Utah
The Church has organized three new stakes in Utah.
The Herriman Utah Anthem Stake was organized on January 31st. The new stake was created from a division of the Fort Herriman Utah Stake. The new stake includes the following six wards: the Anthem 1st, Anthem 2nd, Copper Creek 3rd, Legacy Creek, Legacy Ranch, and Miller Crossing 2nd Wards. There are now 10 stakes in Herriman.
The Salem Utah Woodland Hills Stake was organized on January 31st. The new stake was created from a division of the Salem Utah Stake which had 15 wards within its boundaries prior to the stake division. The new stake includes the following eight wards: the Foothills, Harvest Ridge, Loafer Canyon, Maple Canyon, Mount Loafer, Oak View, Salem 6th, and Woodland Hills Wards. There are now three stakes in Salem.
The Lake Point Utah Stake was organized on February 7th. The new stake includes the following seven wards: the Adobe Rock, Big Canyon, Brigham Park, Lake Point, Oquirrh Mountain, Porter Way, and Rockwood Wards. There are now 12 stakes in Tooele County, Utah.
There are now 615 stakes and two districts in Utah.
The Philippines
The Church organized a new stake in the Philippines in November 2020 which was not reported until recently. The Santa Cruz Zambales Philippines Stake was organized from the Santa Cruz Zambales Philippines District (organized in 1990). With perhaps one exception, all of the six branches in the district appear to have become wards, namely the Bayto, Candelaria, Guisguis, Infanta, Masinloc, and Santa Cruz Zambales Branches. The Church has experienced rapid growth in the number of stakes in the Philippines Olongapo Mission which has gone from one stake and six districts within the mission boundaries in 2016 to seven stakes and no districts today.
There are now 117 stakes and 60 districts in the Philippines.
18 comments:
@Matt, was the Santa Cruz Zambales Philippines Stake organized on WEDNESDAY, November 18th? or on Sunday, November 15th? or Sunday, November 22nd? I have not heard of many Stake Conferences being held on a work day. Sometimes they are organized in a Saturday afternoon session of Stake Conference. Just curious why it was the 18th?
That was probably when it showed up in the system. Or, it was due to the lack of in-person attendance. Not sure about the situation in the Philippines right now.
Great to see the continued growth. I have a friend serving in Nephi, Utah.
I bet the delayed repoting date is different than the day it was organized by the Church members.
Great to see Utah chugging along. Also, it seems that stake unit sizes are definitely smaller than years past. In places with fewer members this should help for less travel time and more stake cohesion.
Christopher Duerig, I know that in some locations outside the United States, there have been a few occasions when, for a variety of reasons, a stake has been created or reorganized mid-week. It could have something to do with the schedules for the leaders involved, or perhaps local COVID-19 conditions. I believe I've heard of one or two cases where there may be weekend lockdowns for safety purposes, but I'd have to double-check that. Anyways, until further evidence shows anything different, I am going to assume that the date noted here for the creation of the stake in question did occur on Wednesday November 18.
I grow up in Tooele County and remember when there were only three stakes in all of Tooele County. Boy how it has grown.
So there was no new stake in North Pole, Alaska?
@Frederick no new proof of its creation (apart from Elder Gong's devotional) suggests it was ever created. Perhaps he made a mistake reading the teleprompter? We are all human :)
North Pole seems to have 3 wards, and there is a branch called Salcha pretty far south of it, which does not seem to be enough for a stake. Maybe there are other units I am not aware of.
It would be fun to attend Salcha Branch.
Frederick, I looked, and I cannot find any trace of that stake either. And it appears that the North Pole Ward is assigned to the Fairbanks Alaska Stake. I don't know whether the plans for a North Pole Stake were withdrawn, or merely postponed, as a result of COVID-19.
Church leaders have been frequently quoted in the Church News in stating that COVID-19 has changed their viewpoints in a lot of ways regarding what is most needful for the Church and what to do to make that happen.
So it wouldn't surprise me if the creation of a new stake in the North Pole region of Alaska were to be deferred until a temple is dedicated in Fairbanks. I hope I'm wrong on that, but time may tell. Hope that helps.
George, there are now 12 stakes and one district (Wendover) in Tooele County, with the creation of the Lake Point Stake a week and a half ago. The Deseret Peak Temple announced for the Tooele Valley will have 14 stakes and one district, including two stakes in Elko Nevada.
A member of the Philippines area presidency was in the south of the country for a stake conference and told those in attendance that despite the pandemic they still had 80% of the baptisms they had in 2019, the difference thus can be attributed to the matters of readjusting missionary activities, etc., right at the beginning of the pandemic.
Frederick, I tried to post this comment earlier, but for whatever reason, it was apparently not approved through the moderation process. I looked at quite a few sources I could find online to see if any information was available on the stake in question. In every case, I found nothing. I am assuming that the original plan was to organize such a stake, but those plans were withdrawn, whether due to COVID-19 conditions, or whether that process was reconsidered due to other factors. It appears that the North Pole Ward is currently assigned to the Fairbanks Alaska Stake, And unless I am mistaken, neither of the stakes established in Fairbanks have a large number of wards. With that in mind, perhaps the decision was made to hold off on creating a North Pole stake for now. Speaking personally, i wouldn't be at all surprised if the Church delayed the actual creation of such a stake until a temple to serve the Fairbanks region is announced and well under construction. But the Lord has been known to surprise us, so I cannot in good conscience rule out the prospect that the creation of such a stake might merely have been postponed, and it could thus happen later this year or sometime next year. Hope this information is helpful to all who read it.
Thanks for the correction.
It is one work.
