When I moved to my Southern California Stake in the early 1980’s, there was 7 wards. By the early 2000’s there was 12 wards, and talk of splitting the stake. They even built another stake center size building in the stake in anticipation of the split. Well, it’s now 2018, and we are back to 7 wards, and one shared YSA ward with the neighboring stake. By my estimation, there are less active members in the stake today than there was 35 years ago.
So, where did all the members go? Anecdotal evidence points to St George Utah! While several prominent members (former SP, two bishops) did move to St George, a more even handed look at the data show that they moved to not only St George, but pretty much anyplace that was cheaper than Southern California. I live in a lovey beach side community, where the median home price is right around $500,000, and anywhere near the water pushes it well over $1 million. My community is considered one of the more affordable places on the California coast.
The other contributing factor is the lack of new members. It has been over 10 years since a family was baptized into our ward (they are now inactive). It is mostly single adults, and a few odd children of record of part member families.
So while detractors of the church would like to point to people leavening the church as the cause for the loss of members, I suspect that the members have not left the church, they just left California. Now I do know of several people in my area that did leave for historical/LGBT/women issues. I would guess that it is a 20/80% split, with 20% loss due to inactivity, and 80% loss due to economic reasons.
But the above observation begs the question on why Mormon’s are more susceptible to economic factors than the general population. California is still growing in population, so economic factors are not driving out people as a general rule. A few explanations could be Mormon’s have more kids, making the cost of living higher for them. They also make 10% less incoming if they are paying tithing.
The church keeps lots of records. They know exactly what is happening. They can see exactly where members move. When numbers get so low and they need to disestablish a stake or ward, they know how many went inactive, how many requested their names to be removed, and how many moved to Provo. It would be great if they shared that with us. (it would also be great if I won the lottery!)
What has been your observation of church growth in your area? Is movement out of your area the major loss of members? Or some other factors?
Wheat & Tares 
Just a comment. I think in grammar rules one uses less with quantity and fewer with number. So it is ” there are fewer active members in the stake today”Just a quibble
So we should say: “There are grammar nazis,” not “there is grammar nazis.” Very helpful.
As for moving east, it should be noted that the tech industry has suddenly realized that it has outgrown the West Coast: Google is building a large new campus in New York, Amazon is building additional main campuses in New York and Virginia, and Apple is building a second main campus in Austin, Texas. That is partly because of a need to go where the tech talent is still available, having absorbed everything it could out west, but also to find locations where new hires can afford housing. The West Coast (Seattle, Portland, the Bay Area, LA, San Diego) just hasn’t managed its infrastructure very well: traffic is insufferable, housing is unaffordable, and quality of life is declining. (It’s not clear to me how much that verdict also applies to the Intermountain West, home base for the LDS Church.)
So the move east is much bigger than just a Mormon migration. But I agree the shrinking Mormon footprint is due to the disappearance of new conversions as well as the other more general factors.
Literally can’t remember when the last family was baptised in this ward, largely because we no longer seem to tract in the poorer, rougher areas, which have been the riper fields when it comes to missionary work in the UK.
Our ward is very middle class and educated, probably closer to the US model these days as we have third and fourth generation families, but we are losing our more mature and compassionate youth due to what appear from the UK to be very right wing and abrasive attitudes around gender issues and incomplete accounts of polygamy and the like. They are a generation who will not simply obey, but need to understand, compliance is generally viewed as pathological amongst young people here. The youth who do serve missions often come from very repressive environments, and that worries me too. We’re beginning to see the loss of whole young families where returned missionaries marry and set about family life only to then bump up against the real questions in the face of grappling with real life. Tragic.
The Northern suburbs of Dallas are booming. Multiple national corporate entities have moved their headquarters into this area. Toyota North America Corporate headquarters recently joined that list. They moved in from Southern California last year.
To me, it appears that the church growth in the area is only in new housing developments. Young couples/families move into the area and buy into the new housing stock. In more established neighborhoods at every price point, the church population is stagnant and diminishing.
I can think of only one local convert baptism who joined and stayed active. I can think of dozens and dozens of devout and active people who just quietly disappeared from church activity.
The Methodist church down the street needs police to direct traffic on Sundays due to the crowds. The LDS chapel has a parking lot that is only 3/4 full when two wards overlap on the Sunday schedule.
