A stake in Guatemala City was recently dissolved. The Guatemala City Monte Maria Stake was dissolved sometime in the past month or two. This lowers the number of stakes in Guatemala City to 17. Only one other stake has been dissolved in Guatemala before, which was back in 1988. Conversions have dropped substantially over the years in Guatemala, yet the number of wards has held steady in the country. There are areas where growth is occurring more rapidly. For instance, the Rio Blanco District by Quetzaltenango has seen many conversions according to returned missionaries. Furthermore a second temple in the country was announced just 18 months ago. I imagine that the stake was dissolved for a variety of reasons, and I think that the two biggest ones were active members moving away and inactivity. Lastly, back in 2002 the Guatemala City Monte Maria Stake had only five wards in it (which is the usual bear minimum for there to be a stake entirely made of wards).
Do you know the name of the stake that was dissolved in 1988?
ReplyDeleteMy mistake - the dissolved stake was actually dissolved in 1994 and was created in 1988. The name of the stake was the Escuintla Guatemala Stake.
ReplyDeleteFascinating, I served in 2 Areas that were once part of the Escuintla Stake. Rumors abounded there about why it collapsed. I never knew if the stories were true, but I guess the stake really did once exist. Where did you find that info, I could never find anything on it from searches I’ve done, actually that’s how I found your Blog. Thanks for the info.
ReplyDeleteI got the information from the Church Almanac. The Church Almanac has had all the information for when stakes were created and when stakes were discontinued. The 2009 almanac only includes this information for the past year.
ReplyDeleteDoes that mean that to get info on the Escuintla Guatemala Stake I would need to get the Almanac from 1994? Does it give any history or details or just numbers and dates?
ReplyDeleteThe Church Almanac published the name of each stake, its date of organization and the name of the first stake president for around the world up until this year. You can get that information from the Church almanac in 2008 and in earlier editions. There are no specifics given about the history of each stake; it's really just numbers and a few names.
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