3 more stakes created - the first in Indonesia and more in Tahiti and Venezuela

A new stake has been created from the Jakarta Indonesia District. This is the first stake in Indonesia. There are 6,700 LDS members in a country of 240 million. The country is 88% Muslim and 8% Christian. By contrast neighboring Philippines has 650,000 members, 80 stakes and 3 temples. 



A new stake has been created in Puerto La Cruz Venezuela. This is the 30th stake in Venezuela, the first created in 2011, but in 2010, they added 2 stakes .  To compare England has 36 stakes, Ecuador has 34 and Australia has 32, while Japan and Columbia have 28. 


A new stake has been created in Paea Tahiti. The Punaauia Tahiti Stake is the 7th stake in Tahiti (or French Polynesia.) The Church has not created a new stake here since 1997.  The Tahitian temple was dedicated in 1983, the Church's 25th - the same year temples were opened in Samoa and Tonga.


There are now 2,928 LDS stakes worldwide, 1,491 in the US (50.9%)  There are now stakes in 76 countries.

I love maps.

The Book of Mormon (musical) thoughts

So for the first time in my life I watched the Tony Awards; sad since I grew up in New York and went to a lot of Broadway plays, I strongly recommend same day 1/2 price tickets at the big red TCKTS booths, any way I saw that Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) has a lead role in the revival of "How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying" he can sing and he looks short.

Back to The Book of Mormon Musical by the creators of South Park.  From the short skits and songs they did during the 2011 Tony Awards, my first reaction was it looks very funny.  Of course it is religious satirical musical and I laughed, I guess one of the main characters has the F-word as part of his name, but South Park always pokes at people's beliefs and assumptions. The play is wildly successful to whomever votes for the Tony Awards as it was nominated for 14 Tony Awards and won 9 - most in both categories.  I am too busy with family, job(s), school and hobbies to be offended.

The church's official response was "The production may attempt to entertain audiences for an evening, but the Book of Mormon as a volume of scripture will change people's lives forever by bringing them closer to Christ." My emphasis added on "attempt".  The response to the Church's response from the play's creators was "And we were like, 'Nope, they're going to be cool.' We weren't that surprised by the church's response. We had faith in them."  Looks like the South Park creator's "attempt" is going over well and many more people will here about the Book of Mormon.  It is easy to get an actual copy since the church has now printed over 150 Million copies in 107 languages at a current rate of 4.58 Million a year.

You can read more about the play here wikipedia.org/The_Book_of_Mormon_(musical)
and get a free Book of Momorn here http://mormon.org/book-of-mormon/
or read or have any scriptures read to you here: http://lds.org/scriptures

Temple updates for 6 temples

The San Salvador, El Salvador Temple has official open house dates and a dedication date set for 8/21/2011. This is the first temple in El Salvador, so the saints will no longer have to travel to Costa Rica or Guatemala.

The Quetzaltenango, Guatemala Temple has official open house dates and a dedication date set for 12/11/2011. This is the second temple in Guatemala, after the Guatemala City temple was completed in 1984.

The Kanas City, Kansas temple has the Angel Moroni statue in place. (1st temple in Kansas)
The Phoenix, Arizona temple had it's ground breaking in June. (4th temple in Arizona) 
The Ft. Lauderdale, Florida temple had it's ground breaking in June. (2nd temple in Florida)   
The Philadelphia, Pennsylvania temple has a new location. (1st temple in Pennsylvania )

http://www.ldschurchtemples.com/construction/

There are now 160 temples (77 in US, 83 foreign)
134 are open (66 in US, 68 foreign)
  14 are under construction
    2 have dedication dates

Three (3) New Stakes announced - Nigeria, Honduras & in Utah

A new stake has been created in Nigeria called the Lagos Nigeria South Stake. Nigeria now has 17 stakes, 5 more than South Africa and 9 more than Ghana. The African continent has 58 stakes so Nigeria has 29 % of them. The three temples in Africa are in South Africa, Ghana an Nigeria 

A new stake has been created Honduras called the Tegucigalpa Honduras Loarque Stake. Honduras now has 21 stakes, 18 less than Guatemala, but 4 more than El Salvador. The Central American region now has 100 Stakes - which does not include Mexico. The Tegucigalpa Honduras Temple is about 33% complete.