The church is growing is a topic raised by leaders for sometime. I know Elder Holland used to say it was the biggest challenge in the church. It was cited as an example the church was true.Yet, other churchs’ such as seventh day adventists have historically grown at a faster rate.I am not an expert in this area but it seems that growth has slowed down.I mean to go from 12 to 7 and say it all has to do with members moving seems a bit of a stretch. So no new members moved in?
In my area in the mid-Atlantic US, we recently redrew ward boundaries. Didn’t actually consolidate any wards but it had almost the same effect. My particular ward meets in the stake building; we’re the only unit that meets there now and the building feels almost deserted many Sunday, especially in the summer. We’re a suburban ward—from what I hear the urban ward is actually doing better.
To be consistent: “we is back to 7 wards” Like fingernails on a blackboard 😉
I was born and raised in Southern California. I now live slightly east of California (Las Vegas). The ward in my home town is smaller than it was in my youth. There are fewer families. It is mainly the parents of my friends (whose children have all moved away). Many have moved to Utah. I live in Las Vegas for economic reasons (and because I don’t want to spend my life perpetually in traffic).
Interestingly, Las Vegas has its own demographic challenges. The members here are moving farther away from the city center. So while our building out on the fringes of the city has 4 wards meeting in it (2:30 pm church for us!) the buildings closer to the center have only one ward meeting in them. There is even one ward in our stake that has to travel to another stake to use their building. That far-flung building outside our stake boundaries has two wards meeting in it, while the two buildings within our stake boundaries both have 4 wards.
As mentioned by another comment, the Adventist Church is a reasonable comparison when considering the LDS faith because of a slew of factors.
Statistically, the Adventist gain 1 million new members each year averaging around 3,000 each and every day. But, there is a big but. Growth in America is flat and in fact it would be negative if it were not for immigration. Worldwide 19/20ths of the membership is outside of North America.
The results due to their governance structure is that major decisions are being made by what one may call the third-world. There are major fault lines developing as a result.
The typical American Adventist local congregation is in the same boat as described within the article in this post. I have done an extensive study of the two denominations and am willing to share what I have learned with wheatandtares if interested.
The church continues to grow in my area in the central US. The meetinghouse where I attend is in a suburban area with new housing going in. The church membership is growing at least as fast as the housing goes in. Most of our growth is from new families moving in from other states. Not many come from CA, but many come from higher cost areas than here like: SLC, AZ, Vegas, etc. There are still more convert baptisms than members who just disappear, or have their names removed. 2 families are preparing to go to the temple. We are not the fast baptizing ward in this area either. The one with the outstanding rate of convert baptisms, just lost their bishop who was called as a mission president.
One of the patterns we have seen is that young families with children move into the area. When most or all of the kids are grown up and moved out, the family moves to follow them, frequently to Utah. We also have a Google site nearby, with several members working there.
I live in northern Utah county and it is still growing like crazy. We have huge wards that take up most of the gym because the church won’t build churches fast enough. On the other hand, I have heard they could split wards and send them to Orem which has excess buildings but nobody wants to drive that far, so the wards remain huge. I also know Salt Lake county is going to be minority Mormon within the next few years if it is not already so there are some strange demographic shifts. But yes, my area is probably 80% Mormon or higher and wards are humongous.
E. Idaho here. Lots of growth due to ridiculously large families (six or seven kids is pretty normal for our ward, and my wife and I are definitely on the low end with just three). Also some move-ins from places like California, looking to upgrade house size.
A couple more points. If members are moving from one area to another, how would that affect churchwide membership? Second, where would growth be without a slew of full time missionaries? I mentioned the adventist church earlier. They have better growth without full time missionaries.
We lost 25% of our Ward membership due to Hurricane Katrina’s devastation of Apartments/Home Rentals. In addition, the area has a large military population, so our congregation is very fluid.
Our ward in the older section of Orem was recently dissolved. Members were reassigned to neighboring wards. The same number of people live in the neighborhood, I guess just fewer members and actives.
The Church seems to be retreating in much of Western Europe. But is booming in subSaharan Africa. It sounds like Church growth is similar to what Gary describes with the Adventist’s.
I never correct anyone’s grammar because I’m a chicken. The fact remain, though, that poor grammar is painful to people who learned good grammar in elementary school. What surprises me is how aggressive people who are corrected are when they might just as well be grateful to learn something that prevents their sounding less educated in the future.
I’ve been corrected regarding how punctuation rules have evolved in the 60 or so years I was in (the eponymously named) grammar school. For me a moment of embarrassment pales in comparison to the limitless future of better representing myself.
noel, as you well know, you were perfectly correct. And I admire your forthrightness.
