New Branch in Guyana

Another new branch was recently created in Parika, Guyana. The city was opened to missionary work last May and the branch was created earlier this month. Parika is about 20-30 miles west of the capital of Georgetown. There are now at least 15 branches in Guyana.

New District in Peru

A new district of the Church was recently created in Huancavelica Perú. This is the first district of the Church to ever be created in the Huancavelica province. There was originally only one branch in the city that reported to the Peru Lima East Mission until recently. There are three branches in the city/province today. This is exciting considering that few districts of the Church are created nowadays in Latin America. Oftentimes the creation of districts signify growth in areas in which there has not been growth before. There are now 24 districts and 87 stakes in the country.

New Stakes in Utah

Yesterday at least two new stakes were created in Utah. The South Jordan Daybreak Stake (had 14 wards and a branch) was split as well as the Pleasant View Utah Stake (had 15 wards). There might have been another stake created as well.

This brings the total number of stakes created in Utah this year to at least seven.

First Branch(es) created in Sudan

According to several missionaries serving in the Uganda Kampala Mission, at least one branch has been established in Sudan. It is likely near the city of Wau, where six or seven unofficial congregations are meeting in the name of the Church. The Mission President visited the area last July and distributed Church literature to several individuals and gave them the responsibility to teach others about the Gospel. I will provide more information when it becomes available.

Furthermore, Sudan has been officially added to the Uganda Kampala Mission. The other two countries in the mission are Ethiopia and Rwanda.

New Stake Created in Mexico

According to an article posted on the Church's official website, a new stake has been created in Mexico. There were 210 stakes in Mexico at the end of 2007 and one stake has been created so far this year in Pachuca. The article states that there are currently 212 stakes, so one stake was recently created. The article is about the Mexico City Mexico Temple being rededicated next month. Here is the link for the article.

http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/news-releases-stories/mexico-city-temple-opens-its-doors-to-the-public

I will provide the name of the new stake once in becomes available.

Bringing the Temple to the Saints

I wanted to provide an insight into how available temples are to the members of the Church. At the beginning of October of 2008, an interesting statistic was put forth concerning temples and their availability to members of the Church. The following quotation comes from http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=4434621 .

The planning and building of temples in the last 27 years has led to a
remarkable statistic. Elder William Walker, with the LDS Temple Department,
said, "Eighty-two percent of the members live within 200 miles of a temple
worldwide, which is essentially within about three hours of ground
transportation."

This is a pretty impressive number considering 10.8 million of the 13.2 million members of the Church are this close to a temple. However, that still means that nearly 2.4 million members are quite distant from a Temple of the Lord.

I have developed a ratio to provide an insight into how available temples are to the members of the Church. I take the number of stakes in the Church for a given year and divide it by the total number of operating temples for that given year. Larger numbers indicate more stakes are assigned to each temple (usually meaning that members have to travel further to reach that temple). Smaller numbers indicate fewer stakes are assigned to each temple (meaning that members are closer to each temple).

• 1945 - 19 stakes per temple
• 1955 - 25 stakes per temple
• 1965 - 32 stakes per temple
• 1975 - 46 stakes per temple
• 1980 - 68 stakes per temple
• 1985 - 43 stakes per temple
• 1990 - 41 stakes per temple
• 1995 - 46 stakes per temple
• 2000 - 25 stakes per temple
• 2005 - 22 stakes per temple
• 2008 - 22 stakes per temple

I am comfortable to say that temples today are as available to the membership of the Church as they were back in 1945. This may sound counter intuitive, but back in 1945 Church membership was almost entirely in the Western United States, where six of the eight temples of the Church were at the time (seven if you count the temple in Cardston Alberta). Today the country with the most members without a temple (Nicaragua) has 60,000 members, or less than 0.5% of total Church membership. This illustrates that the Church has done a terrific job in making temples more available its members.

The 40 or so small, miniature temples built around 10 years ago kind of throw this statistic off a bit. About two-thirds of these temples serve less than 10 stakes and almost all of them are in Mexico or the United States.

Rapid Growth in Madagascar

New Branch

A new branch was recently created in the port city of Toamasina. There are now two branches in the city with a third branch to be created in the coming month or two. This is a signficant development for the Church in Madagascar because Toamasina is the first city outside the capital with more than one congregation.

New Wards and Background Information

There is one stake in Madagscar in the capital city of Antananarivo which was organized back in 2000. The stake has recently grown to nine wards and a few branches (two branches recently became wards in the past couple months). Missionaries serving in the Madagscar Antananarivo Mission stated that the stake will likely be split into two stakes at the beginning of next year. Most missionaries have several baptisms every week.

