Click here to access the article, the Top Ten Most Encouraging and Top Ten Most Discouraging Growth and Missionary Developments for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 2022, posted today on cumorah.com.
Saturday, February 4, 2023
Top Ten Most Encouraging and Top Ten Most Discouraging Growth and Missionary Developments for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 2022
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In Colombia, new areas in the state of Bolivar have been opened for missionary work and outreach programs. The mid-sized towns of San Juan and San Jacinto have missionaries for the first time, while outreach is being done to open up groups in areas where the church is not present. The church is relatively new in the country, but with the opening of more areas and creation of groups, growth is expected to be great. There is a need for the church to be closer to the people, especially in areas where transportation is a hindrance for attending church. Many people have to choose between attending church or eating on Sundays. Helping in the growth of the church is essential for following the promises made at baptism and the temple.
Thank you Henry Ponnefz for your comment. I do not have any current contacts in Colombia at the moment. Do you mind if we stay in touch so I can get updates from you on local conditions with the Church and missionary work? My email address is matt.martinich@gmail.com.
Good news from Colombia, and hopefully Church food and charity funds can help alleviate hunger and help people in attendance and overall lifestyle.
There seems to be positive growth in Venezuela, which is encouraging.
I hope that the dispersal of Venezolanos throughout the Western Hemisphere can help many of them have greater access to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Despite negative attention towards the Church, by people like Parker and Stone, or Krakauer, popular writers and artists, what many people do not see through the trees is that the forest of the community of Jesus Christ is stronger when people work together for each other's good, and the temple work for the living and dead, and the ecclesiastical work for the communities and countries that we live in only helps us all to become better and more of Zion, a people pure in heart and far from the mockery of South Park and the mistaken thesis of "Under the Banner of Heaven".
They cannot see the forest through the trees, but I am heartened to observe that many of us see this great forest bolstering and growing across the Earth.
All the holy scriptures indicate that this is the time and season for all these things to come to pass.
Great articles, thanks.
Good Morning Matt:
Great! I look forward to informing you about the latest developments in Colombia. Thank you for sending your email. I will write to you soon.
The Johannesburg South Africa Stake was split into two stakes on Sunday 29 January 2023. The two stakes are now the Johannesburg South Africa North Stake which was renamed from the original stake and the Johannesburg South Africa South Stake which is the new stake.
Yes, the Yerevan Armenia District was reinstated.
You can find the unit number at the end of the url. For example:
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/maps/meetinghouses/@59.855667,30.178926,10s&id=ward:342041
The last part, 342041, is the unit number.
15 branches in one district is a massive number. I can't imagine that will remain as such for long. There has got to be some sort of reorganizing going on and it would be wonderful if that included the creation of a stake.
According to CDOL, the Brașov District's 'active date' was 21 October 2018. No where else on it's page does it indicate when the 15 branches were added to it. Perhaps back in 2018? And no one noticed?
Anybody have any stats on missionaries per mission over the years? With these new missions opening up, it could mean there are more missionaries available in the pool. Or, it could simply mean fewer missionaries per mission.
Also, any insight into why France experienced a reported membership decline of 38,200 members last year? There is no way that was because of outmigration or people removing records. Some clerical error in prior years? A new way of counting members? Legislation in France forcing them to count members differently?
Does anyone on CDOL know what date this consolidation took place also in last 6 months?
If I'm not mistaken, that is the total number of members in France, not the amount of decrease.
Yes, your are correct David Todd. The numbers provided after the percentage decline are the TOTAL number of members as of year-end 2021. France had a net decline of 1,730 members for the two-year period from 2019-2021.
@ Chris D
Unit Number Johannesburg South Africa South Stake (2220059)
Brașov Romania District (2123193)
From different calling changes i estimate the change happend on 15. January 2022. Both counselors where called on that date. The district president since 2018. Also from the former
Cluj-Napoca România District (1007807) - Historical
Some callings ends are listed as 15th January.
Ufa Russia District (277517) - Historical
Release Dates from callings make me guess that the change happend on 6. Nov 2022
@ David Todd
I was very surprised by the large dicline of 1730 members in France, The only thing that comes to my that would explain the decline is a nationwiede member records cleanup.
