardo,

It was J. Golden Kimball, one of the funniest General Authorities we have ever had. Two good quotes of his relating to what you mentioned:

“Cut me off from the Church? They can't do that! I repent do damn fast!”
“I may not always walk the straight and narrow, but I cross it as often as I can.”

*Fun fact: One of his General Conference talks was the first time a word was bleeped out over radio.

Ohhappydane33 said...

James: LOL, whatever dude. Such sanctimony from a person who has admitted on this very blog to surfing on the Internet while on the clock with his employer. BTW, proclaiming yourself a paragon of virtue while at the same time calling me names isn't exactly becoming behavior on such a righteous, temple worthy member such as yourself...

ScottS said...

In the words of Rodney King "Can't we all just get along" I hope I am not the only one old enough to remember/lived through that ordeal. If you have no interest in reading a comment, skip it. If you want to respond, respond politely. Dane obviously is not interested in the stats that JPL shares and has voiced it. There are many ways he could have stated his displeasure about what he sees in the group, but it does no good to call him out for the way he responded, just ignore it. Eventually he will grow tired of reading the posts and comments as well as the lack of response to his jabs and will just go away. We all have our faults, we all have our own pet peeves. Let's just use this forum to teach and uplift.

Eduardo said...

Yes, we are all imperfect.

About the Moluccas, as some spell them: I think there is a fair share of Christians and non-Muslims throughout the islands, unlike much of the rest of Indonesia.

I can't help but wonder if more of some luke-warm members had done full time missions we would be in so many more places now.

But alas, we are imperfect.

If I were a better member missionary, there would be a lot more members of the Church, arguably. But, no, we all fall short.

That is part of the beauty of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He makes up the difference, even in places like Irian Jaya.

James Anderson said...

I just downloaded and watched a video on what the Church is doing to help consultants, now called Temple and Family History Consultants, be much more effective. They said that members worldwide, if they did things more completely, could find half a billion ancestors collectively, we have not really hit more than about 200 million or so as far as the endowment is concerned. We didn't hit 100million total endowments until 1988 according to a Church News article I saw around thirty years ago.

Here is the link if anyone wants to download and view it, about a gig in size so on a slow connection it could take a half hour or so to download, but it is all worth it.

http://media2.ldscdn.org/assets/family-history/rootstech-2017-broadcast/2017-02-2110-life-just-got-easier-new-tools-for-family-history-helpers-720p-eng.mp4?download=true

Eduardo said...

Of course the internecine violence that has occurred there and other parts of the world like Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan,Libya, Yemen, Somalia, and dozens of other nations in the last decades, such as Congo (former Zaire) and a host of others.

The petty verbal spats and personal attacks on the blogosphere pale in comparison to real world conflicts and disparities.

I am convinced that living and espousing the eternal principles and truthes of God are the only solution, the only way to ultimate peace. And people nitpicking and slandering and libeling is simply an indication of how petty humanity can be, and we meanwhile we don't get off our duffs and do what is right, and we let people starve, wasting away in ignorance while we are fat, happy, and justly damned in our own myopic sins and waywardness.

Too bad. There is a better way. Serve the Lord. Build His Kingdom.

Look outside yourself and live.

Or perish.

James G. Stokes said...

That said, on more relevant matters, I would much rather get back to talking about the subject of this post and the other comments that have been so helpful, on topic, and insightful. And perhaps I never mentioned this on this thread as of yet, but, Matt, we appreciate your efforts and attention to detail. I personally recognize that you are only one person and can only operate on the information and reports you have. And in that sense, I don't think it's fair for anyone to say that you have misinformed anyone. You offered the needed clarification and corrections when you could, and that's enough for me. It should be enough for everyone. Thank you for mentioning these things. They continue the tradition of developments being reported by you, and your efforts are appreciated.

I also appreciate all others who have contributed in any way to the conversations on this thread. The insights and experiences shared have been inspiring. I hope that my comments, such as they have been, are not offensive or bothersome to anyone else. If they are, I apologize. Thanks to you all for contributing to my increasing understanding of Church growth and developments.

John Pack Lambert said...

Two new wards were created in the Cocody Ivory Coast Stake which is in the Abijan urban area. Another ward was formed in a stake in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, I dont remember the name exactly but it is sonewhere other yhan Kinshasa. Also one of the Oaxaca Meixico Stakes got a new ward. I may have misspelled the place in Mexico.

John Pack Lambert said...

A recent article in the BYUI scroll mentioned a student there who had baptized a Kurdish man from Iraq in Germany who had fled to Germany in the wake of ISIS's rise to power.

Eduardo said...

I apologize for any negativity that I may impart. It does upset me when millions of people suffer from hunger, flee from despotic regimes, and so many of the test of us feel like we don't need to give more (like serve missions or pay tithing, or look for more opportunities to spread good faith). We humans are not as effective as we should be at saving our brethren and sisters around the world. Some people see the LDS Church and its plans as the antagonist rather than the protagonist that we believe it to be. It's not perfect, no, but it's the best thing that I knoe of.
Part of the reason I love to see the growth indicated on a blog like this.
We have a ways to go: there are lots of youth and seniors who should go on missions, but they and God know the reasons why they don't. You reap what you sow.
I have lived in many US states and a few places across the globe, and those less valiant that nevet submitted papers to our apostles is saddening to me.
Because if more did, we would have a presence in perhaps 10,000 cities that have never had the priesthood. It's a shame. Places without Islam or dictatorships, even. 2017.
Anyway, always great to see the unit growth progressing globally.
The Lord has things set in His due course, whether we get on board or not.
I say: get on board.
Submit mission papers!
And if you can't, be a great example and don't excortiate the naysayers as much as I do.
Excentuate the positive and serve others, grow the kingdom.

Eduardo said...

Pardon the typos.😒

Jarvis said...