Again this RootsTech – we are being told that ‘Missionary, Family History, and Temple Work’ are one work. That bringing others to Christ through missionary work and through the ordinances of the Temple is ‘the same work’. See Elder Bednar’s October 2014 conference talk https://bit.ly/3r7ayio and this year’s RootsTech leadership session – here: https://bit.ly/3dTC5zU
Will this lead to our seeing full-time missionaries (FTMs) being called to serve their missions in the Temples?
Will missions add ‘Temple Districts’ the way they now have FTMs assigned to wards/stakes?
Will Temple Missions be opened?
What a blessing that would be. There are over one hundred Temples that are on limited schedules that would be able to open ‘fulltime’ – with full daily schedules. Imagine every Temple so fully staffed that it could simultaneously operate all areas of the Temple, all day, every day. That is just not happening now.
Ten FTMs called to a Temple would have a huge impact.
Imagine if not just 10 but 50 were called to labor/attend in our underutilized Temples.
They could serve as ordinance workers – and could serve as patrons – adjusting their roles to give the maximum opportunity for members to serve and attend in the Temple.
Anytime a member wanted to attend the Temple – it would be open and available – for all ordinances.
We are told that there is ‘no shortage’ of names – with millions, particularly male names, waiting in the ‘shared’ Temple file for their work to be completed.
Imagine if there were special times when the Temples opened 24/hours a day. Perhaps in the summer when members had more free time – or the weather was better. Perhaps to coincide with July 24th – or other special times. Perhaps on weekends. Members taking the time, expense of traveling to the Temples could now accomplish even more work if every Temple was operating on a full-time basis.
Now imagine the impact on the lives, hearts of our FTMs that labor for two years in the Temple on their missions.
Imagine the impact of tens of thousands, millions of our kindred receiving their ordinances of salvation on the other side of the veil at a rate we’ve never experienced before.
We live in sacred times.
It is one work.
Don't have the link but they are now able to call senior service missionaries to work in temples, mainly in the backend areas, so that specifically called workers can work the ordinance areas. That will free up a fair amount of people to work the ordinances areas.
Rootstech had 1 million plus people watch something on it, the impact will live on another year as all the sessions were left up and will be up for a year. My ward is out a Family History Leader as the stake grabbed him a month ago for the clerks office, and the new one will benefit from all of that.
FamilySearch gained 4 million registered users last year, but only 130k of that were members. The total is 20 million users with obviously over half not members. Now in 30 languages with more planned, rhwew qill only be more people coming onto the site than ever. It is now the 2nd most used geealogy/family history site behind MyHeritage, and ahead of Ancestry and Findmypast, and more recent sites like Geneanet and Filae out of Europe (can search all through the person page in Family Tree to see what they have on the same person). 90 million names were added to Family Tree last year as well.
The Fairbanks Alaska Stake will have their first stake conference of the year in a few weeks, at which time the stake will be split. The stake presidency sent an email to the entire stake membership shortly after the unexpected announcement during the broadcast. The email stated the above information.
Thomas Jay Kemp, while I do think it would be an interesting scenario for proselyting missionaries to temporarily serve in the temple as part of their service, I don't believe that is actually likely to occur. That is for a couple of reasons. In that same meeting where Elder Bednar referred to missionary work and temple work as the same work, he talked to several Church members, one of whom was a young man 4 years away from missionary service. That young man talked about how his understanding of the importance of temple and family history work could be a helpful missionary tool. As he described how highlighting the importance of that work, Elder Bednar responded that he felt that the young man, who already had that understanding of the connection between the two, could easily be sent out into the mission field now.
But there's more to it than that. The fact that the two are the same work does not mean that one should overshadow the other, or that there caN or should be an overlap between the two to the extent you are suggesting. FIrst of all, if the demand for temple ordinance work increases in areas where temples currently have limited hours, the number of hours in a day for which those temples will be operational will in turn expand and increase. Insofar as I understand the scenario related to those temples, the currently-limited hours of operation are more due to a lack of a reason to open them up for longer periods of time than it has to do with the temples not being able to be open more due to staffing issues, although some staffing issues may be part of the reason.
Secondly, having two missions of the Church being described as "the same work" does not mean that the same group of individuals (such as missionaries) should be focused on both. The notion of the two being the same work is no different than (in a secular sense) the US government has 3 co-equal branches (executive, judicial, and legislative). We don't have current members of the administration either representing the people of their state in the legislature, nor are those in the executive branch responsible for judicial rulings.
And to put the comparison in more spiritual terms, the scriptures describe the First Presidency, Quorum of the Twelve Apsotles, and Seventies as "equal in authority", but that doesn't necessarily translate to each of these bodies functioning in the same way. Our doctrinal understanding of that scripture demonstrates that the Quorum of the Twelve is only equal in authority to the First Presidency when there is no living Church President, and that th Seventy are only equal in authority to the Quorum of the Twelve and First Presidency when there are no living apostles at all.
So having Elder Bednar define missionary work and temple work does not necessarily suggest that missionaries can or should serve as temple workers while actively rendering missionary service any more than it suggests that the Church should appoint all current temple workers as full-time proselyting missionaries of the Church. There will be some oveerlap, such as family history being a powerful tool for missionary efforts, but there needs to be some kind of separation between the two. And the Church obviously recognizes this, because while Elder Bednar is serving as the chairman of the Temple and Family History Executive Concil, Elder Uchtdorf serves as the chairman of the Missionary Executive Council. There is overlap in the funictions of the two councils, and it is the same work, but there are distinctly different focuses, as there needs to be some differentiation. I mean no offense by saying this, and your enthusiasm about the prospect is both commendable and understandable, but I don't think we should hold our breath, because I don't see any sceanrio where full-time misionaries will be tasked to help out at the temple. The Lord is welcome to prove me wrong, but until something changes, I don't see it as feasible or probable.
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