Do we have a timeline of when minimum stake requirements were increased? Seems like every time I look into it they are more stringent than I previously recollected. Could also play into the slowing on stake creation.
https://www.thechurchnews.com/temples/2023/2/6/23584286/helena-montana-temple-dedication-open-house-dates
Matt, I was just informed about the organization of the "Queen Creek Arizona Empire Stake (unknown unit number)" on January 29th, 2023. From units from the Queen Creek Arizona South Stake. For example, the Circle Cross Ward and Skyline Ward.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1215261052699125/about
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/maps/meetinghouses/@33.183989,-111.567297,14s&id=ward:370223
These are the 5 Wards I found that have been assigned to the new "Queen Creek Arizona Empire Stake on the Meetinghouse locator site.
2042487 Circle Cross
2087219 Gary
1075128 Sierra Vista
370223 Skyline
1094165 Sunset
Queen Creek SA Ward was merged with Gilbert SA Ward, when the new Mesa SA Ward was created.
Queen Creek Arizona Empire Stake (2216167)
Circle Cross Ward (2042487)
Gary Ward (2087219)
Paisley Park Ward (2216175)
Sierra Vista Ward (1075128)
Skyline Ward (370223)
Sunset Ward (1094165)
Thanks. J S A for the update. Do you know which temple it was assigned to? I'm guessing logically Gilbert Arizona Temple District.
Assigned Mission
Arizona Gilbert Mission (1812971)
Assigned Temple
Gilbert Arizona Temple (568686)
Bishops' Storehouse Support by
Gilbert Arizona Welfare Bishops’ Storehouse—Volunteer (2150026)
How about the newly renamed Brașov Romania District (2123193)? All 3 previous districts were assigned to Freiburg Germany and Rome Italy and Kyiv Ukraine. Is the consolidated district assigned to the Rome Italy Temple District in CDOL?
Thanks for the clarification about France! Still a lot of member reduction when you consider how the church counts its membership.
@Adam, this is the first I've heard of minimum stake requirements increasing. If anything, it seems as though they are still quite low (for example, one of these new Queen Creek Stakes has only 5 wards. That seems quite low).
I'd love to know if there have been any trends or changes in terms of:
Required active members/Priesthood holders per ward/stake
Required wards/branches per stake
Ave. missionaries per mission
Ave. active members per ward
Ave. reported members per ward
Ave. wards per stake
Chris, I was just recently sustained as the Sunday School Secretary in our ward, which gives me limited access to the CDOL. While I'm still figuring out how to find the information you're asking about there, I looked at the Rome Italy Temple district page just now, and it shows that the Brasov District is assigned there:
https://churchofjesuschristtemples.org/rome-italy-temple/district/
Thanks.
That update was first covered by the Newsroom half an hour before the Church News report:
https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/helena-montana-temple-open-house-and-dedication-dates
I provided some analysis on this on my blog:
https://stokessoundsoff.blogspot.com/2023/02/breaking-temple-news-first-presidency.html
Since representatives from the Temple Department recently met with the open house and dedication committee in Brasilia Brazil, so I think we might get an announcement about that temple next Monday or two weeks later (since President's Day is a week from next Monday. I'd assume that temple dedication could take place in July or August. Incidentally, with the Church's slower approach to announcing temple dedications, I'm projecting now that the Orem or Taylorsville Utah Temple might be the last one dedicated this year. Hope these comments are helpful. Also, Chris, I appreciate your comments here and hope you're not deleting them on my account.
No, James, my decision to delete the comments does not reflect on anything you have done or said. I just felt that my questions had been answered with much less detail by others here.
We have always maintained a very professional relation here on the blog over the last several years. And I greatly appreciate your insights and follow your personal blog often.
I appreciate that, Christopher. As I said in my previous comment, it appears I have limited access to the CDOL, and I'm still trying to orient myself on navigating that. If I am able to find any information from that, I will pass that along here or on my blog. Thanks also for your kind comments about my blog. I'm grateful to hear you check that regularly. Feel free to weigh in as often as you want to do so there.
Hello again, everyone! I was able to glean a few insights on temple construction in recent weeks. Based on my reassessment on that subject, I am projecting that the Church could reach the milestone of 200 operating temples either just before or not long after the April General Conference next year. If that assessment is correct, the Casper Wyoming Temple will be the Church's 200th. A far cry from the claim that 70-100 temples could be dedicated next year alone, but still pretty significant.
