As some of you have commented, monthly newsletters for cumorah.com have not been posted since our most recent edition in April 2023. This has been due to many things in my life at the moment that have limited my time to write them. However, I am hopeful that these newsletters will be completed and posted in the coming weeks. There have been many significant developments in recent months that will be covered in these newsletters.
Friday, August 4, 2023
Newsletter Update
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94 comments:
Matt, Thank you for the update on the "Gramado Brazil District (472557)", originally organized on March 20th, 2005, has been reorganized on July 23rd, 2023 to become the "Gramado Brazil Stake (472557).
https://maps.churchofjesuschrist.org/stakes/472557
Hey, Chris! The stake you mentioned includes the following wards: Canela 1st and 2nd, Gramado 1st and 2nd, and Tacara Wards. It also includes the Nova Petropolis Branch
Matt, I will be looking forward to those newsletters whenever your situation allows them to be posted. Hope all is well with you. Keep up the great work!
Matt, don't forget these are the 12th and 13th Stakes to be Discontinued this year, on July 9th, also.
HONG KONG CHINA KOWLOON EAST STAKE(513156)
HONG KONG CHINA LION ROCK STAKE (2073250)
To Chris D,
Correct, there are these two additional discontinued stakes this year, but there are new stakes to be added to Matt's current list as well. Also, I note that the 5 Tongan stakes in the Wasatch Front average 10.5 wards apiece (one with 14 wards), so it's reasonable to assume that there may be a couple of additional Tongan language stakes in the near future.
I have been told the Grand Rapids Michigan Temple is being held up due to opposition to the steeple height. It is being built on a property where another church had a building. I am not sure how the old church steeple compared in height.
The perso who told me that stated there are "sky scrapers" in the area so he thinks the opposition is not really about building height. I am not sure how close various other structures are, and what the actual height are. It is true though that much literature opposed to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is published in Grand Rapids, so this could easily be opposition using fake concerns to cover the real reasons for opposition.
Here is a link to "Not by bread alone". This is a major undertaking related to the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in DR Congo. https://notbybreadalonefilm.com/
There is a lot going on here. The narrator here is a Congolesecsaint whose family joined the Church in Switzerland, I believe when he was a child.
The Not by Bread Alone project is very exciting. The music for the introductory film is by R. Nephi Kaluwa, a Congolese Latter-day Saint. A lot of places are mentioned, and a lot of stories. This is a very awesome project. Thry have created at least their initial batch of film, but still need to edit it before release.
John Pack Lambert
The Church went before the zoning board in June to get a variance for the height of the steeple. The plan calls for a steeple height of 112 feet, and it is presently zoned for 50 feet. At the meeting, there were some residents who spoke in favor of the steeple height, and some were opposed. The Church requested the matter be tabled. I believe it is on the schedule for this month's meeting. All the information is available on the city of Kentwood's website. https://www.kentwood.us/city_services/committees_and_boards/zoning_board_of_appeals/index.php
For a change of pace, in the last couple of months the Church finished translating the following scriptures:
* Full Triple Combination: Hindi, Hmong, Sinhala, Turkish
* Doctrine and Convents: Macedonian
* Book of Mormon: Kinyarwanda
The Church is currently working on Book of Mormon translations in Efik, Kazakh, Maltese, Pohnpeian, and Sesotho; Doctrine and Covenants translations in Burmese, Navajo, and Tok Pisin; and Pearl of Great Price translations in Greek and Guarani.
It's fun to see more of the translation projects announced in 2017 come to completion.
Looking forward to future posts and research. All appreciated on this tremendous forum.
Speaking of Websites, does anyone know what happened to LDSToday.com? I read that regularly for many years, maybe 2000 to 2021 or so. It funneled in many great or exclusive Church-related articles and reports. I miss it, it seems to have been discontinued.
Has work slowed down in Ivory Coast lately? Perhaps it is still going strong.
Vanuatu is doing well. I think it is Tuvalu that is sinking...Or being inundated. The future is not so bright there, except for maybe coral and fish.
Ivory Coast had slowed more than other areas in West Africa during the pandemic. My understanding is that there has been some rebounding lately regarding convert baptisms, but that has not quite transitioned to accelerated congregational growth. I would give it a year or two before worrying; albeit, growth in Cote d'Ivoire has always been cyclical, and this may just be another cycle.
Vanuatu as well; I am hoping that recent accelerated growth in the Solomon Islands leads to that mission splitting, and more resources dedicated to each area.
What do they speak in Kananga, DR Congo? Do most speak Tshiluba or do many know one of the four official languages of DR Congo?
We have a temple planned in Kananga, and if Tshiluba dominates, I have not seen anything on the Book of Mormon for that yet.
Jim Anderson - Yes, the dominant language in Kananga is Tshiluba. Not sure what is going on with the Tshiluba translation of the Book of Mormon. I imagine it will make an even greater impact on growth in the region given it is the primary language of most Congolese in Kasai.
Besides the Book of Mormon translation, what about temple translations?
@Edwardo regarding ldstoday.com: I followed that website for several years. The guy running it changed the format just before leaving to serve a mission. If I remember correctly, he was going to be gone for 2-3 yrs and have a family member keep it going. However, that puttered out within a short while, with very infrequent updates. I haven't really looked at the website in several months, but when I did I noticed the last update was a long time prior.
You can request language assistance at the temple in Tshiluba. So the endowment ceremony exists in that language. I believe thry have said they will publish the Book of Mormon in that language.
Hopefully we will see work in KiKongo as well.
That language will be key to growth in the north-west corner of Angola, as well as in the far west of DR Congo, rather Angolan enclave of Cabinda, and in the south of the Republic of Congo. It is closely related to Lingala, but is district.
Lingala and Swahili, the other 2 of the 4 regional languages of DR Congo, have I believe all the scriptures and the Temple ceremony and probably much else translated.
Kinyarwanda is spoken by at least a million probably more in DR Cobgo, and there are other who apeak languages close enough that they could probably grasp Kinyarwanda. That is the language of Rwanda and there are some resources in it.
The Not by bread alone project is trying yo get its first materials out before the dedication of the Lubumbashi Temple (I hope I wrote that right), but thry also want to eventually highlylight the Kananga Temple as well.
My father was one of the voices in the Navajo translation of the endowment. It took over a year to produce. Now, with a new version, I wonder if a Navajo translation is available. I haven't heard of any projects involving members from the Navajo Nation involved in a revised translation. Anyone who knows if it is available? It was available in Monticello, Albuquerque, Snowflake, Mesa, Phoenix, St. George, and Las Vegas temples at one time. We still have members that are more fluent in Navajo than English.
When you sign up to do an ordinance you can request language assistance. There are 101 languages that one can select. Navajo is one of them. Some would argue it is only 99, because they have 2 forms of Chinese for subtitles, which are just ways to write it and not exactly languages. Just under 30 languages are subtitles only. I assume this is because it is easier to create the subtitles for the endowment ceremony than to have people vocally act it out.
For example except Urdu and Nepali the available South Asian languages are subtitle only. I am guessing having a group of Nepali speaking members in Salt Lake assisted in creating the audio version.
