Click here to access the December 2024 monthly newsletter for cumorah.com. I will be finishing the post on stake growth trends in Utah in the next week or so.
Click here to access the December 2024 monthly newsletter for cumorah.com. I will be finishing the post on stake growth trends in Utah in the next week or so.
38 comments:
The continued growth of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Philippines is very encouraging. So is the growth in Cape Verde.
Nigeria is an interesting case. The Church has a large presence there, but with over 200 million people it also has some of the most unreached people on the face of the earth. There is huge potential in the central region of the country. A mission based in Makurdi could help in a lot in this expansion.
Strange that 5 stakes in Utah were discontinued!
David M., on your Temple Predictions map online, for the District marker that you have listed with a Latitude and Longitude "-1.850131, 37.420039", in place of the name, you may have meant to give it the name of "Kilungu Hills Kenya District", located in Kyambeke, Kenya, instead.
A few reasons why stakes in older areas are discontinued.
-Members moving out and nonmembers moving in.
- Decline in birthrate.
- Empty nesters. Parents choosing to stay in their home even after their children leave.
On the other hand, there's continued need for wards and stakes in the newer neighborhoods.
Also, in comparing your Stake and District lists with mine. I found your map is missing the following Districts.
The 5 Utah Correctional Facility Districts may have been intentional from leaving off your map. But the Darkhan Mongolia and Solano Philippines Districts both would have Temple attending members. If that was the only reason for leaving these 7 Districts off your map. Or they may have just been passed over when making your map.
Darkhan Mongolia (368040)
Great Basin Utah District (Correctional Facility) (2275597)
Great Salt Lake Utah (Correctional Facility) (2171775)
Green River Basin Utah District (Correctional Facility) (2275503)
Salt Lake Basin (Correctional Facility) (2253550)
Solano Philippines (610011)
Wasatch Shoreline Youth (Correctional Facility - Youth) (2253674)
All 7 can be searched by name, or assigned unit number on the Meetinghouse Locator map.
Sorry, David. in both posts I forgot to sign in. This Anonymous, is not so Anonymous. I'm Chris D.
Thank you for catching that. Even though I tried to do it accurately, I entered the stakes and districts in quickly so I'm sure there's still at least a handful of errors that still need to be corrected. I'm tweaking and updating my lists as I'm finding information I have previously overlooked.
I will stop updating this map at least 30 days ahead of conference and continue the pause until at least 30 days after to give time to compare with what is actually announced.
For those that want to see my list, it's located in the link below:
https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=1G7hdBBWl07qNmfixCPEyCf7dAOKzzjw&usp=sharing
Thank you for the assistance Chris D. The correctional facility districts are left off intentionally as they're not temple attending and therefore not contributing to a need for additional temples. In addition, the ones I looked up were spread across multiple temple districts which will make it difficult to place them on a map like this.
I've got these updated. Thank you Chris D.!
Just posted on Church News website.
The 2025 List of 164 new Mission Presidents called.
https://www.thechurchnews.com/leaders/2025/01/10/2025-new-mission-leaders-presidents-companions-assignments-164/
Sorry. This was me again. Chris D. Forgot to sign in to the Blog.
I had 163 of the 164 on my list to be called. I was missing the Ukraine Kyiv/Moldova Mission leadership to be called this year.
I looked over the list. It is good to see new mission presidents for Russia.
I see one mission president called is named Matthew Grow. There is Matthew J. Grow who was one of the general editors of Saints. I cannot tell if it is the same person.
It appears there are now new missions. With 164 of the 450 missions changing this year thry are already above average.
This article https://africasouth.churchofjesuschrist.org/from-rags-to-manager is probably on the Inward Chivungu who will be the new mission president of the Kenya Nairobi West Mission. So it appears the new mission president in Kenya will be from Zimbabwe.
John A. Korateng the new mission president in Rwanda was an area seventy from 2013-2021. He became area self reliance services manager of the Africa West Area in about 2015. Before that he ran a translation business with his twin brother. He was born in about 1963 in Ghana. He first learned about the gospel as a grad student in Norway in the 1990s. He studied Swahili, English and French languages. I found an interview where he praised the translation of the Book of Mormon into local Ghanaian languages. The Book of Mormon is currently being released in Kinyarwanda, the language of Rwanda. In Burundi and the areas of DR Congo many speak languages very similar to Kenya Rwanda. Also many in that area know Swahili and French. Him being proficient in those languages will help.
