BREAKING NEWS: First Presidency Announces Two New Missions for 2022; The Division of the 2 European Areas into 3; and the 2022 Area Leadership Assignments

Note: This post was originally published on 4/7/2022 at 3:57 PM, with additional analysis added on 4/8/2022 at 1:12 AM. 

Hello again, everyone! Around 10 minutes ago, the First Presidency made some remarkable announcements: effective July 1, two new missions are coming to Europe: one in the UK, and one in Spain. Additionally, the 2022-2023 area leadership assignments have been announced, with those changes going into effect on August 1. 

In conjunction with the area leadership assignments, the First Presidency additionally announced that the two current Europe Areas (Europe and Europe East) will be divided into 3: Europe Central, Europe East, and Europe North. The division of the European Areas is effective immediately. 

Additionally, for the time being, the nations of Ukraine and Moldova will be separate from the 3 new European Areas, and Elder Kyrylo Pokhylko, an area seventy, will oversee them as an assistant to the Europe North Area Presidency. As I mentioned previously, a separate Church area including Russia had been noted on Classic Maps a week or two ago. Today's announcement supersedes anything I have previously noted or conjectured here on this blog.

Obviously, there is a lot to break down here, but I am preparing for an appointment presently, so I will plan on publishing further analysis on this development later this evening. For now, my thanks once again to you all.

(Added on April 8 at 1:52 AM) Hello again, everyone! Much later than I intended, I am back with the additional analysis I promised. First, regarding the two newest missions of the Church, the Spain Madrid North Mission will be formed from a division of the Spain Madrid and Spain Barcelona Missions. Christopher L. Eastland and Trista S. Eastland have been called to preside over that mission, which will open in early July of this year.

Also opening in early July of this year is the England Bristol Mission, which is being reinstated. The mission will be reformed from parts of 3 other missions in England: England Birmingham, England Leeds, and England London. The Church has reassigned Kevin E. and Janine D. Gallacher, who have presided over the England Birmingham Mission since July of last year, to oversee the opening of this new mission, with Adam and Heather West set to preside over the England Birmingham Mission as replacements for President and Sister Gallacher. The creation of these two missions bring the total number of missions worldwide to 411.

That brings me to my analysis of the area leadership assignments. The Church has split the Europe and Europe East Areas into what will now be known as the Europe Central, Europe East, and Europe North Areas. The presidency of the Europe Area (Massimo De Feo, Erich W. Kopischke, and Ruben V. Alliaud) will serve as the presidency of the new Europe Central Area (with the headquarters remaining in Frankfurt Germany), with the Europe Central Area including the following nations: 

Albania, Andorra, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Kosovo, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, Montenegro, Netherlands, North Macedonia, Poland, Romania, San Marino, Serbia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.

The realigned Europe East Area will consist of the nations of Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia, with the area headquarters remaining in Moscow. 3 area seventies (Alexey V. Samaykin, Nikolai Ustyuzahaninov, and Aleksandr A. Drachyov) will serve as the presidency of that area. Meanwhile, Elders Hans T. Boom and Scott D. Whiting, who have been the President and First Counselor in the Europe East Area, will shift over to become the President and First Counselor in the Europe North Area, joined by Second Counselor Alan T. Phillips, an area seventy.

Elder Kyrylo Pokhylko, an area seventy who most recently was the Second Counselor in the Europe East Area presidency (working with Elders Boom and Whiting) has been reassigned as an assistant to the Europe North Area Presidency, where he will have primary oversight for the nations of Ukraine and Moldova, which will not be directly assigned to any of the three European areas for the time being.

The Europe North Area, with headquarters in the United Kingdom, will consist of the following nations: Cape Verde, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Aside from these notes, I have taken time to analyze the new area leadership assignments for the now-23 geographical areas of the Church. I have compiled the relevant data into two documents.

The first shows an alphabetical list (by last names) of General Authority Seventies and Area Seventies who are being called to and/or released from area leadership roles. The second shows the alphabetical order of the 23 areas of the Church and details the changes (or lack thereof) for each of those area presidencies. Hopefully both documents are informative to you all in providing the details about area leadership changes. And again, the changes in the 3 Europe Areas are effective immediately, with the changes to the other 20 presidencies being effective on August 1 of this year. I am grateful to have been able to analyze and report on these changes. I continue to monitor all Church news and temple updates. Unless there are 1 or more major Church news or temple updates provided later today (Friday), the next development will occur on Saturday, when ground will be broken for the Bahia Blanca Argentina Temple. Then on Sunday, it will be time for the next apostolic milestone update. I am reasonably certain other major updates will be provided later this month.

To the best of my ability, I will track them all and be sure to pass word of them along here as soon as I can once I learn about them. In the meantime, that does it for now. Any and all comments are, as always, welcome and appreciated, on any post at any time, as long as such feedback offered is consistent with the established guidelines.

I hope any of you who would like to share anything will take your opportunity to “sound off” in the comments below. Thank you for the privilege of your time. If you enjoyed what you read here and would like to stay informed of newly added content, please feel free to subscribe. Until my next post, I wish each one of you all the best and pray that the Lord will bless you all in everything you do.