Click here to access our January 2019 Newsletter for cumorah.com. Also, we have completed most of the upgrades to cumorah.com although the International Atlas using Google Maps is still under construction. Enjoy!
Great report, as always, Matt! Thanks to you and to David Stewart for all you both do to promote and increase understanding about Church growth topics. We have surely seen in clear abundance that the Lord is fulfilling His promise to "hasten [His] work in its' time." And thank you as well for your tireless efforts to improve the way that data is collected and reported. If January is any indication of what we can expect for February, then we are likely in for yet another unprecedented year in terms of all reported developments.
In that regard, with the groundbreakings for the Pocatello Idaho and Yigo Guam Temples announced earlier today, by May 5, 5 temples will have had a groundbreaking in 2019 so far. But I have on good authority that we may see other temple groundbreakings occur before the end of June. In addition to that, there are many others which could have a groundbreaking within the second half of the year as well. So it appears that one big goal of the Church for 2019 is to continue to work on clearing the queue of announced temples and preparing to accommodate the announcement of several others. I look forward to seeing all of that unfold.
Having noted that, for any who are interested (along with my apologies to those who are not, and who may be annoyed by my doing so), I would like to thank Matt for continuing to allow me to share the address of my blog in these threads. I have covered quite a bit of Church news and several temple developments. Just today alone, the amount of information I needed to cover was spread throughout four new blog posts. The address of my blog follows below, and I welcome any and all feedback and thoughts any of you might have.
http://stokessoundsoff.blogspot.com/
My thanks again to Matt and to all the rest of you for all you do to increase my understanding of the topics covered here in Matt's blog posts and in the resulting comment threads about that content.
Quick reminder, On Jan 16th it was reported the Pierre South Dakota District was merged (closed) with nearby Stakes.
So you can make addendum correction to the January 2019 Monthly Cumorah Newsletter reported here. In Newsletter, states "No Stakes or Districts closed".
On the last post there was some good discussion in the comments about the new Ordinances Ready tool. Starting in December the temple started sending an email through FamilySearch when an ordinance was completed. An email is not sent when an ordinance is completed that is shared with the temple. Does anyone know if there is a way to have that happen or if that will be changed as part of the revisions coming to this tool? I would like to know when names that I share with the temple have ordinances completed and as of right now that only happens with the names that are not shared.
Congregational growth in January + 25 W&B; + 23 wards + 2 branches Africa + 1 stake + 3 districts + 15 W&B; + 11 W + 4 B US + 2 stakes - 1 district + 8 W&B; + 11 W - 3 B; UT + 2 stakes + 4 W + 0 B; South Dakota - 1 district South America + 8 W&B; + 9 W - 1 B Asia, Central America, Europe, and Pacific (combined) - 6 W&B; - 8 W + 2 B
Another correction: Nigeria had 1 new stake and 1 new district in January, in addition to the 7 new wards and branches. The new stake was created in January but only appeared in the CDOL today.
I don't know if someone already made note of this (or if it's common knowledge), but there has been interesting developments in Provo fairly recently. BYU acquired and has now taken control of the old Provo high school property (They rented it to the high school district for two years, in which time they were able to build a new high school.) Also, buildings being built and renovated on campus (for educational purposes) is a common occurrence.
Interesting information, Tyler! Thanks for passing it along. Do you know whether or not BYU has specified what that land will be used for? I suppose it could be student housing, campus space, or something else. I ask because I hadn't heard that development reported, AFAIK. Thanks.
Nothing yet on the old high school. When the Provo School District sold it BYU didn't even know so since the new high school was under construction BYU let them finish out and that at no cost to the district. The high school moved last August.
BYU will be do heavy renovation (or maybe reconstruction, I don't quite remember that detail) for the Fine Arts Building. While that building is under construction, the classes normally held there will be relocated to other campus buildings. Provo High School will be used to help house some of those temporarily displaced classes.
During most of the hype over Provo High School and what BYUs plans were, the university released a statement saying that the university currently did not have any plans to increase its footprint in the city.
