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World’s biggest YouTuber touts JustServe
What connection does the church have with the global YouTube phenomenon known as MrBeast?
Well, they’re partners — or, at least, have been — in philanthropy.
A popular YouTuber and content creator, Jimmy Donaldson, aka MrBeast, has amassed 460 million subscribers and is well known for giving away exorbitant amounts of cash.
In January 2024, MrBeast announced that his nonprofit, Beast Philanthropy, was partnering with JustServe, the voluntarism platform sponsored by the church.
MrBeast founded his charity in 2020 on a separate YouTube channel, where he announced that 100% of the profits from this effort would go toward charitable causes. This additional channel has already garnered nearly 29 million subscribers.
In a post about JustServe, Beast Philanthropy said that many followers ask how they can support the causes MrBeast shows in his videos. The post directed subscribers to the faith’s JustServe app, which connects users with a wide range of volunteer options.
“We’ve recently partnered with @JustServe, an app that helps match volunteers with the right organization,” the post states. “...We believe that volunteering and helping other people is one of the greatest things that you can do, not only for others but for yourself.”
On Beast Philanthropy’s website, the church is listed as a Diamond sponsor.
The church “seeks out and renders aid to all without regard to religious affiliation, race or nationality,” the site says. “The church, its members, and its friends have combined their donations with volunteer efforts to relieve suffering and build self-reliance around the world.”
The church confirmed the partnership but added that since the initial collaboration, the relationship has been dormant.
New stakes — from Arizona to Zimbabwe
(The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) A children's choir sings during a special conference of the Kinshasa Stake in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, in 2025. Four new stakes were recently created in the African country.
The stakes keep getting higher.
In the past three months, independent researcher Matt Martinich reports at ldschurchgrowth.blogspot.com, the church has created 28 stakes (regional clusters of congregations), pushing the 2025 total past 90, the loftiest annual tally since 2016.
Martinich notes the recent highlights:
• Five new stakes in Utah County (upping the Beehive State’s total to 647 overall, according to the churchofjesuschristtemples.org website).
• Four new stakes in the Democratic Republic of Congo (45 overall) and another four in the Philippines (141).
• Two new stakes in Mozambique (10) and in Spain (17).
• One new stake apiece in Arizona (120), Brazil (289), Canada (56), Chile (81), Republic of Congo (5), Idaho (147), Kiribati (4), Mexico (231), Peru (118), Uganda (4) and Zimbabwe (12).
The latest ‘Mormon Land’ podcast: Uchtdorf’s appeal
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Apostle Dieter F. Uchtdorf visits with players at a Utah football game in 2024.
He’s “hopeful, articulate, cool, cosmopolitan and compassionate.” What makes apostle Dieter Uchtdorf, now second in line to lead the church, so popular? And would he be a progressive president?
Listen to the podcast.
From The Tribune
(The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) President Dallin H. Oaks and his wife, Kristen, meet with the media at the Burley Idaho Temple on Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026.
• In an interview, church President Dallin Oaks says he hopes lower minimum missionary ages will lead to lower marriage ages among Latter-day Saints.
• Will Oaks return female leaders to the stand in local meetings? Listen (or relisten) to the “Mormon Land” podcast. Read the excerpts.
• The church will dissolve the 30-year-old Utah Salt Lake City Temple Square Mission this summer, but women still will lead the tours at the popular tourist attraction.
• Former BYU athletic director Tom Holmoe and ex-Cougar quarterback Robbie Bosco will serve as mission leaders. Read Gordon Monson’s column. See if you recognize any other names on the list of more than 370 new mission leaders, including couples to preside over 55 new missions.
• A Utah university is leasing land to the church for $4.2 million.
• BYU opens a bigger, better creamery.
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) The new BYU Creamery on Ninth in Provo on Monday, Jan. 12, 2026.
• Oaks and the late apostle Jeffrey Holland are likened to BYU’s “patron saints.”
• A shooting outside a Latter-day Saint meetinghouse in Salt Lake City kills two and wounds six. A bishop describes the deadly episode.
• A Latter-day Saint historian who “forever changed our understanding of Joseph Smith” has died.
(Church History Library) Dean Jessee pictured in his office in 1980.
• Dallin Oaks dedicates Idaho’s Burley Temple, the first time he has performed that duty as church president. The single-spired, two-story, 45,000-square-foot edifice is the faith’s 212th operating temple in the world and the seventh in the Gem State, where four more are planned.
(The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) President Dallin H. Oaks and his wife, Kristen, at the Burley Idaho Temple on Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026. President Oaks dedicated the temple on Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026.