I went looking to see if either Snowflake or Monticello ever schedules Navajo sessions. It appears they do not, but there are ways to accommodate like ensuring you have some temple workers who speak a language that are not seeable in online scheduling.
What is interesting is most temples have "regular" sessions and then language specific ones. I think this is to avoid scaring people off who will use translation.
What is interesting is for example London has regular, Portuguese, Mandarin and 0ortuguese. Sadly no Urdu or the even harder Hindi or Tamil (since it would be without understood audio). There is not yet a Bengali translation at all. However London Temple also has periodically English-language sessions. I have no clue how this differs from regular, or if it is not different at all but just someone the program makes them designate a language at certain times, I am not sure.
Provo I think in a month does about 10 different languages but it looks like Provo City Center is just regular sessions.
Manhattan has 4 regular and 3 Spanish sessions a Saturday, sometimes 3 regular, 3 Spanish and 1 Portuguese. That may be the highest percentage of Spanish session in the US. Houston only does 1 a Saturday and has more regular sessions. Fort Lauderdale seems to do all regular, but this may be because they have so many languages (Haitian-Creole, Portuguese, English and Spanish) they just try to have temple workers speaking as many as possible each session.
Montreal I was expecting to have multiple languages, but everything is just regular.
The system is not meant for deep analysis this way, and I didn't check all temples.
For any who may be interested, in addition to my predictions for the October General Conference, I also recently posted my thoughts on the top most likely temples to be announced in 2 months. Those projections can be found at the bottom of the following document:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AHEJOqAjEJDN7aXQLlfrkzc2yTVer6E0TRR5eYdNKB8/edit?usp=sharing
As mentioned, if President Nelson's goal is to announce 35 temples per year, since we got 15 new temples in April, I'm anticipating at least 20 temples will be announced in two months. Also, again, I think it would be best if any questions about my General Conference predictions, including the general and more specific list of temple prospects, should be addressed in the comments of the following post on my blog:
https://stokessoundsoff.blogspot.com/2023/08/updated-october-2023-general-conference.html
My thanks once again to you all.
Ii think it is exciting that the Book of Mormon is fully translated into Kinyarwanda! Rwanda has been a place I've been excited to watch grow and anticipate a strong future for the church there. Having the Book of Mormon will be a great blessing to those people.
I served much of my mission in the Grand Rapids area and can confirm that there exists a large anti-mormon rhetoric among the general population in the region and it doesn't surprise me at all that the church is facing some opposition in building the temple. I hope they are able to work through it without any more problems.
Saw this just now on Facebook, presentation at the Church History Museum will be on the design of chapels and temples.
https://www.facebook.com/events/1008852686789081/?ref=newsfeed
For anyone who may have interest, recently reported on the Church Newsroom website :
"10 August 2023 - SEOUL, South Korea News Release
Latter-day Saint Becomes South Korea Supreme Court Justice"
https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/latter-day-saint-south-korea-supreme-court-justice
Also, the Vice President of Brazil recently visited the Brasília Brazil Temple with Elder Ulises Soares.
"10 August 2023 - BRASÍLIA News Release
Elder Ulisses Soares Welcomes the Vice President of Brazil, Geraldo Alckmin, at the Brasília Brazil Temple"
https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/elder-ulisses-soares-welcomes-the-vice-president-of-brazil--geraldo-alckmin--at-the-bras-iacute-lia-brazil-temple
Thanks for that news, Chris! It's pretty amazing that South Korea has a Latter-day Saint in such a high position of government now!
I was just thinking about the newsletter issue. Perhaps as an alternative to the newsletters, it may make sense to utilize the Foundation's Facebook page or this blog to post updates, rather than spending time duplicating them in a newsletter. Also, this will likely increase reach of information quite a bit.
On a different note, I finally had some time to pursue a project I have been looking to work on for a while, involving a plan for improved missionary outreach in central Europe. While it is likely inefficient to assign massive additional numbers of full-time missionaries to that region, I believe the Church should actively pursue the goal of 100% reach to fulfill its scriptural mandate. I believe this is possible with limited resources. For instance, here is a map of 20 potential additional outreach centers in southern Germany: https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1EEOq-FuaevG5pq-Z_EuUoiXeVksTauE (thanks to the Foundation for the base map!).
The goal here would be to place missionaries strategically in areas with isolated members mostly in small to medium-sized cities, hold cottage meetings, and begin growing the Church in these areas. With only 40 additional missionaries, southern Germany could receive a massive outreach expansion which would likely lead to significant growth, similar to what we have seen in Trier, for example. Some cities have previously had congregations operating in them (e.g., Pforzheim, Schweinfurt), but most are previously unreached.
I have also denoted cities without official congregations in which either missionaries are presently serving, a group is operating, or both. I will complete the same type of map for northern Germany by the end of today.
Here is a similar map for northern Germany, once again with 20 new potential areas for missionaries (marked with red stars): https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=15VR7vX1no4BIUudZpNHY-O5nvPLu9WE
Note that in particular, western Germany still has many cities and agglomerations with more than 100,000 people but no missionaries or congregations.
"See photos from the Saratoga Springs Utah Temple dedication"
https://www.thechurchnews.com/temples/2023/8/13/23830775/saratoga-springs-utah-temple-dedication-photo-gallery-president-eyring
Hello again, everyone! On this Sabbath Day, the Saratoga Springs Utah Temple was dedicated today in two sessions (held at 10:00 AM and 1:30 PM) by President Henry B. Eyring, Second Counselor in the First Presidency:
https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/dedicated-saratoga-springs-utah-temple-a-sign-of-the-lords-trust-president-eyring
https://www.thechurchnews.com/temples/2023/8/13/23827933/saratoga-springs-utah-temple-dedication
https://www.thechurchnews.com/temples/2023/8/13/23829854/saratoga-springs-temple-dedication-begins-a-wave-of-temple-growth-in-utah
Since Chris D. already shared the photograph gallery, I won't share that link in this comment. However, that temple has now become the Church's 179th operating temple. With 179 dedicated, if the Church plans to have at least 300 temples operating by the bicentennial anniversary of the Church's reestablishment (Saturday April 6, 2030), there are 121 temples remaining to be dedicated in the 6.65 years between now and then, which averages out to roughly 18.20 per year. While the Church's total temple dedications for 2023 will be well below that, my rough recalculated estimates suggest that a minimum of 17 or 18 temples could be dedicated next year, with the same minimum likely continuing ever year for the foreseeable future.
As we know, the Church has also already announced the square footage of several other temples, so given that a number of them will be on the smaller side, they are likely to be built more swiftly, which will mean major shifts in the construction queue going forward. So the numbers I've outliined are likely to be lowballed.
For the information of any who may be curious, I received word from my Church member contact in Cody Wyoming that the temple there has obtained the necessary approvals from the government. So in view of that update and the latest updates on the Knoxville Tennessee, Teton River Idaho, and Cleveland Ohio Temples, it is likely that at least those 4 could have groundbreakings announced soon.
