In an LDS Church News article published yesterday, the Church announced that Elder Jeffrey R. Holland dedicated Timor-Leste (East Timor) for missionary work last month. Timor-Leste has a homogeneously Christian population and no LDS presence. Investigatory trips from senior missionaries assigned to the Asia Area headquarters occurred several month ago in preparation for opening the country to missionary work. The first senior missionary couple was assigned on August 8th and has been primarily commissioned to begin LDS Charities activities in the country. There are no restrictions on religious freedom in Timor-Leste. Missionary work will commence in the Portuguese language under the Indonesia Jakarta Mission. Timor-Leste became independent from Indonesia in 2002 and currently has a population of 1.3 million.
A cumorah.com case study written in December 2014 entitled "Prospective LDS Outreach in Timor-Leste" can be found here.
Muito bem! Tudo bom.
ReplyDeleteUnit Update
ReplyDeleteLots of updates this week
26 Jul
Manzan Branch, San Pedro Cote d'Ivoire District (6 Branches)
2 Aug
Sassandra Branch, San Pedro Cote d'Ivoire District (6 Branches)
16 Aug
Culasi Branch, Antique Philippines District (6 Branches)
Mandaluyong 5th Ward, Makati Philippines Stake (8 Wards)
23 Aug
Isiodu Branch, Port Harcourt Nigeria West Stake (2 Branches, 10 Wards)
Rumuji Branch, Port Harcourt Nigeria West Stake (2 Branches, 10 Wards)
30 Aug
Mabalacat Philippines Stake (1 Branch, 5 Wards)
Santa Lucia Branch
Balibago Ward
Dau Ward
Mabalacat 1st Ward
Mabalacat 2nd Ward
Pandan Ward
Cidade Nova Ward, Fortaleza Brazil South Stake (8 Wards)
Fort Carson Military Branch, Fountain Colorado Stake (1 Branch, 9 Wards)(W00+)
Gateway YSA Branch, Boynton Beach Florida Stake (3 Branches, 6 Wards)
Manila 6th Ward, Pleasant Grove Utah Manila Stake (12 Wards)
Momotombo Branch, Leon Nicaragua Stake (3 Branches, 6 Wards)
Mount Peak Branch (Spanish), Maple Valley Washington Stake (1 Branch, 12 Branches)
Ocotal Branch, Esteli Nicaragua District (6 Branches)
Pau dos Ferros Branch, Sousa Brazil District (5 Branches)
Puerto Aventuras Branch, Playa del Carmen México Stake (2 Branches, 6 Wards)
Skye Canyon Ward, Las Vegas Nevada Elkhorn Springs Stake (11 Wards)
Stone Mountain Ward, Las Vegas Nevada Elkhorn Springs Stake (11 Wards)
Tandang Sora 2nd Ward, Quezon City Philippines Stake (7 Wards)
Valley View Ward, Eagle Mountain Utah Cedar Pass Stake (9 Wards)
YTD 395(11.28/week 35)
Africa 126, 31.9%
Asia 10, 2.6%
Europe 13, 3.3%
North America (w/ Caribbean) 108, 27.3%
Pacific 31, 7.8%
South and Central America 40, 10.1%
Utah & Idaho 67, 17.0%
Totals no-sensitive
Areas Temples Miss Stakes Dist Wards Branch Totals
Global 25 148 418 3,145 547 22,433 7,337 34,053
Us/Can 11 81 131 1,588 11 12,523 2,069 16,414
US n/a 73 124 1,541 8 12,187 1,917 15,850
Utah n/a 15 10 577 1 4,672 326 5,601
Canada n/a 8 7 47 3 336 152 553
Out 14 67 287 1,557 536 9,910 5,268 17,639
With Sensitive
Areas Temples Miss Stakes Dist Wards Branch Totals
Global 25 147 418 3,145 558 22,437 7,427 34,158
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ReplyDeleteWith General Conference coming up what do you all think of potential temple announcents?
ReplyDeleteI'll bite. I guess that 0 or 2 temples will be announced, with a Virginia temple announcement likely in the next year or two.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't be surprised though if they wait until next year, because they announced 3 last conference and there are two Apostle announcements likely.
My personal feeling includes announcements for Pocatello and Managua. I still doubt that a temple is immediately forthcoming in Virginia until the D.C. temple operates at capacity. If it happens, however, I feel like it would be further south, like Buena Vista.
ReplyDeleteAs an ordnance worker in the Washington DC Temple, I confess that I don't know what capacity means. There are times when there are relatively few patrons, but we frequently get so busy on my shift that we have to add extra sessions. Sometimes, we find ourselves faced with more capacity than the temple can handle effectively. It certainly ebbs and flows. Although we try to accommodate all walk ins at the baptistry, some have had to be turned away because there was no more capacity for them.
ReplyDeleteAll that said, we will lose about 8-10 stakes to Philadelphia when that temple opens.
The Washington DC Temple is currently closed for 8 weeks for repairs. Last year it was six weeks. It won't be very many years before the Temple will close for multiple years.
