Updated Country Profiles - The Baltic States - Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania

We have updated several additional Reaching the Nations country profiles on www.cumorah.com. These profiles include:

• Estonia
• Latvia
• Lithuania

Due to many high-quality surveys and local member reports, I believe these profiles number among some of the most accurate and comprehensive country profiles we have posted since updating the almanac. These profiles include a significant amount of information about member activity and convert retention rates in these nations, as well as trends in these metrics over the past 20 years. Furthermore, we have also obtained information about "natural growth" in the Church in these nations (i.e. children born into the Church). Interestingly, there has been a significant "baby boom" in the Church in Estonia and Latvia in the past couple years although there has been no such increase in births in the Church in Lithuania. The Church remains very small in all the Baltic States with 950-1,350 members in each of these nations. However, the Church has been successful in the establishment of a core of local leadership capable of leading congregations with minimal support from mission leadership. Although membership growth rates has substantially slowed in the past 15 years to essentially stagnant membership growth at present (mainly due to few convert baptisms and emigration), convert retention rates have markedly increased in these nations to good-to-excellent levels. Furthermore, much of the recent progress in improving convert retention rates has occurred despite the number of full-time missionaries assigned to the Baltic Mission at the lowest levels seen since the early 2000s.

On another note, we are in the process of updating and revamping cumorah.com. There have been issues with ads being placed on the site due to outdated coding on the site. These ads will be removed once the updates are completed. 

Church Growth News from Botswana and Estonia

Botswana

Missionaries serving in the South Africa Johannesburg Mission report that two cities are opening for missionary work in Botswana. Francistown, located on the border with Zimbabwe in the north, had its sole branch created in the early 2000s and has opened for missionary work. Sacrament attendance for the branch has climbed from the 40s into the 70s in just the past few months. Missionaries began more regularly visiting the branch and baptizing converts this year. A pair of senior couple missionaries are also serving in the city.

Mochudi has also opened for missionary work and a pair of elders are assigned to the city. No branch has been formed in Mochudi and members and investigators likely meet as a group or dependent branch.

The first young single adult (YSA) ward was also created in Africa in Gaborone, Botswana. The recently created Molepolole Branch now has over 70 attending Sunday meetings. There are now three wards and three branches in the country.

Estonia

On the outskirts of Tallinn, the city of Keila has opened for missionary work. There are five branches in Estonia and six cities opened for missionary work.

Update on Church Growth

Taiwan Reaches 50,000 Church Members

The Church News reported in a recently published article about the Church's 50th anniversary in Taiwan that Church membership in the country has reached 50,000. Today there are 102 congregations throughout the country, 10 stakes and two districts. Membership grows at a rate of around 4% a year and has increased by 20,000 in the past eight years. If membership growth rates remain constant Taiwan will have a projected 81,000 members in the year 2020.

11 New Stakes Created In June and Counting

It has been over a decade since we have had so many new stakes organized in so short a time frame. So far 11 stakes have been organized in the month of June, six of which were created from member districts. So far 25 new stakes have been organized this year.

The Church in Bosnia and Macedonia

The Church News provided interesting information about the Church in these two countries where the Church still has no official presence. It appears that both countries have groups established for members to meet in, but no branches. Macedonia only has one known family who are native Macedonians and Church members. Bosnia on the other hand had no reported Bosnian Church members and Church meetings consist of foreigners meeting throughout the country. Elder D. Todd Christofferson reminded members in Bosnia that they are laying the foundation for the Church in the future.

Recently Created Branches and Groups In Eastern Europe

A little over a year ago I reported on how the Church was aggressively opening new cities to the preaching of the Gospel in Eastern Europe. Only Mission branches or groups recently created are listed below. Meetinghouse locations and times are only available for both branches and groups on the country websites for Croatia, Hungary, Slovakia, and Slovenia.