There will be a new district in the South west of Colombia. It was approved. The Ipiales district with three branches in Ipiales and one in Tulcan, Ecuador. This town is surrounded
by beautiful mountains and it is very cold there. Good progress in that area of the world.

John Pack Lambert said...

The new president of the Adriatic mission is a man from North Carolina born in Detroit, Michigan to a family of at least partial Greek descent. His wife is a native of Ann Arbor and her family names all sound English.

John Pack Lambert said...

The new president of the Adriatic mission is a man from North Carolina born in Detroit, Michigan to a family of at least partial Greek descent. His wife is a native of Ann Arbor and her family names all sound English.

John Pack Lambert said...

I dug abit further on family search. The new President of the Adriatic North emission all 4 of his grandparents were born in Greece but both sets got married in the United States.

John Pack Lambert said...

The new president of the Adriatic South Mission his mother was baptized avout 3 years before he was born but his father was never baptized.

The mission I served in is getting a mission president from Chatanoogs Tennessee who was born in Atlanta Georgia. The mission my older Brother Served in is getting a mission president from the Illinois who was also born in that state but whose wife was born in Provo. At first I was distracted by other things but I later noticed that this woman Sharmon Oaks Ward is the daughter of Dallin Harris Oaks and June Dixon Oaks. Since her husband is 64 I am guessing Sister Ward was born in Provo before Elder Oaks completed his undergrad degree and that she primarily was raised in Illinois.

John Pack Lambert said...

President Melonakos the new mission president for Adriatic North served as a missionary in Indonesia. He has been a bishop and stake president and is currently serving as a ward mission leader. He and his wife also served as missionaries in the New York New York North Mission.

President Ward, Elder Oaks son-in-law, has been an Area Seventy among other callings. I also learned that Elder Oaks late wife had the first name of Verda. I had always seen her referred to as June Dixon Oaks and not V. June Dixon Oaks.

BYULAW said...
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James G. Stokes said...

I find the information that John posts to be harmless and informative. I have not seen him "reveal" anything "private" about any individual that could not be easily accessible in the public domain. I don't see it as a gray area. I am always enlightened and inspired by John's comments. If they became problematic, I'm sure Matt would either block them or delete them. I am more than a little surprised that Matt has not yet blocked or deleted certain other comments posted by individuals that are not in keeping with the Spirit in which this blog was meant to operate. And I know that, in so saying, I may have shared stuff that is too personal about me or my situation on some of these posts in the past. But I am sure that those comments John has made do not fall into the category of invasion of privacy or would raise the likelihood of someone using such information for identity theft especially since the comments have been more about family history connections, relations to Church leaders, and native backgrounds. I have found nothing John has shared to violate any laws of which I am aware. But I will in the same breath admit that I know very little about legal matters and questions. If John feels confident in continuing to share what I view as appropriate and interesting information, I have no issues with him doing so. What he has done is the research for those of us that have been curious about such questions in the past. Well done, John!

James G. Stokes said...

My comment responding to Dane's second most recent comment that personally attacked me seems to have disappeared, so I will try again. I know that my doing so might provoke another attack, and that I might better serve the interests of the flow of this discussion to let it alone, but as he has once again personally attacked me, I feel a need to address that. I don't know about my being a "paragon of virtue". I will be the first to admit just how many faults I have. That said, I don't see how my surfing Church websites while I am on the clock at work is anyone's business but mine and my employer's. I only have been doing so with the knowledge and consent of my supervisors. As long as we were not streaming or on Facebook, since we had to keep ourselves busy during downtime, that was allowed.

That is, until recently. Many of my coworkers had abused the system, accessing YouTube. So they had to institute a strict policy against any non-work internet use. That's why I have not been as present on this blog as I previously have been known to be. But since it was sanctioned by my employers until work regulations changed, I don't see how that makes me any less honest in my dealings with my fellow man. If my supervisors were not concerned about that, then I am not either. I will miss the missionary opportunities that I had for the first little while under the previous regulations, though.

Additionally, though this is nobody else's business either, it so happens that the comments I have made this week have all been from home. I have spent the entire week in recovery from abruptly having to discontinue several medications I had been on for a while that were doing more harm than good. And for the last little while, ever since work regulations have changed, I have never once violated the new internet policy at work. I know others who have, but not me. And I have been commended for that.

As to the rest of the attack, I would say that only the hit bird flutters. You would not have been so likely to continue to attack me if there were not some element of truth in what I said about you. The fact that many on this blog defended my comments when you were critical of them indicates to me that the problem is likely more with you than with me.

We have all been repeatedly advised and admonished to be nice. And instead of learning from mistakes and not repeating them, the attacks are repeated, becoming more and more ridiculous and desperate as time goes on.

James G. Stokes said...

I recognize that I personally need to respect everyone who comments here. And I try my best to do so. If my insights, such as they have been, are appreciated by all but one, then it does not matter what that one may say.

In fact, if such attacks continue, coming from any person or source they may, that would be an even more clear indicator that there is more truth in the words I have said here than there might be in the wording of those attacks.

I grow tired of the constant reminders that have to come on this blog that we should be nice and respect each other's opinions and viewpoints. And I know that what I have said here could be construed as an attack on those who criticize others. I am sorry if that becomes the case. I prefer to respect everyone and give everyone the benefit of the doubt.

But when one blogger (or those who defend comments made by that blogger) does otherwise, then I feel called upon to let such people know that if they are wanting their comments to be respected, then they need to have the utmost respect for the rights of others to express their opinions.

And if they do not do so, it should come as no surprise to such people that their attacks on others are called into question and are criticized as well. If you would pull the supposed mote out of my eye, first you must cast the beam out of yours.