I grew up in Cedar City, Utah in the 90s. Every time a new school year started in middle school and high school we seemed to have anywhere between 10 and 30 new students from out of state. I’d say about 90% of those were from California, and about 40% of them active LDS families. We also seemed to get small surges of new students every time California had an earthquake. It wasn’t too surprising. Cedar City was consistently on lists of “Top 100 small towns in the U.S.” until it got too big to even be on the lists anymore. I was surprised by the number of people I met who came there for no other reason than that it seemed to be a good place to settle down. Although a lot of people outside the Church come, I think the LDS population has had steady growth as well, and fairly regular baptisms.
Despite huge growth, inner parts of Cedar City are starting to see wards get combined as older couples retire to St. George, outside of town, or closer to children and in so doing turn their home to apartment rentals for SUU students. SUU also seems poised for huge expansion, which also appears to be lessening ward populations. Should be interesting to see what happens the next few years.
I’m born, raised, currently living in the sf bay area. The church has shrunk significantly since the 90s. I now live in an outlying area that was booming with members 10 years ago, but even here where our overall population keeps going up, the ward size is declining. We have baptisms monthly, but none ever stick.
In the last year or two a bunch of families with older kids hitting college have been leaving. Most common destinations are Idaho and Texas. And since house prices are thought to be at their pinnacle, the retirees have been selling and heading to Utah/Idaho. Arizona no longer seems to be a popular move-to location though which is interesting.
One of the challenges here is that almost all families are 2 income. Apart from the financial necessity of that for most of us, it makes it hard for sahms to have social networks. If I look at my ward, most of the younger moms work ( with several stay-at-home-dads) and the 40 something moms stay home. They are also the families that are currently leaving.
I can’t imagine any Southern California beachside community with a median home price of $500,000. In my suburban LA area, far from the beach, half a million will get you a tear down in a scary neighborhood. In my community the median is above $800,000 for a far from luxurious house. And yes, that has a huge effect on LDS families who want to live here. They are usually much younger than non LDS couples with children of the same age, so much earlier in their careers and making less money. They frequently have one wage earner and they pay tithing. All of that impacts housing affordability.
You don’t mention demographic changes which I think have had an even greater effect on some Southern California cities. One city near me was the all American suburb with great schools that attracted LDS families from the 50s to the late 90s. About 25 years ago those same schools attracted Asian families and now it is about 70% Asian, almost none LDS. There used to be 7 wards in that town, now there are 2 I think, maybe even just one. The same story has been repeated here with other ethnic groups that have few LDS members, it has radically changed church membership.
@Gary Brown: I would love to read about your study.
I am in the process of having the full manuscript edited. In the meantime, I will soon cut and paste key portions and forward such on to W&T for use at their discretion.
Northwest Arkansas, home of Walmart, has had an explosion of members in the last 20 years. The stake has split three times, half a dozen chapels have been built, and all the chapels house multiple wards. Walmart began recruiting heavily from BYU and BYUI in the 2000. The dirt cheap cost of living allowed new college grads to buy a nice house and have a stay at home wife. After a few years more people would check it out, (through interviews, or visiting family,) see all the members and decide to move there. Lots of members but very few converts. They even moved the mission from the Tulsa, Oklahoma mission to the Bentonville, Arkansas mission.
I grew up in the SF Bay Area in the 80s and 90s. I remember even back then it was common for new retirees and empty nesters in our ward to move away to Utah, to the point where it became a predictable trope. They would cash out on their old 3-bedroom starter homes and buy massive McMansions in Happy Valley with plenty of cash left over for new furniture. Many times in my youth my mom, when feeling overwhelmed or dissatisfied with life, threatened to move us all to Utah. She fortunately never followed through, at least not until after we all grew up and moved away, But whenever an older couple moved away, a young family reliably moved into to the ward to replace them and keep our old ward strong, at least until the early 2000s. The area where I grew up is now priced far too high for most young families and first-time buyers, though they consist of the same 1950s tract homes (now flipped and overpriced). Even in the crappy economy of the late 70s, my parents were still able to get into a decent house, They wouldn’t stand a chance if they had to start out in the same location today. From what I hear, the wards in the area (which remained unchanged for my entire youth) are shrinking as suburban sprawl pushes further east.
In another season of life, I was living in San Diego during Prop 8. Our urban ward had already been struggling for years (most families who could afford to were moving out to the suburbs). But after that election, about 30% of our active membership left, and were never seen again. Of those who remained, there was some lingering bitterness among certain families. I moved away a year later for work, but as far as I could tell the ward never rebounded from that.
