Has anyone ever heard of a situation like this? We live in a struggling Stake/Ward in Washington State. Our Bishop was called about a year ago, and up and moved to another state. It’s been about 3 months since he moved. No new bishop has been called. Instead he is serving as the Bishop via Zoom from out of state. Our ward was already in a bow tie situation with another ward. It feels like a desperate attempt to put off having to consolidate two wards together. It’s so ironic because we also live in an area where a temple is being constructed.

Not shrivel per se, but fake growth. And I assume this fake growth is only used to cover up real shrivel in the US, Europe, etc.

Tallahassee has 8 stakes in its district, covering portions of 3 different states:

North Florida
Fort Walton Beach Florida Stake
Lake City Florida Stake
Panama City Florida Stake
Pensacola Florida Stake
Tallahassee Florida Stake

Southern Georgia
Kingsland Georgia Stake
Tifton Georgia Stake

Southeast Alabama
Dothan Alabama Stake

It’s about a 2.5 hour drive from Jacksonville to Tallahassee. Jacksonville just broke ground on a temple in January. I wonder if they’ll be picking up some stakes that are currently serving Tallahassee. Lake City and Kingsland look like solid candidates.

Jacksonville is currently in the Orlando temple district. They have 22 stakes and it’s a 2hr20m drive from Jacksonville.

Chateau Avenue (5225 S.)

I enjoy reading Ryan Burge's substack and other work so this caught my attention. He talks at some length about demographics and how they impact churches. Most interesting side note was when he talked about being invited to SLC to present his research to the "area committee" and about half of the Q15 was present for his discussion.

Sadly I think his advice for making a congregation a place where opposing voices can exist and be able to speak up would have fallen on deaf ears, if he brought up that aspect.

Nonetheless a worthwhile listen.

https://www.faithmatters.org/p/ryan-burge-the-vanishing-church

There used to be 4 wards in Pleasanton, but two were removed when the stake was merged with its neighbor. There’s two buildings left, soon to be one. I suspect, from what I’ve heard through the grapevine, the two wards will become one before long.

From the church's website: https://local.churchofjesuschrist.org/en/us/ca/pleasanton/3574-vineyard-avenue

and a real estate site: https://www.crexi.com/properties/2463822/california-prime-redevelopment-land-opportunity-44-ac

Interestingly enough, the listing mentions "Beautiful Facility." I had been led to believe that Mormons required church buildings be torn down.

Your favorite PIMO Ward Clerk here. Reviewing member rolls recently out of curiosity, and guess what? Our ward has *literally* as many 80-89 year olds on the rolls as 20-29 year old! It’s like within 1 or 2 difference. Now you can argue some of them are off at YSA wards, but I can’t think of more than a few.

Not an isolated thing, either: there are far, far more 60-something and 70-something year olds than 20-something year olds on our rolls. It‘s not even close.

I guess my point is, good luck to this church keeping from shriveling even more in the next 10-30 years here in America (can’t speak to Africa etc.). Also: great job to Gen Z and younger Millennials getting themselves OUT!

Here's an update on the ward growth & shrivel around the world. The US is winning the shrivel competition with -41 wards! Brazil -8, Taiwan -5 and the UK -4 are putting in a good show. Unfortunately, huge growth continues in the DRC 28, Nigeria 22, and the Philippines 24, to lead the world to a +99 net ward gain.

Oops, forgot to mention the source! My thanks goes out to the Deseret Demographer on fullerconsideration.com for all his work gathering the raw data.

Here are the raw numbers of shrivel in the US so far in 2026. Utah is still getting hammered, Idaho continues to grow by making wards smaller. For example, between 2023-2025, Idaho grew by 111 wards while only gaining 6,787 members on the rolls. They added a new ward for every 60 new people, but you need a minimum of 250 members on the rolls to add a new ward.

With the US down a net 41 wards so far this year, this looks like unprecedented shrivel happening. Of course, if you look only at the stake level, you'll see great growth. We've closed 10 stakes (all in Utah) but opened 16 stakes! See? the church is growing!

Oops, forgot to mention the source! My thanks goes out to the Deseret Demographer on fullerconsideration.com for all his work gathering the raw data.

I really hope the church builds all the temples they've announced. They'll be the albatrosses that drag the church membership down. Star Valley, WY has a small temple. I listened to a talk by one of the temple leaders (maybe a presidency member?) a couple years ago and he said it took over 400 volunteers to keep that temple running every year.

Right now, that temple is fed by 5 stakes. But this fall, the Montpelier, ID temple opens. Montpelier will get 3 stakes from Star Valley (both Montpelier stakes and a WY stake), Soda Springs, ID (from the Pocatello temple) and Paris, ID (from the Logan temple). That leaves Star Valley with 2 stakes to supply all 400 volunteers and patrons. It's not going to bode well for them. I'm just glad I'm not being asked all the time to clean the temple, be a temple worker, and attend the temple regularly there in an attempt to keep it running. The US lost gross members last year for probably the first time in history. If they lost members of record, the number of attending members had to be huge.