Brașov Romania District (2123193)
Assigned Temple
Rome Italy Temple (1016059)
Child
Arad Branch (356514) Ramura Arad
Bacău Branch (261394) Ramura Bacău
Braşov Branch (325511) Ramura Braşov
Cluj-Napoca Branch (356522) Ramura Cluj-Napoca
Constanta Branch (266892) Ramura Constanta
Craiova Branch (1699776) Ramura Craiova
Galati Branch (371807) Ramura Galati
Iaşi Branch (364088) Ramura Iaşi
Mihai Bravu Branch (342378) Ramura Mihai Bravu
Oradea Branch (356530) Ramura Oradea
Panduri Branch (295957) Ramura Panduri
Piteşti Branch (267635) Ramura Piteşti
Ploieşti Branch (326976) Ramura Ploieşti
Sibiu Branch (356549) Ramura Sibiu
Timişoara Branch (325503) Ramura Timişoara
Parent
Hungary/România Mission (2012782)
@J S A thank you for confirming what both James said and Rick's Temples site posts for the assigned temple.
I'm happy to see that there's a branch in Timisoara. In 1994, while my dad was working for US Customs, he spent a summer in Timisoara as part of an assignment to help with UN Sanctions on one of the neighboring countries- Yugoslavia or one of its components, can't remember which.
So another 8 new temples presidents and matrons have been called. 2 are assigned
to new temples, Taylorsville Utah and Puebla Mexico.
All the couples currently live in the district of the temple they are assigned to. The Eongs who will be president and matron of the Toronto Temple are originally from Hong Kong. A few other couples have moved within their country, and the new matron of the Adelaid Australia Temple is a native of England.
We are to 15 new temple presidents and matrons announced so far this year. We will probably see over 60 announced this year.
We also have the weekly new mission presidents report. I only got through 3. The new president of the Oregon Portland Mission is a,native of Ghana. His wife is a native of Tonga. They now live in Salt Lake City where he is a bishop and she is the coordinating council communication representative. He is 58 so born about 1965. He served in the Accra Ghana Mission. He would have been 19 in about 1984. His wife served her mission in Tonga. How did they meet? I have no clue.
The new president of the Salt Lake City Temple Square Mission is a native of Peru who lives in Baltimore Maryland Stake. His wife is from Kahuku Hawai'i and is of Polynesian descent.c
President Braun the Peru born incoming president of the Salt Lake Temple Square Mission served in the Denver Colirado Mission.
Among this batch of 16 Mission leaders biographies posted by Deseret News online earlier today, the only difference I could find is the New Zealand Mission incoming and succeeding Leaders.
From this post posted March 8th, 2020 by the Deseret News article (for the 3 year period 2020-2023) :
https://www.thechurchnews.com/2020/3/8/23264878/find-out-more-about-these-8-new-mission-presidents-and-companions
"Spencer Peterson Eccles, 52, and Kristine Lifferth Eccles, three children, Valley View 6th Ward, Salt Lake Valley View Stake: New Zealand Auckland Mission, succeeding President J. Alan Walker and Sister Harumi Walker. Brother Eccles is a stake missionary preparation teacher and former bishop, bishopric counselor, elders quorum president, high priest group assistant, ward Young Men presidency counselor and Sunday School teacher. He was born in Boise, Idaho, to Spencer Fox Eccles and Cleone Emily Peterson Eccles."
So I was expecting todays biographies to state "...succeeding President Spencer Peterson Eccles....", but instead it states "succeeding President Garrick W. Parr".
https://www.thechurchnews.com/callings/2023/2/10/23588037/16-new-mission-presidents-to-serve-from-temple-square-to-tijuana
"Marvin R Allen, 62, and Lori B. Allen, four children, Mapleton 1st Ward, Mapleton Utah Stake: New Zealand Auckland Mission, succeeding President Garrick W. Parr and Sister Susan K. Parr. Brother Allen is an MTC branch presidency counselor and former high councilor, bishop, bishopric counselor, elders quorum president, institute teacher and missionary in the Thailand Bangkok Mission. He was born in Maywood, California, to John William Allen and Hazel Martineau Allen."
Hey, Chris! I found nothing in the Church News, but that search led me to a Newsroom article that explained the whole thing:
https://news-nz.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/despite-changes-of-assignment-mission-leaders-stay-focused-and-cheerful
The Eccles were one of three or four couples who, due to COVID-19 border and travel constraints, were subject to what sports reporters might term as a "round-robin swap" in assignments. All the relevant information is in that news release. Hope that helps.
Hello again, everyone! Yesterday, I noticed the following update on the Newsroom's event page:
https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/event/april-2023-general-conference
The release mentions "five unique two-hour sessions"" held in conjunction with Palm Sunday weekend, and that all five sessions are open to all members and friends of the Church, and cites a forthcoming March 2 letter about General Conference.
