July 24, Pioneer Day

Pioneer Day is a uniquely LDS holiday, celebrating the arrival of Mormon Pioneers crossing the United States great plains from the Mississippi to Salt Lake on foot in 1847.  The church had only 35,000 members and was only 17 years since it's restoration to the earth in 1830 in New York.  It's first Prophet, Joseph Smith had been martyred in 1844 and Brigham Young was now leading the saints.  The Church would more than double as annually new converts would make it from Europe, and the eastern and southern US all the way to Salt Lake.  The first continental Railroad was finished with the golden spike laid north west of Salt Lake after the Civil War in 1869, and the pioneer trek would now take days instead of months as it had for the previous 22 years.  In 1870 there were over 90,000 saints (that is a lot of wagons and handcarts).  When the church celebrated the 150the anniversary of the July 24th, 1847 arrival in Salt Lake, there were 10 million saints in 1997. Today there are nearly 14.5 million.  My son was chosen to light and fire a small (but very, very loud) antique canon in celebration today at ceremonies in Wildwood (since 1905) in Provo Canyon at the entrance to Sundance.

4 new stakes announced - Peru, Dominican Republic, Brazil (2) & Russia

Five new stakes have been created.  (I previously blogged about the Moscow Russian Stake)

A new stake has been created in Casa Grande Peru, a new Stake from a previous district. This is the first new stake in Peru in 2011.  There are now 95 stakes in Peru, which keeps Peru in 4th place behind Mexico, Brazil and the US, and ahead of the Philippines, which has 81 stakes.  The Casa Grande Peru stake is slightly closer to the 1986 Lima Peru temple than the 1999 Guayaquil Ecuador Temple, but is very close to the Trujillo, Peru temple site announced in 2008. 

A new stake has been created from the Moscow Russia District. See blog entries for this June announcement.

A new stake has been created in Navarrete Dominican Republic, a new Stake from a previous district. This is the first new stake in the Dominican Republic in 2011.  There are now 19 stakes in the Dominican Republic, 2 ahead of El Salvador, South Korea, Nigeria and Tonga and 2 behind Honduras with 21.

A new stake has been created in Rio de Janeiro Brazil called the The Rio de Janeiro Engenho de Dentro Stake and another new stake has been created in Sao Paulo Brazil called the Sao Paulo Taboao Stake. These 2 make 3 created in 2011 in Brazil, but I believe one stake may have been discontinued in Brazil as the Church's Directory of Leader's, Organization Totals by country has Brazil at 242 stakes. Brazil has 7 temples including 2 under construction. Brazil with 242 is ahead of Mexcio with 222 stakes. The US has 1,492.  

These 4 stakes are all foreign, so there are now 1,445 outside the US (49.3%) and 1,492 in the US for a total of 2,937.

www.ldschurchnews.com/New-stake-presidents

Temple Announced in Paris, France - finally!

After a 1998 announcement was canceled and the Prophet Gordon B. Hinckley returned in 2004 asking for members to pray to hasten the day, a temple has been announced in Paris, France.  The actual location is Le Chesnay (near Versailles) to the west of the City of Paris.  There are 9 stakes in France and no other country has more stakes and does not have a temple within its borders. The Democratic Republic of Congo (Zaire) is closest with no temple and 7 stakes and is more than a thousand miles to either South Africa or Nigeria or Ghana.
The Paris Temple will be almost 1/2 between the 1955 Bern, Swiss Temple and the 1958 London England temple.  French saints have also been traveling to the The Hague Netherlands (2002) temple or the Frankfurt, Germany (1987) temple or even to Madrid Spain (1999) temple.
The Rome Italy temple may be completed by 2014.

www.ldschurchnews.com/Plans-are-announced-for-a-temple-to-be-built-in-France
www.ldschurchtemples.com/paris/

The Paris France Temple is intended to be constructed just north of the renowned Château de Versailles on Boulevard Saint-Antoine in the suburb of Le Chesnay.

2 New Stakes, one in Papua New Guinea, another one in Venezuela

A new stake has been created from the Daru Papua New Guinea District, now called the Daru Papua New Guinea Stake. Daru is a small island off the southern central coast of New Guinea, north of Australia.  This is only the 2nd stake in Papua New Guinea and the first created since 1995.

An another new stake has been created in Venezuela called the San Cristobal Venezuela Pirineos Stake. This is the third new stake in Venezuela this year (2011).  San Cristobal is on the western border of Venezuela and is closer to the Bogota Columbia temple than the Caracas Venezuela temple.  This is the 33rd stake in Venezuela, placing it ahead 12th on the sorted list of stakes worldwide, now one stake ahead of Australia, one behind Ecuador and just two stakes behind England.

There are now 2,934 stakes, 1,442 (49.1%) outside of the US. 

There have been 32 new stakes announced in 2011 Through 6/19/2011, compared with 29 in all of 2010 and 41 in all of 2009.  The last time the church added more than 50 stakes in a single year was 1998.  Looks like it may happen in 2011.

www.ldschurchnews.com/New-Stake-Presidents

Church adds 48 languages to lds.org (in addition to main 6)

“The Church is really trying to reach out to all of Heavenly Father’s children and make sure they all get essential Church material.” – Lee Gibbons, Director of LDS.org

During recent updates to LDS.org, 48 new language home pages were added to the site. The language pages link to all Church content available in that language.

The new pages can be found on LDS.org in the languages tab. The Church has developed a worldwide plan for introducing Church materials in specific languages.

http://lds.org/new-language-pages-added-to-ldsorg

The main languages of lds.org are English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish.  General Conference talks and the Book of Mormon are already translated into over 107 languages.

Dozens of Countries also have their own country web sites

3 more stakes created - in Venezuela, Philippines and in Utah

Three new stakes have been created. There are now 2,932 stakes, 30 created in 2011 (compared with 29 in all of 2010)  1,492 (50.9%) of the stakes are in the US.

A new stake has been created in Cagua, Venezuela, southwest of the Caracas Temple. This is their 32nd stake, which places Venezuela in a tie with Australia for 12th place. It is the second stake in Venezuela in 2011.

A new stake has been created in Makati Philippines, called the Makati Philippines East Stake, just southwest of the Manilla Temple. This is the 81st stake in the Philippines and the first in 2011. The Philippines is 7 ahead of Chile and 13 behind Peru.

A new stake has been created in Enoch Utah, called the Enoch Utah West Stake, this is north of Cedar City, and is Utah's 562nd stake and the 14th created this year (10 were YSA).

www.ldschurchnews.com/New-stake-presidents - link for more details