Two districts were recently discontinued in Honduras. The Santa Barbara Honduras District and Tela Honduras District each only had two branches. The Santa Barbara Honduras District was located southwest of San Pedro Sula and the Tela Honduras District was located to the west of the port city of La Ceiba. It was likely these districts became mission branches, not a part of a stake or district. There are now 20 stakes and nine districts in Honduras. Despite the dissolution of two districts in Honduras, we continue to see increased growth from years past in Honduras. Membership increased by the second highest percentage last year since 2000. We also saw six new congregations created in the country in 2008.
We continue see a trend this year of districts with only two branches being discontinued. So far this year there have been 14 districts discontinued, half of which had only two branches. These districts are discontinued through revelation to priesthood leaders. Oftentimes such small districts carry with them greater demands than independent mission branches when local leadership is taken away from the branch level.
Matt, do you know what the total number of districts is now? I believe the stake total is 1854 with the new Sao Paulo Cotia Stake.
ReplyDeleteYou can see the running total of stakes and district at ldschurchtemples.com too. We are currently at 598 districts and 1854 stakes.
ReplyDeleteOops. I meant to say 2854 stakes.
ReplyDeleteI must have missed this post earlier. So as of Sept. 10, 14 districts had been dissolved or merged? Did any of these former districts become stakes?
ReplyDeleteFrom Rick's LDS Temples website I count 16 districts created this year, but I know several districts became stakes this year (in Mexico and Brazil, for example).
I understand that districts of 2 branches are very hard to run when district leaders are needed in their local branches.
correction: make that 17 new disticts showing up so far this year on Rick's website.
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