The Church's official meetinghouse locator website indicated that a new mission has been organized in Tonga. The Tonga Outer Islands Mission was organized from the Tonga Nuku'alofa Mission. The new mission includes the five stakes and two districts off the main island of Tongatapu. The realigned Tonga Nuku'alofa Mission now has 14 stakes. The new mission appears to have the smallest population of any proselytizing mission in the Church outside the United States. The mission may include as few as 25,000 people within its geographical boundaries. Tonga has long been a country in which the number of members serving full-time missions has far exceeded the number of members serving full-time missions within the country. Thus, the new mission may be part of the Church's efforts to assign Tongan missionaries to serve within their home nation. Moreover, approximately two-thirds of Church membership in Tonga does not identify as Latter-day Saint on the census. Thus, the new mission may assist in the Church's reactivation efforts. Based upon the most recent statistics available from the Church as of year-end 2019, 62.5% of the Tongan population is a member of the Church on Church records.
The Church did not officially announce it yet? Interesting. Back in 2008 or so a Tongan expat remarked at a Methodist Bible class that there were only three churches in the Tongan islands: Methodist, maybe Lutheran, and Catholic.
ReplyDeleteI didn’t correct him but I wonder how he would feel when finding out about the Church of Jesus Christ in his homeland. Admittedly many do not self-identify as such, but still.
I am not convinced any regular mission in the US has anywhere near this few people. Utah County is split between 2 missions but has 600,000 people and the missions extend beyond the county line. Only the Salt Lake City Temple square mission has anywhere near that few people.
ReplyDeleteI strongly suspect this missions main goal is to better build the Church outside Tongatapu. It probably mainly results in letting 2 mission presidents focus on leading in 2 different areas. I would not be surprised if actual missionary numbers do not change much.
The Pacific Area twitter account tweeted this yesterday:
ReplyDelete"The Tonga Nuku’alofa Mission of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will divide into two missions for approximately one year. This is to enable local missionaries to serve while overseas assignments are not possible due to the pandemic."
So does that mean one mission president will serve for only a year?
DeleteJPL, not necessarily. The temporary creation of this mission may result in the president of the new mission serving in that assignment for a year, followed by a reassignment to preside over a different mission for the remaining two years. We have seen that scenario occur when a mission over which a president has presided has been discontinued after the one- or two-year mark as a mission president, so the president has completed his service in a different mission.
DeleteHowever, on the off-chance it is just a one-year assignment, I could see a scenario where a current General Authority Seventy is sent to fill that, since GA Seventies serving in such assignments serve for two years instead of three. Another possibility would be that at the completion of the mission assignment, the president and his wife could be called as temple leaders, or the president could be called as a GA Seventy or area seventy, or that his wife could be called as a general officer of the Church. With a new Primary General Presidency called in April of this year, a new Relief Society General Presidency is likely to be called next April, with a new Young Women General Presidency likely. So there are likely several options to which the Church could reassign that couple, together or separately. Hope these musings are helpful.
It appears that the current mission president was called in 2019, meaning his service will end in 2022. My guess is they call a new one for 2021 and then just have him continue when the other one is released.
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