I covered some analysis on this update on my blog:
https://stokessoundsoff.blogspot.com/2023/02/potential-breaking-news-parameters.html
It will be interesting to see what happens there. My thanks once again to you all.
So far this year of 15 new temple presidents and meatrons announced 14 are resident in the district of the temple they are assigned to. The one exception is the new President and matron for McAllen, and they live in San Antonio which is closer than some past outside assignments. President Villareal is also a native of San Juan, Texas very close to McAllen.
The new president and matron of the Cebu City Temple are starting this month. They are replacing an at call Utah resident couple who were natives of the Philippines, who were called in 2021.
The President and matron for the Abijan Temple were called in July 2021. That temple still does not have a dedication date. They are Americans.
So far this year of 15 new temple presidents and meatrons announced 14 are resident in the district of the temple they are assigned to. The one exception is the new President and matron for McAllen, and they live in San Antonio which is closer than some past outside assignments. President Villareal is also a native of San Juan, Texas very close to McAllen.
The new president and matron of the Cebu City Temple are starting this month. They are replacing an at call Utah resident couple who were natives of the Philippines, who were called in 2021.
The President and matron for the Abijan Temple were called in July 2021. That temple still does not have a dedication date. They are Americans. The Allens do have extensive international experience. Brother Allen served in the "France Switzerland Mission". I think he could not have served any early than 1975 if he was 66 in 2021, so I think it was actually called the Swiss Geneva Mission. They later presided over that mission, ran the Ghana MTC from 2018-2020 and also served a mission in Lebanon.
Talking of temples, I just had an interesting conversation with the temple recorder here in Frankfurt, who happens to be in my ward. He said that the number of ordinances performed is way up; historically during most months, about 5,000 to 7,000 ordinances are performed, but during the fourth quarter of 2022 and January 2023, no month has been below 10,000. I just thought I would share as this is information not typically widely available. I shared earlier how I felt that subjectively, the Ogden Utah Temple was very busy when I was there back in December. Makes me wonder what the trajectory is Church-wide.
The Newark (Delaware) 1st, 2nd and 3rd Wards were realigned today into the Newark 1st and 3rd Wards. (The Newark 3rd name was retained because it's keeping its bishop.) This leaves the Wilmington Delaware Stake with five wards, a YSA branch, and a Spanish branch, along with a Spanish group and a city group.
There have been a lot of changes to the endowment ceremony so I would expect patronage to be way up across the world for awhile at least until the novelty of the changes wears off.
@Pascal Friedmann
I can attest to the busyness of the Ogden Temple, even now that I moved away almost 2 years ago. I still see names/ordinances completed there on a regular monthly basis - both names I submitted to the temple system, and ones I'm having friends in Ogden take personally for me.
Per a conversation that some of us had on a thread here a few months ago, I'm still seeing that uptick in submitted temple names completed that I reported on, and I'm seeing the pool of temples where the names are being completed continually expanding.
The majority are still being completed in the Intermountain West, but whereas a few years ago (when most were being completed just in Utah and Idaho), I'm seeing the work being done more and more in Montana, Canada, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Arizona, Texas, California, etc.
And I'm starting to see some unexpected ones pop up. I had a name performed in Paris just a few months ago, one in St. Paul, Minnesota two weeks ago, and just two days ago I got my first ever Family Search notification at 3 AM (It turned out I had my first ever baptism and confirmation performed in Australia - in Melbourne to be precise.)!
I'm not sure whether it's just because of the volume of names I submit, or an improvement in the temple name-sharing algorithms, but either way (and it's probably due to both), I'll take it!
Two other reasons I can think of why people are returning to the Temple in large numbers:
1. Having missed the peace and blessings of the experience during the long Covid shutdown.
2. Each of the last few General Conferences, I've seen an uptick in the number of my submitted names being completed in the immediate couple of weeks/month or two after. I think the prophet's announcements of all these new temples (plus the talks centered on temple work) gets the idea fresh into the minds of members to return. I also think there is a desire in members to do more work out of the possibility that by doing so, more temples will possibly be announced closer to where they live in the future.
@ JRW:
I'm hesitant to believe that temple attendance is significantly up across the board compared to pre-COVID levels. It may be, but I think the anecdotes shared thus far don't convince me.
I do think the novelty of the endowment changes could contribute to a temporary increase in attendance because people will be curious to experience it for themselves.