Madagascar had 4,160 members organized in 15 congregations at the end of 2007. Membership has more than doubled since 2000 and the number of congregations nearly tripled. Missionary activity began in 1991. According to returned missionaries, most of the congregations have at least 100 people attending a week.

New Congregations in Trinidad and Pohnpei

Trinidad

Today a new branch was organized in Trinidad in the city of Port Fortin. A group was organized six months ago. There were almost 30 members and investigators in attendance at this historic event. This is the first branch to be created in the southern part of the country. I believe this is the 11th congregation on Trinidad. Still no word on when a stake will be created for the island.

Pohnpei

A new branch was recently created on the island. A group was also created in Nett which I believe is on Kosrae. Both of these islands are part of the Micronesia Guam Mission.

New District Created in Pakistan?

The reason why I pose this as a question is because I don't know if the district which is already in Pakistan was just renamed (from Islamabad to Karachi) or this is a new district (which would be the second in the country).

According to the Church's official website for the Hong Kong China Temple District http://www.lds.org/temples/district/0,11217,1915-1-84-2,00.html, the Karachi Pakistan District is now listed. There has been a district functioning in Pakistan since the mid 1990s and has been named the Pakistan District and later the Islamabad Pakistan District. In 2001 five of the six branches at the time where in the northern part of Pakistan and under the name of the Islamabad Pakistan District. The district was listed under the temple district for the Hong Kong China Temple and was removed a couple years ago (as were other Church units in areas of the world which are not so tolerant to the Church). Considering the majority of the branches in Pakistan are in the northern part of the country, the Karachi Pakistan District seems to be a new district created considering the city of Karachi is about 500 miles away from the closest branch in the north. However, as of 2001 only one branch was in the city. Districts have at least two branches. Another bit of information which supports the fact that this could be a new district is that other Church units in other places in the world which were taken off temple district listings a couple years ago were not put back on the temple district lists.

The Church only has Pakistani missionaries in Pakistan and they meet only with Christian Pakistanis. Pakistan is under the recently created India New Delhi Mission.

If anyone has any information about whether this is a new district of the Church, please leave your commit.

Updated List of the States in the United States with the Most Members Without a Temple

Membership, stakes and districts, number of congregations, and temple(s) state is assigned to are provided below. The numbers in parenthesis indicate how many stakes and districts area assigned to the temple (stake, district). The list includes all states with over 10,000 members of the Church with no temple within the state.

1. Virginia

• - 83,225 members
• - 19 stakes
• - 183 congregations
• - Washington DC Temple (19,0)

2. Wyoming

• - 59,970 members
• - 16 stakes
• - 151 congregations
• - Billings Montana Temple (5,0), Ogden Utah Temple (5,0), Denver Colorado Temple (2,0), Idaho Falls Idaho Temple (2,0), Vernal Utah Temple (2,0)

3. Indiana

• - 40,139 members
• - 11 stakes
• - 96 congregations
• - Chicago Illinois Temple (4,0), Columbus Ohio Temple (1,0), Louisville Kentucky Temple (6,0)

4. Kansas

• - 32,116 members
• - 7 stakes
• - 74 congregations
• - Oklahoma City Oklahoma Temple (2,0), St. Louis Missouri Temple (2,0), Winter Quarters Nebraska Temple (2,0), Denver Colorado Temple (1,0)

5. New Jersey

• - 30,280 members
• - 5 stakes, 1 district
• - 58 congregations
• - Manhattan New York Temple (4,1), Washington DC Temple (1,0)

6. Arkansas

• - 25,296 members
• - 5 stakes
• - 56 congregations
• - Oklahoma City Oklahoma Temple (3,0), Memphis Tennessee Temple (2,0)

7. Wisconsin

• - 23,907 members
• - 6 stakes
• - 68 congregations
• - Chicago Illinois Temple (5,0), St. Paul Minnesota Temple (1,0)

8. Iowa

• - 23,301 members
• - 7 stakes
• - 69 congregations
• - Nauvoo Illinois Temple (3,0), Winter Quarters Nebraska Temple (4,0)

9. Mississippi

• - 20,377 members
• - 4 stakes
• - 44 congregations
• - Baton Rouge Louisiana Temple (3,0), Memphis Tennessee Temple (1,0)

10. West Virginia

• - 16,491 members
• - 4 stakes
• - 38 congregations
• - Washington DC Temple (2,0), Columbus Ohio Temple (1,0), Louisville Kentucky Temple (1,0)

11. Maine

• - 10,160 members
• - 2 stakes
• - 32 congregations
• - Boston Massachusetts Temple (2,0)