Per new information from the Church Temples site, major construction has wrapped up on the Layton Utah Temple, which now awaits the delivery of furniture and furnishings. Since the Red Cliffs Utah Temple has sat completed for the last several weeks without an announcement of opening arrangements, I am hoping that this week's temple news might be dedications for either Red Cliffs, Layton, or perhaps both, in addition to also perhaps some more temple groundbreakings, the release of several more exterior renderings, or the initial details being released for any of the temples that have currently not gone beyond an announcement. I further hope that at some point sooner rather than later that more official names will be released for the Santiago West Chile and Sao Paulo East Brazil Temples.
I've been a little surprised that there were only two temple announcements in July, but I assume that's due to the annual recess for the General Authorities and General Officers of the Church. It's also worth noting that the new Young Women General Presidency began serving on August 1 (President Emily Belle Freeman and Sisters Tamara W. Runia and Andrea M. Spannaus). And I don't know whether or not I mentioned this or if anyone else did, but Elder Robert M. Daines, who was sustained as a GA Seventy in April, is the younger brother of Sister Michelle D. Craig, the recently-released First Counselor in the Young Women General Presidency.
Hopefully any or all of this information is helpful to those of you who take time to read this comment. Thanks again, everyone!
With over 300 temples announced one would hope we could be to at least 300 temples by April 6, 2030. True, Urdaneta was announced in October 2010. I believe it is the longest proactively planned temple not currently dedicated.
5 temples announced by President Nelson are dedicated, and 5 have dates to be dedicated. So if any temples are announced in this October conference, which will still have 6.5 years until April 2030, as opposed to 5.5 years since President Nelson became Church president, they may well be completed in that time.
I am hoping we get some temple related announcements tomorrow. We will see.
I haven't heard much about the Dubai temple over the past year or so. It sounded like the UAE even wanted the Church to build a temple at the Expo 2020 site once the expo was over. The hype around it made it sound like construction would start once the expo was complete. Expo 2020 (held in March 2022 due to COVID) came and went. While there's still occasional talk about it, still no word on groundbreaking.
It's benefit to the region and the church would be substantial. It's a lot more than the two stakes and district on the Arab peninsula. I would imagine its Temple District would span from Pakistan (Due to India/Pakistan relations and UAE's visa free policy) to North Africa. UAE is a country that Russian members can still travel to. And of course it's one of the most popular layovers for those traveling from Europe to East and SE Asia, Australia, NZ etc. as well as a destination to visit, work, etc.
Thank you, David, for that insightful commentary about the pending Dubai UAE Temple groundbreaking.
Also, while glancing over the Meetinghouse Locator map. I came across a curiosity. At one point the Church had organized a Beirut Lebanon District. Although it is unclear if it was disolved for insufficient official units to direct a District organization. Currently I only find the Beirut Branch active on the map.
But i found that the entire Kingdom of Jordan, outside of the Amman Branch, is under the supervision of a "Beirut Lebanon District Branch (1679570)".
https://maps.churchofjesuschrist.org/wards/1679570
I would think in order to have a organized DISTRICT BRANCH, there would have to be an organized District the Branch is assigned to. So, either the Beirut District Branch never changed the name when/or if the District was dissolved. Or that the Beirut Lebanon District continues to operate as a sensitive unit, not visible to the public eye on the Maps.
Maybe someone here who has knowledge of the Middle East/Africa North Area units, can comment?
For the middle east, there's the following
*Abu Dhabi Stake (7 wards, 3 branches in UAE, Qatar, and Oman)
*Manama Bahrain Stake (Bahrain Ward, Kuwait ward, and a number of congregations in unrecognized countries)
*Cairo Egypt District (Branches in Egypt and Morocco)
*Jerusalem District (3 branches in Israel)
There are congregations in Jordan, and Lebanon showing up on meetinghouse locator that is not part of these districts. CDOL shows them as active congregations but not attached to any district. It doesn't show them attached directly to the area either, but it does show they're active units.
There are also congregations in other countries you won't see on meetinghouse locator due to local government restrictions. Saudi Arabia alone had 10 congregations in 2018 according to cumorah.com
There are also three districts in Pakistan that would likely be part of this temple district due to less travel restrictions. However, I anticipate attendance from these districts be low due to limited financial means. The same maybe true for those in Russia and Central Asia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Church_of_Jesus_Christ_of_Latter-day_Saints_in_Pakistan#Districts_and_congregations
Due to financial means and distance of members living further out, I would imagine most attendees will be primarily from the two stakes as well as international travelers, as Dubai's a significant business and tourist hub.
Details on the new stake in Amarillo, Texas:
Amarillo Texas Stake:
Canyon Ward
Dalhart Branch
Hereford Branch
Palo Duro Ward
Tradewind Ward
Tucumcari Ward
Windsor Ward
Young Singles Branch
Amarillo East Stake:
Bishop Hills Ward
Borger Ward
Childress Ward
Estacado Branch (Spanish Speaking)
Dumas Branch
Pampa Ward
Perryton Branch
Tascosa Ward
I believe that's now 79th stakes in Texas. At year-end 2006, Texas had 48 stakes.
Thanks for the info!
Do you know if theres any substance to the rumor that the size of the Teton River Temple (over 100,000 square feet, the largest temple since Jordan River in the 1970s) is to accomate a future Rexburg MTC?
I can definitely see Texas breaking 100 stakes either by 2030 or shortly thereafter. We just moved to DFW, and the church is very strong here. Our ward has 150+ attending, with lots of new move-ins (4 families in the last 2 weeks) and converts/potential converts (4 investigators at church on Sunday). There are 21 stakes in the DFW area (I could be stretching what "DFW area" is, sorry for any long time Texans), with 185 wards and 11 branches. 8 of those stakes have 10+ units, and the smallest stakes still have 7 units. The average stake has 9.33 units. 7 new stakes could be created and still keep the average units per stake at 7. Here is a numerically organized list of all those stakes:
Dallas Texas East Stake (12 wards, 1 branch)
Euless Texas Stake (11 wards)
Alliance Texas Stake (11 wards)
Denton Texas Stake (11 wards)
Allen Texas Stake (10 wards, 1 branch)
Richardson Texas Stake (10 wards)
Sherman Texas Stake (10 wards)
Prosper Texas Stake (10 wards)
Heath Texas Stake (9 wards, 2 branches)
Lewisville Texas Stake (9 wards, 1 branch)
Colleyville Texas Stake (9 wards)
Dallas Texas Stake (8 wards, 1 branch)
Plano Texas Stake (8 wards, 1 branch)
Frisco Texas Stake (8 wards)
Arlington Texas Stake (8 wards)
Burleson Texas Stake (7 wards, 2 branches)
McKinney Texas Stake (7 wards, 1 branch)
Fort Worth Stake (7 wards)
Fort Worth Texas North Stake (7 wards)
Little Elm Texas Stake (7 wards)
Irving Texas Stake (6 wards, 1 branch)
At the very least, I can see the Dallas Texas East Stake splitting very soon, or the creation of a Spanish-speaking stake or a YSA stake.
