This morning, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced plans to create 55 new missions in 2026, bringing the total number of missions worldwide to 506. This marks the second most new missions to be organized in a single year ever (there were 58 new missions organized in 2013). There are now 84,000 full-time missionaries (teaching and service) serving - an increase of more than 12,000 since year-end 2023. The location and geographic distribution of these missions represents a dramatic shift in recent trends in new missions being organized and has significant potential to accelerate growth worldwide more in line with trends seen prior to 2000. I will provide additional analysis in the coming days. See below for a list of these new missions.
- Angola Luanda North (Africa South)
- Arizona Phoenix East (United States Southwest)
- Australia Brisbane South (Pacific)
- Brazil Guarulhos (Brazil)
- Brazil São Bernardo (Brazil)
- Brazil Sorocaba (Brazil)
- California Oceanside (United States West)
- California Ontario (United States West)
- California Victorville (United States West)
- Canada Halifax (Canada)
- Canada Toronto East (Canada)
- Cape Verde Mindelo (Europe North)
- Cote d’Ivoire Abidjan South (Africa West)
- Cote d’Ivoire Daloa (Africa West)
- DR Congo Kinshasa North (Africa Central)
- DR Congo Mwene-Ditu (Africa Central)
- France Paris South (Europe Central)
- Ghana Accra South (Africa West)
- Ghana Sunyani (Africa West)
- Greece Athens (Europe Central)
- Idaho Coeur d’Alene (United States West)
- Indiana Fort Wayne (United States Northeast)
- Kenya Kisumu (Africa Central)
- Liberia Monrovia West (Africa West)
- Malawi Lilongwe (Africa South)
- México Tula (México)
- Mississippi Jackson (United States Southeast)
- Missouri Kansas City (United States Central)
- Mongolia Ulaanbaatar West (Asia North)
- Mozambique Nampula (Africa South)
- Oklahoma Tulsa (United States Southwest)
- Papua New Guinea Daru (Pacific)
- Papua New Guinea Madang (Pacific)
- Paraguay Asunción South (South America South)
- Perú Lima Northwest (South America Northwest)
- Perú Tacna (South America Northwest)
- Philippines Lingayen (Philippines)
- Philippines Lipa (Philippines)
- Philippines Ormoc (Philippines)
- Philippines Ozamiz (Philippines)
- Philippines Puerto Princesa (Philippines)
- Samoa Apia East (Pacific)
- Senegal Dakar (Africa West)
- Solomon Islands Honiara (Pacific)
- South Africa East London (Africa South)
- Spain Madrid East (Europe Central)
- Texas Dallas North (United States Southwest)
- Texas Houston North (United States Southwest)
- Texas San Antonio South (United States Southwest)
- Togo Lomé (Africa West)
- Uganda Kampala East (Africa Central)
- Uruguay Salto (South America South)
- Virginia Norfolk (United States Northeast)
- Wyoming Cheyenne (United States Central)
- Zimbabwe Harare West (Africa South)
31 comments:
I have no words. This is amazing.
This certainly wasn’t what I was expecting to happen today. I’m personally most excited to see missions in Dakar, Athens, and Puerto Princesa. The only one I hadt heard of before was Sunyani Ghana. I’ll be going on my mission next year, I wonder if I’ll be going to any of these new ones.
This sets back the time when the number of announced temples will equal missions somewhat. Even if President Oaks resumes announced 30+ temples a year next year, the time when temples equal missions in set back at least to 2031.
The Senegal Dakar one is the one that I find the most exciting. Ivory Coast Daloa is also exciting.
Malawi getting its own mission will be great for both Malawi and Zambia.
Kenya and Mozambique getting 3rd missions is not too surprising. DR Congo North instead of doing a Kisangani Mission is an interesting decision.
Eastern Canada is basically going back to the number of missions it had a few years back.
4 new sets of temple presidents and matron were called. They continue the trend of calling in district temple leaders. 3 are for new temples and 1 for a renovated temple. 2 temples in the US and 2 in Mexico.
The US temples are Willimette Valley Oregon. No surprise there and San Diego California.
The two Mexican temple presidents in Torreon and San Luis Potosi and both not only resident if the districts but born in those cities. All 4 are former stake presidents. The one from Torreon is currently a patriarch. The one from San Luis Potosi is a service mission leader who was previously a mission president.
