Sunday, October 20, 2019

New Stakes Created in Alabama, Australia, Brazil, DR Congo, Mozambique, and Peru

Alabama
The Church organized a new stake in Alabama on September 22nd. The Gadsden Alabama Stake was organized from a division of the Birmingham Alabama Stake and the Madison Alabama Stake. The new stake includes the following six wards and two branches: the Anniston, Attalla, Gadsden, Guntersville, Leeds, and Trussville Wards, and the Locust Fork and Talladega Branches. The new stake is the Church's eighth stake to be created in Alabama, where the first stake was organized in 1968. Prior to the creation of the Gadsden Alabama Stake, the last time a new stake was organized in Alabama was in Madison in 2011.

Australia
The Church organized a new stake today in rural Victoria and New South Wales. The Wangaratta Australia District was organized into the Riverena Australia Stake. The former district had eight branches, and most of these branches have appeared to become wards. Australian members report that this is the first "rural" stake to be organized in Australia as there are no cities within the boundaries of the new stake that appear to have more than 100,000 inhabitants. However, the Devonport Australia Stake in Tasmania also does not have any cities with more than 100,000 people within its boundaries. The Wangaratta Australia District was one of the oldest districts in the worldwide Church, as the district was originally organized in 1890.

There are now 42 stakes and 7 districts in Australia.

Brazil
The Church organized a new stake in Sao Paulo State on October 13th. The Piracicaba Brazil Rezende Stake was organized from a division of the Piracicaba Brazil Stake and the Rio Claro Brazil Stake. The new stake includes the following seven wards: the Limeira, Nova Itália, Parque das Nações, Piracicaba 2nd, Piracicaba 4th, São Pedro, and Vila Sônia Wards. The new stake includes wards based in three cities: Limeira (3), Piracicaba (3), and São Pedro (1).

There are now 276 stakes and 39 districts in Brazil.

DR Congo
The Church organized a new stake in the DR Congo on September 22nd. The Kolwezi Democratic Republic of the Congo Stake was organized from the Kolwezi Democratic Republic of the Congo District. All seven branches in the former district were organized into wards. The seven wards in the new stake are the Dilala, Diur, Kasulo, Kolwezi 1st, Kolwezi 2nd, Manika, and Mutoshi Wards. The Church organized the Kolwezi Democratic Republic of the Congo District in 1991 as Kolwezi was one of the first cities in the DR Congo to have a Church presence established. However, political instability and war resulted in significant setbacks for the Church as many members moved to more stable areas of the country in the late 1990s and 2000s. The Church has since experienced steady growth in Kolwezi for approximately the past 5-6 years.

There are now 22 stakes and 1 district in the DR Congo. The lack of districts in the DR Congo is indicative of the Church's very conservative "centers of strength" model being implemented, as well as high member activity rates in cities with a Church presence that has permitted the rapid organization of stakes in most areas with adequate numbers of congregations and members. Nevertheless, several additional districts appear likely to be organized in the near future in Fungurume, Kisangani, Matadi, and Uvira.

Mozambique
The Church organized a new stake in the Maputo metropolitan area on September 22nd. The Matola Mozambique Stake was organized from a division of the Maputo Mozambique Stake. The new stake includes the following five wards and one branch: the Liberdade, Matola, Mozal, Ndlavela, and T-3 Wards, and the Beluluane Branch. The new stake is the Church's second stake in the Maputo metropolitan area, and the Church's fourth stake in Mozambique. The Church organized its first stake in Mozambique in Maputo in February 2015.

There are now four stakes and one district in Mozambique.

Peru
The Church organized a new stake in Lambayeque Region on October 13th. The Chiclayo Perú Federico Villarreal Stake was organized from the Chiclayo Peru Stake, Chiclayo Peru Central Stake, Chiclayo Peru El Dorado Stake, and the Chiclayo Peru Latina Stake. The new stake includes the following five wards: the Chiclayo Central 1st, Federico Villarreal, Los Artesanos, Moshoqueque, and Santa Victoria Wards. Chiclayo is Peru's fourth most populous city with approximately 600,000 inhabitants. There are now seven stakes in the greater Chiclayo metropolitan area. Chiclayo is the most populous city, and the city with the most stakes in Peru, without a temple.

There are now 111 stakes and 18 districts in Peru.

32 comments:

Chris D. said...