Let us all continue to be respectful of the relevant comments made here and kind towards those who regularly contribute to those discussions. If we could take the time wasted on responding to inappropriate, unkind, and impolite comments made by one or two people that only serve to attack regular and respected contributors to these discussions (such comments only serving to expose the character flaws and imperfections of those who make them), then a lot more time could be spent discussing the relevant issues.

That is what I always strive to do when commenting here. I hope we will all do so going forward. That is all I will say on that subject. Thanks. Now, back to topic!

BYULAW said...
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BYULAW said...
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David Todd said...

I must admit that I am becoming increasingly frustrated with the conversation within the comments of these posts. I had hoped that Matt would be going through and removing the posts that are personal attacks, but it is understandable that he may be too busy or feel that it is not his right to do so. For this reason and also because of the ever increasing number of comments on each of these posts making it hard to keep up in all of the different conversation topics and accessing older information, I have taken it upon myself to create a new forum for all who wish to discuss LDS Church Growth.

It is still a work in progress, but you can access it for free at ldsgrowth.proboards.com.

I will see what the response is like. If people have suggestions for me, I am happy to take them. If it doesn't seem like people are interested in utilizing this forum, then I won't be offended and will just stop using it. However, I hope that this can help to further our relevant discussion and be a source of joy for many of us, as this blog has been for me for several years. Thanks!

Eduardo said...

Yes, relevant comments. Part of the relevance of life, to me, is using knowledge to affect good and promote progress, which for me has every thing to do with the expansion of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, through it's power and influence, reflected in its membership.
Blog it.

Mike Johnson said...

I am excited that it looks like soon there will be a New Delhi India Stake.

ScottS said...

James,
I hope you were not thinking I was defending comments made by the one particular blogger, I don't. I am just encouraging the idea that if we ignore him he might go away. Or at a minimum to try not to sink to his level. That being said, I do love seeing the growth in the church. I am especially pleased to see the new greek mission president. Greece has such a small presence in the church due to the Greek Orthodox Church. It is a big part of the family and culture. My wife is Greek and while she was never very active in the Greek church there is still a little distance with the greek family because of her conversion. Regardless greeks are special to me, and not just because of the yummy food.

Eduardo said...

Speaking of Irian Jaya and the Moluccas, I see many units in Papua New Guinea for there not to be a temple there. How close are they? There is one district in the neighboring Solomon Islands, it seems.

A lot of lands and cities to cover, still. I see full time missionaries, more than ever, as the only way.

mrcuff said...

I was a Home Teacher to Jack and Sharma Ward when we were students at BYU.

James Anderson said...

A building was completed last fall in Kampong Chan (city and province) in Cambodia, they assembled a Youtube video about the construction. I spotted a typical high council room settup later in the video, although it could be a wardbranch/district council room now.

https://youtu.be/OWyK67SFjWE

Joseph said...

@ScottS

Another Roadblock maybe that of all the theologies I've examined Orthodoxy is has the least amount of difference from LDS theology. (see this podcast as a great introduction http://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/orthodoxyheterodoxy).

I also recommend the Book Catholic and Mormon (http://www.ldsliberty.org/review-catholic-and-mormon-by-webb-and-gaskill/). The Mormon contributor is a Convert from Orthodoxy.

John Pack Lambert said...

There is a member of my ward who was raised by his mother who was from a French-Canadian family and his Greek step-father, who I think had a brother who was a Greek Orthodox Priest. This man was born in New England, I think New Hampshire, but only spoke French the first few years of his life.

I know there are a large number of people of Greek descent in Utah. Has the Church made much progress among them. I almost want to say that one of Elder Nelson's sons-in-law is of Greek descent, but I may be confused.

John Pack Lambert said...

One thing I have learned about the American university system that is often under praised is it makes it possible for older students to enroll, although less so in the most elite universities. As of 2015 Tito Momen was a student at Utah Valley University.

Eduardo said...

Tito Momen? Who he?
Greeks are a tough lot. In my opinion they have have been corrupting the true order of God for at least 2500 years. But in the same vane, like Islam and other parellel religions to Judaism and Christ's true chosen prophets and anointed, they are like a salt or preserver for many important records and human traditions that in itself has a lot of historical value, for our collective family history, if you will. Sort of like the immense value of our personal histories and journals.
On that note, this blog and all our writings have value, and our words and desires will potentially condemn us, ad the holy scriptures testify to. At the dame time, we pray that our words, thoughts, and intents will uplift, inpire, and bless ourselves and others.
Article of Faith 13.
No temple for Papua New Guinea this year?

coachodeeps said...

Tito Momen: http://www.ldsliving.com/My-Name-Used-to-Be-Muhammad-One-Man-s-Journey-from-Muslim-to-Mormon/s/73825

Mike Johnson said...

James Anderson, it was very interesting watching the video of the new New Life Fellowship church being built in Kompong Cham City. The New Life Fellowship plans on planting hundreds of similar churches around Cambodia. This facility was built at a time when only about 20 people were attending the house church on the same site as this new facility.

The LDS Church likely would not build such a building with only 20 people in attendance at a branch.

Michael Worley said...

I get Mike Johnson's skepticism, but I'm confident the video is of an LDS Church building-- perhaps built for several uses, given how big it seems.

Kampong Cham has 3 branches, One of the photos at 5:17 is clearly LDS (Christ visiting the Nephites). Same with the First Vision photo at 5:21.

And the account name holder matches the name of a public affairs officer.

https://twitter.com/USEmbPhnomPenh/status/810789968943652864

https://www.ldsdaily.com/world/watch-lds-chapel-cambodia-built-start-finish/

So if this is a fake, its a good fake. Its probably a real Cambodia LDS building.

Michael Worley said...

Youtube might play a video about an NLF church after the one James A posted; maybe that's where Mike got confused?

Mike Johnson said...

I take it back. It is an LDS building.

It says so on the opening scene.