What will be interesting to see is if with New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, Sierra Leone and Cambodia if they call the First Temple leaders in district.
It will also be interesting to see of we call in district and not just in country with all 1st temple presidents in The Philippines and possibly a few other countries.
Lastly it will be interesting to see how soon they replace the Allen's who are essentially the last American expatriate temple leaders. They lead Abijan and were called back in 2021. That temple was dedicated in May 2025, so in theory they might serve until 2027 or even 2928. I suspect they will be replaced this year though. That is what they did in Cape Verde. They started with a Brazilian couple as temple leaders but replaced then after about 15 months of operation with a local Cape Verdean couple.
I am wondering if Fort Wayne Indiana Mission will have any influence on missions in Michigan. It is possible that it will take in the Toledo Ohio Stake from the Detroit Mission.
I believe there are Muncie, Lafayette, South Bend and then Fort Wayne Stakes. The other stake it could take might be Kalamazoo from the Landing Mission. Lansing Mission has 5 stakes and the Traverse City District. South Bend stake takes in some areas in Michigan just across the border.
Mississippi Jackson being restored is good news. Same with the two in East Canada. Norfolk Virginia is also a restoration.
Tulsa Oklahoma is not exactly because the old Tulsa was renamed Bentonville. I did not realize Tacna did not have a mission. That is very close to the Chilean border correct?
Angola Luanda North may allow for outreach into Kongo Province, which has been Christian at some level since before 1500.
We may finally see the Book of Mormon published in the Kongo language. A 4th mission in Kinshasa will mean that more mission resources can be focused on the west of DR Congo where Kongo language is also spoken. Linguala which dies have a Book of Mormon edition is somewhat close to Kongo,but I have no clue how close they actually are.
Is Missouri Kansas City in addition to Missouri Independence?
Togo getting its own mission is quite exciting.
Is this 4 countries getting first missions, plus Greence getting one again?
Mexico Tula is putting a mission basically in San Marcos, which is where the martyrs of 1915, Rafael Monroy and Vicente Morales, were killed. Were Pachuca and Tula previously in the same mission?
Is this the first time Wyoming has had a regular mission based in it?
Is the 5 new missions in the Philippines a high for there at once?
It is tempting to say that President Oaks being a former area president in the Philippines is why they are getting 5 new missions. I suspect if there is a connection it is not that he is pushing that, but the policies he put in place have lead to a point where that is needed.
It is interesting Nigeria gets no new missions and Mexico only gets one. Do the 3 new ones in California put us to an all time record, or are we sill below the peak?
2 new missions in Papua New Guinea does make sense.
I have to admit I am a little surprised Soerra Leone is not getting a new mission.
I am also surprised Cape Verde is getting a 2nd mission. Although this may be in part due to running Guinea Bissau.
This is likely more than the projected increase in missionaries. Slightly fewer missionaries per mission president makes it a little easer to manage.
In 2016, the first missionaries, humanitarian service missionaries, arrived in Senegal. On February 20, 2018, the LDS Church received official recognition from the Government. A district was crated in 2022 and next year they'll have their own mission.
4 countries gets first mission. Note: Greece Athens was discontinued in 2018 and being reinstated in 2026
Malawi Lilongwe
Solomon Islands Honiara
Senegal Dakar
Togo Lomé
The one that I'm most curious about is Missouri Kansas City. The KC metro area has long been served by the Missouri Independence Mission (Independence is effectively a suburb of KC). Will Independence remain as a full proselyting mission, with the KC metro area divided in half? Or will Independence be turned into some kind of separate historic site mission, with the new Kansas City mission taking over proselyting?
Other Matt here.
In Southern California, the new Oceanside California Mission is just bringing back the Carlsbad Mission that was dissolved some years back.
Likewise, the Ontario California Mission bringing back the Rancho Cucamonga Mission that was dissolved a few years ago.
The new Victorville Mission focusing just on the High Desert is the net new mission for Inland Empire (San Bernardino and Riverside Counties) .
I wonder if the current San Bernardino Mission will be renamed the Redlands Mission with the split to form Rancho Cucamonga and Victorville Missions.
Salto Uruguay surprised me a bit. Although that city is where I expect the next temple for Uruguay. I also suspect the Concordia district in Argentina might be part of this mission.
