Monday, November 11, 2013
LDS Church Becomes Officially Registered with the Rwandan Government
At the end of last month, missionaries serving in the Uganda Kampala Mission reported that the Church had officially obtained government registration in Rwanda. The Church had begun the registration process a year or two earlier and assigned the first young full-time missionaries in September 2012. Government registration will now permit the Church to assign additional full-time missionary companionships and openly proselyte whereas missionaries previously worked off of member referrals. The Uganda Kampala Mission had taken steps to expand outreach prior to receiving official registration. Within the past year, the mission opened two new branches in Kigali and local members report steady increases in active membership in two of the three currently functioning branches.
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The West Point 18th Ward, West Point Utah Stake, was created on 10 November. There are now 9 wards in the stake:
West Point 2nd Ward
West Point 4th Ward
West Point 7th Ward
West Point 8th Ward
West Point 10th Ward
West Point 11th Ward
West Point 12th Ward
West Point 14th Ward
West Point 18th Ward
Mike or Matt,
I was wondering if Tacloban Philippines has a stake there?
The Tacloban Philippines Stake has 7 wards and a branch:
Alang-alang Ward
Palo Ward
San Juanico Ward
Tacloban 1st Ward
Tacloban 2nd Ward
Tanauan 1st Ward
Tanauan 2nd Ward
Basey Branch
The Philippines Tacloban Mission covers 4 stakes and has 6 districts:
Carigara Philippines Stake has 6 wards and 1 branch
Catarman Philippines Stake has 5 wards and 3 branches
Ormoc Philippines Stake has 7 wards and 4 branches
Biliran Philippines District has 6 branches
Borongan Philippines District has 5 branches
Catbalogan Philippines District has 5 branches
Maasin Philippines District has 4 branches
Sogod Philippines District has 4 branches
Tolosa Philippines District has 8 branches
A family that recently moved out of our ward has a daughter serving there. It was with joy that we learned that she is fine.
LDS Charities and other ad hoc church resources will be big in relieving the Filipinos who are in desperate help, both short and long term. People should take LDS authorities seriously about the literal blessings of tithing, fast offerings, food storage and COMMUNITY. None of us in the world can guarantee that our food storage or other emergency remedies will, in fact, come into play since so many things can destroy them.
However, the real power of the Latter day Saint community is its people and unity, which can helping adjoining stakes and areas in cases of true crisis.
God bless the Saints and Filipinos now, and the rest of this for such eventualities. As prophesized.
The Canyon Lakes Ward (Spanish), Houston Texas West Stake (Spanish), was created on 10 November. There are now 8 wards and 1 branch in the stake:
Bear Creek 2nd Ward (Spanish)
Canyon Lakes Ward (Spanish)
Conroe 3rd Ward (Spanish)
Houston 10th Ward (Spanish)
Louetta Ward (Spanish)
Oakcrest Ward (Spanish)
Westgreen Ward (Spanish)
Woodlands 3rd Ward (Spanish)
Waller 2nd Branch (Spanish)
The Country Mill Ward, Kaysville Utah West Stake, was created on 10 November. There are now 14 wards in the stake:
Barnes Park Ward
Burton Ward
Country Mill Ward
Deseret Ward
Equestrian Ward
Francis Peak Ward (Spanish)
Holmes Creek Ward
Kays Ward
Mill Shadow Ward
Old Mill Ward
Pioneer Park Ward
Sunset Ward
Taylor Monument Ward
Webb Lane Ward
The Makeni Branch, Sierra Leone Freetown Mission, was created on 10 November. There are now 2 direct report branches in the mission:
Makeni Branch
Sierra Leone Freetown Mission Branch
Bo Sierra Leone District
Freetown Sierra Leone East District
Kenema Sierra Leone District
My nephew might be in that new Makeni Branch, as an elder. He was just in the interior "bush", as my dad calls it, in Bo.
His dad has had a serious mishap in California and could use any prayers. He has been in serious/critical ICU for over a week. Elder Bogh sends weekly emails (give or take) and the website is...http://robertsbogh.blogspot.com/
The Kaysville Utah West Stake had 12 wards as of this summer... If the growth is due to new homes, I'd expect a need for a 15th ward and a stake split to happen soon.
Matt and others, why the small number of stake creations this year and of districts?. Considering the good amount of ward and brances being created and the amount of stakes with 10 plus units I would have thought we would have seen more growth this year in stakes and districts?
Also any word about the work being done in south sudan since the creation of this new country?
The Makeni Branch is the first branch in the Northern Province in Sierra Leone. Makeni, according to Wikipedia is a city of 80,000--fourth largest in Sierra Leone, after Freetown, Bo, and Kenema. Freetown, with a stake and a district, is in the Western Area. Bo, with a district is in the Southern Province, Kenema, with a district is in the Eastern Province. Now, all four provinces have at least one unit.
