Last Sunday, the Church created a new stake in Arizona. The Phoenix Arizona Thunderbird Park Stake was organized from a division of the Glendale Arizona North Stake. The new stake includes the following six wards and one branch: the Arrowhead Ranch, Mountain Ridge, Sierra Verde, Sonoran Mountain, Stetson Valley, and Thunderbird Hills Wards, and the Desert Canyon Branch (Correctional Facility).
There are now 109 stakes in Arizona.
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Orlando Temple President said today during stake conference that there will be a new stake created in the district in the coming weeks. Didn't say too much about it, just that it would be along the west coast (of Florida.) My guess would be that the Brandon stake (10 wards) will play a big part in it.
Look for a new "Lutz" Florida Stake (likely name?) - with wards coming from the Brandon and Tampa Stakes. This area is in Hillsborough and Pasco counties on the west coast of Florida. Exciting to see the growth there. The area is basically Tampa, Florida - extending to the north to Pasco county. There are 3 wards meeting in the Lutz building: Odessa Ward, Land-O-Lakes Ward (Land O Lakes, FL is another good names for the new Stake) and Tampa 2nd Ward.
How many states have 100 or more stakes? What foreign state will be the first to have 100? Sao Paulo?
There's been a lot of transferring of wards from one stake to another stake in Heber City. Is this a sign that a new stake is going to be created there?
Odessa Florida stake was created on October 16th. Five wards are:
Hudson Ward (from St Pete Stake)
Land O Lakes Ward
Odessa Ward
Tampa 4th Ward
Brooksville Ward
The missianrys in Tallahassee told me Saturday that a new meeting house is going up in the city and they think the stack it self may splat in the next couple of years.
The missianrys in Tallahassee told me Saturday that a new meeting house is going up in the city and they think the stack it self may splat in the next couple of years.
Looks like one of the Spanish stakes in California is being reorganized as an English stake.
I think the trend is to integrate stakes with both Spanish and English wards. I heard many of these wards combine the weekly youth programs. Has anybody else heard this?
Our English ward had a combined primary with the Spanish Ward in our stake up until last year when they were separated due to the English speaking adults wanting more English being taught and the Spanish speaking adults wanting more Spanish being taught. It's pretty sad that they had to split it it up, as now our primary and youth programs have dwindling numbers. I wish people would look past their cultural differences.
I actually think that the stakes were realigned in Heber City so that a new stake is NOT going to be organized. Before the split of the stakes were:
Heber: 9w 4br
East: 11w
North 7w
Now they line up like this:
Heber: 9w
East 8w 3br
North 10w 1br
So, it looks like they evened up the stakes so that 3 stakes can remain. However Midway is still fairly large at 12 Wards.
On other new, A ward in Baton Rouge was Discontinued. The ward Was the only ward meeting in the meetinghouse in the center of the city. Is it possible that the ward was discontinued because of flood damage? I know that the Stake Center in Durham Springs was flooded. The stake center by the temple was high enough, so it was okay.
http://www.ldsliving.com/LDS-Stake-Center-Submerged-in-Deadly-Louisiana-Flooding-Photo/s/82879
Actually, a new stake is viable under the circumstances:
Heber: 7w (-2w)
East: 6w 3br (-2w)
North 7w 1br (-3w)
New Stake: 7w
I think the point is, why would they rearrange the wards more evenly into stakes just to have to organize a new one again. I agree that it is possible for a new stake to form from that number of wards, but I agree with Cory that organizing it this way seems indicative that it will not be getting a new stake at this time.
Yes, that is the point it was trying to get across. If they would have wanted to split it, they would have split the east stake that had 11 wards. For rural place in Utah, I don't think the cost benefit analysis favors the split.
However it is interesting what is going on in Phoenix. Now three stakes have been created where there previously had not existed a stake with a really large amount of wards (12+). According to this blog, it appears to be an experiment to try to find the ideal size for a ward and a stake. If it is successful I see it happening in other metro areas in the US where the percentage of church members is low. I see such areas like Phoenix being favorable for a cost benefit analysis to split the stakes, while Utah is lower.
Arizona and Texas are on fire!
10 new stakes created in 2016 in Arizona
7 new stakes created in 2016 in Texas
I'm 90% sure there is going to be a big change happening in the Colleyville/ Alliance Texas Stakes in November. My parents told me a large combined meeting of some sort has been scheduled.
So, one new Stake can be added for Arizona for the year. That new Stake that has been rumored to be created from the Deer Valley Stake is called the Desert Hills Phoenix Arizona Stake. It has six wards and is mostly based out of Anthem. The Deer Valley Stake was aligned southward with the Phoenix North Stake.)