But seeing names get cleared at a faster rate may not be a great indicator, because it could mean that there are simply less names available in the pool to draw from, so the names are getting cleared relatively faster than before. That could give the illusion that the temple is busier than ever.
I also would like to know what the trajectory is like world-wide, because even though we've had claims of rooms "filling up" in places like Mexico City and some California temples, when I go to verify on the temple appointment website, there are always tons of empty seats and sessions available.
I've been an ordinance worker at the Newport Beach CA temple for about 5 years. Now compared to pre-Covid, i have seen so much higher increase in session attendance numbers. And even apart from this last week's changes. Almost every session I have seen is full (40 seats) and multiple times a day extra chairs have to be brought in to accommodate the patronage. At least for Orange County, the attendance seems to have increased generally.
Thanks for the comments everyone about temple attendance trends.
James, I totally get where you are coming from - For those of us who have followed church growth trends for some time, we know that positive reports can be anecdotal and even contrary to the actual trends for something like active membership increase or how many people missionaries are teaching. So I think it is good to be cautious about what everyone is seeing with the temple attendance trends because the data just isn't released on ordinances completed per temple.
The online reservation system really provides interesting insights into temple attendance. However, the big downsides to this is that no everyone who makes a reservation shows up, and there are many patrons who do not make an appointment and show up.
As for what I have seen at the Denver Colorado Temple, things have recovered to pre-COVID levels I would say. For the first time in several years I have been to some endowment sessions that were mostly full in the evenings. Also, there are times you try to do initiatories and there is no availability. The baptistry is well utilized except for midday and early afternoon - there are a few hours when it is empty on most weekdays.
Last Saturday, the parking lot for the Denver Colorado Temple had all spots full and about 15-20 cars parked on the street outside of the temple gates - something I have never seen even with the previous endowment changes. I am sure this is likely a temporary change that will go away after a month or so.
Has anyone heard of any trends in temple attendance that seem to have gone down in their area? A temple I particularly wonder about is the Los Angeles California Temple with many active members leaving the area for southern Orange county or elsewhere.
One more comment - something else that seems to have helped with temple attendance in my temple has been the return of stake temple days. These did not return until late 2022 if I am not mistaken for our temple.
Both the Bentonville Arkansas and the Brasilia Brazil Temples will be dedicated Sep. 17th. This puts us to 6 dedications (one already done) and 1 re-education this year.
Speaking of Temple Trips and the need for more temples, my ward (along with the Kalispell Stake Midsingles Group) is organizing the first (since I've been here) to our assigned Temple, in Cardston next weekend.
Due to Covid and border restrictions, the first ward Temple Trip we had since the reopening was to Spokane last year.
It will be nice to hopefully visit the Helena Temple for the Open House this summer. I hope my ward will try to organize a trip there after the dedication (won't have to deal with passport issues at the Canadian border).
If not, we plan to visit it as a family, anyway.
Where are the Christians in Indonesia? Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo). Just north in Malaysian Borneo there are 3-4 districts and a few thousand members. Number of branches in Kalimantan - 0. We need to fish where the fish are and allocate less resources to Java.
Wow, what an impressive job you do, Matt, on compiling this information. Very interesting.
One question I have or, maybe an observation, is whether it is really accurate to consider new missions, temples or even new stakes as growth anymore? I know maybe that sounds odd, but it seems like growth is simply the number of members. It's going down or up in a given region country, and worldwide. (Actually, the best growth number would be average Sunday attendance of adults, but it appears the church leadership keeps that number closely held.)
More precisely, I'm saying that the church could announce 100 new temples and 50 new missions at the next GC, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything regarding actual number of members.
For example, my understanding from leaders is that most new temples are just to make attendance more convenient for members, not due to overcapacity at current temples. Hence, multiple temples in a single metro area. Many current temples operate only limited schedules outside of Saturdays, from what I hear.
New stakes also don't mean the same thing they used to when most stakes had 10-12 units. My sense is that stakes now more often comprise 6-8 units. Are others seeing this?
Missions also seem smaller now, used to be 150-200 missionaries per mission, if I am not mistaken. Now more like 100-150. So creating more missions is just spreading the current missionary pool thinner.
Anyway, just some thoughts and observations. I'm not nearly as plugged in as you are, so maybe my observations are just anecdotal.
Either way, it will be interesting to see how church leaders face the declining membership numbers particularly in terms of actual attendance. Maybe the narrative will change from "stone cut out of the mountain without hands rolling forth to fill the whole earth" to "the few, the proud" or something like that?
Keep up the great work!
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