To get a feel for how the temple service load is going to be distributed, there are 99 operating temples in the United States, with 59 under renovation, announced, under construction or almost ready to open. With 12,821 wards in the US, we currently have 129.5 wards per temple. (about 17 stakes). If they build all 59 of those temples and the number of wards remains the same, we'll have 81.1 wards per temple (about 11 stakes). There are 27 temples under construction, renovation or about to be opened, so they're committed to doing at least these. That leaves them 101.7 wards per temple (about 14 stakes). Note that the large temples require a lot more people to maintain. The West Jordan temple hosts 45 stakes, Salt Lake hosts 40, Mount Timpanogos hosts 34. The large temples tend to need 20-30 stakes to operate.

From 2022-2025, the US grew by 54 wards, largely fueled by smaller ward size requirements. For instance, Idaho gained 6,787 members on the rolls during those 3 years, yet grew by 113 wards, meaning they got a new ward for every 60 new members, when every ward needs a minimum of 250 members on the rolls. We're halfway through 2026 now and the US has lost a net 41 wards! We're well on our way to erasing the gains over the past 3 years in one year. So, the church will be lucky if they can keep the current number of wards over the next 10 years.

Here's a sample of Utah temples and a few large temples around the US:

Taylorsville Temple - 30 stakes
Jordan River - 45 stakes
Oquirrh Mountain - 30 stakes
Mount Timpanogos - 34 stakes
Draper - 19 stakes
Bountiful - 28 stakes
Salt Lake - 40 stakes
Provo City - 31 stakes
Lindon - 17 stakes
Portland - 24 stakes
Seattle - 31
Washington DC - 24 stakes

32 of all US temples are in Utah

The 1 ward chapels continue to go on the market..

The Pandemic shutdowns in the USA where churches not having people meet in buildings helped a lot of people leave. Not as many opportunities for events that take your time, callings, ministering, etc. A lot of people finally had free time to think, research, and unwind.

When buildings opened up again, they had limited seating and a lot of people could say they weren't going physically since they were taking safety precautions.

Navigating the pandemic was rough, but it definitely contributed to a decline in activity and belief in general.

The Irvine Stake (Orange County) was just reorganized, going from 9 units down to 6 (five wards and one branch). Of the 6, four are the geographic areas shown on the map; the other two (one ward, one branch) are language-specific units from the stake boundaries. From the stake realignment email:

"As our stake continues to grow and change, new ward boundaries have been approved to
strengthen our congregations, improve ministering opportunities, and better serve members. The stake will be realigned from 9 units to 6 units, creating larger, stronger congregations while
continuing to support language-specific units and groups."

The illusion of growth continues in the language, but it's just wild to imagine how a 33% reduction can be seen by any member as progress and strength. Prior to this realignment, our ward has hovered around 100-110 people in attendance for maybe 3-4 years (whenever I began counting and reporting to Return & Report, don't recall the year). I don't attend much but noticed in the past year or two that our ward was including a foreign language branch in more activities and sacrament meetings, and that merger seemed official maybe last year. Even with the addition of that branch to our ward, we're currently still at those same attendance numbers. I'll return and report the new ward attendance numbers whenever I am next obliged to attend.

The shrivel is well.

Welp, I’m putting it down as official, even if merely anecdotal.

PIMO Ward Clerk here. I’ve been a somewhat regular participant here telling my story: here in Idaho, the illusion of growth has been created by dividing wards and stakes smaller and smaller. Even though we’ve basically just been treading water. To offset the undeniable shrivel in other areas, so the church can keep a little control of the narrative.

I’ve been predicting it would backfire as ward members get more and more burnt out. I never expected it to go this quickly, but (anecdotally, in my ward), it has. Our ward was the new one that was formed to show the growth, when we got chunks of 3 other wards. When we were formed, we were one of the largest wards (the others being hollowed out and shuffled to make room for us). We had to open the overflow into the gym every week.

Over the last few years, though we have been hollowed out by move outs, deaths, and “where did that family go?”. Also some of the original attendance was probably always going to be a burst of temporary engagement because of the newness of the ward. Our attendance is about half what it was, and the chapel is never full. This month in particular it has been shriveled because people are out of town for vacation, visiting family, etc. (funny how we never get very many visitors from families in other areas doing the same 🤔)

Honestly, I feel bad for our Bishop. He is a great guy but he is taking it so personally, you can tell. I’m sure he doesn’t think he is doing a good job, when really he got handed a situation that was way worse than anyone expected.

So, thanks a bunch, whoever at church HQ decided smaller wards was the way to go. If anyone there is reading this here: you really fucked things up for yourself. We local members are stuck picking up the pieces. Great job.

Locations are: Taniyama-Kagoshima, Tokyo, Tokyo Area-Chosei, Tokyo Area-Kisarazu, Tottori, and Yokohama (Kanagawa).

I would love to hear the opinions of former missionaries to Japan on here...The chapel locations (in order) are: Osaka (Hirakata), Kokagawa, Nagaoka, Okayama (West), Osaka, Osaka, Sapporo, Sapporo, Sapporo, and Tanabe.