A new stake was created last Sunday in the Rio de Janeiro, Brazil metropolitan area. The Arsenal Brazil Stake was created from the Niterói Brazil Stake and includes four wards and three branches. Considering the Niterói Brazil Stake had 10 wards and four branches before the Arsenal Brazil Stake was created leaves six wards and one branch in the Niterói Brazil Stake. Both stakes are to the east of Rio de Janeiro on the east side of Guanabara Bay. The new Arsenal Stake likely includes Rio Bonito, a city recently opened to missionary work and received its first branch in the past year or two. With the creation of the new stake there are now 13 stakes and one district in the Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro. Other stakes in the state do not appear close to splitting until more wards and branches are created.
Rio de Janeiro appears the most likely city in Brazil to have a new temple announced in the coming months and years. The state of Ceará, where the Fortaleza Brazil Temple was announced earlier this month, only has one more stake than the state of Rio de Janeiro. The temple district which the members of the Church in the state of Rio de Janeiro belong to is the Campinas Brazil Temple District, which includes 70 stakes and 22 districts. The Campinas Brazil Temple District ranks the third largest in the number of stakes in a temple district that does not have another temple announced or under construction in the current temple district after the temple districts for the Mexico City Mexico and Provo Utah Temples. The Campinas Temple ranks first for the temple which serves the most stakes and districts and does not have an additional temple in the temple district area announced or under construction. A temple in Rio de Janeiro could serve members in 23 stakes and 10 districts in the states of Espirito Santo, Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro.
There are now 230 stakes and 51 districts in Brazil.
The Niteroi Stake was very big before division--14 units. It seems that so many new stakes in Latin America have around 5 wards and branches when created, so I think that even though other stakes in the Rio de Janeiro area are too small for division, they could still have one or two wards taken from several stakes to create a new one.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I notice that Brazil has 230 stakes and 51 districts while Mexico, with more membership, has only 220 stakes and 35 districts. Have you figured the number of members per congregation in these 2 countries? Of course Brazil is far larger geographically, so this would lead to creation of more units in outlying areas.
I might be wrong about this, but the number of members in Brazil is bigger than the number of members in Mexico.
ReplyDeleteAt the end of 2008, Mexico had an average of 586 members per congregation and Brazil had an average of 574 members per congregation. Membership is larger in Mexico than Brazil. Mexico had 1,158,236 members and Brazil has 1,060,556 members as of the end of 2008.
ReplyDeleteThe reason for why Mexico does not have more stakes and districts than Brazil is because Mexico's stakes and districts have more wards and branches than Brazil's stakes and districts. Furthermore Mexico had a total of 1,977 congregations and Brazil had a total of 1,849 congregations at the end of 2008. Brazil also has several districts which only have two or three branches, whereas Mexico has very few districts that are that small.
We may see a large increase in the number of new stakes in Mexico, particularly in the Mexico City area. This year we have seen a trend in making many new stakes on the smaller side in other Latin American countries. If the Church were to make most of the stakes in the Mexico City area with only 5-7 wards, we could see 10 or so new stakes organized. It is obvious that the Church is not out to go and make stakes everywhere for the sake of creating a new stake. Otherwise we would already see many more stakes in Mexico City. Rather new stakes are organized to accommodate growth and meet the needs of membership.
thanks for the info
ReplyDeleteDo you know which specific wards and branches are in the Arsenal stake? I served in the Rio de Janeiro North Mission from 1998-2000, and two of the units I served in, the Sao Goncalo ward and the Cachoeiras de Macacu branch, were both in the Niteroi stake, and I'm wondering which stake each of those two units are in. Thanks!
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