Local church growth has led to the creation of a new stake in Tooele City for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
With the creation of the new Tooele West Stake, Tooele County now has 11 organized stakes: one in Erda, two in Stansbury, two in Grantsville, and six in Tooele City.
LDS Church officials also created the Erda Stake in February.
In the LDS Church, stakes are administrative units that consist of several individual congregations or wards. Stakes are responsible for overseeing fiscal matters, providing guidance and training for the church’s lay clergy, and organizing large-scale events such as women’s conferences and youth camps. All leaders in wards and stakes are volunteers.
Top church officials returned to Tooele on Sunday to organize the new Tooele West Stake. The Tooele West Stake will oversee the Tooele 7th, Tooele 18th, Tooele 26th, Overlake 1st, Overlake 4th and Overlake 5th Wards.
All six wards previously belonged to the Tooele North Stake. No ward boundaries were changed, nor were any new wards created. Each ward will also continue to meet on the same schedule and in the same building, said Ken Frailey, newly installed president of the Tooele North Stake.
“The whole point was that we didn’t want to upset the wards, but the stake was just getting too large,” he said. “The size of the stake was 12 wards and over 6,000 members.”
Frailey previously served as a counselor to Ned Bevan, the previous president of the Tooele North Stake. Frailey said Bevan had been thinking for several years about dividing the Tooele North Stake, but it wasn’t until a year ago that he and his counselors began pursuing the goal in earnest.
“Permission for reorganization of a stake comes from the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve [Apostles],” Bevan said. “When a stake gets to a certain size, population-wise 6,000 or more, then they’ll consider dividing the stake. … Last year, we finally got to that point, then made a recommendation to them.”
The Quorum of the Twelve assigned Elder C. Scott Grow and Elder Lynn L. Summerhays of the Quorum of Seventy to reorganize the stake, Bevan said. Grow and Summerhays were also present when the reorganization was announced on Sunday.
Bevan served as president of the Tooele North Stake with Frailey as a counselor for six years. Bevan now serves as president of the new Tooele West Stake, with Conrad Johansen and Edward Dalton as his counselors.
Tooele City residents may use the “Find Your Ward or Branch” service on www.lds.org to find out which ward they pertain to, as well as when and where it meets. Wards are organized along geographical boundaries.