Last Sunday, the Church organized its first stake in the African nation of Angola. The new stake was organized from the Luanda Angola District and the Viana Angola District, and includes six wards and six branches. Information on which branches became wards remains unavailable.
Angola is inhabited by approximately 30 million people and had its first branch organized in 1996. However, members had met in groups or for sacrament meeting services since the early 1990s. The first proselytizing missionaries were assigned to Angola in 2008 from the Mozambique Maputo Mission. The Angola Luanda Mission was organized in 2013. At year-end 2017, there were 2,458 members. Prior to the organization of the stake, there were 15 branches in the country. To contrast, the Church in Angola at year-end 2007 reported only 759 members and one branch. Only three cities in Angola currently have an official Church presence: Luanda, Lubango, and Huambo. Annual membership growth rates have exceeded 10% every year since 2009. Although this growth has been significant in the past decade, other proselytism-focused groups report a much larger presence in Angola and also report rapid growth rates. For example, Jehovah's Witnesses reported 1,913 congregations and 143,322 active members as of year-end 2017. Furthermore, the number of active Witnesses increased by 12% alone in 2017 despite a base of more than 100,000 active members. However, these groups have operated for decades longer in Angola than The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and operate in many areas of the country.
Wonderful news! Thanks for this report, Matt. It appears that once the Church establishes a presence in any nation within the Africa Southeast or Africa West Areas, the process of expanding the work in such areas progresses somewhat rapidly from there. This is an awe-inspiring development. Thanks again, Matt.
ReplyDeleteWe taught a younger Angolan student learning English at IU back in 1998. Pedro Miala, working to be an oil magnate in Luanda. I wonder what became of him.
ReplyDeleteEu acho que Angola va ser bendita agora mais que nunca.
The Concepción Chile Temple and Temple District have been mapped on Classic LDS Maps finally. My question is there are some changes to the Stakes/Districts assigned to the Temple District that was reported on Ricks Temple website last month. I see some additional Patagonia (Argentina) Stakes/Districts reassigned to Concepción Chile Temple from the Buenos Aires Temple District. Is this the official list from the Church HQ on the Classic Maps site?
ReplyDeleteComodoro Rivadavia Argentina Stake
General Roca Argentina Stake
Neuquen Argentina Stake
Neuquen Argentina West Stake
Trelew Argentina North Stake
Trelew Argentina South Stake
Viedma Argentina Stake
Caleta Olivia District
Rio Gallegos Argentina District
Tierra del Fuego Argentina District
Opinions? Thank you.
Sorry, I listed Viedma Argentina as a Stake. It is a District. My mistake. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteAccording to Classic LDS Maps, the Mexico City Prados Stake renamed Mexico City Melchor Ocampo Stake. Also the Mexico City Valle Dorado Stake renamed Mexico City Tultitlan Stake. Anyone have the dates the Name change happened officially?
ReplyDeleteFrom what I have noticed The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has to date concentrated its presence in Angola in the north-west of the country. This has left most of the country by area totally unreached by missionaries. Hopefully things will continue to grow in that nation.
ReplyDeleteBecause of all the ward and stake closures in Mexico, this year's growth in congregations will be considerably lower than that of recent years. Here is a short report of growth year-to-date.
ReplyDeleteTotal increase in wards and branches +17 (+164 W - 147 b)
Africa + 128; +99 W +40 b (AFW area +92, AFSE area +36), + 15 st + 2d;
AFW: Nigeria + 46, Cote Dd'Ivoire +18, Ghana +9, all others combined +7
AFSE: Dem Rep. of Congo +12; all other nations combined + 24
US + 40 w&b, Brazil + 21, Peru +12, Philippines +10
US states with greatest gains: UT +31, ID +27, FLA +10, AZ +9, TN +7, TX +6, NV +6;
greatest losses, CA -37, OR -5, WA -4,IL -3
Countries with biggest losses, Mex -133, Venezuela -15, Arg. -13, Chile -11, Germany -7
UK -4, Canada -4
Greatest Stake and District changes: US +13 St. - 1d, Mexico -9st +3d, Nig. + 9st -1 d, Philippines + 5st - 5d, Brazil +3 st. - 2d, Peru +3 st - 1d, Ghana + 2st +2d
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ReplyDeleteIt appears that the main force behind the changes in Mexico is a rethinking of what the optimal ward looks like.
