A major milestone in Church growth will be reached Dec. 11 when President Howard W. Hunter travels to Mexico to create the 2,000th stake.
President Hunter will visit Mexico City to create the Mexico City Mexico Contreras Stake. Mexico is second only to the United States in number of members and stakes. The nation has more than 700,000 members, and, with the creation of the new stake, will have 129 stakes.Assisting President Hunter will be Elder Russell M. Nelson of the Council of the Twelve and Elder Lino Alvarez of the Seventy, president of the Mexico South Area.
The Church's first stake was organized in Kirtland, Ohio, on Feb. 17, 1834. The 100th stake was created in 1928, and in 1979, the 1,000th stake was created. A gauge in the dramatic recent growth of the Church is the fact that now, just 15 years later, the 2,000th stake will soon be created.
Mexico has also had a history of increasing growth in recent years. Missionaries first entered Mexico in 1875, and the first stake was created in that country among colonists in Colonia Juarez in 1895. However, it wasn't until 1961 that a stake was created among the Latin American membership. Some 28 years later, in June 1989, Mexico's 100th stake was created.