@Matt, Here is a copy of the Riverina Australia Stake invitation sent to the Bendigo Ward that you mentioned previously with the correct spelling :

"Bendigo Ward - The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
October 5 at 8:29 PM ·
(Letter from the Wangaratta District Presidency)

The Wangaratta District of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints wish to invite you to a special conference on the 19th and 20th of October, 2019, in Finley NSW.

This will be a historic gathering of the Saints, as the Wangaratta Australia District becomes the Riverina Australia Stake.

Presiding over the conference will be Elder Kazuhiko Yamashita, General Authority Seventy, with Elder Daniel G. Hamilton, Pacific Area Seventy, in attendance.

The Wangaratta District of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is the oldest district in the world, existing since 1890, and will become the first rural stake in Australia. The geographical location of the new stake will cover an area in excess of 170,000 square kilometres, highlighting the unique dedication of members within its boundaries as they travel and serve.

With the organisation of the Riverina Australia Stake, the new stake centre will be located in Finley NSW. This will become the most central location to all wards and branches within the stake.

We hope you will join us for this event.

Sincerely, Wangaratta District Presidency"

https://www.facebook.com/BendigoLDSWard/?__tn__=%2Cd%2CP-R&eid=ARAz8zdrXdx3F2ULE-vfX2Ca_PJa2PhzmSZxyEBtjVLRbLuNfTZzcZiNshRwbDPD7wCjCyCo_HPQOEdO

John Pack Lambert said...

The US became majority urban in 1920, with urban defined as any place over 2,500 inhabitants. I alwasy hesitate to use rural to refer to places with anywhere near 100,000 inhabitants.

So there may or may not be a cut off that makes Riverina Australia Stake rural but Hobart not at all. I just have to admit I am hesitant about some of the terms being thrown around.

Today at my branch one of the speakers told of how his father first learned of the Church while in prison.

We will have a broadcast devotional with President Ballard and Elder Christopherson as speaker s today at 4pm. Also President Ballard will be a speaker at my stake's take conference in two weeks. This will be our third stake conference of the year.

John Pack Lambert said...

With a new mission in the DR Congo and some outreach to unreached areas with new branches, more districts appear to be in the near future. The Church has grown much in Congo, but we have not yet really more than scatched the surface. The Church has a deeper foundation in villages in Nigeria, although superficially Congo looks to be more broadly reached by the Church.

The north-east of Congo remains virtually unreached. That area has been plagued by war and division and also at times suffered heavily from disease.

I would not be surprised if by 2030 there are two more temples in Congo. Lumbumbashi and Mbaye-Maji are the top two potential sites.

Chiclayo is to me the top contender for a temple in Peru, although I see logistics of travel strong for Iquitos. Both places are top on my list for temples to be announced next April. So is Benin City, Nigeria.

So remains Lumbumbashi, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Come to think of it, is there any other area of the Church that has not had a temple announced under President Nelson than the Africa Southeast Area?

Let me see. Oacific Area has had 3 temples announced. Asia has had 2 temples announced. Phillipines has had 2 announced. Asia North has had 2 temple announced. Europe East has had 1 temple announced. Europe has had 2 temples announced (although one, Cape Verde, is not technically in Europe). Africa West has had 2 temple announced. South America South has had2 temples announced. Brazil Area has had at least Salvador announced, I forget if Brazilia was President Monson or President Nelson.

Actually I am not sure President Nelson has announced any temples for North America Northwest Area. Both the Lima Peru Los Olivos and the Quito Ecuador Temple were announced by President Monson. This fact makes me think even more tha Chiclayo is a top contender for a new temple. Mexico has had one temple announced. Central America has had three temples announced. The Caribbean has had 1 announced. The North America Southeast Area has had no temples announced. North Amerca Southwest Area has had 2 temples announced, both at the most recent general conference. North America West Area has had 2 temples announced. Utah Area has had 5 temples announced by President Nelson if I am counting right. North America Central Area has also had no temple announced, although unlike Southeast there are 2 temples under construction in the North America Central Area, since it now includes most of Idaho. North America Northeast has one temple announced under President Nelson.

So there are 4 areas of the Church that have seen no temples announced under President Nelson. Of these 4 area, North America Southeast is the only one that has no temples under construction, while Africa Southeast is about to be split. North America Central saw several temples during the last years of President Nelson and under President Monson. North America Southeast has only had 1 new temple built since the heydays of temple construction in 1998-2002. Some may think that either Bentonville Arkansas or Richamond Virginia fall under the North America Southeast Area, but Richmond is in the North America North East Area while Bentonville is in the North America Southwest Area.

