How many units meet in your ward building?

[hostile]

One. 10 a.m. Sacrament meeting every year.

When we lived in Pittsburgh the family ward shared the building with the student ward. The student ward never wanted early church so we always had 10:00 am Sacrament. I miss that.

[Uncle Ted]

Thanks for the input. I had an idea and went out to ward locator on the LDS official site. In my area, three wards is fairly standard with a few buildings with two wards. Outlier areas away from population centers have one ward/branch. FYI, was looking in the Dallas area.

We have 7 wards/branches in two buildings in our city. There is only one baptismal font.

I think I mentioned this on some other thread but I once was called as the building scheduler on top of my other callings. We were in a building with four wards at the time. Scheduling was a nightmare so I created an on-line building scheduler that people could go to and see which rooms were reserved by which groups and any time of the day or night. I am no longer the building scheduler but our stake still uses this to schedule the building.

Good to hear that Utah Mormons are scheduled just as tight as Texans in population centers. Now I guess I'll have to complain about something new...like how it's now the AP job to clean the church. How the YW and Relief Soceity escape this I'll never know. Guess the assumption is that they have to clean their own house on a Saturday but that's not the case in mine.

That is not the case for our building. The YW and YM get one Saturday when it is our month to clean the building. I count this as our service project for the month for our AP group. If they are making the YM clean the entire month then I would just count it as all their service hours and not plan any other service projects. Then when the YW want to do a combined service project just say, "No, we already have all the service hours we need... we're going bowling."

[Portland Ute]

I must have heard him wrong. I was wrestling kids in F&T meeting.

I called him for clarification. 140 ACTIVE members in his stake (3 wards). People drive over 100 miles to get to stake conference. 16 buildings total in the state. Don't know how many of the claimed 6,366 are active.

If ND is like the rest of the church, then there are probably 2000 to 2500 active folks in ND.

[Donuthole]

Our building had 4 (large) wards until this month. With 4 wards, one ward would meet at 9:00 and have sacrament last, and one ward would meet at 9:30 and have sacrament first. The 9:30 sacrament mtg would get out at about 10:45, right as the 9:00 ward would head in for sacrament mtg. They had to institute a "enter from the east, exit to the west" rule, as the chaos was, well, ungodly.

All that did, however, was create gigantic mosh pit in the east foyer while the 9:00 ward waited for the 9:30 ward to end their sacrament mtg. To top it all off, you started having people sneak in from the west side just as the 9:30 sacrament ended and using their scriptures, church bags, lesson manuals, etc. to save seats. Then they'd go back around, enter from the east, and sit in the saved seats that everybody had just passed over because of the stuff sitting on the bench.

Wash, rinse, repeat at 1:00 and 1:30.

I won't even get into how ridiculous it was trying to hold YM/YW and schedule the building for anything.

With the new year, a new building was completed and two wards were sent away. The other ward staying in the building was split, so we have 3 in the building. Our ward is growing so fast it will have to split before the end of the year, and we'll be in the same cluster as before.

[NorthwestUteFan]

...you forgot to account for the castrati ...

Happily, that is no longer a prerequisite for singing in the choir.

If ND is like the rest of the church, then there are probably 2000 to 2500 active folks in ND.

If that is the case, then are there 3 million members in the US instead of 8 million?

[Paperback Writer]

Our building had 4 (large) wards until this month. With 4 wards, one ward would meet at 9:00 and have sacrament last, and one ward would meet at 9:30 and have sacrament first. The 9:30 sacrament mtg would get out at about 10:45, right as the 9:00 ward would head in for sacrament mtg. They had to institute a "enter from the east, exit to the west" rule, as the chaos was, well, ungodly.

All that did, however, was create gigantic mosh pit in the east foyer while the 9:00 ward waited for the 9:30 ward to end their sacrament mtg. To top it all off, you started having people sneak in from the west side just as the 9:30 sacrament ended and using their scriptures, church bags, lesson manuals, etc. to save seats. Then they'd go back around, enter from the east, and sit in the saved seats that everybody had just passed over because of the stuff sitting on the bench.

Wash, rinse, repeat at 1:00 and 1:30.

I won't even get into how ridiculous it was trying to hold YM/YW and schedule the building for anything.

With the new year, a new building was completed and two wards were sent away. The other ward staying in the building was split, so we have 3 in the building. Our ward is growing so fast it will have to split before the end of the year, and we'll be in the same cluster as before.

I don't think the small Foyer in my ward building could handle that. By comparision, the 9:00 am, 11:00 am, 1:00 pm, 3:00 pm block schedule starting times seem inspired. Guess the 9:00/9:30 and 1:00/1:30 arrangement saves a ward from the 3:00-6:00 pm block and allows folks to actually eat lunch.

Makes me yearn for the good 'ol days before block scheduling where I would attend Priesthood on Sunday morning, skip Sunday School, and have a nice Sunday evening Sacrament meeting. Relief Society and Primary were during the week.

[SCcoug]

Most of my years growing up we has 2 wards meet in the building and did the 9/9:30 thing. As a kid I never noticed any problems except for the Christmas/Easter programs. One year I guess the choir had to many songs or something and the program had to be cut short to let the other ward into sacrament meeting. If looks could kill I think the choir director would have taken out the entire bishopric. About the time I turned 12 we went to the 9 and 12 rotation.

[grapevine]

Right now there are two units in our building. One does Sacrament at 10:00 and the other starts there other buildings at 9:30. Our opening exercises are done by baptismal font with only a keyboard. Bad when we had to sing acepella. Have one person that is decent on the keyboard though.

In the town I grew up in meant in small white building. Outgrew the building and were going to get another building. But headquarters found out we were close to a newly remodeled building after money was raised for original building. So went over to that building 8 miles away. Sucked for mutual.

Bought seminary building with some of the money raised for original building. Before tithing paid for everything. Finally were able to get spanish branch organized. So there were two units. PB came to our Stake Conference and Sp was in our ward so he lobbied for a building and since there were two units received permission.

Spanish branch dissolved one unit in building for many years until ward divided two years ago. Some people from next town over come to this builging. Two wards made into three. I was told to meet with stake presidency and found out that morning. Figured that would happen. Retained job as ward membership clerk.

We had problems with the half hour rotation. Were told to go out one side. I like the half hour one myself. On miss some buildings with two units did 9 and 1. If parking was good I do not see point. Two wards as long as it is reverent 9 and 9:30 way to go. Or a morning half hour.

On a humorous note I remember one of htose you might be a mormon if the Sunday Block means you can watch the nfl one year and sleep in the next.

I have meant in wards that always meant at 1 as they were spread out.

[TexTechCoug]

On the mission I once attended where 4 wards met in a relatively small chapel. The building had a chapel and gym/stage upstairs and the classrooms on the entry level.

Too small a building to have much of an overlap due to the lack of classroom space.

The ward in which I was working had our block from 5-8 PM. That worked well for getting investigators to Sacrament meeting, but I doubt the members loved the late night meetings.