Changes in the Lethbridge Alberta Stake

Later in the day after the cross-Canada stake conference, the stake presidency of the Lethbridge Alberta Stake announced in a meeting to which the had invited all their members that they were disbanding all the family wards (1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th ,8th).

They announced a realignment of ward boundaries (as well as taking in a portion from the Lethbridge Alberta East Stake) to create five new wards: Coulee Ridge, Chinook, Centennial Park, Legacy, and Park Meadows. Every one who held a ward calling (including elders quorum presidencies and high priest group leaderships) were released except the bishoprics of the former 1st, 2nd and 4th ward (now bishoprics in Coulee Ridge, Chinook, and Centennial Park respectively).

Bishoprics in all five wards have been spending the last two weeks trying to restaff every ward position. As executive secretary (in the former 1st Ward and recently called in the Coulee Ridge Ward), I have been involved in this process.

Our first week, we spent discussing, praying about, and calling ward leadership. The second week we spent discussing and praying recommendations from that ward leadership for staffing in their quorums and auxiliaries. It has been an exhausting, but spiritually fulfilling experience.

In the Coulee Ridge Ward, we take in most of the former 1st Ward, some of the former 2nd Ward, and everything our stake inherited from the East Stake. We are the largest ward, geographically, in the stake.

Our ward leadership is very mixed as far as ward origins. We have presidents and counsellors from all three previous wards, and it was interesting seeing the dynamics of this new leadership team slowly unfold in our first Ward Council meeting this morning.

The Lethbridge First Ward suffered from having many older members and many young, married members, and very few in between. The Coulee Ridge Ward has been blessed with a vast spectrum of families covering all ages. Our ward is now more economically diverse, whereas before we had a lot of people struggling financially and a lot of people very well off.

What’s nice about the changes I have mentioned above is that our ward doesn’t feel like the Lethbridge First Ward with some members of the Second and Fairmont Wards thrown in; it feels like the Coulee Ridge Ward.

Further changes (switching the Primary and Relief Society rooms; moving the Young Women, and moving the priesthood out of the gym and into the old Young Women room; moving Gospel Doctrine out of the chapel and into the new Relief Society room) have further helped establish this as a completely different ward.

I am really excited about these changes. I am sad for the small number of families (fewer than ten) we lost to the Chinook Ward, but we gained several dozen new families who are dedicated and willing to serve.

Being a part of the process has been a great experience, and when it is all one (probably at least two or three more weeks still to go), I think all of it will be valuable for me in the future.

13 thoughts on “Changes in the Lethbridge Alberta Stake

  1. We’ve been a part of that process before. It certainly is interesting to watch it unfold.

    Question: You switched around the primary and RS rooms? Why? Is that allowed?? LOL

  2. Hi, I’m trying to find the Lethbridge President email address to lobby a complaint against 2 missionaries who came tracting to my house on Saturday, July 21, 2012, but I can’t find anything online. Do you have it possibly? If so, please forward it to me so I can file my complaint with them….

    My complaint is this, they have no clue what they are teaching and they got mad at me. I was relaxing in my home on Saturday and they knocked at the door. It appeared that they were looking for some common ground whereby to go into the book of mormon, as they asked me if I believed in Jesus. The problem is that when I told them that the book of mormon has been proven false by every scientist outside of BYU, based on the fact that there is NO Jewish d.n.a. from the period when the book claims that Lehi left Jerusalem and Lamanite d.n.a. became the ancestors of the Native Indians (lamanites). They had NO clue about this. I couldn’t believe that old men in Salt Lake city calling themselves prophets and apostles would send these teenagers out like this!! It appalled me! I told these 2 young guys that they have only been taught white-washed versions of what the SLC leaders want them to believe, but they are filled with 1/2 truths and also with all-out deceptions and lies past and present. I pleaded for them to research all possible avenues of information, not only Mormon from the mormon book Church History, and Journal of Discourses as a good place to start, but all kinds of non Mormon avenues. Mormonthink.com has incredible truthful information that is never taught in these missionaries buildings. Yet they are coming out trying to tell me this! They said they would NOT read the website I offered, although failed to discuss the Mormon literature I had offered, but that I should go to LDS.org. They were very angry when they said this. I told them I already have all that information as I have read it. Then they got mad at ME!! They come to my house when I’m relaxing on a Saturday afternoon after a hard week of work, then they proceed to tell me things they have no clue about and then they get mad at ME for telling them that they are uneducated about that which they are speaking and trying to tell me about the book of mormon when it has been proven false by science. It upset me that 2 punks were trying to push their beliefs on my doorstep and got mad at ME for not believing them!! They want me to go on their website and research their information, and yet they will not go and research any of my information; yet they are the ones coming to my door. What nerve! What complete social ignorance! What are you people putting out on the streets!!! I was not surprised that they did not know that Joseph Smith was polyandrous, as a matter of fact, they didn’t even know what the word meant!! In their own history Mormon books there is ample evidence that on occasions Smith sent men out to foreign countries to preach while he married their wives. In a few cases these men came back and were not surprisingly upset! These 2 punks left angry and I was also very angry, because of their complete and utter pushiness on my doorstep and disrespect for anything that disagrees with them. THEY came to me – I did not go to them.

    It would be like me showing up at your sunday meeting and go into your building and start preaching and then get mad at you for not agreeing with me. How absurd!! These 2 kids tried to tell me they know it’s true by feelings. I explained that they were raised from an infant and told it was true. They conformed to that teaching out of social belief and cultural obedience out of fear of not obeying and lack of rewards. The mind and emotions then conform to give them any kind of feeling to support it. I can get feelings from watching a t.v. show and this simply means that I feel emotional about something for a myriad reasons. As a matter of fact, the Mormon PR media company has a specific program they use to stir people’s emotions. They call it heartfelt, or heart sense or some other such insane name. This is not ethical or upright in my opinion, but then again, I have apparently got a different set of values and ethics, which I prefer to keep! I told these 2 boys that this isn’t “knowing” this is emotional programming.

    I went pretty easy on them, but next time I’m going to come at them with both barrels. The nerve!!

    I want these Mormon leaders to keep these pushy punks away from my doorstep or next time I’m just going to phone the police!

  3. Kim, your response is unacceptable. LDS missionaries can be offensive. I am a believing LDS, but we are told to be kind. The missionaries need to have left. This gentleman does not want them there. And you, Kim, remember to be like Christ…kind.

    1. Matthew 7:3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

  4. No arguments need to happen at all…Pray and ask Him who knows..pretty simple….

  5. Narrow mindedness and the belief that only ones own opinion is valid and that other points of view need not or never be acknowledged seems to pervade LDS and evangelical Christian thinking. One reason I no longer am a member of any church.

  6. Kim, I would hoped for a more compassionate and kind response…Poor grammar and punctuation has nothing to do with it. This gentleman was trying hard to express his feelings. Some missionaries, although they have the best intentions, do offend. An apology goes a long way….

  7. Jude 49, you might couch some of your own words with kindness….

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