There are several other videos of what looks like the same church building describing its planning and construction that are put out by New Life Fellowship. Perhaps it is a matter simply of similar architecture in the same area.

That said, LDS Maps has the Kampong Cham Cambodia District and three branches (1st, 2nd, and 3rd) located in a building that looks like this building.

https://classic.lds.org/maps/#ll=11.994673,105.462152&z=19&m=google.satellite&layers=meetinghouse,temple,temple.announced,temple.construction,temple.renovated,stakecenter,ward,ward.cambodian,ward.cantonese,ward.chinese,ward.english,ward.fijian,ward.french,ward.german,ward.haitiancreole,ward.hmong,ward.japanese,ward.karen,ward.kiribati,ward.korean,ward.laotian,ward.mandarin,ward.marshallese,ward.malay,ward.nepali,ward.niuean,ward.portuguese,ward.russian,ward.samoan,ward.deaf,ward.slovak,ward.spanish,ward.swahili,ward.tagalog,ward.tongan,ward.vietnamese,ward.ysa,ward.spanishysa,ward.frenchysa,ward.tonganysa,ward.singleadult,ward.student,ward.studentsingle,ward.studentmarried,ward.military,ward.nativeamerican,ward.seasonal,stake,stake.english,stake.french,stake.spanish,stake.tongan,stake.ysa,stake.studentsingle,stake.studentmarried,stake.military,stake.vietnamese,mission,area&q=Kampong Cham&find=ward:368555

Mike Johnson said...

This building as scene on LDS maps is a lot bigger than the dimensions given for the New Life Fellowship building (20m by 7m). This building appears from LDS maps to be about 75m long and about 18 meters wide. So, I guess NLF building a building for a congregation of 20 makes sense with the size of their building.

James Anderson said...

This is also a different floor plan for an LDS building than many of us are used to. Notice the side entrance, and there only appears to be one main entrance. No classrooms on the sides of the chapel/cultural area (multipurpose), and curtains that can be closed when they want to show video or other matter on a projection screen and not have it washed out by the outside light,

Mike Johnson said...

According to the Missoula Montana Stake facebook page posting a picture of a letter from the stake presidency dated February 5, 2017, the stake is to be divided at stake conference on 26 February by Elders Devn Cornish and James Evanson of the Seventy.

I know we have talked about this division happening. But I don't think I saw a date mentioned.



We had a great stake conference (Stafford Virginia) yesterday and today--the first stake conference of our stake which is now 6 months old.

John Pack Lambert said...

Southfield Ward had another baptism, that brings it to 7 convert baptisms since I started going there at the start of November. All of them have been African-Americans.

I also today learned that the ward is more Hispanic than I realized. There was a man in the ward who returned from his mission in the last few months, and his parents and siblings are in the ward. Today I learned that his grandmother is from El Salvador. Well, technically I already knew she was from El Salvador, I just did not realize she was his grandmother.

John Pack Lambert said...

Tito Momen is the author of the book "My Name Used to be Muhammad". He was a native of Nigeria, who was raised Muslim and studied to be a Muslim cleric. While in Egypt he ended up joining the LDS Church and was imprisoned for 15 years largely as a result of this action. He then was freed and moved to Ghana, I believe in 2004. He later moved to the United States.

John Pack Lambert said...

I am guessing in the case of the Campong Cham Building, that the council room is where the district council meets. If that is the case I am hopeful that they are seriously working on becoming a stake. Considering the size of the chapel/cultural hall, I could see this building used as a stake center. However there are only 3 branches in the district, so it does not appear close to a stake. Although if the branches are on the large size they may be splittable to make enough wards.

coachodeeps said...

A great quote from the lesson today from President Hinckley:

The days of pioneering in the Church are still with us; they did not end with covered wagons and handcarts. … Pioneers are found among the missionaries who teach the gospel and they are found among the converts who come into the Church. It usually is difficult for each of them. It invariably involves sacrifice. It may involve persecution. But these are costs which are willingly borne, and the price that is paid is as real as was the price of those who crossed the plains in the great pioneering effort more than a century ago.

Eduardo said...

I give credit to long time members and multi-generational members as well, because towing the line of practicing doctrine and living the Gospel principles requires work and active choices and sacrifice by all.

Everyone has equal opportunity for falling away,so credit all for persevering.

And all, no matter who, who do little or big service for Christ and His retored faith are doing a yeoman's effort.

So, how can we send more missionaries, get more to go?

coachodeeps said...

Raise great young people with vibrant, solid testimonies.

coachodeeps said...

Those wards that successfully and consistently send out missionaries have a defined and deliberate plan to help the rising generation gain that vibrant testimony. They help the youth see the benefits of serving, have great examples of others who have served, and are anxiously involved in preparing them via the youth programs and Aaronic Priesthood and Going Women's organizations.

James Anderson said...

That is also the reason behind the new Doctrinal Mastery program in Seminary. Gone is memorization, but articulating the doctrines those same scriptures is what matters.

While not a major emphasis in Institute, nonmember university professors have noticed a big difference in hown well member students are doing now when presenting their positions on a topic or issue.

Gone are scripture chases and some similar activities, but the new program is going to have a huge impact in the short and long term,

Mike Johnson said...

I was in seminary in the 1970s. I remember the scripture mastery but then it wasn't about memorizing the scriptures but in understanding what was meant by them and how to find them. I don't remember ever memorizing them.

James Anderson said...

tion came later, unsure of when it did, but the change was announced onlya year ago.

Mike Johnson said...

A couple of possibilities. One is that methods go in cycles. Another is that how scripture mastery has been taught may depend on the instructors.

James Anderson said...

That is very true. The change was announced by Elder Ballard a year ago and it still is not consistent as some feel they don't quite understand what is meant by 'doctrinal mastery' so they have put out materials and videos, but still there is the 'what' and 'how' that some want to understand better.