ReplyDeleteNo. The reason is because it's super easy to baptize there, but hard to convert especially if you are a good looking foreigner trying to learn Spanish, lol. My wife is Mexican, and I served my mission in Mexico City. I went home with over 100 baptisms. We baptized as a mission over 2,000 each year, but never opened up a new ward or branch, lol. Most *wards* there in Mexico City are actually branches with around 30 people active though ward rosters have over 400. There have been problems in the past like it was with baptisms in Chile. Baptizing anything that walked, using gravestones for baptisms, baptizing people who never had gone to Church or had lessons, etc. It was all a numbers game. I have heard these problems etc in other parts outside of the City. Most missionaries in my mission went inactive or left the Church. General Authorities had to come down,fix stuff and condemn my mission presidents. You wouldn't believe the stories I have or what my mission presidents would do to get a baptism, lol. Long story. Crazy stuff happened. I went inactive for 8 years after I came home. Fell into depression and PTSD. Sad when missionary get togethers consist of fasting for RMs to come back to Church, lol.
ReplyDeleteNo offense intended here, but whenever I see a bunch of "lol"s thrown in to a comment that otherwise addresses significant issues about Church growth, I have a hard time believing that there is truth behind such feedback. And if the scenario above is supposed to be taken as factual, then it occurs to me to wonder why missionaries and members were not more focused on retention efforts than on increasing the number of baptisms. Church leaders have made it clear that all converts need a friend, a responsibility, and nourishing by the good word of God. And I have seen missionaries have more success when such retention efforts were focused on those needs.
ReplyDeleteAnd if, as alleged above, the concern was on numbers rather than quality retention of converts, or if gravestones were used for baptisms (which I assume meant no immersion occurred), the baptisms would have thus been invalid, and whoever encouraged doing that should have been reported, disciplined, promptly released, and possibly even excommunicated for not following the proper procedure. That would fall under the clear category of personal apostasy, since there would have been an assertion that such things, although not supported by general Church leadership, are more harmonious with the Lord's will and intent than the official Church policies.
And any RM who falls away from the Church, in my opinion, has only themselves to blame. The Book of Mormon reminds us that if we do not watch ourselves and our words and our deeds, and continue in the faith, we will perish, which certainly applies to our temporal and spiritual state. I have no intention to hurt, offend, or insult anyone by so saying, but I have seen firsthand examples of people who let their guard down and lost their hold on the iron rod, commit transgressions, and then fall away or are excommunicated from the Church, for which they then turn around and blame either the Church, its' leaders, their family members, or anyone or anything else except themselves.
All of us right now are the sum and total of choices we have made along the way, whether good or bad. Anyone who does stray from the path has the ability to turn around and come back at any point. Some choose not to do so, but any choice anyone makes is their own responsibility and not that of anyone else unconnected to such choices. That is not just true of the missionaries described in the comments above, but of any convert. Whether or not the 3 needs of converts are fulfilled following their baptism, their personal choices and no other factor will determine whether or not they subsequently choose to remain on the covenant path. Anyone anywhere is free to lay blame on others for their own poor choices or the consequences thereof, but at the end of the day, when we stand before the Lord at His judgement bar, each of us will have to answer for such choices, and it will then be clear to us all just how such personal choices have impacted us. I will now get off my soapbox and apologize again if I went overboard in my opinion expressed here.
I still stand by my assessment of what is going on in Mexico. There is no indication that actual attendance at Church is on the decline. There is very strong evidence that there has been a decision to create larger congregations.
ReplyDeleteBuilding believing members is hard. It is harder when you have the situation that largely existed in my mission in Las Vegas where the full-time missionaries figured getting people to the waters of baptism was their only duty and others should focus on retention and getting people to the temple, with the handoff often sloppy.
In my branch here in Detroit the full-time missionaries and members work together to get new convets to the temple. This does not mean we have as much unity as we should, but we have a vision of the true goals.
My own experience. I was a pioneer Missionary to the newly organized "Argentina Mendoza" mission, in July 1990, being transferred from my original Mission, Argentina Buenos Aires North (from Sept 1989). During my 20+ months in the field, I baptized 40 new members. But as mentioned above, with lack of local member retention help. I only know of 1 of the 40 who remained in the church. She was an older lady who lived with her member daughter who was faithful, and the mother was faithful and active until the day she crossed the vail a few years ago. I agree that the missionary and active members need to work more closer to retain new members than go for "just baptism numbers" goals.
ReplyDeleteA side line also, from a door-to-door tract, i was first to knock on a young ladies door, devout Catholic, who accepted the lessons, but was not ready to enter waters by the time I was transferred to another area. Now about 25 years later, she contacted me on FB to Thank me for teaching her. and she is still active and her now sons have served missions also. She had emigrated to Utah several years ago with her husband.