Virginia has almost as many members, stakes, and wards/branches as Alberta. We just aren't as spread out in area. We just want 1 temple right now (Alberta has 3).
With 4 temple dedications (and 2 more planned), 1 rededication scheduled for before next conference (and 2 more rededications scheduled), and 2 groundbreakings (with 2 more scheduled), the Church is relieving the backlog that led it to hold off on temple announcements. I think there will be 2-3 announced (there's still too much going on, including a bunch of new renovations in the works, for more than that).
ReplyDeleteLast I checked, Mt. Timp was still super busy, even after the Orem stakes finally got moved to Provo, so I wouldn't be surprised at all to see a temple in Lehi, Eagle Mountain, or even as far north as the land Pres. Hinckley mentioned in Bluffdale. My other top pick is Brasilia, given its high stake load for how far it is from a temple.
The data I would love to know for where to rank Richmond (and Mike Johnson, you may know this) is how many of the members using the temple are from the part of Virginia that would go to a Richmond temple. From what I'm told, both Philadelphia and Indianapolis happened in part because saints in those areas were a major component of their temples' attendance numbers. If the saints in areas like Richmond, Virginia Beach, and Buena Vista are using the temple like the Philly and Indy saints, I would put a Richmond temple up with Lehi in my predictions. Otherwise, I'd put it down with Pocatello in the "has the members but not the attendance" category.
Other temples that would not surprise me: Harare, Zimbabwe; Praia, Cape Verde; Layton area, Utah; Managua, Nicaragua; Puebla, Mexico; northwest Arkansas (Rogers or Bentonville); and southern Argentina (Mendoza, Bahia Blanca, or Neuquen).
While an announcement is not likely, some hints could be dropped regarding indicators associated with the need for another temple in Utah County in the coming weekend. They are going to have another countywide satellite broadcast, the one that is held every two years in the place of a stake conference, but it's only been one year since the last one.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, we held our stake conference just last weekend. The Provo City Center Temple cultural celebration planning is underway, a base website for that is up, and depending on who you ask, they are expecting between 700k and 1 million visitors for that over the seven weeks that is scheduled for.
The cultural celebration will be in the Marriott Center, the temple district will have only 17 stakes (Springville-based, south Provo-based save for one). The move of Orem stakes to Provo was more in anticipation of that than anything.
My guess is that two new temples will be announced next month: Layton Utah and Mangua Nicaragua.
ReplyDeleteTo complete my list of the next 10 to be announced, I would also say Brasilia Brazil, Pocatello Idaho, Puebla Mexico, Harare Zimbabwe, Nairobi Kenya, Taylorsville Utah, Lagos Nigeria, and Richmond Virginia (in about that order).
Top 10 Picks based on largest potential district
ReplyDelete1. Layton, Utah (40 stakes)
2. Cagayan de Oro, Philippines (12 stakes, 17 districts)
3. Lehi, Utah (24 stakes)
4. Pocatello, Idaho (22 stakes)
5. San Fernando, California (22 stakes)
6. Bacolod, Philippines (13 stakes, 6 districts)
7. Benin City, Nigeria (11 stakes, 7 districts)
8. Tacoma, Washington (16 stakes)
9. Auckland, New Zealand (15 stakes)
10. Managua, Nicaragua (9 stakes, 5 districts)
Top 5 picks based on distance from temple
1. Abu Dhabi, UAE (1 stake) - 3012 miles from Frankfurt
2. Tofol, Micronesia (1 district) - 2922 miles from Manila
3. Manama, Bahrain (1 stake) - 2764 miles from Frankfurt
4. Palikir, Micronesia (1 stake) - 2572 miles from Manila
5. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (1 district) - 2554 miles from Johannesburg
Top 5 picks for regional temples
1. Bairiki, Kiribati (5 stakes, 5 districts) - serves Kiribati, Micronesia, Marshall Islands, and Guam
2. Brasilia, Brazil (14 stakes, 5 districts)
3. Hyderabad, India (1 stake, 7 districts) - serves India and Sri Lanka
4. Neuquen, Argentina (11 stakes, 5 districts)
5. Singapore (3 stakes, 8 districts) - serves Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia)
There are no ordnances in our temples, but many covenants and ordinances. Some bombs are occasionally placed at our chapels...
ReplyDeleteTest
ReplyDeleteI think there may likely be one announcement. Not that announcements are made for excitement, but when there are two new apostles being called I could see maybe using that as an opportunity to spread out the optimism for the future. I think Bentonville, Arkansas would be reasonable with the distance it is from nearest temple and being a pretty big up-and-coming area that is drawing a lot of young LDS families. Outside of that, I think eventually Pocatello. Tooele county could use perhaps a quite small one (15-20k sq ft), though it seems there haven't been too many small temples recently. I think Gila Valley is the most recent but this is just a guess.
