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