There is definitely a lot of growth potential for the Church all over Texas, but especially in DFW. I remember chatting with a native Texan a couple years ago; he said that the missions in southern Texas, especially around Houston, baptize more than the DFW missions, but DFW has significantly more move-ins. Glad to hear missionary work is also helping up north!
An interesting thought play would be for Texas to become its own area. With 100+ stakes and relatively large geographic area, it definitely seems plausible.
Different topic. I just met with a very recently returned missionary in our ward who served in the same mission I did about a decade ago (Alpine German-Speaking). He noted that the Munich Stake had 20 convert baptisms in July and is on track for 100+ for the year. This shocked me, given the fact that during the three years my first mission president served, the whole mission (which includes another stake in Germany, three stakes in Switzerland, and two in Austria) had less than 300 convert baptisms. That was for 2011-2014. Further, Munich is not exactly known as the pinnacle of Church growth in Germany, at least historically, and the massive social influence of the Catholic Church (especially outside the city of Munich) made it challenging for even interested investigators to seriously progress during my time. Further, one of the wards in Munich and the tiny branch that met in Neuötting back in the day had been discontinued in the last decade, so the growth trends for SE Germany were not that encouraging until recently.
I wonder if the Church would be interested in replicating the planned but unused design of the Fortaleza temple in other temples in Brazil, especially in São Paulo East. It is a very dramatic and beautiful design of two towers, similar to the temple in Philadelphia. It would be sad if this plan was not put to some other use and was forgotten.
The new "Amarillo Texas East Stake (2206196)" has been updated on the Meetinghouse Locator mapsite.
https://maps.churchofjesuschrist.org/stakes/2206196
Just announced by the First Presidency this morning,
"First Presidency calls Alexander Dushku to serve as a General Authority Seventy
The new leader will be sustained during October 2023 general conference
By Sarah Jane Weaver 15 Aug 2023, 9:07 AM MDT"
https://www.thechurchnews.com/leaders/2023/8/15/23832205/new-general-authority-seventy-called-alexander-dushku
In my earlier analysis I made two mistakes: the Euless Texas Stake is actually named the Hurst Texas Stake, and I completely missed the Carrolton Texas Stake with 8 wards.
There are 79 stakes based in Texas, with 622 wards and 114 branches (there are several other units in Texas but are part of stakes based in other states, so they were excluded from my analysis). There are two districts, with a total of 11 branches, and there are 4 branches in South Texas that did not seem attached to any stake or district (Raymondville, Rio Grande City, Roma, and Zapata). The average stake has 9.31 units (7.87 wards and 1.44 branches), which seems absolutely massive to me. 15 stakes had 10 or more wards, and and 36 had 10 or more units. Without any new wards being created or branches advancing into wards, Texas could have 89 stakes with an average of 7 wards per stake.
The smallest stake in Texas in terms of units is the Laredo Texas Stake with 5 wards. There are four other stakes with 5 wards, but two of those stakes have three branches and the other two stakes have two branches. The stakes with the most units are the Dallas Texas East Stake (12 wards, 1 branch) and the Odessa Texas Stake (10 wards, 3 branches).
For anyone who is interested, here is a numerically organized list of all the stakes based in Texas. Thank you for indulging me.
Dallas Texas East Stake (12 wards, 1 branch)
Hurst Texas Stake (11 wards)
Alliance Texas Stake (11 wards)
Denton Texas Stake (11 wards)
Odessa Texas Stake (10 wards, 3 branches)
Allen Texas Stake (10 wards, 1 branch)
Tomball Texas Stake (10 wards, 1 branch)
Richardson Texas Stake (10 wards)
Sherman Texas Stake (10 wards)
Prosper Texas Stake (10 wards)
Houston Texas Stake (10 wards)
Katy Texas Stake (10 wards)
Cypress Texas Stake (10 wards)
Spring Texas Stake (10 wards)
San Antonio Texas West Stake (10 wards)
Heath Texas Stake (9 wards, 2 branches)
Weatherford Texas Stake (9 wards, 2 branches)
Houston Texas Summerwood Stake (9 wards, 2 branches)
Round Rock Texas East Stake (9 wards, 2 branches)
San Antonio Texas Hill Country Stake (9 wards, 2 branches)
Lewisville Texas Stake (9 wards, 1 branch)
Houston Texas West Stake (9 wards, 1 branch)
Colleyville Texas Stake (9 wards)
Houston Texas North Stake (9 wards)
The Woodlands Texas Stake (9 wards)
Round Rock Texas Stake (9 wards)
San Antonio Texas North Stake (9 wards)
Waco Texas Stake (8 wards, 4 branches)
Klein Texas Stake (8 wards, 2 branches)
Houston Texas South Stake (8 wards, 2 branches)
Tyler Texas Stake (8 wards, 2 branches)
Gilmer Texas Stake (8 wards, 2 branches)
McAllen Texas West Stake (8 wards, 2 branches)
Richmond Texas Stake (8 wards, 1 branch)
Dallas Texas Stake (8 wards, 1 branch)
Plano Texas Stake (8 wards, 1 branch)
San Antonio Texas La Cantera Stake (8 wards, 1 branch)
San Antonio Texas Stake (8 wards, 1 branch)
Frisco Texas Stake (8 wards)
Carrollton Texas Stake (8 wards)
Arlington Texas Stake (8 wards)
Kingwood Texas Stake (8 wards)
Austin Texas Oak Hills Stake (8 wards)
El Paso Mount Franklin Stake (8 wards)
Longview Texas Stake (7 wards, 5 branches)
College Station Texas Stake (7 wards, 5 branches)
Corpus Christi Texas Stake (7 wards, 5 branches)
Lubbock Texas North Stake (7 wards, 5 branches)
Harlingen Texas Stake (7 wards, 3 branches)
Burleson Texas Stake (7 wards, 2 branches)
League City Texas Stake (7 wards, 2 branches)
Conroe Texas Stake (7 wards, 2 branches)
McAllen Texas Stake (7 wards, 2 branches)
Austin Texas Stake (7 wards, 1 branch)
Friendswood Texas Stake (7 wards, 1 branch)
McKinney Texas Stake (7 wards, 1 branch)
San Antonio Texas East Stake (7 wards, 1 branch)
El Paso Texas Chamizal Stake (7 wards, 1 branch)
Fort Worth Stake (7 wards)
Fort Worth Texas North Stake (7 wards)
Little Elm Texas Stake (7 wards)
Austin Texas West Stake (7 wards)
Beaumont Texas Stake (6 wards, 6 branches)
Abilene Texas Stake (6 wards, 6 branches)
Kyle Texas Stake (6 wards, 4 branches)
Killeen Texas Stake (6 wards, 3 branches)
Lubbock Texas Stake (6 wards, 3 branches)
Bridgeland Texas Stake (6 wards, 2 branches)
San Antonio Texas Cibolo Valley Stake (6 wards, 2 branches)
Irving Texas Stake (6 wards, 1 branch)
Houston Texas East Stake (6 wards, 1 branch)
Cedar Park Texas Stake (6 wards, 1 branch)
San Antonio Texas Pecan Valley Stake (6 wards, 1 branch)
El Paso Texas Stake (6 wards, 1 branch)
Amarillo Texas East Stake (5 wards, 3 branches)
Amarillo Texas Stake (5 wards, 3 branches)
Orange Texas Stake (5 wards, 2 branches)
Bay City Texas Stake (5 wards, 2 branches)
Laredo Texas Stake (5 wards)
Eagle Pass Texas District (7 branches)
Fort Stockton Texas District (4 branches)
Raymondville Branch, Rio Grande City Branch, Roma Branch, Zapata Branch
The number of wards per stake doesn't necessarily tell the full story. Some stakes that appear that should be split have wards that are essentially on life support and may need to be discontinued. Two relatively recent examples are the Los Angeles California and Carson City Nevada Stakes, both of which had 12+ wards at their peak, but have since seen their wards substantially reduced.