A tenth YSA stake was created in the Salt Lake Pioneer Area. Utah now has 561 stakes, 13 created this year.  The US now has 1,491 stakes, or 51.0% of the 2,925 total.  There have been 24 stakes created in 2011.  

www.ldschurchnews.com/New-stake-presidents

First LDS Stake in Russia, created in Moscow

Almost 170 years after the Prophet Joseph Smith sent 2 missionaries to Russia and 11 years after the former USSR recognized the church, the vast nation's 21,000 members in 116 units finally have a full stake.
The new unit includes six wards and three branches. Yakov Mikhaylovich Boyko was called to preside over the stake, with Vladimir Nikolaievich Astashov and Viktor Mikhaylovich Kremenchuk serving as first and second counselor.  Evidently you need a "v" in both your first and middle name to be in the stake presidency. 
www.ldschurchnews.com/Moscow-Russia-Stake-organized-June-5-2011
How long until the St. Petersburg stake?

For comparison here is a list of countries with similar membership as Russia ranked by LDS membership as of Dec 31, 2010 with number of stakes

Rank	Country	Membership	Stakes
35	Costa Rica	38,337	5
36	France	35,960	9
37	Dem. Rep of Congo	27,058	7
38	Hong Kong, China	24,425	4
39	Italy	23,976	7
40	French Polynesia	21,245	6
41	Russia	21,023	1
42	Zimbabwe	18,549	4
43	Papua New Guinea	18,336	1
44	Haiti	16,902	2
45	Thailand	16,331	1
46	Fiji	15,897	4
47	Ivory Coast	15,638	4
48	Amer. Samoa	15,159	4
49	Kiribati	14,927	2
50	Ukraine	10,880	1
51	Cambodia	10,530	0
52	Kenya	10,270	1
53	Mongolia	9,896	1
54	Sweden	9,206	4
55	India	9,188	0
56	Netherlands	9,052	3
57	Uganda	9,024	1
58	Sierra Leone	8,907	0
59	Switzerland	8,092	5
60	Cape Verde	7,456	0

* Yellow highlight means they moved up in ranking since the previous year

Two new stakes in Utah now 560 of 1,490 in US

A new stake was crated in Layton Utah (Legacy area) and another new stake, which is a Young Single Adult (YSA) stake, in Riverton, Utah.  There are now 2,921 stakes, 51.0% (or 1,490) are located in the United States.  Of the 1,490 stakes in the US, 37.6% of those are in Utah. Utah has more stakes then Mexico, Brazil and Peru combined. Utah created 9 YSA stakes and a total of 12 new stakes this year - 2011. There have been 20 new stakes this year in 5 different countries.  The average stake creation over the past 5 years (2006-2010) is 36 new stakes a year or one new stake every 10 days - so about one new ward a day !
www.ldschurchnews.com/New-stake-presidents

LDS Stake created in United Arab Emirates, another chapel in Israel dedicated

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles visited the Middle East, where he converted the Manama Bahrain Stake (originally the Arabian Peninsula stake created in 1990's) back down to a district, but organized the Abu Dhabi Stake, which takes in Dubai, U.A.E. and branches in Kuwait and Oman.  
Elder Holland also dedicated a new chapel in Tel Aviv, Israel.  While the church first entered Jerusalem in April 1841, (note: when I went to the BYU Jerusalem Center in 1987 for a spring semester as a student, we visited the Orson Hyde Memorial Park, commemorating his missionary visit in 1841 and 1842) currently the church only maintains a few congregations and has agreed not to proselyte in the area.  The Israeli congregations are in Jerusalem, Tiberius and Tel Aviv. 

lds.org/prophets-speak-today/middle-east
www.ldschurchnews.com/New-stake-presidents
www.ldschurchnews.com/Historic-visit-Apostle-tours-8-nations