Duane Bell who will be mission president in Uganda is a white South African area seventy. He was born in Kimberly and now lives in East London.
Jeff Hemmingsen who will lead the mission in Angola is a BYU grad dentist who got his dental degree from the University of Iowa and has lived in Iowa ever since. He served his mission in Sao Paulo do he does know Portuguese.
It is not the same Matthew Grow. Matthew J. Grow and this Matthew Grow are second or third cousins, both descendants of Henry Grow.
Art Rascon one of the new mission presidents has a Wikipedia article. He is a leading news anchor in Houston Area, an area seventy and a native of El Paso.
The mission leader for McAllen Mission is from Mexico. He was previously stake president of a stake in Tuxtla Guitierrez in Chiapas. He works for seminaries and institutes so I am not sure where in Mexico he is from originally.
I think I will hold off on many more observations. Some names are eo common it is hard to tell if you found the right person.
I was thinking that they were not the same when I found indications of a different Mathew Grow with a wife named Caryn. Some of these names are quite common. Sort of like how the Benjamin de Hoyos I knew was I think 2nd cousins or so to the one who was a general authority. Do not get me started on David Hansen or David Olsen.
In my stake at one point we had both a stake president and a bishop at the same time name David Olsen.
You even get names like that in Ghana. Samuel Appiah I found all sorts of hits in that name. The new mission president may be the one who was Africa West Area Family Gistory Manager, but I am not sure. My guess is there are probably several active members in Ghana named Samuel Appiah. It is sort of like how Fritzner Joseph and Kerving Joseph have both been mission presidents in Haiti. As far as I can tell thry are not related. Kerving Joseph was mission president during the very bad earthquake. Fritter Josrph was the first, well everything. He may have been the second person baptized in Haiti. He was the first full-time missionary from Haiti, He and Gina were the first couple from Haiti sealed in the temple. He was the first CES director in Haiti, the first Haotian mission president, the first Temple president in Haiti, and is now an area seventy. He may be the first person called as an area seventy after being temple president, but with well over 1500 temple presidents and probably over 1000 area seventies I expect there are others. I believe one of the members of the First Stake Presidency in Haiti was also a Joseph.
Actually both counselors in the original Haiti Port-au-Prince Stake Presidency had the last name of Joseph.
I misspelled the name. It is Onward Chivungu.
Actually, my tally is 165 new Mission Leaders for 2025. It was omitted here in this release who will replace the France Lyon Mission President that recently has passed away in last few weeks.
Art Rascon, assigned to the California San Diego Mission, is also an Area Seventy and presided at the groundbreaking ceremony of the McAllen Texas Temple in 2020.
I personally know a couple of the new Mission leaders; in particular, Kirk and Cindy Gadberry, who are going to preside over the Washington Seattle Mission, stood out to me. They were in our ward in Illinois but moved to Texas a couple of years ago. Truth be told, I never had thought of them as serving in this kind of a calling. I believe Bro Gadberry was in a bishopric once and on the high council, but since most Mission presidents have previously presided over stakes, that would make him one of the less experienced new Mission leaders. They were very visible and influential in the downstate Illinois business community, and that experience may have given them an edge. Absolutely excellent people, I am just a bit surprised.
We are praying for our brothers in Los Angeles. May everyone be well. The days are shortening until the Lord returns
The Canada Toronto mission experienced over 1000 baptisms this past year. My fiancé was ward mission leader in one of the wards, he was baptising people every second week. Incredible for that part of the world.
Sarah - those are incredible baptism numbers for such a mission. Do you have an information on retention? An inner city ward in my stake on the east coast of the US had over 50 baptisms last year. Unfortunately only 2-3 of the baptisms have been retained. Our stake had to work with the mission leadership to make changes to who was being baptized. Several baptisms had to be delayed until the person being baptized put out their cigarette. I worry when I hear such high baptism numbers that they may mimic the inner city ward in our stake.
