I have a friend who is 100% in the church, and they live in Saratoga Springs (near Provo), Utah. They just told me this story, and I was laughing so hard.

Apparently, a new Stake was formed in their area about 4 years ago (just before Covid). 12 units, and each ward was huge. About 500-600 members in each ward. They were excited about living in this thriving area for the church.

Fast forward to a conversation I just had last week with them. Their Stake was just reorganized a month ago, and there are now only 9 wards in their Stake, and here is the clincher---each ward, in their words, is SO SMALL. They are worried, because there are only a small number of members in each ward. They made it seem like each ward has only about 125-150 members who attend each week. They were worried, because only a few "strong" members and families were carrying the load of leadership in each ward.

I was laughing the entire time to hear that there was so much SHRINKAGE, even in the Wasatch area.

Beautiful to hear!!!

I think covid finally broke the Mormon "I must go to church this Sunday" spell, and the hamsters are reluctant to return to the hamster wheel.

I think Saratoga Springs, as a new housing development area, would be filled with young families with kids, Mormondom's bread and butter.

If they are leaving, there's trouble in River City.

After the pandemic there's no turning back for many members. Once people had a break from their boring Sunday routine they found they were happier not going to church. So they didn't go back.

The ward I was baptized into in the 70s was a great ward. It was full every Sunday and afterwards the foyer was abuzz with members happily socializing.

I recently heard that very few people attend the ward now. The bishop doesn't seem to want to be there and spends most of his time reading text messages during Sunday meetings. The ward has asked to be combined with another ward, just to fill the benches. My friend who mostly attends to socialize won't go anymore.

I'm definitely experiencing some schadenfreude watching the demise of the Mormon church.

As a little kid, I rode go carts at the Saratoga amusement park.

Just how fast were those mule team go-carts?

And how many laps for a nickel?

I remember that park also. Small but fun.

I think the church anticipated a big exodus in members. It first happened outside of the Mormon corridor, but now it's finally creeping in. There's a lot less essential callings needed to keep a small ward functioning. They combined priesthood and Sunday School is every other week. They simplified HT (now called Ministering) all that data that the church used to keep and truth be told the church never gave a damn.

Do they really need 2 counselors or even secretaries?

They lump all the primary aged and teenagers into one group (respectively).

So with less callings, it's easier to have minimal wards/branches.

I suppose some members who want to do something feel frustrated because there's no prized calling for them to assume.

Funny thing: While in the MTC, several "districts" were combined to create a MTC branch. Except for Sundays, the other elders/sisters were never seen nor socialized. PH assignments rotated (2 to bless water/bread and 2 to pass the trays). There was one elder/sister "youth" talk per week and a branch presidency would fill the balance. There was no Sunday school so you had a Devotional in the evening. A short PH meeting concluded church. The sisters went somewhere else for RS lessons. It was weird to attend a church meeting for consecutive Sundays and have ZERO church responsibilities/assignments.

Interesting how they used the MTC model to restructure Sunday meetings.

Thanks. I was not aware they had combined/eliminated that many callings. Didn't they also disband High Priest group meeting, or at least discontinued them having their own Priesthood Meeting lesson/teacher?

I expect they will continue to ratchet down the number of people it takes to staff a ward/branch, and open some callings to women (perhaps SS presidency, YM/YW joint presidency, which they will almost certainly rename as something other than "presidency" so as to never have women as a presidency over anyone with testosterone).

A "ward" is an extremely elastic way to estimate how many Mormons there are in an area. It can be anywhere between 100 (or perhaps fewer) to 400 active members. That's a hell of a lot of wiggle room for saying how active an area is.

There are a lot of nonmember people moving into northern Utah County. If it’s an area with a lot of new home construction there is going to be a lower member percentage.