See below for a table that provides the percentage of Latter-day Saints by country in Sub-Saharan Africa. It is important to note that the percentage of Latter-day Saints in the population significantly decreased for some countries during the past couple years, even in some countries where the Church reports rapid membership growth. This is not primarily because of changes in membership growth rates during this time. Instead, it is due to new estimates for population totals that significantly increased compared to the prior estimates. Countries with an asterisk have estimated membership totals. These estimates were made based upon reports from local members, returned missionaries, mission presidents, news media, and other sources of information. The larger the number for the estimate, the more likely it is to be accurate.
I'm getting a good geography lesson with this chart. I had no idea there were so many countries in Africa, and the Saharan countries are not even included. I'm interested to know why Morocco is included on this chart when it appears to be part of the Saharan region. It seems to be 'the African century', in terms of member growth, so it will be fascinating to watch baptism, and activity rates in many of these fast growing countries like Ghana, Cote d'Ivoire, etc, especially with so many temples being built.
ReplyDeleteAm I the only one that got this new error message while signing in to the Classic Maps website? saying the site will be retired and no longer available to us the common man effective 08/31/2022?
ReplyDelete"PF Maps 2.0 is now available with an improved user interface, added master planning functionality, and enhanced information security. Please be aware that PF Maps Classic will be officially retired and no longer available after August 31, 2022. Go to PF Maps 2.0."
https://classic.churchofjesuschrist.org/maps/#ll=40.763523,-111.866434&z=16&m=google.hybrid&layers=stakecenter
I sent access request to the contact email. I am hoping I will get access to the 2.0 site.
One lonely member in Saint Helena. Nigeria is quickly becoming one of the largest bodies of members in the Church.
ReplyDeleteChris - I get the same error message. I sent an email, but just asked if 2.0 will be accessible with my church account.
ReplyDelete@David McFadden, this is the reply I got from my email.
ReplyDelete"Br. Duerig,
I am sorry, this application is only for Church employees and some general authorities. Are you an employee? How did you get access to the old PF Maps?
Thanks,
Gonzalo Stevens"
It looks to me like we won’t have access to classic maps anymore!? Too bad.
ReplyDelete@Christopher Duering
ReplyDeletePF Maps classic is a different applicatilon than maps classic. Fo example in PF Maps you can see attedance statistics of a ward if you click on a meetinghouse. But the applications are connected and will propably both be retired at the end of august.
A friend of mine working for the church could just switch to PF Maps with a link from classic maps.
The replacement for classic maps is available as the meetinghouse locator (or just maps)
classic maps has more functionality that propably will no longer be availabe to members like us.
Lol, that response from the church employee is priceless. "Ordinary members can see ward and stake boundaries! How terrible! They are not authorized!" "Ok, but so what? Why does it matter that people can see those boundaries?" "Well, well ...because they are not authorized!" I work for a government bureaucracy, and it is amusing and dismaying (though not surprising) to see that the church's departments can at times be just as sclerotic and myopic as any other bureaucracy.
ReplyDelete--Felix
My previous comment wasn't approved, I assume because it was kind of snarky (which is fine -- it is Matt's blog and if he doesn't want snarky posts he has no obligation to approve them), so I will try to make my point without the snark. I am disappointed by the fact that classic maps is going away, and that the reaction from the relevant department when contacted seems to be that there is no need for anyone other than church employees to have access to things besides the meetinghouse locator. I have spent most of my career working in various bureaucracies, and this looks to me like the sort of decision that happens by inertia within the bureaucracy of any large organization. Miro, thanks for the clarification that classic maps is different than pf maps -- I just wish they wouldn't make the only to offerings available PF maps for internal purposes and meetinghouse locator (which has far less info than classic maps) for everyone else.
ReplyDelete--Felix
Felix - I usually only approve comments 1-2 times a day since I very busy.
ReplyDeleteCDOL (which I have access to as an assistant stake clerk) has maps for a given stake or district, but they're not always caught up.
ReplyDeleteWe will take advantage of the access we have to the info shown on Classic Maps 1.0 until being retired the app on 08/31/22. And after that us common-persons of the membership will have to take advantage of individuals like JSA and John here, who continue to have access to the CDOL list with any Stake/District updates to tell us and the Wards included, to locate an approximate boundary of the stakes using the Meetinghouse Locator Map app. We just won't be able to view the assigned Temple Districts of the same, nor the actual Stakecenter office locations, nor the assigned Missions or Area boundary changes.
ReplyDeleteI also rely heavily on another website that has been known to update incorrectly in some rare cases. www.fullerconsideration.com/units.php for any unit changes in the CDOL but only reflects the date it was added or changed in the CDOL which can be several days or weeks after the actual organization dates.
I appreciate the assistance of those Clerks here who can help us common members with their regular reports here of unit changes on the Stake/District levels and/or Mission/Temple/Area assigned. Thank you again for any assitance to both Matt and others who diligently update those changes here to reflect the GROWTH of the church as a whole.
I was privileged this morning to be able to watch the groundbreakings for both the Smithfield Utah and Yorba Linda California Temples. The Newsroom has provided reports on both events:
ReplyDeletehttps://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/ground-broken-for-smithfield-utah-temple
https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/ground-broken-for-yorba-linda-california-temple
Since this leaves the Ephraim Utah Temple (for which ground will be broken in late August) as the only other current US temple to have a groundbreaking scheduled, it wouldn't shock me if a few other US temple groundbreakings are announced in the next month or two. Parenthetically, it also seems likely that several temples outside the US could have groundbreakings announced, especially those for which sites have been confirmed and/or renderings have been released. It's also worth noting that this weekend marks the rededication of the Hong Kong China Temple by Elder Gerrit W. Gong and the dedication of the Praia Cape Verde Temple by Elder Neil L. Andersen. My thanks once again to you all.
All this growth we are having in Africa, and we are only scratching the surface. It's exciting to see what happens in the future.
ReplyDelete