North America South East has high likelihood of getting a new temple in Charlotte, North Carolian. Kinston, North Carolina or somewhere else in the far east of the state also has some likelihood. Jacksonville, Florida is also an extremely strong contender for getting a temple.

John Pack Lambert said...

I just was reminded of something I had known but forgotten. The current president of the Aba Nigeria Temple, David W. Eka, was the first stake president in Aba.

The current president of the Port-au-Prince Haiti Temple, Fritzner Joseph, was the first Haitian to serve as mission president in Haiti. He also served as a full-time missionary as a young man. In fact I believe when he attended the dedication of Haiti for the preaching of the gospel done by President Monson (then Elder Monson), Fritzner Joseph was already a returned missionary.

John Pack Lambert said...

The first 2 presidents of the Aba Nigeria Temple served for only 2 years. The third served three years but was released as violence, especially that directed against foriegners increased. These three brethren were all Americans, as have been all the presidents of the Accra Ghana Temple (one was the member of the high council assigned to my ward when I was a freshman at BYU), however the presidents of the Aba Temple since 2010 have all been Nigerians.

John Pack Lambert said...

The temple president before the current one in Paraguay, Heber O. Diaz, served from 2014-2018. This is longer than normal, although when the small temples first began in 1999 the presidents served for 5 years. At some point it was decided to lessen their assignment time to 3 years.

James G. Stokes said...

First of all, Matt, thanks for this report. Great to see such tremendous growth in each of these locations. I have a feeling that the recent stake creations reported lately will be a huge determining factor in where temples are announced next April. Secondly, in another thread, thoughts were shared about what might make the April 2020 General Conference so unique were shared. I wanted to present another viewpoint on that in the form of an article published by Church News editor Sister Sarah Jane Weaver:

https://www.thechurchnews.com/living-faith/2019-10-20/general-conference-october-2019-president-nelson-bicentennial-164417

In the article, Sister Weaver theorizes that the location in which the next conference may be held will pale in comparison to what is said and done that weekend to commemorate important milestones in the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. That is true, of course, for any General Conference, but especially of the upcoming one. She also points out that if wondering what might happen detracts from our willingness and capacity to prepare for it as President Nelson counseled us to do, we will likely not get as much out of it as we hope. I applaud these insights and can echo them, although a little pondering with respect to what will make it so unique would likely be acceptable.

Secondly, the Frankfurt Germany Temple was rededicated today by Elder Uchtdorf:

https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/latter-day-saint-apostle-rededicates-frankfurt-germany-temple

James G. Stokes said...

And with the groundbreaking for the Saratoga Springs Utah Temple having been held yesterday, KSL shared two reports on it with their early evening newscasts. The on-site reporter noted a few significant things, which I highlighted on my blog and will reiterate here in the same words:

"The on-site reporter addressed common questions: When and how soon might construction begin [for that temple], and within what time-frame is a completion and dedication anticipated? For the first answer, the reporter noted that construction crews intend to start work on the temple early next week, so it will not be in the full-scale construction pending status for very long. Regarding the second question, Church leaders indicated the speed of construction will depend on a variety of factors, over a few of which the Church has little to no control.

"They also noted that, in general, temples nowadays are being built at a slightly accelerated pace than they have been in the past, and for that reason, a new standard construction time-frame of 18-24 months is offered for most temples. 18 months sounds a little fast to me, especially for a larger temple such as this one. But I could see construction wrapping up in mid-2022, if not sooner, so I have set that as a new preliminary estimate for the temple's completion, but will be more than happy to move that up if and when the need arises as the construction process gets underway and if it continues at a steady pace."

Next, in response to John Pack Lambert, I wanted to note a couple of things. Firstly, by way of reminder, the North America Northwest Area now no longer exists, since the areas the the US and Canada comprising that have been merged into the North America West Area. Before the two areas were merged, a temple was announced in Moses Lake Washington.

But additionally, it may be worthwhile for you, JPL, and anyone else interested in this information, to know that I have tracked Nelsonian temple announcements by area. Based on those efforts, I can confirm that President Nelson has not yet announced temples in the following areas of the Church: Africa Southeast; Middle East/Africa North; North America Central; North America Southeast; South America Northwest.