YSA stakes perhaps, but Spanish speaking stakes have seemingly fallen out of favor for whatever reasons.
Respectfully, those are just two examples. How many other stakes with a large number of units have split? That seems to be a much more common occurrence. And it is important to factor in overall trends. Texas has had 21 new congregations created between 2019 and 2022. The data strongly suggests that continued congregational growth will occur and stakes will split. Anecdotally, about 15% of my program from BYU has moved to Texas this year after graduating, and like I mentioned above my ward has over 150 attending each week and had 4 move-ins in the past two weeks.
I suspect at least some of those Texas stakes may not be as strong as they appear to be on paper, particularly those that are in older areas of cities and metro areas, and extrapolating your observations of your local area over entire state isn't realistic, but whatever. Choose to believe what you want.
BTW, the Dallas East Stake has had 12 wards for quite some time now, which begs the question - why hasn't it been split already? Sincere question. Anyone know?
Looking at some of the larger stakes in TX there could be any number of reasons why they haven't be split yet. We need to look at both the good and bad to understand why one stake has 12 wards and another has 5. Some of my thoughts are listed below.
1. There is no need to split, if local stake leaders can easily administer 12 wards why split.
2. Not enough priesthood leaders for two stakes. Now this may not be a bad thing, for example a stack with a larger number of youth in its wards are going to need more leaders for youth, witch gives them less to draw from for stake callings.
Now the flip side of this is the stake just doesn't have a lot of members to draw from for leadership.
3. The church doesn't expect a lot of growth inside the stake over the next couple of years.
4. A stake having a lot of either YSA, or language wards that are better off being in a larger stake.
5. Members who could be in stake/ward leadership of a stake would to split are needed for temple works. With new temples being built around the would the need for temple works from each stake/ward is greater now then it has been in the pass.
Bryce,
Also demographics such as young families vs lots of older senior citizens, how well people accept and fulfill callings, spiritual maturity and reliability of members, geographical distances, configuration of current church building capacity. Also if the only way to reasonably split a stake means all the struggling wards would have to be in one of the new stakes (think limitations due to mountains, rivers, lakes, etc), it would be a challenge.
JTB, your mention of the stakes being massive I assume was in reference to the number of units / stake. But my initial thought went to the geographic size of the stakes. My old stake in Lubbock was approximately 4 hours across. Now, to OHD's point, many of those are very small units, and there is no foreseeable split coming. But in some cases, geographic considerations are made to help localize the church presence as much as possible and reduce the travel burden on members / leaders.
Not included on the list is my current stake (because it spans the border and is not based in TX), which has 13 units in it. But again, no split coming in near future. There's basically 2 geographic hubs in the stake, each with 2 wards. All other units are spread hither and yon and are relatively small. Shoot, even our ward of 120 attending (though big compared to other places I've lived) is quite small compared to many wards.
One thing to consider in the suburban stakes is how quick the new neighborhood growth is happening and how close the area is to "build out". When a stake approaches build out it is much less likely for them to split the stake even with enough units and members because there is a risk of future decline that can make having small stakes difficult. These are most likely to be split in a situation where two stakes become three.
The areas experiencing the most rapid growth are likely to be less worries about future decline and more about keeping up with the massive influx of people. It seems to be that because frequent changes can be hard on leadership, these stakes tend to wait until they are large enough to split by themselves.
Using the DFW metro examples above (mostly because I'm familiar with it and grew up there), I see stakes like Prosper, Alliance, and Denton as growing rapidly and likely to split on their own within the next 5 - 10 years. On the other hand, you could see something like the Hurst and Colleyville stakes combining to make a third stake.
I'm a little surprised no one has mentioned this update today:
https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/alexander-dushku-general-authority-seventy
https://www.thechurchnews.com/leaders/2023/8/15/23832205/new-general-authority-seventy-called-alexander-dushku
https://stokessoundsoff.blogspot.com/2023/08/breaking-news-new-general-authority.html
My thanks once again to you all.
One factor to consider in the DFW area is the limiting factor of buildings. There are only two buildings in the Alliance stake, which has 11 units and is only about 10 years old. Multiple units meet in buildings located within the boundaries of other nearby stakes. Ward boundaries has been modified in an attempt to level the congregation sizes but the growth is happening so quickly. The stake can't split without more buildings however there are none in active building stage at this time.
That is a great point, especially in north DFW where the extreme growth is. The meetinghouses in Prosper have 4 wards each, one in Frisco has 5 and the other has 4, and the building in Melissa has 4. I would imagine that a new stake center would be built alongside the Prosper Temple, but more buildings are definitely needed.
In Sister Dew's non-biography of President Nelson she mentions him saying something about noylt liking to build a stake center in an area before a temple. In the North DFW area I think he made the decision to build a needed temple as the first priority to respond to the growth.
It looks to me like more buildings are clearly needed in the Dallas area.
On the issue of a YSA and language stakes. The leaders of the Church were never keen on language specific stakes. There was an attempt to do that in New York City in the 1980s, but central leaders did not approve. In Houston they moved away from Spanidh stakes. I may say more when I have time.
But arent there several (4-5) tongan speaking stakes in the Salt Lake Valley? If the central leadership prefers not having language-based stakes, why are there so comparatively many right next to church headquarters?
Wow, it does look amazing! Considering the church's history with planned but ultimately scrapped temple designs e.g. Harrison NY, Monterrey Mexico, Tucson AZ, and Newport Beach
CA, I suspect it wont be reused though.
For any who are interested in updates, Rick posted earlier today on his Temples website :
"Urdaneta Philippines Temple Workers' Devotional Held
Nearly 400 Church members from the Urdaneta region met at the Urdaneta stake center on Saturday, August 5, for a devotional held for those interested in volunteering as temple workers at the Urdaneta Philippines Temple. The president and matron of both the Manila Philippines Temple and Urdaneta Philippines Temple shared inspirational messages and instruction. With the temple nearly completed, members are looking forward to an announcement of the open house and dedication dates."