Phoenix itself has seen a high percentage of stake growth. A third of stakes designated as Phoenix Arizona Stakes have been organized this year.
The Phoenix Arizona Deer Valley and the Phoenix Arizona North stakes each had 10 wards a week ago. These two became three stakes as follows.
Phoenix Arizona Desert Hills Stake:
Anthem Ward
Daisy Mountain Ward
Gavilan Peak Ward
North Valley Ward
Parkside Ward
Pinnacle Vista Ward
Phoenix Arizona Deer Valley Stake:
Buffalo Ridge Ward
Cactus View Ward
Campobello Ward
Deer Valley Ward
North Canyon Ward
Rose Garden Ward
Phoenix Arizona North Stake:
Bethany Home Ward
Country Gables Ward
Monte Vista Ward (Spanish)
Moon Mountain Ward
Moon Valley Ward
North Mountain Ward
Royal Palm Ward
Shaw Butte Ward
I wonder if there is a greater Phoenix growth effect, like centers of LDS volume like Mesa and Gilbert having young or middle aged families moving east and north to other parts of the city. Do we call it a valley?
Anyway, good to see growth in the state, a place with multiple temples that rivals or even suprsedes Idaho.
Hard to compete with BYU-Idaho but I wonder if Arizona could stand up its own college, maybe more likely than Nevada now.
From serving my mission in Arizona, I observed that many of the members were third generation Arizonans that had grown up and stayed in the west Valley but had moved to one of its suburbs or were from Utah. Arizona is a destination for retirees because it has a much warmer climate than the northern United States, many are scattered everywhere, but are concentrated in Sun City and Sun city west
I think since one of the new Phoenix Stakes was largely formed from a stake that had a Glendale name in it we would need to analyze a larger area to figure clear trends.
Also, is the growth natural growth, baptisms, movement into the Phoenix Metro area or movement from elsewhere? I know a few years back a stake was discontinued in Phoenix.
The majority of stakes formed have still been in the Mesa/Gilbert/Queen Creek section of metro Phoenix.
Idaho still has 18 more stakes than Arizona. On the other hand Idaho only has 4 temples with a 5th being built while Arizona has 5 temples with a 5th being built. However the Spokane Washington Temple takes in 5 Idaho Stakes, 10 Idaho stakes are in Utah Temple districts and on the other hand the Gila Valley Temple has one of its 7 stakes outside of Arizona. Two stakes in west and north-west Arizona are in the Las Vegas Temple district and one is in the San Diego Temple District. On the other hand some of northern Arizona is in Utah and Nevada based stakes. The Moscow Idaho Stake is almost half in Washington, and a few Idaho designated stakes are heavily in Wyoming or Utah, although I think only 4 for that.
Arizona has 6.8 million people with I think 8 missions based there, plus a good portion of the Farmington New Mexico Mission being in the state. Idaho has 4 missions, although Logan Mission and Spokane Mission also take in parts of the state and has only 1.6 million people.
I really could see Arizona overtaking Idaho for number of stakes by or before 2020. This is especially true if missionary outreach in the Tucson area can be stepped up.
I do not see the Church starting a university in Arizona. Arizona State especially has a strong institute program.
A lot of the growth around where I was serving around Phoenix was from move-ins. There are many real estate developments that were being started before the 07 crash. Now for the last five years there is a recovery going on. I know that there is a ward split that was contributed by a new neighborhood coming in, this same ward is a ward in one of the stakes that was just created.
Levi, when you say "west Valley", does that mean greater Phoenix west of downtown? I am not familiar with how Arizona refers to parts of the capital. Gilbert and Mesa are southeast of downtown. Is this considered a different valley from other parts?
There was talk of a few Southern Virginia U.-type schools in southern Nevada and Nauvoo Illinois, but I think the recession kaboshed those plans. I think Arizona would be a great place for some private investors to get a more affordable option like that going. SVU seems to be sustainable but I think Arizona could be a sweet base for a private LDS school.
Nauvoo University did one year and folded.
Desert Valley College (Desert Valley Academy in the development phase for legal reasons) still claims they will be established. Desert Valley College is to be in Logandale in the Maopa Valley about 2 hours from Las Vegas, which has a highest percentage of LDS--larger pioneer communities. The main purpose of the planned college is to give their young people an opportunity to stay home.
Isn't St.George two hours from Vegas? Mexquite is about an hour, which is closer to Moapa Valley, right?
Isn't St.George two hours from Vegas? Mexquite is about an hour, which is closer to Moapa Valley, right?
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