(BYU has been doing a lot of new construction since 2010 ish. There were and are still a lot of very old buildings that have fallen into disrepair. The worst currently are old maintanence buildings.)
More recently, BYU was going to demolish the old Amanda Knight building and build a new university building. Do to public upset about the building, BYU is trying to find a buyer that would be willing to reno it and keep the historic features. If a buyer cannot be found, then BYU will continue with it's plans.
Another old building that is about to be demolished and rebuilt (the faculty building) https://www.deseretnews.com/article/900042465/byu-to-replace-faculty-office-building-with-new-facility.html
Amanda Knight Hall link https://universe.byu.edu/2019/01/31/amanda-knight-hall-up-for-sale-and-renovation-1/
As far as the Family Search emails for completing ordinances is concerned, I was only receiving them for sealing to parents that I did myself (and not even for sealing to spouses).
Were you receiving them for endowments or other ordinances you did yourself?
I agree that it would be nice to get those emails for all ordinances completed, including the ones submitted to the Temple System online.
Another interesting article about BYU buildings (albeit a year old): https://universe.byu.edu/2018/02/26/student-challenges-lack-womens-representation-byu-statues-buildings/
The article fails to specifically mention the old Heritage Halls dorms, though, which were all named for women. There were two dozen of them and I lived in Broadbent Hall as a freshman and sophomore.
FamilySearch now puts something in your 'messages' area when you or someone else completes an ordinance on a card you printed out. The feature deployed about very late December last year so it will start showing up in your 'messages' area as of and since then.
The University of Utah has been doing a lot renovation and/or building entirely new buildings as well throughout campus and the hospital the past several years. Much of it is the same, old buildings that are falling into disrepair and are not seismically safe. Not a comfortable feeling when one of my geology professors tells us that many of the buildings throughout campus are a potential death trap in the event of a major earthquake (part of the fault line even runs directly under campus). One of my classes this semester is in a brand new building that opened last fall. The geography professor of that class told us on one of the first days that "he is happy to finally be teaching in a building that he feels safe in and won't fall in an earthquake".
Man, Cote d'Ivoire District - 2125412 (confirmed on Classic LDS Maps) not sure of the date of creation. Branches include the Man Branch, Grand Gbapleu Branch, Doyaguine Branch, and the Logouale Branch
@ Jonathan Whiting, That was an interesting article.
All of the old heritage halls buildings were torn down a few years ago and now are only named with numbers (eliminating those female named buildings). I would definitely agree that there is a lack of women represented in buildings and statues at BYU. (And one of the 3 buildings that are named for a woman will most likely be demolished.)
I would also point out that if you look at housing pamphlets and other resources, everything looks very white American for the most part. I wish their marketing department and other leaders would do a better job representing diverse groups.
That may remain to be seen, Eduardo. But based on what we have heard regarding the future of the temple program (with Matt having reported earlier that the Africa West Area is anticipated to go from 2 temples currently in operation (with 1 each now under construction and announced) for a total of 4 to at least 13 total by sometime in 2030. The idea that West Africa will likely have more than a threefold increase in that number within 11 years from now represents to me an indication that the growth of the Church in Africa is anticipated to be significant. With that in mind, it seems probable that at least 1/4 of Church growth will occur in Africa, with 1/4 in South America, and the other 1/2 of Church growth occurring elsewhere. But I offer that opinion as someone who is no expert on that subject. The Lord seems to be very much aware of the African Saints, and is prospering the work of the Church in that entire continent. Further evidence of that is the suggestion Matt ventured a while ago regarding the idea that the Church could create an Africa Central Area in the near future, if growth in the region continues the way it has recently.
Gboko where the new district in Nigeria was formed is a growing city of about 500,000. Itis the traditional headquarters of the Tiv people, who number about 7 million. The population is about 6% Muslim, but how much of the remainder is Christian as opposed to Animist I cannot tell.
25 comments:
Great report, as always, Matt! Thanks to you and to David Stewart for all you both do to promote and increase understanding about Church growth topics. We have surely seen in clear abundance that the Lord is fulfilling His promise to "hasten [His] work in its' time." And thank you as well for your tireless efforts to improve the way that data is collected and reported. If January is any indication of what we can expect for February, then we are likely in for yet another unprecedented year in terms of all reported developments.