Branches

Kaposvár, Hungary
Khmel'nyts'kyy, Ukraine
Kremenchung, Ukraine
Pärnu, Estonia
Szczecin, Poland
Zhytomyr, Ukraine

Groups/Dependent Branches

Shkoder, Albania
Pula, Croatia
Békéscsaba, Hungary
Szolnok, Hungary
Tatabánya, Hungary
Jelgava, Latvia
Gorlitz, Poland
Kielce, Poland
Torun, Poland
Zamosc, Poland
Craiova, Romania
Novo Mesto, Slovenia
Banská Bystrica, Slovakia
Pavlohrad, Ukraine

2008: A Year of Expansion for the Church

Over the past few weeks, I have found around a dozen blogs from missionaries and mission presidents from around the world. Places these missionaries are serving in range from the Ukraine to the Democratic Republic of Congo. They have provided valuable information concerning the growth and status of the Church throughout the world.

One overlying theme I have found in these blogs, especially within the last several months, is the expasion the Church into new cities, particularly in Eastern Europe. Africa has also seen this expansion of missionary work and congregations into areas where the Church was not organized. Below is a list of countries in Europe with the number of new cities opened within the past 14 months. Again, this is only the number of cities I have found; there could be more.

• Albania: 1
• Croatia: 1
• Estonia: 1
• Hungary: 4
• Latvia: 1
• Slovakia: 1
• Ukraine: 4
• Romania: 1

What makes this impressive is the lack of new cities which were opened for missionary work over the past decade. Most of these countries have only seen one or two new cities have congregations established in them during that time. For example, the only city opened in Estonia since the late 90s was Narva.

Below is a map of Albania and the Baltic Countries. These are a couple countries I do not have maps of posted yet and have seen missionary work expand into new cities recently. The green squares are branches and the red dots are large cities without known branches or missionaries.

Update on the Growth of the Church

Three new districts created in South Africa



According to the website for the mission president in the South Africa Durban Mission, three districts have been organized over the past few months. Two of the districts are in South Africa, the Newcastle District and the Richards Bay District. The third district was created in Mbabane, Swaziland. Several independent mission branches have been functioning in the Newcastle area since 2001 and have finally been grouped together in a district. The Richards Bay District was created from a single ward in that city which met in four separate groups for sometime (and the groups became branches in the district). Lastly, Swaziland has for nearly the past 10 years been in a stake, but now is its own district. A new branch was organized in at the same time the district was formed and the mission president stated that last Sunday there were 17 baptisms in the country. Another new branch was formed a short while ago near the mission home. On the above map, yellow squares are stakes and the green squares are the newly formed districts.

The South Africa Durban Mission's blog can be found at http://durbanmission.blogspot.com/

Other areas where the formation of new districts is likely are on the outskirts of Cape Town and Johannesburg.

New branches organized in Hungary



Two new branches have recently been formed in Hungary in the cities of Kaposvar and Szolnok. The first stake in this nation was organized in 2006. Membership has grown steadily in these two cities in the past year. This is another example of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saint's recent expansion into many new cities in Eastern Europe. The yellow squares are wards and the green ones are branches

New cities open for missionary work in Ukraine

Cities open for missionary work in Ukraine In an earlier post, I noted that the city of Kremenchuk in Ukraine was opened for missionary work and a branch was established. Today I found out that a branch has been established in Khmelnytsky which is in western Ukraine. Another branch has been established in the Khmelnytsky Oblast, but I have not been able to exactly pin point where it is.

Rapid Church growth in the Baltic Nations

According to a blog from an Elder serving in Estonia, the Baltic Mission is seeing amazing success. Investigators (people who are not members of the Church but who are learning about it and considering membership) have been numbering in the double digits in some of the branches. Those who commited to be baptize on a specific, future date rose in the hundreds recently. Although it is quite unlikely that many of those people will recieve baptism, it does signify that conditions are changing in this region of Europe at a fantastic rate.

New branch in the DR of Congo

A new branch has recently been created in the city of Mwene-Ditu, which is near the city of Luputa in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Furthermore, Mission President Livingstone of the mission in the DR of Congo stated that a request has been sent in to the Area Presidency for a branch to be organized in the city of Ngandajika (in the vicinity of Luputa) where 50 members of the Church live. In areas of the World where there are very few Church members and are not that secure, new cities are not opened for missionary work and branches established until permission is granted from the Area Presidency.