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ReplyDeleteBy capacity, I mean that there is a way to schedule additional endowment sessions so that the needs of all patrons will be met. Capacity is reached once all ordiance rooms are under permanent use (or used to heavily that scheduling becomes difficult). Logistically, it is much easier to add additional sessions than to build another temple.
ReplyDeleteFor most new temples along the Wasatch Front, for example, reached capacity in existing nearby temples seems to have been the driving force behind new announcements. That is why, for example, I don't really believe in a Layton Temple being announced anytime soon. Layton would cover (without a list of stakes) about the following cities: Layton, Clearfield, Syracuse, Sunset, Farr West, Clinton and West Point. Because of easier accessibility on US 89, places like South Weber, Fruit Heights and Uintah (all with a very high LDS population but small overall) would likely stay in the Bountiful district unless the temple is located very far east in Layton. Roy (where I used to live) is very well integrated into Ogden and would probably keep going there. Everything south of Syracuse/Layton would probably be needed to keep Bountiful going at the current operations level. Ultimately, both Ogden and Bountiful are busy but nowhere near being overcrowded most of the time.
We have talked small valley temples in Utah (namely places like Price, Heber and Tooele). I would like to throw in Morgan as well. There will soon be three stakes in Morgan Valley. All Wyoming Stakes unlikely to be assigned to Star Valley (two in Evanston and one in Lyman) that are currently going to Ogden could also be part of a Morgan district, and so could Coalville and perhaps even Huntsville. That's seven to eight stakes with a decent chance for future populaton growth in the Wasatch Back area. I'm not saying that it will happen immediately, but within the next few years I think a temple in Morgan ought to be on our list.
I personally would love an assortment of small temples announced like in the late 1990s. With growth having penetrated relatively many new parts of the world that are distant from a temple (think Asia and Africa), it might soon be time again. But who knows.
I guess I never thought about Morgan for a temple. I usually think of Evanston or Heber City for locations. On the one hand, Morgan has experience more recent growth than Heber City, however, according to ARDA, Morgan Country has the highest Mormon percentage in Utah at 88.9% (per 2010 statistics).
ReplyDeleteI think Temecula would be a pretty good candidate for a temple. It would host 6 stakes, with one stake being recently created in the area (Lake Elsinore), and the Temecula Stake has 11 wards.
Also, Ventura or Oxnard could be a good coastal location that would serve maybe 8 stakes. Having served in the area, it can take 5 hours including traffic to get from San Luis Obispo to Los Angeles. The 101 doesn't get congested until past the Thousand Oaks area. For places like Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks, there is an easy non-101 route to get to either Ventura or Oxnard. In terms of a further north coastal temple, I would say San Luis Obispo, as it seems pretty likely that there will eventually be a new stake in Atascadero.
Alex, I probably see more patrons from the Richmond/Chesapeake area than the Philadelphia area, but I haven't been counting or doing that systematically. Virginia plates tend to be the most common in the parking lot, but that also includes northern Virginia.
ReplyDeletePascal, it is a major disruption to add an extra session, but yes, we do it frequently. There is no way, I would think, we could add two sessions on my shift on Saturday morning. But, now that I have said it, we will probably find ourselves needing to do that soon enough.
On a serious note about bombs and our churches, in 1990 in Chile there were about 60 bomb attempts on our chapels there; I was in the Concepcion Mission and we barely felt them. No one was hurt and if anything the craziness of it (no casualties, thankfully) seem to bring only better attention to the faith. The 6 Chilean missions were baptizing a lot back then, and by 1991 the attempts (atendados) pretty much disappeared. They were anti-American groups that also targeted US banks and McDonalds, which back then might have been 1 or 2 total. Now, incidentally, I bet Chile has 15 or more McDonalds, at least from what I could tell in 2005.
ReplyDeleteAnd no bombings, but a temple soon to be developed in Concepcion.
How many Chilean stakes/districts would fall under the future Arequipa, Peru temple? Bolivian, if any?
Southern Argentina, Chile could use a temple way down there.
By my estimation, all stakes and districts north of Antofagasta could fall under the new Arequipa Temple district. This is an old model, one I will update after the groundbreaking, and again prior to dedication.
ReplyDeleteRyan, how easy is it for people to cross national boundaries--from Chile to Peru?
ReplyDeleteI did about 5 minutes of research, and discovered that the relations between Chile and Peru are fairly good. Apparently, if you fly, you can't go just anywhere between the two. A website says you can only fly between capitals, but says the easiest (and cheapest) is to fly to Arica and cross the border to Tacna, then travel to where you want. It appears that crossing the border is fairly easy, costing about 3-4 USD to cross. There are many bus services in both Arica and Tacna. I hope this answers your question.
ReplyDeleteHere is the website I looked at.
http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g294291-i1357-k5548960-Arica_to_Tacna-Chile.html
https://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree/forums/americas-south-america/topics/border-from-peru-to-chile-via-tacna-can-i-get-a-direct-bus-to-santiago
http://twomonkeystravelgroup.com/2015/03/border-crossing-south-america-peru-bolivia-chile/
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ReplyDelete