I imagine a new temple will be announced for Peru among the next three temples to be announced.
Other temples which are likely to be announced are Brasilia Brazil, Belo Horizonte Brazil, Salvador Brazil, Tarawa Kiribati, Dagupan Philippines, Culiacan Mexico, Managua Nicaragua, Quito Ecuador, Cordoba Argentina, and San Jose Puerto Rico. The United States has many temples which are not too far away for most members. Most likely temple sites in the United States include Kansas City Missouri, Pocatello Idaho and Tucson Arizona.
Several of these nations are very close to having stakes organized in them. There has been talk of the first stake in Russia to be organized in St. Petersburg sometime soon. The Moscow Russia District could have become a stake last year, but was split into two districts to try to increase convert baptisms and retention. The LDS Church News reported that the Bo Sierra Leone District is preparing to become a stake as well as the Majuro District in the Marshall Islands. The Bangalore India District's goal to become a stake was commented on in a article on at http://www.lds.or.in/ when the KFG branch was organized earilier this year. The first stake was almost organized in Jamaica a few years ago, but was not due to a lack in priesthood holders.
It has been difficult to establish stakes in Russia due to membership spread accross such a large area as well as inactivity. Cambodia and Mongolia are two nations which 10 years ago both had less than a 1,000 members and have experienced rapid growth. Cambodia's growth has slowed recented, probably due to an emphasis on reactivation. Although most Mongolian members reside in the capital city of Ulaanbaatar, 70% of the members are single, which indicates the young age of most of the members in that country. This has also prolonged the time for the first stake to be established in that country. Liberia had its first stake established back in 2000, but was dissolved earlier this year for reasons I am not quite sure. However, it coincided with the organization with the first mission in Sierra Leone which administers to Liberia and is probably related. Sometimes this occurs in preparation to make two stakes in the future (as was the case in Tuxtla Gutierrez which dissolved a stake there back in 2005 and ealier this year two stakes were organized in the region).
There are other countries with a smaller LDS membership which are also close to having a stake established in their country. The countries which fit this criteria also tend to have membershp focused to one or a couple cities and also have high growth rates. Examples of these kind of countries include Armenia and Uganda.
The top three nations which have the highest increase (not %) in membership per year usually are the United States, Brazil (which also just reached over 1,000,000 members) and Mexico.
Nicaragua provides a good example of a nation which exhibits some of these points. Membership is relatively young; seven out of the past eight stakes have been organized in the past seven years. High inactivity is illustrated by the high member to unit ratio of 615 members per unit. Of course this activity indicator has limitations such as countries which have many branches can lower this ratio even though inactivity can be quite high. Nevertheless, a ratio of over 550 members per unit signifies high inactivity even in a nation predominantly covered by wards and stakes.
The Church in Europe tends to have difficulties finding land for temples. People who have been in Europe have indicated to me that this is one of the reasons why Itay and France do not have temples yet. However, President Hinckley told a group of saints in 2004 in France that a temple will someday be built in that land.
Most the information I use in these blog postings are taken from the Church Alamanac by the Deseret Morning News, lds.org, mormon.org, mission.net, personal contacts, and ldschurchtemples.com. Most of the maps I use are from the Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection from the University of Texas.