In that regard, with the groundbreakings for the Pocatello Idaho and Yigo Guam Temples announced earlier today, by May 5, 5 temples will have had a groundbreaking in 2019 so far. But I have on good authority that we may see other temple groundbreakings occur before the end of June. In addition to that, there are many others which could have a groundbreaking within the second half of the year as well. So it appears that one big goal of the Church for 2019 is to continue to work on clearing the queue of announced temples and preparing to accommodate the announcement of several others. I look forward to seeing all of that unfold.
Having noted that, for any who are interested (along with my apologies to those who are not, and who may be annoyed by my doing so), I would like to thank Matt for continuing to allow me to share the address of my blog in these threads. I have covered quite a bit of Church news and several temple developments. Just today alone, the amount of information I needed to cover was spread throughout four new blog posts. The address of my blog follows below, and I welcome any and all feedback and thoughts any of you might have.
http://stokessoundsoff.blogspot.com/
My thanks again to Matt and to all the rest of you for all you do to increase my understanding of the topics covered here in Matt's blog posts and in the resulting comment threads about that content.
Matt,
Quick reminder, On Jan 16th it was reported the Pierre South Dakota District was merged (closed) with nearby Stakes.
So you can make addendum correction to the January 2019 Monthly Cumorah Newsletter reported here. In Newsletter, states "No Stakes or Districts closed".
Thank you.
On the last post there was some good discussion in the comments about the new Ordinances Ready tool. Starting in December the temple started sending an email through FamilySearch when an ordinance was completed. An email is not sent when an ordinance is completed that is shared with the temple. Does anyone know if there is a way to have that happen or if that will be changed as part of the revisions coming to this tool? I would like to know when names that I share with the temple have ordinances completed and as of right now that only happens with the names that are not shared.
Congregational growth in January + 25 W&B; + 23 wards + 2 branches
Africa + 1 stake + 3 districts + 15 W&B; + 11 W + 4 B
US + 2 stakes - 1 district + 8 W&B; + 11 W - 3 B; UT + 2 stakes + 4 W + 0 B; South
Dakota - 1 district
South America + 8 W&B; + 9 W - 1 B
Asia, Central America, Europe, and Pacific (combined) - 6 W&B; - 8 W + 2 B
Correction: Africa had 4 new districts in January.
At an annualized rate of 300 new W&B and 72 net new stakes and districts, January's growth represents a significant increase from 2018.
Ray, what was Nigeria in January?
In January Nigeria had one new district and 7 new wards and branches (4W, 3B).
Another correction: Nigeria had 1 new stake and 1 new district in January, in addition to the 7 new wards and branches. The new stake was created in January but only appeared in the CDOL today.
So Nigeria in January had 1/3 of the new stakes and districts and almost 1/3 of the wards and branches, with only 1% of total Church membership.
I don't know if someone already made note of this (or if it's common knowledge), but there has been interesting developments in Provo fairly recently. BYU acquired and has now taken control of the old Provo high school property (They rented it to the high school district for two years, in which time they were able to build a new high school.) Also, buildings being built and renovated on campus (for educational purposes) is a common occurrence.
Interesting information, Tyler! Thanks for passing it along. Do you know whether or not BYU has specified what that land will be used for? I suppose it could be student housing, campus space, or something else. I ask because I hadn't heard that development reported, AFAIK. Thanks.
Nothing yet on the old high school. When the Provo School District sold it BYU didn't even know so since the new high school was under construction BYU let them finish out and that at no cost to the district. The high school moved last August.
BYU will be do heavy renovation (or maybe reconstruction, I don't quite remember that detail) for the Fine Arts Building. While that building is under construction, the classes normally held there will be relocated to other campus buildings. Provo High School will be used to help house some of those temporarily displaced classes.
During most of the hype over Provo High School and what BYUs plans were, the university released a statement saying that the university currently did not have any plans to increase its footprint in the city.