Chris, it's also worth noting that Urdaneta has moved up in the queue. With major construction completed on the Red Cliffs and Layton Utah Temples, I assume the announcement on Red Cliffs' opening dates has been postponed in deference to and in consideration of Elder Holland's ongoing health challenges. The Puebla Mexico Temple, apparently no longer under restrictions that had prevented it from being finalized, is next, then Urdaneta, then Salta Argentina and Coban Guatemala. So hopefully before General Conference, we may get an announcement for at least 3 of those 6 temples. I still don't understand why the Church is letting completed temples sit empty for months before setting dedications, so that's just my best guesstimate for now.
Yes, but there is also a larger concentration of members in that area whose primary language happens to be Tongan. What JPL may have meant is that the Church steers away from native language units except in cases where there are sufficient native speakers of those languages to warrant it.
The town I grew up in had a spanish-speaking branch for a while until it was dissolved and merged into one of the English-speaking family wards that was set aside as a focus ward. Spanish speaking members living in other nearby wards are able to attend and have separate Spanish speaking adult classes. They would either have a separate sacrament or have translators. I've also seen this concept done for YSA's and SAs.
Also, at least in the southeast, I'm seeing Spanish-speaking units having joint SS/Priesthood/RS with an English-speaking ward sharing the same building. Youth and primary are shared among the two units, and separate language-specific adult classes. The English-speaking ward tend to provide majority of leadership for youth/primary which was done in English and the spanish ward provided the children. One unit would have their sacrament meeting before and the other after. Basically, the same concept of the first paragraph except these are separate units.
Interesting development: My cell phone's Chrome browser homepage shows lists of articles that might be of interest to me. I was intrigued to see a link to a Newsroom release indicating that the Church is looking for singers for the new hymnbook. When I tried to access that link, nothing happened. But while searching for the headline in question, the results showed that such a release will be published at some point tomorrow. This is an encouraging update. If they are close enough to recruit singers to record the hymns, I'm even more convinced than I was before that the new hymnbooks may be available at some point in 2025, which marks the 40th anniversary year from when the last hymnbook was made available. That will also likely be true for the Children's Songbook revision. My thanks once again to you all.
About nine years ago I was in a regular family ward in Idaho Falls, Idaho that hosted a sign language group. We had interpreters in Sacrament meeting and the 5th Sunday meeting; and they held their own priesthood, relief society, and Sunday school meetings.
The issues behind greeting the Tongan stakes are different than cresting other languages. I do not claim to fully understand all the issues
I do know people who think that the shared primary and youth program is a bad idea because it limits calling options for those not proficient in English. There are also those who value the language and do not like the way the system creates language loss in the rising generation.
I would point out the Church has never created a Spanish-language stake in Utah. They have it seems tried to in some cases make sure there is a Hispanic mber of the stake presidency.
The Church has ended some Spanish language stakes in California, Texas and Florida.
Keep in mind the Tongan stakes in Utah if split up would end up with the remaining wards still in many cases would still cover many stakes. A stake in Provo has 2 Spanish-speaking units. In an ideal world we would be able to not have language units. There is the example of Sister Spanaus being young women president in a ward in France when she spoke no French.
We are not in an ideal world, but we want to avoid a segregated church. At times though people mixing across cultural lines alienate each other. It is an issue that requires thought and sensitivity.
I do not know of anyone who has been told either way on the new hymnbook as it pertains to their submission, myself included, they were still working on reviewing submissions four months ago.
That call for singers is associated, though, with a call for musicians generally in June or som that is out there,
JPL, I guess I gave you a misunderstanding that the leadership in the shared primary/youth was entirely from the English-speaking ward which was not the case.
In the ward I've been in and others I've seen, this platform worked out much better. The children got to learn and be immersed in English, which will give them much higher chances of success in the U.S. and elsewhere. Likewise the English kids learned some spanish. Prior to the merge of primary and youth, the Spanish Ward (New Orleans 2nd Ward in this case) lacked leaders-especially for the number of youth and primary they had.
Organizational presidencies for both youth and primary included at least one from each ward. The English Ward happen to provide more leadership and the spanish ward happen to provide more children. The combined ward primary presentation was bilingual both in music and spoken word.
In the way of giving out callings, I don't think it limited them more than what they were already limited to. The exception: instruction was in English, so they needed to know at least enough English for that. Some fulfilled their calling in broken English. It still worked out.
At one point when I was a child the primary presidency in my ward held their meetings in Spanish. We had an inordinate number of people with connections to Uruguay and Argentina in the ward.
I have to say local conditions call for local adaptations. However in a purely Spanish speaking environment those who can speak and function only in Spanish could be given any calling.
There are many thoughts about language and cultural identity. I am not sure there are easy answers.
The fact that President Nelson has given multiple addresses in Spanish, including at least once to Luz de Las Naciones, a Utah based event, makes some of the politics of language quite different then they were 20 years ago when I heard some of the discussions they were referencing.
The fact that we have the same magazines in all languages now, and will soon have the same hymnbook is also a big change.
The Church News and even Music and the Spoken Word are available in multiple languages.
I live how they did the Tabernacle Choit tour this summer.
I wonder if we will have more international singers with the choir in October, I hope so. I also am looking forward to seeing where the choir goes on tour next year.
I think there will be a multicultural choir again this conference.
I'm a little surprised on my end that we haven't heard anything about the official arrangements for the upcoming General Conference. Hopefully tomorrow or next week. I wouldn't be shocked if another multicultural choir is featured during that weekend.
I should also perhaps have clarified my comments above. The release in question (calling for singers for the new music) was available for a short time today before it mysteriously disappeared or was removed. So I wondered if the Church is far enough into this process to have established the "core collection" that will carry over from the current hymnbook. If those selections are ready, obviously they can be recorded. The article also indicated that the recording of the hymns will be a multi-year process as well, which pretty much debunks my prediction that the new music could be available sometime in 2025. I now believe the new music might be ready for Churchwide usage by either 2030 (marking the bicentennial anniversary of the re-establishment of the Church) or 2035 (marking the 50th anniversary of the last hymnbook revision).
In either case, I will be glad to see the new music whenever the Church releases it. But speaking of a prospective release in 2030 or 2035, in either case, I will be intrigued to see how many of our current apsotles might still be around at that time. We did get an update from President Nelson about his health in March:
https://www.thechurchnews.com/leaders/2023/5/16/23726116/president-nelson-health-statement-balance-challenges-least-of-our-worries
His fellow apostles and other leaders continue to talk about how President Nelson remains very sharp, focused, energetic, motivated, and hard to keep up with. So despite the balance difficulties, I think there's still a chance, however remote, that he's around to see the revised music implemented. I am not aware of any current health issues Presidents Oaks, Ballard, and Eyring are having. As we know, Elder Holland has had some recent difficulties, but I'm hoping he'll pull through. It's not for me to say one way or the other, but for my part, I hope we still have him with us for a while.
Aside from Elder Cook, the other apostles are all on the younger side, and I'm not aware of anything (outside of COVID-19) that any of them have been dealing with. Just wanted to post my thoughts on that because I have been keeping my eyes open for any updates on our apostles, especially the ones who are getting older.