A couple of notes on these areas: In the case of the Africa Southeast Area, since the temple in Kinshasa was dedicated earlier this year, that leaves the Durban South Africa Temple under construction, which will be dedicated in February of next year, and the temples in Nairobi Kenya and Harare Zimbabwe which have not had a groundbreaking. Given that the latter two will likely have construction underway either by or before next General Conference, I could then see other Africa Southeast Area temples announced. And in the case of the Middle East/Africa North Area, aside from other issues, ongoing political turmoil therein may delay such a prospect for the moment until things settle down.

Within the South America Northwest Area, the Arequipa Peru Temple is being readied for its' open house next month and its' dedication the following month. And the Quito Ecuador and Lima Peru Los Olivos Temples have had groundbreakings this year, but are just barely seeing construction begin. So perhaps the intent there is to wait and see how much progress is made before spring of next year on both temples before others are announced.

But in so saying, I recognize that other areas of the Church have multiple temples either under construction, undergoing renovation, or announced, so these are just my own conjectures based on the information I have, which is likely incomplete and impoerfect. With that noted, however, I hope these observations, such as they are, are helpful to all who read them.

brycen said...

In the Northeast Area devotional, President Ballard ended his talk by calling for a new movement, we should pray, and invite everyone we know, to pray for America.

James G. Stokes said...

brycen, President Ballard's call for that kind of new movement is needed now more than ever with everything currently going on throughout the United States. I personally have been deeply concerned to see how the traditional American values of civility, courtesy, kindness, and common sense have been laid aside. And even more concerning, it has taken far too long for the constitutionally-mandated checks-and-balances, as they were originally put into place, to come into play in much of what is facing the nation currently. Without allowing this comment to turn too much in a political direction (which I feel would be highly inappropriate), I can say I am grateful to see that a majority of congressional representatives are not sleeping on that particular job.

Turning to something related to that, but not directly relevant, the Prophet Joseph Smith was quoted as prophesying that the day would come when the Constituion of this great nation would be hanging by a thread, and that when that occurred, it would be the elders (and by extension, the sisters) of the Church moving in righteousness who would act to preserve it. I had always interpreted that statement as indicating that those Church members who were serving in Congress at the time that kind of crisis occurred, but based on President Ballard's words, I take a different interpretation. Although there are more members of the Church now serving in Congress than there ever have been, perhaps the Prophet Joseph meant that, through rallying together in prayer, the united faith of all Church members in the United States would save the nation from that crisis.

Of course, I suppose any acceptance of that interpretation is up to anyone who reads it, but it is interesting to think about. In the meantime, thanks for sharing your experience from that devotional here. Interesting.

Eduardo said...

Excellent to see the growth in the deep South. And far flung points of the earth, south of the equator.

Eduardo said...

Adding to that thought, I heard a comment the other day that most of the world intrigue (violence and drama) occurs in the northern hemisphere, but it is a lot of growth in the (more peaceful, less populated) southern hemisphere.

James G. Stokes said...

For those who are curious, the Newsroom released the following additional report on the devotional to which brycen referred above:

https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/president-ballard-concludes-ministry-in-new-england

Eduardo said...

Note about intrigue in the Southern hemisphere: riots starting in Santiago and spreading to other Chilean cities is unusual. Chile has not had much violence since the the plebiscite of 1989, and that was not too harsh. I can't recall if any rubber bullets killed anyone back then, with a month in December when missionaries in I guess all six missions stayed indoors.
Back then Chile was about to proliferate with new dedicated stakes all across the country, which in the early 2000s retracted, mostly under the supervision of Elder Holland.

Chiclayo, Peru does seem an amazing candidate for a temple.

How many temples by language base? English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Tagalog? How many languages total? 25? 30? I suppose Papua New Guinea may count for at least 4 new languages of a temple?
Is Hong Kong 2, or is there sessions in Wu (Shanghaiese)?

Ray said...

Excellent questions, Eduardo, about the number of languages used in temples. I think you have them in the right order, although French may be ahead of Portuguese, and then German may be the next most used after Tagalog.

Ray said...

James, regarding your comment that there are more members of the Church serving in Congress now than ever before, I'm curious what that number is, and how many serve in the House and in the Senate. Can you help us with that? Thanks very much.

coachodeeps said...

Seems we are at a low right now of number of members of Congress that are members of the Church of Jesus Christ.
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/church/news/us-congress-includes-10-latter-day-saints-the-fewest-number-in-a-decade?lang=eng

coachodeeps said...

