New Stake Created Recently in Mexico

The Pachuca Mexico South Stake became the first stake to be organized in Mexico this year. Just outside of Mexico City in the Mexican state of Hidalgo, Pachuca received its first stake back in 1984 and a second stake in 1996. Both of these stakes were considerably large prior to the split and it would not be out of the question to see another stake organized in this portion of the Mexico City Metropolitan area soon. As for Mexico City as a whole, there are 40 stakes which have "Mexico City" in its name, and another five located in the Federal District and Mexico State. Many of the stakes in Mexico City are quite large, with over 10 wards. A missionary commented that many of the stakes have not been split yet due to the lack of full tithe payers. Nonetheless, it might be that multiple stakes will be created on a single day in the near future in Mexico City (for instance, 15 stakes were created on one day back in 1975 in the Mexico City area). Conversions are happening at a rapid rate and a little over a year ago one of the missions baptized over 1,000 converts in one month! Church leaders from Salt Lake stepped in and counseled the mission to be sure these converts stay and build up the Church and consequently conversions have dropped.

The Mexico City Mexico Temple is currently under renovation and will not reopened probably until fall from what I figure (otherwise open house dates and rededication dates would have already been announced). A new temple in Puebla, Mexico is something I see as quite likely in the near future to support the growing and maturing membership. There are around 1.1 million members organized in 211 stakes and 41 districts. Mexico has the third most missions out of any country in the world with 21 and the second most temples (12). Also I am delighted to report the majority of missionaries serving in Mexico are Mexican. This helps strengthen future leadership in Mexico and aids in the efficiency of missionary work. Mexico does have less stakes and districts than Brazil (which has around 100,000 fewer members) but has around 200 more wards and branches. Again, this indicates that more stakes and districts are likely to be created soon.

I know the map above may seem a bit ridiculous, but I did my best to indicate stakes with yellow squares and districts with green squares. Keep in mind there are over 20 million people in Mexico City alone (don't get the illusion that everyone there is Mormon because of all the stakes; it's probably around 1% or so LDS).