Later, I lived briefly in the Florida Panhandle. My bishop there told me about how the Church was struggling in the area because, after a hurricane swept through several years previously, a large portion of the members (most of whom were transplants anyway) packed up, moved away and never came back.
When I lived in the suburbs of Atlanta, I noticed that most of the Church members there were also transplants from the West, most of whom were either students or early-career professionals. In either case, they were biding their time until they found a good enough opportunity to move back West, closer to extended family.
So, I’ve seen a lot of different motivations–economic, social, religious–influencing LDS migration patterns within the U.S. Even though its been generations since Church leaders have been telling members to stop emigrating to Utah and “build up Zion wherever you are”, the mothership of the Intermountain West still has significant pull.
Two large families just moved out of our central coastal California ward. One family relocated to AZ and the other is headed to PA, for employment. (Jobs are somewhat limited here. Our area attracts some retirees from the LA area seeking a less densely populated place to live).
We have also had retirees move to St. George, UT Usually they have a child or children living near SLC and want to be closer but prefer St, George climate.
We just had re-alignment in our stake—-4 wards consolidated into 2 wards. (Total number of wards went from 8 to 6).
I wonder what percentage of BYU graduates are from outside UT and how many remain in UT post graduation?
I live outside a large city in Texas in the suburbs. Our ward was growing like crazy for years with people moving in. Most families would be moving into a new house. Many would be coming from Utah. Maybe a single convert every other year and all but one have gone inactive. They finally split the ward into 2 wards about 5 years and the one I am in is all built out – no new homes being built. The ward has not had any converts that have attended more than a few weeks. Most of the youth are moving away and the primary is no longer busting at the seams. On average we lose about 5 people per year in our sacrament meeting attendance. The ward is running good, but it seems like the ward is starting to age and if the current trend continues, the ward could have too few in a decade or so.
I like this. If you don’t tell them, how will they learn?
I am in the heart of SLC, but in a poor, working-class neighborhood, and we are seeing membership decline. Under Obama we had a brief boom in new baptisms as scores of refugees from Thailand, Nepal, and Africa joined. But, under Trump, we aren’t seeing many. And now that those members have split off into their own wards and branches, what’s left is smaller than it was before. It feels like it’s become a more austere and authoritarian environment. There are fewer intelligent, thinking people — at least in our neighborhood, where we used to have a lot of progressive young, married graduate students — and the pickings get slimmer and slimmer for choosing new priesthood leaders. They’ve built thousands of new housing units in our area, and the general consensus was that we would see lots of new members move in. But, despite filling those apartments, it’s been pretty much the same old tired faces at church.
The ward unit is far too small for us to see the big picture, especially with the level of migration in the US.
I live in a large city in the American South. Years ago an AAS or 70 explained in a leadership meeting the following: Imagine a large ceiling-to-floor map of the entire metro area. Place a red pin in the map at each address wherein lives an active member and a blue pin for inactive members. The result would be a donut of red pins but not a symmetrical donut. Some suburbs would be thicker or denser. Next update the map monthly and take pictures and make a movie covering decades. The donut expands in diameter but thins out- due to suburban flight. Again, not consistently. Some areas grow better than others.
The enlarging dount pushes commute-to-work times skyward (averaging about 1 hour each way, ever day here). Commute times, demanding jobs and fewer SAHMs kill time needed for demanding church callings. (A bishop with children needs a SAHM for a wife). The blue donut mostly overlaps but tends to have a slightly smaller average diameter and lags behind the red one. Over time the population grows less dense, in the last decade or two, The conclusion was to teach people to stop desiring the bigger cheaper house in the suburbs and grow where they are planted and stay for a lifetime in one place when possible. And women need to stay out of the work force or the Kingdom will not grow. The kids go to hell and the ward can’t function except at the most mediocre level.
I suspect the donut has thinned out across the wall with some rare exceptions. Most perceived growth is at the expense of somewhere else. One antidote: A free-thinking friend moved to Florida and was asked by his brother, a bishop to attend some important secret leadership meeting on his behalf. (This was about 10-15 years ago). The big boys from Salt lake showed stats and graphs indicating a disturbing decline in activity measured by church attendance and temple recommend possession (tithing). The strength had dwindled across the entire state to levels not seen since the 1960’s. They opened it up asking for ideas as to why this was happening and possible solutions. Over 90% of the comments were expressing the claim- that maybe this problem existed somewhere else, but not in my ward. All is well in Zion, we are flourishing.As if this was an audition for leadership advancement. So pick me and I will solve your problems. My friend was so disillusioned and knew we were in serious trouble then.