Elder Ballard;s talk is from last February and is on seminary.lds.org

coachodeeps said...

I believe another important aspect is to help the parents understand how to best prepare their children and youth the skills, knowledge, and of course, testimony of the Gospel that is necessary to serving a successful mission. Often overlooked is the skill set of basic hygiene, cleaning, food preparation, personal finance and a few street smart ideas. Along with these are life skills such as hard work, dedication to an assignment, perseverance through difficulties, working well with others, good study habits, and other skills to help one be successful when on their own. These were invaluable skills I gained from the tutelage of my mother and father. Some I gained more insight from experiences provided through the Young Men's and Scouting programs, others through school, seminary, mission prep, and extracurricular activities. But, these were a supplement to what my parents taught me. They were a vital part of me being willing to serve, choosing to serve, serving and returning with honor. I was a much better prepared missionary because all pieces and people worked together and were invested in my success.

Fredrick said...

A new stake! This time in Ammon, Idaho.

And it looks like California may lose another stake.

John Pack Lambert said...

I am excited about the new stake in Ammon. In Boise area one stake was renamed from Meridian to Boise. In Salt Lake area the Brighton Stake had Salt Lake dropped from its name and now is the Cottonwood Heights Utah Brighton Stake. I am wondering if similar renames will be given to stakes in West Valley City and other areas not in Salt Lake City limits that currently use the Salt Lake name.

One of the things I miss most about the Church almanac was the lists of all stakes with 1st president and showing the name changes they have been through.

John Pack Lambert said...

Recently I was reading stats on inter-racial marriage. In the US Asian women with white husbands outnumber Asian men with white wives about 3 to 1 at least as of 2010. Yet as far as I know Elder Fong and his wife Susan are the only such multi-racial couple yet among the general authorities. A large number of the couples so involved came about because the husband was stationed in Asia with the US military. So if we limited our stats to only couples involving a US born Asian the figures might be different. I believe Elder Echo Hawks wife is white although I only know this because I knew a couple who had him as their stake president at BYU. My point there is race especially of spouses is not heavily covered in the Church News although with the case of the Gongs since Sister Gongs father was a general authority I would know it even if I had not personally know one of their sons. It also helps that something about Garrit Gong and his marriage was mentioned in the biography of David B. Haight published I think by Deseret Book.

So it may be that there has been a white general authority with an Asian wife that I do not know of but it would surprised me. There was Elder Whetten an Anglo general authority with a Latina wife but he was raised in Mexico and she in the US so it is confusing. The stats on Anglo/Latino intermarriage are harder to come by since the 2010 stats did not consider it at all. According to the 2008 community survey stats 41% of people in the US then who got married outside their race or ethnic group (the later only covering Hispanic and not Hispanic, thus missing lots of things most people would consider inter-ethnic like a Jew marrying an Anglo or an Arab marring the child of immigrants from Poland) 41% of such marriages involved a non-Hispanic white and a Hispanic. I think this would include a couple that met on line married in the Phillipines and then moved to the US immidiately but would under count couples where they met in Korea and married and didnt come to the US until a few years later.

On a different front Mia Love is the only black member of congress I know of with a white spouse (although this may be just because I know more of her than some others) but black men with white wives are more than twice as common as white man with black wives.

In 2010 only 0.3% of married white men in the US (or I think more so counted by the census, which I believe would include military stationed abroad, but does nit include LDS missionaries serving abroad not that this is a heavily married group, but I think it excludes most oversees US citizens). So just 0.3% of married white men had black wives. I think my stake had at least 2 such couples, and I doubt we had 2000 married white men in the stake, so we were above the norm. Actually in 2010 we may have had 3 couples that consisted of a white husband and a black wife. Maybe even 4 but the 4th probably the wife would have acknowledged both her black and white ancestry so she would have shown up under a different stat. Hmm, there was another couple but there the husband was half white half Asian so that would be under a different stat.

John Pack Lambert said...

I just realized I did the math wrong. 3 couples with a black wife and white husband would be normal if we had 1000 married white men. I would be surprised if we had that many though. It would in part depend on how many of our Hispanic men marked themselves as other than white.

John Pack Lambert said...

True there are many struggles to all. However I think new converts are one group who need extra strengthening. Another are single adults.

Thomas Jay Kemp said...

Elder Jacob de Jager described his family as “international”. He was born in The Hague, Netherlands - In Indonesia, “10,000 miles from home,” he met and married his wife, Bea Lim, who is Dutch-Chinese. Their son Robert Michael was born in Java and was the first missionary called to the new Jakarta Indonesia Mission in June 1975. Their daughter Audrey Inez was born in Toronto.

Ryan Searcy said...

Stumbled upon an article about an LDS man running for President of Kenya

http://www.ldssmile.com/2017/02/16/amram-musungu-mormon-running-president-kenya-officially-nominated-partys-official-nominee-president/?mc_cid=6dd6c4e8d6&mc_eid=1737c0dde9

ND Reynolds said...

On another topic--Your awesome LDS atlas could use a bit of updating--on this map https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?ll=40.985141573141156%2C-111.966476&spn=0.177529%2C0.363579&msa=0&mid=1B7rPTzA0eYSd0MXXXVh-b2pZJi8&z=11

Some of this territory in the north is covered by the Ogden UT mission. The rest is part of the Utah Salt Lake City Mission.

Mike Johnson said...

Yes, the northernmost stakes in Davis County covered by the Salt Lake City Mission are the Kaysville Utah, Kaysville Utah Central, and Kaysville Utah Crestwood stakes. The stakes just to the north, all with Layton in the names, are covered by Utah Ogden Mission.