My old stake president and his wife were called!
Any chance the cumorah monthly news letters make a come back?
President and matron for the Willamette temple
I’m surprised they did not announce a American Sonia mission!
Somoa
The new Kansas City mission matches the larger base of members in the Kansas City metro. I doubt the Independence mission will be just historical sites.
I wonder why Spain Madrid gets a 3rd mission. Madrid has 3 stakes all other stakes are far away from Madrid. Why not create a mission in the south of Spain?
Looks like some of the locations we'd been predicting for new temples this time around got new missions instead.
It's a fair observation and trend that is bothering me a little in some other areas as well, like Paris. There are quite a few cities like Bordeaux, Toulouse or Nancy (where anecdotally the Church is seeing its most rapid growth in France) that could reasonably host a mission and be closer to many of the prospective areas than another mission home in Paris. I do feel like the geographic outlines of many of the Europe Central missions is becoming increasingly awkward.
Thomas Wagner, I know exactly what you mean. I was hoping that the news would be that the newest member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles was ordained on Thursday. Maybe next week.
I believe you meant Samoa/
But I would assume that the fact they have new missions would actually strengthen the argument supporting temples in those same cities.
I am estimating that the number of new mission presidents called to serve this year will be somewhere in the range of 170-180 or so. It is likely that at least one current GA Seventy and several current area seventies will be called as new mission leaders, though it is less clear whether those area seventy mission presidents will all be released in April.
Anonymous, that's cool. Thanks for sharing that. Based on current general completion estimates for some of the temples in the current construction queue, I project that we will also soon see the first leaders announced for the Phnom Penh Cambodia, Miraflores Guatemala City Guatemala, Ephraim Utah, Port Moresby Papua New Guinea, Pago Pago American Samoa, Managua Nicaragua, Bacolod Philippines, Montpelier Idaho, Belo Horizonte Brazil, and Wichita Kansas Temples, each of which is anticipated to be completed by or before mid-2026.
I used to live in Ridgecrest, which I think will be part of the Victorville Mission
By having a piece of Madrid in all three missions, the missionaries can attend the temple. Having served as a senior missionary in the Barcelona mission, the missionaries there do not have that opportunity.
So even southern California is only going to previous high levels in this rearrangement. True, Victorville is a totally new mission, but since San Fernado mission is gone it is not an unprecedented number of missions. This may not even be a high number of missions.
Idaho I think hits its past high, since there used to be two missions in the greater Boise area, but the mission is in a new place.
Norfolk Virginia is Chesepeake Virginia with a new name. Fort Wayne returned the tei-state Michigan, Ohio, Indiana region to 6 missions, but it is really not replacing Clebeland.
Right now US Northeast Area has 19 missions and 20 announced temples. This will put it to 21 missions, although announced temples could go up before July.
The Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey and New England (plus Delaware) region at present has 7 missions. It at one point had 12 missions.
Paris South is a totally new mission, but since there peaked at 7 missions in French and Dutch speaking Europe and this will bring us back to 4 we are brloe peak there as well.
Is Spain going to 3 or 4 missions with this change. I believe in peaked at 5, but Las Palmas mission Emma's never very large.
Is Brisbabe South a new mission or restoring an old one that was merged?
JRW I have to wonder if in some cases like Fort Wayne creating a mission can be preparation for a temple.
On the other hand the locating of a mission has many factors that make it different than a temple location decision.
Missions there is a general goal to balance them. With temples some are much bigger than others. Splitting up missions in large cities is the long standard. At one point the idea was to create larger temples in bigger cities. More recently we have seen more temples announced for large Metropolitan cities, but missions still tend to outnumber temples in those areas. Building temples in small isolated cities is often more pressing than creating missions in such places.
Also the preference has been to name missions directionally more than temples. If Temples were named like missions the Lone Mountain Bevada Temple would be the Las Vegas Bevada West Temple.
The missionaries from the Lansing Mission are at times allowed to come to the Detroit Temple. I am not sure of all the logistics of such, but I do not think that the temple access alone explains this.
One possibility may be that the Church is seeing higher rates of success with more diverse populations in large Metropolitan areas like Paris and Madrid.
I served in the Málaga mission (southern Spain) before it was discontinued in 2018. Being headquartered in Madrid would have been much more convenient for coordinating mission wide travel and temple attendance.
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