Facts and Statistics

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West Virginia

17,762

Total Church Membership

1-in-

4

Stakes

38

Congregations

25 Wards
13 Branches

14

FamilySearch Centers

14

1

Missions

History

In 1832, Joseph Smith, first President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, visited the portion of Virginia that later became West Virginia to purchase paper for the Church’s printing press. That same year, two missionaries for the Church baptized 40 converts in that part of the state. Missionaries continued to preach in the area during the 1830s, resulting in hundreds of men and women joining the Church. Many of these converts eventually moved from the area to gather with the main body of Church members in Far West, Missouri. One convert, Bathsheba Wilson Bigler Smith, who was baptized in 1837, said, “The spirit of gathering with the Saints in Missouri came upon me. . . . About this time my father sold his farm in West Virginia and we started for Far West.” Smith later served as a Churchwide leader of the women’s organization, the Relief Society. During the 1840s, missionaries frequently stopped to preach in Wheeling on their journeys to Washington, D. C.

In 1884, a congregation of 26 people was organized in the state. The first stake in West Virginia was created in 1970. Church membership in West Virginia has grown by 70% since 1989. There are now more than 17,000 Church members in the state organized across four stakes. The Church has frequently partnered with civic and community leaders on humanitarian causes in West Virginia.