The Utah Ogden Mission covers the following Davis County stakes:

Clearfield Utah North Stake
Clearfield Utah South Stake
Clinton Utah Stake
Clinton Utah North Stake
Clinton Utah West Stake
Layton Utah Stake
Layton Utah Creekside Stake
Layton Utah East Stake
Layton Utah Holmes Creek Stake
Layton Utah Kays Creek Stake
Layton Utah Layton Hills Stake
Layton Utah Legacy Stake
Layton Utah North Stake
Layton Utah Northridge Stake
Layton Utah South Stake
Layton Utah Valley View Stake
Layton Utah West Stake
Layton Utah YSA Stake
South Weber Utah Stake
Sunset Utah Stake
Syracuse Utah Stake
Syracuse Utah Bluff Stake
Syracuse Utah Lake View YSA Stake
Syracuse Utah Legacy Park Stake
Syracuse Utah South Stake
Syracuse Utah West Stake
West Bountiful Utah Stake
West Point Utah Stake
West Point Utah Lakeside Stake

The Salt Lake City Mission covers the following Davis County stakes:
Bountiful Utah Stake
Bountiful Utah Central Stake
Bountiful Utah East Stake
Bountiful Utah Heights Stake
Bountiful Utah Mueller Park Stake
Bountiful Utah North Stake
Bountiful Utah North Canyon Stake
Bountiful Utah Orchard Stake
Bountiful Utah South Stake
Bountiful Utah Stone Creek Stake
Bountiful Utah Val Verda Stake
Bountiful Utah YSA Stake
Centerville Utah Stake
Centerville Utah Canyon View Stake
Centerville Utah North Stake
Centerville Utah South Stake
Clearfield Utah Stake
Farmington Utah Stake
Farmington Utah North Stake
Farmington Utah Oakridge Stake
Farmington Utah South Stake
Farmington Utah West Stake
Fruit Heights Utah Stake
Kaysville Utah Stake
Kaysville Utah Central Stake
Kaysville Utah Crestwood Stake
Kaysville Utah Deseret Mill Stake
Kaysville Utah East Stake
Kaysville Utah Haight Creek Stake
Kaysville Utah South Stake
Kaysville Utah West Stake
North Salt Lake Utah Stake
North Salt Lake Utah Legacy Stake
North Salt Lake Utah Parkway Stake
Woods Cross Utah Stake
Woods Cross Utah North Stake

Cory said...

The new stake in Ammon Affected my home stake of Iona. The arrangement was rather bizarre. In the last stake realignment of the Idaho Falls area, nearly all of the buildings had wards belonging to the same stake. Now it is very disorganized. Plus the Iona 4th ward in the New Ammon Stake has really odd boundaries, making the new stake boundaries look very odd. But It's still great to have another stake.

James Anderson said...

The matter of stakes sharing buildings goes back to 1981 when the Church found that it was not always practical, especially in Salt Lake County, to put up a new building just so one stake could be housed in it. The arrangement is used now and again to keep things in order and keep everyone close to their meetinghouse.

coachodeeps said...

So if a Layton Temple were built, which of these Davis County Stakes would be assigned? (If the Temple is built in Kaysville, the boundaries would most likely be different.)

I would imagine all stakes in Layton and Syracuse north to the border of Weber County would be assigned to the Layton Temple, just as currently shown above for the mission boundaries. That would mean 29 stakes assigned to the Layton Temple and 36 stakes remaining in the Bountiful Temple District.

Our would they split it more evenly by taking a few stakes from the Kaysville/Fruit Heights area and assigning them to the Layton Temple?

coachodeeps said...

If the aligned the Latin Temple by the Davis/Weber county border as I purposed, that would take 16 stakes from the Ogden Temple District, leaving 46 stakes in the Ogden Temple District. Perhaps they would move the Morgan County Stakes to the Layton district and even some of the south-western Weber County Stakes to the Layton district, but I don't think that is reasonable.

coachodeeps said...

Layton not Latin

Unknown said...

I've long been somewhat pessimistic about a Layton temple. I think if a second temple in Davis County is built, it would be in the Kaysville/Syracuse area, perhaps near Antelope Drive. This would be close enough to Layton, but not so far north that it would cut too much out of Ogden.

To consider with a potential Layton/Ogden boundary is also whether the temple would be built in lower or upper Layton. Lower Layton would likely leave places like South Weber, Uintah and even Fruit Heights in the Ogden district, because both the temple and these mountainside-towns are located along US-89. If the temple was built in upper Layton, these towns would definitely be in the district, whereas places like Sunset, Clinton or West Point (all in Davis County) may stay with Ogden.

Even then, I would be at least a little worried about what would happen with Ogden, especially if northern Davis County is lost from its district entirely. Sure, places like Roy or North Ogden have a solid amount of members, but really, the Church is fairly weak in Ogden proper. The city itself may be 30% active LDS, with a lot of goodwill. That's not amazingly high for Utah.

Anonymous said...

I live in the Dallas, TX area and there's a running joke going around here that every time a new stake is created in Texas, a stake in California is discontinued.

John Pack Lambert said...

So Elder de Jager had aclearly partially Asian wife although she would be counted as part of the other category and not Asian because she is only partially Asian. He was a bishop in Salt Lake City after he was a general authority so he is probably American enough to count even though I am almost vertain he was dead by 2010. I believe Sister Frances Monson had a role in the de Jager's conversion while she was serving in Canada with her husband while he was mission president.

John Pack Lambert said...

Amram Munsunga used to be a member of theMormon Tabernacle Choir. He also was the president of the Swahili speaking branch in Salt Lake City for a time. I am assuming this is the same Amram Munsunga without having read the article to be sure.

John Pack Lambert said...

That is why my searches for Amram Musunga only turned up things like a comment I made on the DeseretNews website. I misspell his name a lot. I hope people forgive this error.

John Pack Lambert said...

When I served my mission in Las Vegas there was one ward that met outside of the mission boundaries. On the other hand for a while I was assigned to a ward that met at a building outside the stake boundaries but all wards there were in the same stake. Although it was only a quarter mile from the boundary.