Ten Church members have begun their service in the 116th United States Congress—including four members of the U.S. Senate and six from the U.S. House of Representatives.

JMR said...

With the state of Kuwait having officially recognized the Church a few months ago, I wouldn't be surprised to see a temple announced in the UAE in 2020. Their temple district is Frankfurt and there are two stakes in the Middle East (Bahrain and Abu Dhabi) with well over 2,000 members. If Winnepeg can get a temple with 1 stake, I could see the Middle East getting a small one with 2 stakes.

James G. Stokes said...

coachodeeps, thanks for the correction. I believe I may have been confusing the numbers this year with the numbers of a few years ago or so, when there were actually more Church members in Congress than there had been in prior years. But it could also be that I may have been confusing that with reports I read about how a majority of legislators at the state level somewhere were Latter-day Saints. Thanks again.

Eduardo said...

State level I could see more church members than ever in politics and state positions. It is low now at the federal level. Flake stepped away in Arizona, another maybe in Colorado, other states have lost some like Idaho, maybe California, Washington, Hawai'i...
I think Chile will have a member Chilean president within our lifetime. Maybe Tomas de la Masa.

James Anderson said...

A letter a misssionary sent from Phoenix said that Elder Rasband spoke to the mission, they held the meeting at the ASU Institute building, that, and the matter already known about from last weekend appear to only be a small part of that visit.

BryanBaird84 said...

Hypothetically speaking the Middle East could get a temple even if some areas have recognized the church. But it would take a long time, a very long time to get approval to build one. Even other countries and even the U.S. take time for approval sometimes years or even a decade. One example I can think of is the Urdenta Philippines Temple it took about 10 years from announcement to groundbreaking. Realistic I can see a temple going in that area in my grandkids or great grandkids lifetime. Of course by then the church would have grown more.

Ray said...

It appears that the Cumorah site is down again.

Chris D. said...

Both the Raleigh and Frankfurt Temples are back on the Classic LDS Maps site after midnight last night. And about 9 of the temporary reassigned Stakes were returned to Raleigh and Frankfurt as assigned. and 2 others adjusted so far. still some discrepancies between Maps and Rick's Temple site.

John Pack Lambert said...

The term "global south" is often used poorly.

If we look at the growth of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints probably the majority of it occurs in the northern hemisphere. This is in part because Nigeria, Ghana and Ivory Coast as well as the Phillipines are in the northern hemisphere.

John Pack Lambert said...

Since the advent of the temple film and simultaneously translated endowment sessions the language of temples has been hard to track closely.

English would have 83 temples, although some of those have significant use in other languages. I may be a little off, but that was all temples in the US, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom with all except Montreal in Canada.

I believe Spanish has 34 temples. Portuguese has 8 temples. French is a tricky count, but it currently has either 3.5 or 4.5. Montreal is counted, even though only 2 of the 3 assigned stakes are French speaking. If another stake (Ottawa Ontario or Montpelier Vermont) that reduces it to half French units. Kinshasa is said to be French, although I have no idea what percentage of those getting endowed do it in that language as opposes to Lingala, Luba, Swahili or some other language (although I am not sure if even Swashili is an endowment langague, let alone Lingala and Luba, Lingala most relevant to Kinshasa).

Paris is the most clearly French temple. The other question is are most ordinances in Port-au-Prince done in French, or in Haitian Creole. I am guessing the latter, which makes it even more an outlier. I am assigning the Swiss temple as both German and French, although there is also some amount of Italian as a factor.

German goes to 2.5 temples. Tagolog at present probably only dominates at Manila, since Cebu probably is more dominated by Cebuano. At most only 3 currently planned or operational temples would be heavily Tagolog use if I understand language issues in the Philippines. Thus it is not much above the two for Samoan and the two for Tongan.

Japanese with 3 temples currently would exceed the number of temples heavily using Tagalog. That is true even if Cebu City is a heavily Tagolog temple.

I admit I neglected the Middle East/North Africa area from my list (which I still think should be renamed Southwest Asia/North Africa), however that has always felt like not a fully there area, and with the stakes there consisting almost completely of ex patriates, and other factors, I do not hold out super high hopes of a temple in that area. In some ways I think Pakistan has a higher hope for a temple than anywhere in South West Asia. At least Pakistan the Church is largely made up of nationals, and it is close to getting to the level of having a stake if not multiple stakes.