Hi Anon and Sarah,
I can echo both of your sentiments, the North America NE (NANE) area leadership (which would include all of our 3 missions/cities mentioned) has been very baptism-driven recently (according to the ZLs and STLs in the Pittsburgh YSA Ward). This has both caused an increase in baptism, a decrease in retention, and an increase in missionaries with mental health issues (at least in the Pittsburgh mission according to our local FS director).
In addition to being worried, this has surprised me, given Pres. Oak's preferences for baptismal requirements and language on non-number focused missionary work I heard during my mission in the great and central place that rules all others: Utah.
Note that I am not en contra to baptizing and that I also don't personally hate numbers, but that I believe we need to find more people, teaching them better rather than lowering standards and turning on the social torture tactics. I teach with the missionaries often and would be nervous to refer a friend given their leadership induced pressure-cooker pedagogical style. The missionaries are trying their best and we have some awesome recent converts, but I am worried about how the mission leadership and according to the missionaries and president, are looking at baptism (very 1980's Chile).
Correction: last paragraph, "according the the missionaries and president, **NANE leadedership** are looking at baptism."
Henry - it’s sad to hear that this activity isn’t isolated to just my mission / stake. On the other hand, it does seem like it’s getting some recognition. Under the new mission leadership which recently was sustained, we’ve seen a change in behavior. Baptisms in the ward I referenced have gone down substantially but the retention has been very high. I truly hope the high baptism numbers referenced in other parts of the world are real converts and not individuals who are never seen again after their baptism.
My branch has seen lots of baptisms in the last year. Retention is not as high as we would like, but we are seeing people retained as well.
Some of the cases on the retention front are complex. We baptized a family of 7 who then a week later moved from Detroit to Pinebluff, Arkansas.
On the other hand we have another recent convert who comes to our branch periodically who was baptized in Watertown, New York. I am not sure if he travels a lot between here, there and elsewhere, or just comes to church irregularly.
Still with 140 baptisms instead of 75 which is what we used to see things are good.
We are seeing progress. We have a brother who was baptized about 7 years ago. He has had word of wisdom issues since that have stalled progress. He just accepted a call as a youth Sunfmday school teacher. I do not think he had had a calling while in our branch. So we are making progress on many front. The way people grow is complex and not always and quick or straight forward as we would like.
Still I have seen cases in the last few months of brothers coming to the temple and serving as the brother baptizing in the Baptist where amount those thry baptized on behalf of the dead was the very missionary who thry were baptized by.
The Lord is hastening his work.
The addicion recovery program was just renamed to Healing Through the Savior:The Addiction Recovery Program. The majority of people joining the Church struggle with addiction in some way or another. The majority of people who stop smoking for baptism will revert. This would be the case even if the requirement was 3 months no smoking.
The key to retention is not that people will not backside after baptism. The key is that you have a strong network of ministering brothers and others to hold them up after thry are baptized.
I'm also in the Toronto mission. I do know that our stake has been struggling with retention. My brother who is in another stake has said that his Ward had 30 baptisms last year, but they seem to be doing ok with retention
Who are these missionaries baptizing is my question? 50 baptisms in a ward in one year is crazy numbers, even in places where the general population is very receptive to the Gospel. The East Coast is definitely not one of those places. Is it mostly immigrants? Homeless people? How can they possibly allow these baptisms to take place if the person is smoking the day of the baptism?
My stake got 2 new groups those last year. Since they were groups and not branches thry will not show up in official statistics. However they do represent growth and progress in numbers of active members.
The other thing to keep in mind is that unit creation normally lags behind active member growth.
I also think we need to keep in mind the end goal is to bring all unto Jesus Christ. Having more temples clearly does this better. The number of wards and branches does not always do this better. Sometimes a larger ward with more stalwart members will lead more people to Christ than a small ward that struggles to function.
The goal is the most people coming to the temple and connecting with Jesus Christ there. The ways we get to that goal are at times complex.
I don't have information on retention, but I know many of the ones my fiancé has baptised are still active. Many are migrants. Some go back to their home countries.
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