I don't want to forecast any death other than leave it up to the Lord on this one. Forecasting who exactly who should be the next apostle is something I'm going to refrain from doing. However, I will mention something I have seen with President Nelson is that he's more comfortable on calling those of various demographic backgrounds. I think and personally like to see more representation from outside the United States in the quorum of the twelve. 60% of the church membership live outside of the US with several inside the US being immigrants. 68% of members in the US do not live in Utah. One with strong prior connections multiple locations where the church exists may also be a plus.
Since his call as an apostle, Elder Bednar has been a favorite in Arkansas (also most despised by one that I know that's less active). He's not from Arkansas, but spent time here with the University of Arkansas and as a Stake President. I don't think anyone should be picking favorites based on where they've been, but people do. Having an Apostle from where they live makes them feel represented.
An apostle that is of African decent whether African-American or African, a native spanish-speaker from Latin America, or a Filipino... I don't think these demographics should have anything close to full weight, but should be considered for reasons mentioned above. But most of all, it should be whom the Lord calls.
Something that I was thinking about as we were talking about stake growth in Texas earlier is another place that is likely to push the Church in the total number of new stakes in the next few years, namely the Philippines. There, it seems as though Church growth is accelerating since the world emerged from the pandemic. I feel rather confident that the Philippines will be the next country to reach one million members, most likely before the restoration's 200th anniversary.
Something else that stands out to me is that the Philippines have relatively few (by unit number) large stakes that would split outright, but they do have an uncommonly large number of districts with enough branches to eventually create stakes, namely:
Marbel Philippines District (9 branches)
Roxas Philippines Isabela District (9 branches)
San Jose Mindoro Philippines Occidental District (9 branches)
Placer Philippines District (8 branches)
Ozamiz Philippines District (8 branches)
Pagadian Philippines District (8 branches)
Mindoro Oriental Philippines District (8 branches)
Sipalay Philippines District (8 branches)
La Carlota Philippines District (8 branches)
Toledo Philippines District (8 branches)
Sogod Philippines District (8 branches* plus 2 in the Hinunangan Philippines District)
Calape Philippines District (7 branches)
San Carlos Philippines District (7 branches)
Surigao Philippines District (7 branches)
Dipolog Philippines District (7 branches)
Aparri Philippines District (7 branches)
Antique Philippines District (7 branches)
Gingoog Philippines District (6 branches)
Balingasag Philippines District (6 branches)
Bogo Philippines District (6 branches)
Malaybalay Philippines District (6 branches)
Kidapawan Philippines District (6 branches)
Panabo Philippines District (6 branches)
Guimba Philippines District (6 branches)
Monkayo Philippines District (6 branches)
Solano Philippines District (6 branches)
Alaminos Philippines District (6 branches)
Aguilar Philippines District (6 branches)
Tabaco Philippines District (6 branches)
Ligao Philippines District (6 branches)
Bulan Philippines District (6 branches)
Catbalogan Philippines District (6 branches)
Borongan Philippines District (6 branches)
Biliran Philippines District (6 branches)
Bislig Philippines District (5 branches)
Bongabon Philippines District (5 branches)
Bambang Philippines District (5 branches)
Gonzaga Philippines District (5 branches)
Bangued Philippines District (5 branches)
Sorsogon Philippines District (5 branches)
Masbate Philippines District (5 branches)
Siniloan Philippines District (5 branches)
Jordan Philippines District (5 branches)
Santa Cruz Marinduque Philippines District (5 branches)
Tanjay Philippines District (5 branches)
That's 45 districts which have the minimum number of units needed to become stakes, plus a 46th between the Quezon Philippines Palawan District (4 branches) and the Narra Philippines District (3 branches), which could likely combine to form a stake when the requirements are met. That's a ton of potential here within the next few years.
JPL, as for your comment, when I've been in other countries or worked close, I did try to learn their language and customs. Yes, one that can't or refuses to learn English wouldn't be able to have an English-speaking calling, but the benefits I saw with the shared primary far outweighed the disadvantages. English-speaking children learned Spanish and latin-american culture which is quite diverse in itself. Spanish-speaking children learned English and Cajun culture, which greatly improved their changes of success while in the US.
Hey! Sorry. I didn't see this until just now. There was a rumor that the Teton River Idaho Temple complex would include a separate MTC of the Church, but that has never been officially confirmed. In a time when the Church is taking action to close less busy MTCs, I don't personally believe the rumor. Could it happen? Possibly. Has the Church ever gone on record on this? Not as of yet. So I would say not to put much stock into those rumors unless and until that is confirmed by the Church. Thanks.
The recordings for the present hymnbook came 3 years after the book was released, that was the instrumental version, the vocal version came out in 1992. So we may see the new book then the recordings later. They may already have some idea of what is being kept so they could still start recording at least some if not all of those.
Great info Pascal, thanks for sharing! I would love to see the Philippines continue to flourish. I've been blessed worship alongside many Filipinos and they are some of the most Christlike and humble people I've met.
I would be curious to know when those districts were organized, particularly the larger ones. We could very well see some large districts become large stakes with sufficient member growth, or consolidations of two districts into a stake like the recent stake in Mexico.
Hey, David! I don't necessarily advocate forecasting the longevity of any current apostles either. That wasn't my reason for mentioning this. I've commented on President Nelson's health before because he's the oldest living prophet and apostle in Church history. His longevity amazes me every day. President Ballard is junior to him by 4 years, while President Oaks is almost 4 years younger than President Ballard. There is only a 0.8 year difference in age between Presidents Oaks and Eyring. The next youngest apostles, Elders Cook, Uchtdorf, and Holland were born in 1940 in that order. So it's interesting that as the youngest of those three, Elder Holland is the one to have extensive health issues first.
And while I get that some may not be comfortable speculating on future apostles, I agree with you that President Nelson seems to be more willing to look at international apostles. That's no surprise either. Overall, he's shown he may be more willing to consider needed changes than his predecessors may have been.
When it comes to future apostles, I have noticed patterns in terms of age and prior Church service in general. I don't think that being aware of the potential prospects is wholly bad.
I expect diversity in the picks of future apostles as well, except in one particular case. Whenever President Ballard does pass on (which I hope won't be for a while), the Church will most likely be looking at a direct descendent of Joseph or Hyrum Smith to replace him. Right now, I am aware of only one person who fits that description in the current general Church leadership, and that would be Brother Jan E. Newman, Second Counselor in the Sunday School General Presidency. With the Sunday School General Presidency most likely being released next year, I wouldn't be surprised if either Brother Newman or some other descendent of Joseph or Hyrum were called as a GA Seventy.
I wonder how soon the 3 Mission Branches of Francistown, Gerald and Monarch that are located in the vicinity of Francistown, Botswana, in the northeast section of Botswana, could organize themselves into a District?
https://maps.churchofjesuschrist.org/wards/470503
David McFadden,
While I understand the closeness people feel to apostles with similar backgrounds to their own, several apostles have made it clear that they represent Jesus Christ to the people and do not represent the people. Having said that, I think it's good to have apostles from various walks of life, which I presume leads to more robust counseling together among leaders.