John Pack Lambert said...

The number of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints currently serving in congress is the lowest it has been in a decade and well below what it was in 1995. In 1995 there were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in congress from California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Idaho, Oklahoma, New Hampshire and a non-voting delegate from American Samoa. Shortly after that a member was elected from Oregon. I think it peaked at 18 members in congress, 5 from California, 5 from Utah, 1 from Arizona, 1 from Idaho, 2 from Nevada, 1 from American Samoa, 1 from Oklahoma and 1 from New Hampshire.

Today the distribution is 4 senators and 6 members of the house for 10 in total. There is one member from New Mexico, but I am not sure how active he is. 6 members in the Utah delegation, 2 in Idaho and 1 in Arizona.

Only the senators from New Mexico and Idaho represent areas with low percentages of Church members. The current representative from Idaho represents Eastern Idaho, in a district that is either majority Latter-day Saint or close to being such. Raul Labrodor who used to represent the less Latter-day Saint west Idaho district, left congress to try to become governor. Labrador is a Puerto Rico native who joined the Church in Las Vegas.

The one member of the Church in the Arizona delegation represents Mesa, Gilbert and Queen Creek. I am not sure how high the percentage of Church members is there, but it is significant.

We clearly do not have those from where the Church was under 3% of the population as we used to have with the California representavies, or under 1% as we had with Ernest Istook and Representative Richard Sweet from New Hampshire (whose Jewish father-in-law was in congress simultaneously with him). More recently there was a member of the Church who served briefly in the US house from Florida.

I think the members of the Church displaced in the most recent election were Ensign, a senator from Nevada, who used to represent much of Nevada in the house, and Labrador. Also Mia Love, but she was replaced by Ben McAddams also a Church member so that is not relevant to this discussion.

John Pack Lambert said...

As far as I can tell no member of the Church has ever successfully been elected to congress from Hawaii, but the Hannemann family I believe have tried for both congress and the governorship.

There are some true outliers, like how both Michigan and Massachusetts have had Church members as governor as well as Church members as major party senate candidates. This is all Romneys, although here in Michigan in 1982 Richard Headlee, a member of the Church who had joined partly from being on Romney's campaign but also from having a member wife and being raised in Utah before moving to Michigan, was the Republican candidate for governor. He died almost 20 years but his name still comes up because he authored and put through a state constitutional admendment that gives voters control over the increase in local taxes.

More recently our state treasurer was a member of the Church. I know in Midland Michigan my brother's state rep is a member of his ward, although her husband who she succeeded was not a member.

The first female US senator who did not have any immediately family members preceed her in politics, Paula Hawkins, was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints elected to the senate from Florida. That was in 1980, she lost her reelection bid in 1986. In 1972 Lenore Romney, the current Senator Romney's mother, was the Republican Candidate for US senate in Michigan. Some attribute her loss to white residents of some Detroit suburbs being engraged at her husband having tried to follow the letter of the Fair Housing Act in administering the Department of Housing and Urband Development, instead of allowing these communities to remain virtually lilly white. The key flashpoint of this debate was in Warren, Michigan, immediately north of Detroit, and Michigan's 3rd largest city where I was born.

L. Chris Jones said...

Elder Uchtdorf promotes BYU Pathway Worldwide: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/church/news/new-byu-pathway-worldwide-initiative-with-elder-uchtdorf-invites-people-to-come-and-see?lang=eng

Eduardo said...

Oregon had the senator in Congress back into the early 1990s, or maybe '94. I met his nephew while doing a job for Novell in Orem.

James G. Stokes said...

Eduardo, when did you work for Novell, and in what capacity? My dad began working there when I was a toddler (late 1980s-early 1990s(, and it was during his employment that (if memory serves) they helped pay for him to finish his secondary education at BYU. My dad was one who was impacted by the massive layoffs from that company which occurred in roughly 1997 or 1998. He subsequently obtained employment with the Church in Salt Lake. We were living in Payson Utah at the time, and the fact that we hardly ever saw him (and that when we did, his long commute left him irritable) led to my family relocating to American Fork, where my parents still reside to this day. You probably didn't need a whole life story to contextualize the employment issue, but there it is anyways. Given what you said about Novell, though, it did occur to me to wonder if you ever worked with him at all. My dad's name is Lee (or Leland) Stokes. Just curious. Thanks.