Stokes Sounds Off: Introductory Information About the Three Utah Areas

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Tuesday, December 26, 2017

Introductory Information About the Three Utah Areas

Hello again, everyone! While I had said as recently as 12-15 hours ago when doing my final post covering the South America South Area that I would be stepping back a bit before moving on to the three Utah areas to allow sufficient time for you all to read and make any comments on the other posts in this series, since I am in the groove for it now and and since my wife and I continue to be stuck at home with illness, I thought I would at least get started on my posts about the three Utah Areas. The one thing I wanted to note about the boundaries of those areas is that they are somewhat oddly drawn, and that is reflected by the fact that some small portions of other states are considered part of those three areas.

Next, I wanted to make a general comment about the state. As a Utah citizen, I am grateful to live in the state that is the worldwide headquarters of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Lord is at work in prospering His Church here. And nowhere is that more evident than in the fact that the current data about Utah is quite extensive. With 18 temples (17 of which are in operation, and 1, for the northern Utah County city of Saratoga Springs, which was just announced last April), the Church in this state has 11 missions currently (though that may change somewhat based on the announced intention of the Church to consolidate missions worldwide).

Additionally, the Saints in Utah are served by 592 stakes and only 1 district, which are further divided into 4,785 wards and 326 branches, or a total of 5,111 congregations. Divided evenly among those 18 temples, the congregational average served by each works out to between 283-284 congregations for each temple. While some of Utah's 29 counties are pretty well stocked in terms of temples to serve the Church members here, there are options I can definitely see the Church announcing in both the near and more distant future.

With that background information out of the way, I can now focus on the particulars of each of the three areas of the Church within this state. So that does it for this post. Any and all comments are, as always, welcome and appreciated. Thank you for the privilege of your time. Until my nest post, I wish each one of you all the best and pray that the Lord will bless you all in everything you do.

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