A solution to this problem of dispersion would be to do what a local Jewish community did. They invested millions of dollars into an enormous comprehensive community center. Over decades the Jewish people who want to be more involved tend to find jobs and buy homes near the community center. The area near the center is 30-40% Jewish. Orthodox Jews walk to synagogue and find it convenient to live nearby. Jews are no more numerous and no more wealthy than us. We could do this if upper level leadership wanted it done. Our temples don’t have enough drawing power by themselves to do it.
It seems Mormons are driven by mostly economic considerations in selection of a place to live with the exception of those still in Utah and surrounding strongholds from pioneer times who want to stay closer/move back to extended family. Members are expected to make any sacrifice to gather together. Large families and faithful tithing leads to less inherited wealth. But better than average education pushes many of us into the middle somewhere. The middle class in the US is shrinking and we tied our wagons to it a century or more ago.
Leadership paradigms seem to not allow for consideration of stagnant growth or even decline. They assume rapid or at least moderate steady growth. They are constantly caught flat-footed without local growth. Poor decisions concerning buildings and unit boundaries result.
PS: Whenever someone points out one of my grammar errors, I reply: Proper English is my second language, I was educated in Utah public schools and read the Book of Mormon about 15-20 times before I graduated from college.
“Most perceived growth is at the expense of somewhere else. “
Mike most of your posts make my BS meter peg at 11, but that is a nugget of truth. LDS growth in any given area is mostly demographic.
Mike: why does a bishop with kids “need” a SAHM? In the ward I grew up in, our branch president’s wife taught autistic kids and was often home later than he was (he was a university professor). They had 4 kids, one of whom was my good friend.
Mike, Very interesting insights from the leadership meetings your friend attended. It would be great if we could see the same data that the 70’s see, and then ask us for solutions when we have all the data!
Angela C:
It is not necessary for a bishop with kids to have a SAHM. But in most cases it really helps. Most bishops work hard at their paying jobs and spend 50 or 60 hours a week there. The duties of bishop in a ward with many truly needy or whiny members can occupy 20 to 40 hours a week or more. So most are working 2 full-time jobs. Moving to the suburbs adds 1 or 2 hours of exhausting commute time daily. Household chores , especially with several small children can be a full-time job. In the teen years one parent becomes a taxi service for several hours every day. Schools are becoming more demanding and require more parental involvement for students to get into the top academic tracks and be competitive for good scholarships. On top of that, kids (or their parents) seem to want to schedule cram their after-school time . If you need 6 hours or more of sleep per night, you reach a point where there are just not enough hours a week in the lives of 2 parents for both of them to work 40-60 hours in a job and do everything else. We haven’t even thought about daily scripture study, prayers, exercise or community service. Something has to be sacrificed. If the wife works the husband has to help out around the house more and won’t have the same amount of time to perform the demanding callings in the ward that put him in a position to be on the short list for consideration to be a bishop.
The other consideration is that in the past the prophet (Benson) specifically called out the women and told them to quit their jobs and go home to their children and/or have more of them. One of many examples: https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1981/10/the-honored-place-of-woman?lang=eng Demographically few LDS women heeded the call and the portion of women in the work force continued to increase. Most men don’t care about this ancient history. But a few who tend to be in positions of local power do remember this warning. They will be reluctant to call a man who can’t keep his wife in line to keep the ward in line, other considerations being equal.
I am basing this on experiences of my relatives who tend to put church work above home. In my exceptional ward, all of the bishops in the last 25 years were empty-nesters. The incomes of all but one were among the top 5%. All had wives who were SAHM and were retired from herding children in their homes. All held numerous high-demand callings before and after being a bishop. I concede that many exceptions to this trend exist.
Finally, I have no problem personally with women going to work full-time or choosing to stay at home. As long as they realize the potential conflicts and take effective steps to prevent/resolve them with good organization and boundaries. In fact, I wish my wife would go back to work- so that I could retire.
Mike – I am sure the ward demographics play into this. I have never had a bishop in the last 20 years that was an empty-nester – in fact far from it. My last 4 bishops have had kids in elementary, middle, and high school – and some with kids in college. The only empty-nesters in the ward (generally only about 5 or 6 total in the ward) are quite older and generally retired. I think most move out unless they have family in the ward. I also just realized that 2 out of the last 3 bishops had a spouse that worked – and about the same with their counselors. I live in an area that is generally “comfortable”, but kids are expensive.