Two districts in Trinidad and Tobago combined

The two districts on the island of Trinidad were combined in an effort to prepare for the first stake in this nation. Almost 500 members attended the conference and sustained a new district presidency. In the past year, a branch has also been created on the island of Tobago.

Rapid Church Growth in St. Lucia

Now when I say rapid, I mean that at the end of 2006, there were 55 members on the island and a month ago or so there were 104 attending the branch's Church services. Granted the numbers are small, it is still remarkable to see such growth among so few members in such a short period of time. This is actually quite representative of many of the islands in the Caribbean right now.

The Church in Eastern Europe

I wanted to take some time and write about the Church and Eastern Europe. The majority of the countries considered to be in Eastern Europe were opened for missionary work most recently in the early 1990s. Since that time, the Church's presence and spread into most of the largest cities, but with relatively few members. For instance, the country in Eastern Europe with the highest membership is Ukraine with around 10,200 members (out of 46 million people). However, the countries in Eastern Europe with the lowest Church membership (among countries with a Church presence) are Serbia with fewer than 300 members in three branches and Moldova with around the same number of members in two branches. There is a strong potential for future growth of the Church in Eastern Europe, especially because unlike many other places in the world, there are branches organized through these countries. If conditions change and people become more interested in religion, the Church is mobilized to need such a demand.

Below is a map of Bulgaria; a country which provides the best example of this phenomenon. Click on the map in order to see it more clearly. Each green square is a branch.

Notice how the largest city, Sofia, has several branches organized in it and that branches are scattered fairly evenly throughout the country.

Romania is another good example, and here's a map below.

Here are some exciting recent developments of the Church in Eastern Europe.

New Branches in the Baltic States, Eastern Europe and Georgia

Branches have recently (last 12 months or so) been estabished in the following cities.

• Jelgava, Latvia
• Parnu, Estonia
• Shkoder, Albania (see earlier post)
• Kosice, Slovakia
• Tbilisi, Georgia (second branch in city, the Avlabari Branch)
• Alexandria, Romania (last June)
• Pula, Croatia
• Subotica, Serbia
• Kremenchuk, Ukraine
  

Church Launches New Latvian Website

In the past week or so, the Church has launched a country website for Latvia. It is in Russian and Latvian, and is found at http://www.jezuskristusbaznica.lv/ .

Lastly, I wanted to conclude that the activity rate in these nations are actually not as low as you might think. The LDS Church News stated in the Church Almanac that there are over 1,000 temple recommend holders in Ukraine and the temple has been under construction in Kyiv for the past six months. Furthermore, there are two stakes in Eastern Europe: One in Ukraine and the other in Hungary. The Church is close to organizing stakes in St. Petersburg, Russia ; Kharkiv, Ukraine ; and Donetsk, Ukraine. As for Future missions, Serbia, Romania and Ukraine seem most likely. It will be interesting how soon missionaries will be placed in newly independent Kosovo. I imagine that Kosovo will be included with the mission in Albania, since the majority of the population is Albanian.

Countries with the highest membership growth rates

Below is a list of the top 10 fastest growing countries for the Church during 2006 (over 300 members).

1. Cameroon - 492 members - 31.6%
2. Malaysia - 3,633 members - 24.5%
3. Estonia - 874 members - 16.4%
4. Ethiopia - 708 members - 15.7%
5. Zambia - 1,905 members - 15.6%
6. Sri Lanka - 1,108 members - 15.1%
7. Armenia - 2,359 members - 13.3%
8. Ghana - 32,965 members - 12.5%
9. Guyana - 2,072 members - 12.3%
10. Latvia - 920 members - 11.8%

The top three nations which have the highest increase (not %) in membership per year usually are the United States, Brazil (which also just reached over 1,000,000 members) and Mexico.