John Pack Lambert said...

Fortunately that is not true. I am not sure California even lost one stake last year I dont think any more than one. It is more like every time a stake is formed in Nevada, Arizona or Texas there is a ward lost in California.

coachodeeps said...

Pascal, Antelope Drive is in Northern Layton and to the west is in Syracuse not Kaysville. Upper and lower I assume you are meaning east and west. I would doubt the temple will be built in the west due to the high water table.

Even so, most, if not all, of northern Davis County would be closer to a Layton Temple than Ogden.

Unknown said...

The possibility of there being more wards in Idaho than California may be soon. Idaho has 1068 wards and California has 1168 wards.

Ryan Searcy said...

Renovations of 2 temples were recently announced - Oakland (which many people already knew about) closes in February 2018, and Washington DC which closes in March 2018.

Ryan Searcy said...

Oakland expected to reopen in 2019 and Washington DC in 2020. It says both are having mechanical systems upgraded and "their finishes and furnishings will be refreshed." I wonder if Oakland might gain an Angel Moroni statue, as it is one of 10 temples that will not have an Angel Moroni.

James Anderson said...

Mormon Newsroom article.

http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/oakland-california-washington-dc-temples-close-renovation?__prclt=kVGtEHFh

Cory said...

Man, the temple department is on top of things, making plans way in advance. These closures are still a year away. The Idaho Falls renovation announcement was made about 3 months in advance while the Jordan River Temple was made 6 months in advance. The recent dedication announcements have also been been been very much in advance. Maybe the renovations are still in early stages of planning, but the news leaked out, prompting the early announcements.

James Anderson said...

News leaks are the case with Oakland, as I found that on facebook and posted it on another thread two weeks ago.

James Anderson said...

One other temple had its announcement upstaged by the newspaper in the city it was built in. The day before the Houston Temple was announced, the Houston Chronicle announced it, complete with rendering. I found it on their website between the morning and afternoon sessions of Conference the Saturday it was. It was announced at the Priesthood session that night, along with four others including Anchorage and Monticello.

Mike Johnson said...

Putting numbers behind John's response to our friend from Dallas:

In 2016, 8 Texas and 0 California stakes were created and 0 California stakes with discontinued.
In 2015, 1 Texas and 0 California stakes were created and 1 California stakes with discontinued.
In 2014, 4 Texas and 0 California stakes were created and 0 California stakes with discontinued.
In 2013, 1 Texas and 1 California stakes were created and 0 California stakes with discontinued.
In 2012, 2 Texas and 0 California stakes were created and 1 California stakes with discontinued.
In 2011, 0 Texas and 1 California stakes were created and 0 California stakes with discontinued.

Since 2011, California has lost 2 and gained 2 stakes. During that time, Texas has gained 16 stakes.

I chalk up the "joke" to standard Texas competitiveness with respect to the US state with the largest population.

ND Reynolds said...

Astounding--My mission has all of 8 stakes in it! Most of the convert baptisms occur in just two of them...but the other stakes do manage quite a bit of reactivation.
How do they manage to put so many stakes into one mission!

miro said...

@Mike Johnson

This blog has a listed 2 more stakes discontinued in California. One in 2011 and another in 2016.

2011 Escondido California South
2016 San Diego California Sweetwater

So California lost 2 stakes since 2011.

John Pack Lambert said...

My mission had 16 stakes. However 2 of them had only 1 set of missionaries. And in one of those cases the missionaries felt as if there was not enough work to do. On the other hand in my mission there was often not enough cooperation between missionaries and the local ward. In some wards there was an attitude by members that we were baptizing people who were too poor, and I guess a view these people just wanted Church welfare, and on the part of missionaries a view that these members rejected the teachings of Jesus on loving everyone and were not putting forth efforts at retention. It always amazed me how hard it was to get members to go up and say hi to an investigator. In my home ward the missionaries probably worry more about investigators being scarred of by feeling mobbed by people wanting to greet them. In some wards on my mission people were just not quick to be friendly to new comers.

Some wards were better than others. In Viewpoint Ward the bishop had stories about silencing the critics of the missionaries bringing the "wrong kind of" people by asking them why they were giving the missionaries low quality referals. This is the bishop who brought his neighbors out to ward activities, who set the baptismal goal at 46 because they had baptized 23 and President Hinckley said we could double baptisms, and who saw 2 recent converts get endowed in just one week. Retention and activity rates were still not as high in that ward as we wished, and one time I was on splits with a stake missionary who refused to go visit someone who had just been baptized, he also would not tell me why. In my home ward they succeed at integrating 13-year-olds baptized with non-member parents. In that ward they told us to stop doing that, even though the mother in that case was an inactive member not a non-member. People understood their own ward list so little that they did not know that fact. Still, it was not as full of defeatism as ome.

John Pack Lambert said...

Thabo Lebethoa, age 1, is the newly called president of the South Africa Cape Town Mission. He is from Soweto, South Africa. I am not sure, but this may be the first case of a black mission president in South Africa.

On the other hand watching the LDS Church History department videos on the Church in Soweto and on Julie Muvimbela I got the feel the Church has managed to truly reach out and incorporate black members in South Africa in a way that we are still struggling to here in Metro-Detroit at least.

At times I feel in Metro-Detroit African-American outreach is hurt by the influx of members from Utah, a state that is 1% black, and much of it much less. It also helps that the percentage of whites in South Africa is not much higher than of blacks in the US. We are talking 12.3% blacks in the US and maybe 15% whites in South Africa.