KLC:
Thank you for the nugget of a complement.
However, this harsh personal attack,” Mike most of your posts make my BS meter peg at 11, ” cannot be ignored, especially since it is mostly, ah… true.
Feed my sheep, Jesus admonished Peter three times. About the only sheep feeding I do these days is a secondary role as a back-row leader in a non-LDS scout troop. My years of camping with teenagers about every month has taught me that the most important skill a boy (or girl) needs to learn is critical thinking. There are many ways to teach this but the easiest is to encourage the natural tendency of youth to question adult authority. I can’t do that as a father or a scoutmaster. But the back row is the perfect place to do it.
The sooner this happens the less trouble the youth gets into. The 11-14 year olds tend to get into trouble with sassing parents, swearing, fighting with siblings, telling dirty stories, looking at dirty pictures and writing rude remarks to budding romantic interests on line, obscene selfies, smoking or beer, squirt guns, driving the car around the block unlicensed, etc. The 15-18 year olds tend to get into trouble with complete defiance of parents, gang fights, causal sex, rape by fraud or date rape, trying cocaine/meth/ ecstasy or even heroin, fentanyl or (here is a new one on me ) U47700, carrying loaded handguns, truancy, vandalism and driving 100 mph past grade schools, etc,. etc,. etc..
But most of them eventually gain critical thinking skills, realize the stupidity of this bad behavior and stop doing it. As you can see if this happens before about age 14-15 rather than after it, the stakes are much lower. So every trusting, innocent 11 year old scout who ventures into our chaotic troop encounters me, the honorary Codger patrol leader. I speak entirely in allegorically true statements that are usually literally wrong, I mock them like they mock adults, prank them, and call them out on their wimpery, lack of initiative and digital addictions. Stories around the camp fire is the crucible of this approach. Behind it all, I cannot hide my compassion for them, the worst of the bunch become my “favorite scouts,” not considered a compliment by older reformed favorite scouts. I am getting too old for this now. Until this year attendance at camping trips I either plan or attend doubles. Many parents claim paradoxically I have more influence for good on their sons than any other adult they encounter at school, church or sports. It seems I just happen to be standing there when they decide to turn the corner themselves.
I think of most Mormons as in need of developing better critical thinking skills on a different plane, if the church is to not dwindle to an irrelevant shadow. I don’t have the same magic touch with y’all as I do with young scouts. Perhaps because psychologically I am a 13 year old trapped in a 60+ year old body with half a century experience of pulling mischievous stunts that are better suited for the camp than the blog. Mostly, I enjoy putting my opinions out here and having them corrected.
I accept your personal attack with honor, KLC.
New data I just found on reddit/r/mormon: California is a fascinating case. Church attendance is basically in free fall there. Once again, 2005 was the peak year for wards/branches with 1386 total units. It currently stands at 1240 units, a loss of 146–nearly 11%. But during that same time, California’s population actually grew by more than 4 million.
There are currently 154 stakes in California, and only 3 added a unit in the past year–Concord (East San Francisco Bay), Chula Vista (suburban San Diego county), and Mission Viejo (suburban Orange County).
HOWEVER
24 different stakes lost units. Several of those lost at least 2 wards/branches. Metro Sacramento has 4 different stakes (Antelope, Citrus Heights, Sacramento, Sacramento East) that each lost units. San Diego County had another 4(Carlsbad, Poway, San Diego, San Diego East) that lost units. And the San Bernardino/Riverside area had 6 stakes (Chino, Hemet, Menifee, Moreno Valley, Ontario, Riverside) which lost units.
Bishop Bill,
Are there any statistics on Mormon growth or lack thereof among immigrants to the U.S. and/or California? By immigrants, I am thinking either those that are already LDS upon arrival or join the church at some point after arrival. If it’s anything like the Adventist I have studied, for all practical purposes the growth they are experiencing in North America is among that population.
Bishop Bill, noting your statistic about Sacramento stakes that lost units makes me again wonder about the proposed Yuba City temple. YC is only 40 miles from Sacramento, it has a population of just under 70,000, and as you note, CA is not a hotbed of new convert growth anymore. Of all the world’s locations that need a temple why Yuba City? Usually when a new temple location is announced the need and reasons are obvious but this one has had me puzzled from the moment I heard about it.