(BYU has been doing a lot of new construction since 2010 ish. There were and are still a lot of very old buildings that have fallen into disrepair. The worst currently are old maintanence buildings.)
More recently, BYU was going to demolish the old Amanda Knight building and build a new university building. Do to public upset about the building, BYU is trying to find a buyer that would be willing to reno it and keep the historic features. If a buyer cannot be found, then BYU will continue with it's plans.
Another old building that is about to be demolished and rebuilt (the faculty building)
https://www.deseretnews.com/article/900042465/byu-to-replace-faculty-office-building-with-new-facility.html
Amanda Knight Hall link
https://universe.byu.edu/2019/01/31/amanda-knight-hall-up-for-sale-and-renovation-1/
@Unknown
As far as the Family Search emails for completing ordinances is concerned, I was only receiving them for sealing to parents that I did myself (and not even for sealing to spouses).
Were you receiving them for endowments or other ordinances you did yourself?
I agree that it would be nice to get those emails for all ordinances completed, including the ones submitted to the Temple System online.
Another interesting article about BYU buildings (albeit a year old): https://universe.byu.edu/2018/02/26/student-challenges-lack-womens-representation-byu-statues-buildings/
The article fails to specifically mention the old Heritage Halls dorms, though, which were all named for women. There were two dozen of them and I lived in Broadbent Hall as a freshman and sophomore.
FamilySearch now puts something in your 'messages' area when you or someone else completes an ordinance on a card you printed out. The feature deployed about very late December last year so it will start showing up in your 'messages' area as of and since then.
The University of Utah has been doing a lot renovation and/or building entirely new buildings as well throughout campus and the hospital the past several years. Much of it is the same, old buildings that are falling into disrepair and are not seismically safe. Not a comfortable feeling when one of my geology professors tells us that many of the buildings throughout campus are a potential death trap in the event of a major earthquake (part of the fault line even runs directly under campus). One of my classes this semester is in a brand new building that opened last fall. The geography professor of that class told us on one of the first days that "he is happy to finally be teaching in a building that he feels safe in and won't fall in an earthquake".
Man, Cote d'Ivoire District - 2125412 (confirmed on Classic LDS Maps) not sure of the date of creation.
Branches include the Man Branch, Grand Gbapleu Branch, Doyaguine Branch, and the Logouale Branch
Unconfirmed is the Owerri North Stake
@James Anderson
Thanks for the heads up on the Family Search messages. I'll check for them.
@ Jonathan Whiting, That was an interesting article.
All of the old heritage halls buildings were torn down a few years ago and now are only named with numbers (eliminating those female named buildings). I would definitely agree that there is a lack of women represented in buildings and statues at BYU. (And one of the 3 buildings that are named for a woman will most likely be demolished.)
I would also point out that if you look at housing pamphlets and other resources, everything looks very white American for the most part. I wish their marketing department and other leaders would do a better job representing diverse groups.
Will Africa writ large represent a 1/3 or more of Church growth in 2019?
That may remain to be seen, Eduardo. But based on what we have heard regarding the future of the temple program (with Matt having reported earlier that the Africa West Area is anticipated to go from 2 temples currently in operation (with 1 each now under construction and announced) for a total of 4 to at least 13 total by sometime in 2030. The idea that West Africa will likely have more than a threefold increase in that number within 11 years from now represents to me an indication that the growth of the Church in Africa is anticipated to be significant. With that in mind, it seems probable that at least 1/4 of Church growth will occur in Africa, with 1/4 in South America, and the other 1/2 of Church growth occurring elsewhere. But I offer that opinion as someone who is no expert on that subject. The Lord seems to be very much aware of the African Saints, and is prospering the work of the Church in that entire continent. Further evidence of that is the suggestion Matt ventured a while ago regarding the idea that the Church could create an Africa Central Area in the near future, if growth in the region continues the way it has recently.
Gboko where the new district in Nigeria was formed is a growing city of about 500,000. Itis the traditional headquarters of the Tiv people, who number about 7 million. The population is about 6% Muslim, but how much of the remainder is Christian as opposed to Animist I cannot tell.
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