Beyond this, I think the notion of the Mormon Church as a particularly racist institutions has place in the African-American community in ways it does not have place in other black communities. It is also reinforced by the way the media covers many of the issue involved and the actions and rhetoric of many Evangelical Christians. The Phildelphia Inquierer for example ran an article on an Evangelical Christian missionary trying to spread the message of Mormon racism at the time of the Philadelphia Temple dedication, without trying to figure out how to square facts like the existence of former stake president now mission president Ahmad Corbett, or dealing with the fact it was Evangelical Christian ministers not Mormons who were vocal supporters of the KKK in the 1960s.

John Pack Lambert said...

I am not a big sports fan, but I liked this article on returned missionaries in college basketball. http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865673983/Two-sisters-at-SUU-a-walk-on-at-USU-and-other-returned-Mormon-missionaries-in-college-basketball.html

OK, I mainly liked it because the two main people covered, a set of siters playing at SUU, are African-American. It makes me think I am at times too pessimistic and LDS outreach to African-Americans is picking up. The same I feel in Southfield Ward, until I read the ward list and realize we have people with first names like Tamika who never show up. True, there are white people who never show up, but the active members seem to be mainly congregated in the north and west of the ward, in places that are 7% and in one case only 3% African-American. The area and population of the ward is mainly in areas like Southfield that is 71% African-American, or in the part of Detroit in the ward, which is over 90% African-American. The activity rates in those areas are much lower. Of course the fact that every Hispanic in the ward is from a family that is part white means the ward can not be summed up in quick terms. Half the deacons in the ward have Malian fathers and white mothers, although that is because there are two deacons. The most interesting family is the one where the mom is Mexican but with adopted American parents (who also live in the ward, both case they live in Lathrup Village, which is over 60% African-American), the Dad is as white as the day is long, and besides their three children, two of whom look Mexican, they have a black and a white foster child.

On the other hand, there is only one active married couple that is black. All the other African-Americans, including the member of the bishopric who is African-American, are either single or have non-member spouses, or maybe in a few cases the whole family never comes.

The white/black spatial distinction is not as stark as in Belle Isle branch though. There all the acitive white members live in the Grosse Pointes, while all except for one active black members live in Detroit. In Southfield Ward there are at least two at least marginally active white members in Detroit, and Oak Park and Southfield have no clear lines in them between white and black residents. In Southfield itself you have a white couple who had several children, the youngest right around my age, who have persisted in the same place as it has gone from almost all white to vast majority black.

Belle Isle branch I don't think had any members who had stuck in the same place that long, and none who had stuck in a place as it became black.

The black member of the bishopric lives in Oak Park, a majority black that is maybe 5 square miles in area. There is also at least one very active white couple that lives there.

John Pack Lambert said...

Per this South Africa LDS Newsroom article http://www.mormonnewsroom.co.za/article/soweto-born-thabo-lebethoa-to-become-cape-town-mission-president Lebethoa is the 1st black South African to be called as mission president in South Africa. Jackson Mkabela is mission president in Zimbabwe. He previously was an Area 70 and his wife Dorah was a member of the Young Women General Board. Trevor T. Keyes will be a new mission president in the Ghana Accra Mission. His race is not mentioned.

John Pack Lambert said...

It took a little searching, but I figured out Trevor Keyes is white. I am not surprised that the newsroom article downplayed mentioning his race. When he was released from being in the Bedfordview Stake Presidency a few years ago back when Elder Mkabela was an area seventy, at least the new stake president and one of the counselors were black. Here in my stake, which takes in over half of the city of Detroit and has a population that is probably at least 25% but more likely a third black, only 1 member of the high council at present is black. It has been higher at times in the past. There are some recently returned missionary black men in the stake who give me much hope for the progress of the Church, although many go away to BYU or BYU-Idaho and we never see them again.

Mike Johnson said...

miro, thanks. I copied the list of stakes and districts into excel and excel only highlighted to California stakes being discontinued. I should have double checked it before posting.

Still, reality is far from the joke.

Mike Johnson said...

>>>I am not surprised that the newsroom article downplayed mentioning his race.

John, Church newsroom articles rarely mention anybody's race, because that is rarely a factor considered in extending calls.

John Pack Lambert said...

The article mentioned that Thabo Lebethoa was the first black South African called as a mission president in South Africa so that very article did mention President Lebethoa's race.

John Pack Lambert said...

This article http://www.nzherald.co.nz/northern-advocate/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503450&objectid=11802802 makes me want to see pictures of these three missionaries from South Africa and Brazil. It is possible 1, 2 or even all three missionaries were black. That makes me wonder if racism played into this incident. I am glad the missionaries were not injured.

John Pack Lambert said...

At our stake conference the mission president spoke of some missionaries who had learned a little Turkish so they could teach a family that they just baptized.

Mike Johnson said...

John, thank you. Yes, the Church will mention some things when they are "firsts." I suspect the first black apostle will be mentioned as such. But, I don't think race goes into the decision and rarely mentions race for most calls that are published. We are all children of our father in heaven and he loves all of us.

I appreciate your love for the Church throughout the world.

James G. Stokes said...

I can think of one other temple announcement that was leaked by the media before it became official. That temple is Paris France. In July of 2011, a French newspaper leaked information about that temple. Once the Church learned of the leak, a statement was released on behalf of President Monson to the effect that the Church was looking at the possibility. That statement was released on July 15. President Monson made it official at the following General Conference in October. Interestingly enough, the Paris France temple is the only other temple besides the one in Tokyo Japan that had construction commence without a formal groundbreaking. This was done so as not to draw attention and potential opposition from those French citizens that were hostile to the idea. I can understand that desire completely. And now that temple will be dedicated in just over two months. I have loved the country of France and the French language for as long as I can remember. If I had been able to serve a proselyting mission outside the United States, I would have wanted it to be in France. I have been hoping for a temple in France for a while, but never believed it would happen in my lifetime. And now it will be a reality. I look forward to hearing how the temple will bless the lives of the people of France, both in and out of the Church. Thanks for reading this. Hope it proves helpful or inspirational to someone.