@David McFadden, you are correct that ultimately the most important (and indeed, at the end of the day the only), criteria for which of the millions of men the Lord could choose from for the apostleship is His call. I don't think that the calling of Elder Soares (who is neither from Utah nor the US) is because President Nelson is more willing to call people from other parts of the world than previous church presidents were (after all, President Hinckley did extend the call to Elder Uchtdorf, the first non-American apostle in several generations). Rather, it is a reflection of the growing and deepening of the church in other parts of the world.
Elder Bednar stated a year or two ago that roughly 1/4 of *active* members of the church are in Utah, 1/4 in the rest of the US, 1/4 in the rest of the Americas, and 1/4 in the rest of the world outside the Americas. However, even then from a statistical perspective we wouldn't expect to see the Quorum of the 12 approximating those ratios for two reasons: first, everywhere needs branch presidents and bishops, district presidents and stake presidents, and calling general authorities from places with relatively few priesthood holders with the maturity to fulfill those assignments puts more of a strain on the functioning of the local church units than when calling them from places where there are many such brethren, which would lead us to expect to see a disproportionate number from places with a high density of active members. Second, because usually when someone is called as an apostle, he has many years of experience gained in church service locally and often at an area or general level (though not always, President Monson being an obvious counterexample), and as a lifetime calling the Quorum of the Twelve's composition will change at a much slower pace than the composition of the church as a whole. As such, callings to the twelve will tend to reflect the composition of the church 20 or 30 years ago rather than of the church today. Given the growth and maturity of the church in some more parts of the world outside the US over the past 3 or 4 decades, I imagine we will see an increasing number of brethren called from various parts of the globe in the next decade or two. That said, all of that is just statistical observation, and the Lord sees not as man sees -- He will choose as He sees fit, knowing the end from the beginning.
--Felix
Douns the hymnbook singers announcement, the reason for the multiple ears also has to do with language recordings apparently.
https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/singers-needed-for-new-church-hymnbook?fbclid=IwAR25kCsebgiA-7xdvFdSPJdKv8qm_5SGKbHs-GKitS3pFfrsMnR-gqyrX7I#:~:text=hymn%2Dsingers&text=Latter%2Dday%20Saint%20singers%20of,are%20due%20September%2017%2C%202023
JTB,
I just did a cursory search for the first 5 locations Pascal provided using Matt's site.
Marbel - Not listed in the lists of districts created that goes back to 2006.
Is mentioned in 2008 posting abount potential new stakes in the Phillipines.
Another article that lists district creation from 2001-2009 does not mention it at all so it appears to be a fairly long established district.
Roxas- Appears to have been created in 2005.
San Jose Mindoro- Appears to have been established sometime before 2007.
Placer - Mentioned in 2008 posting about potential districts becoming stakes
Ozamiz - Not able to find any specific data or mention.
Based on just these 5, a lot of the districts there appears to be ones that have been in existence for a while. I will let everyone decide for them elves what that might mean.
JTB,
I did a cursory search of the first 5 districts listed by Pascal using data from Matt's site:
Marbel - Not listed in the lists of districts created that goes back to 2006.
Is mentioned in 2008 posting abount potential new stakes in the Phillipines.
Another article that lists district creation from 2001-2009 does not mention it at all so it appears to be a fairly long established district.
Roxas- Appears to have been created in 2005.
San Jose Mindoro- Appears to have been established sometime before 2007.
Placer - Mentioned in 2008 posting about potential districts becoming stakes.
Ozamiz - Not able to find any specific data or mention.
Based on just these 5, a lot of the districts there appears to be ones that have been in existence for a while. I will let everyone decide for them elves what that might mean.
Rio Grande City was part of the McAllen West Stake until the Laredo Stake was created and I was told at the time that they were moved to that stake. I would think Roma and Zapata would also belong to the Laredo Stake? Raymondville looks like maybe it would be in the Harlingen Stake? There was a lot of talk about creating a 3rd McAllen Stake by taking from both the current stakes, but nothing has come of that. From what I heard it became quite complicated as English and Spanish ward boundaries do not line up, so they couldn't just assign a few wards from each stake to a new stake.
Releasing the vocal versions 7 years after the hymnbook came out makes me think that they were unrelated projects.
I am convinced we will not know what is going on with the oroject until it is fully done.
This year we will reach the point where all apostles are at least 65. I am not sure the point has ever been reached before.
I think at the start of 2004 Elder Holland was the only apostle under 70. By the end of the year there will still be 2 in that year.
I am not sure there have been any apostles under 50 since 1977.
The general trend over time is the age of the apostles in general goes up.
Just read on the most recent blog post of the Liberia Monrovia Mission that at least 9 more stakes are expected to be created in the Africa West Area before the end of the year: https://thomasesinliberia.com/2023/08/20/14-months-14-lessons/
Very interesting, thank you for that Craig.
They tried a mixed-language (Spanish abd English) primary in my old Ogden stake for a while (with mixed results). I participated a bit with it. My sister was called as one of the music leaders for it. I think it had potential and wish it would have lasted longer (but I'm a bit biased as a bilingual myself).
Despite them canceling that program, I and my family made several friends in the Spanish ward, who we spent time with at basketball, other multicultural church activities, and hanging out outside of church, too.
There are still 8 temples that exceed any Nelson era temple for announcement to Groundbreaking, including Salt Lake. Los Angeles still holds the record for announcement to Ground Breaking, although Guayaquil got close, they are both at 14 years. That is longer than Urdaneta's total.
Right now I believe the top 5 are Salt Lake
46 years, LA 19 years, Guayaquil 17 years, Bogota 15 years, and Manti 12 years 10 months and a few days. Then Urdaneta which has beat out Kyiv which is maybe a month past 12 years, and is maybe a few days short of Manti, but since it will almost certainly not be dedicated until sometime in 2024 at the earliest, it looks like it will hold position 5, since I just can't see it no being dedicated before October 2025.
As a follow-up to my earlier post, I decided to just go through the lists Matt provides going back to 2006 to see how many districts have been created in the Philippines and the number is minimal. The most recent was 2019 and between there and 2006 there appear to have been 5 districts created all toll. This means a large percentage of the districts in the Philippines are 20 years or older. Hopefully, as temples are announced and dedicated, , it will help these districts in making the next step.
Three nations that have had a number of districts created are Papua New Guinea, Cote d'Ivoire and Nigeria. Having their temple or temples active may assist with getting their districts leveled up also. Though Nigeria seems to be having a fair amount of success already, even without having a groundbreaking for any of its 3 announced temples.
Where does Kiev Ukraine place on announcement to groundbreaking or dedication
Kyiv Temple Stats
Announcement: 20 July 1998
Groundbreaking and Site Dedication: 23 June 2007 by Paul B. Pieper
Public Open House: 7–21 August 2010
Chris, Kiev Ukraine already has an operating temple. Due to Russia-Ukraine war/"special military operation", it was closed for a few months last year but has reopened and attendance is by appointment only.
In regards to language units, I know (at least 10 years ago when I was there) there are overlapping English and French-speaking stakes in Montreal and Ottawa (Canada). That said, both are "native" languages to the area. In Montreal, (again ~10 years ago) they had an English YSA ward and a bi-lingual French/Spanish YSA ward.
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