Ed, I will pray for your nephew's father (is that your brother or brother-in-law?). I hope he comes through ok.
I also note that your nephew is back in Freetown.
The small number of stake creations is likely a critical mass issue. After two years with a fairly high number, we are now back to about the level of the mid-2000s. Going for a net gain of about 40 stakes in a year is nothing uncommon. We have just been a little spoiled recently. I assume that stake creations come in waves. A lot of the current stakes are getting close to splitting and quite a few districts might mature within the next couple of years, but they are just not quite there yet. Let me also suggest that creating new stakes has become less of a focus recently with having to care about more Missionary resources. The administrative burden that especially members of the Seventy carry with stake creations is not to be underestimated and their potential and capability is not infinite. There might just be more important things going on right now but as things straighten themselves out, we will probably see more stakes being created in the next few years. Net gains of about 80 or so stakes each for the next three years are definitely possible.
Sierra Leone (since we talked about it) will probably have three stakes by 2015, if not earlier. Bo and Freetown (2nd) are getting pretty close I believe.
South Sudan had its only senior couple removed a few months ago due to political instability. The first South Sudanese members that live in South Sudan (there are a few RMs from South Sudan living elsewhere - one is a friend of mine and is serving on the Ogden Institute Council) who were called on Missions were called foreign (all to Ghana I think) which I find a little sad. I wish they would have assigned them to the Uganda Kapala Mission to allow them to work in their home country and teach and baptize some of the possibly thousands of self-affiliating investigators in South Sudan. I also believe that South Sudan will be assigned to the Ethiopia Addis Abeba Mission once it is created, most likely next summer. Maybe this would allow some allocation of native African Missionaries to South Sudan.
I just ran some numbers looking at the past few years and seeing the relationship between wards/branches and stakes/districts.
In 2009 there was 8.17 wards/branches per stake/district.
In 2009 and 2010, the increase in congregations per stake/district was 7.68 and 8.13, so it was about in line with trends.
In 2011 we had a very low amount of congregation growth, just 124 new wards/branches (compared to 236 and 315 the previous two years,) however the increase of stakes/districts was still relatively high with 44. That means the ratio was only 2.82 (normal should be over 8.)
Also in 2012 there was a low ratio, 230 new wards/branches despite an increase of +42 stakes/districts, leaving a ratio of just 5.48 .
This means that there should be a slow down of the total number of stakes/districts in the near future.
A large chunk of last years massive increase in stakes (+59) likely was influenced by the number of upgraded districts (-17) .
Ray posted that through September we had +196 W&B's while only an increase of 15 stakes/districts, which is a ratio of 13 to 1, which is either A) making up for the past two years or B) setting things for big years in the future. Not sure which is which. Since there haven't been too many new stakes the past few weeks we can bet that number is even higher.
Adam,
Based off Matt's #s, wasn't # of stakes and Districts +23 through September, not +15
I know you are talking about net increases each year, but overall right now there are
3,039 stakes and 563 districts for a total of 3,602 stakes/districts with 21,703 wards and 7,447 branches for a total 29,150 congregations. This is a ratio of 8.09 congregations per stake/district.
On average, districts are about 1/3 the size of stakes and branches are 1/3 the size of wards. Some might be roughly the size and some a lot smaller. Using this metric, there are 3226.7 stake equivalents and 24,185.3 ward equivalents, or 7.5 ward equivalents per stake equivalent.
I knew the numbers I used were very general. I took the +15 from Ray's post about the YTD (I'm guessing off CDOL?) Not sure what the difference between theirs and Matt's might've been.
Whether we are looking at stakes or districts it is still easy to see that the number of increase in stakes and districts the past two years have been more of an anomaly than something to constantly expect, at least if the number of wards and branches don't continue around the 8 per new stake/district. I'm sure we could get more technical but I still think it a fairly decent gauge.
Also just an interesting tidbit I heard from someone who was at church HQ this past week, 167 chapels in the Philippines reported damages of some kind from the recent typhoon.
The Ponderosa Ward, Houston Texas North Stake, was created on 10 November. There are now 11 wards in the stake:
Cypress Creek Ward
Houston 3rd Ward (Spanish)
Houston 5th Ward (Spanish)
Houston 6th Ward (Spanish)
Klein Oak Ward
Melbourne Ward
Olde Oaks Ward
Ponderosa Ward
Spring Creek Ward
Spring Ward
Westfield Ward
I think another factor in large number of new stakes over the last two years was the formation of YSA stakes in many areas, although in some cases those just replaced former single-student stakes. However there were net gains in stakes.
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