Missionary Numbers - stats, ugh.


NeedleinA
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5 hours ago, zil said:

...each alone looks pretty impressive.  When you divide the first into the others, the others stop looking so impressive - even when you fiddle around with the first to adjust for ages which would be appropriate to the others (e.g. only couples of child-bearing age should be considered in relation to "New children of record", other age groups for the missionaries).  [ETA: This requires a lot of guestimation.]

We may well be doing better than ever.  The percentages still don't look that impressive (to me).  I guess "dwindling" may be an erroneous judgement - I didn't look to see if our percentages were trending up, staying the same, or heading down.  If they'd give me a database, I could have that answer for you in seconds. ;)

SOmetime within the last year I remember seeing on this forum a post where somebody presented graphs showing this information - baptisms per missionary over a period of years. I have no idea where or what the thread was.

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2 minutes ago, askandanswer said:

SOmetime within the last year I remember seeing on this forum a post where somebody presented graphs showing this information - baptisms per missionary over a period of years. I have no idea where or what the thread was.

That was me, I was actually looking at it again just a moment ago. Forgot about until I saw this thread.

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Just popping in here to report that the church is exploding in the Philippines.  5 years ago, there's this one ward in this one ward building on this island the size of Manhattan with 1/3 the population.  Today, there are 3 wards meeting on that building and there are 2 branches spread out on the island.  The house I'm staying in now belongs to one of those branches and there are ~100 families in that roster but they don't have enough priesthood holders to make a ward - most everybody are newly baptized.  So, I don't know when it happened but they split the mission in this area to 2.  You see these white shirts and long dresses walking around everywhere.  It seems like there are quite a bunch of them.  Interestingly, a young man in our ward is currently in the MTC learning the language because he just got assigned to the mission serving this island!  Now that's like super coincidental it's freaky...

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2 hours ago, askandanswer said:

It was a nice piece of work. I'd been thinking of doing the same thing for my own interest but I'm probably much better at procrastinating than you.

Literally took 5 minutes x) could be faster if I did it in excel though haha

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5 hours ago, MormonGator said:

Time will tell. Numbers and statistics can be spun in a number of ways (get it? Get it? You got it), but in the end, they are unconcerned with the opinions of @MormonGator and @Carborendum

No doubt.  I was simply commenting on the proper math given the current statistics at hand.

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Guest MormonGator
4 minutes ago, askandanswer said:

Converts are important but don't forget the importance of retention, as @mormongator pointed out :) 

Right. I'm a convert as well (4+ years), but people like @Grunt and I seem to be the exception-a lot of people get baptized, go once, and never show up again.  

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I think it would be really interesting to see a breakdown of these figures by area. I suspect that in the areas where the church has been established for a long time, ie, North America, England, Australia and other places, the rate of growth would be very much slower than in areas where the church is newer, particularly South and Central America, the Philippines and Africa. If this is true, it might lend support to the conclusion that the prophecies in 3rd Nephi 16 are beginning to come to pass.

3rd Nephi 16: 10 Gentiles shall sin against my gospel, and shall reject the fulness of my gospel, and shall be lifted up in the pride of their hearts above all nations, and above all the people of the whole earth, and shall be filled with all manner of lyings, and of deceits, and of mischiefs, and all manner of hypocrisy, and murders, and priestcrafts, and whoredoms, and of secret abominations; and if they shall do all those things, and shall reject the fulness of my gospel, behold, saith the Father, I will bring the fulness of my gospel from among them.

11  And then will I remember my covenant which I have made unto my people, O house of Israel, and I will bring my gospel unto them.

12  And I will show unto thee, O house of Israel, that the Gentiles shall not have power over you; but I will remember my covenant unto you, O house of Israel, and ye shall come unto the knowledge of the fulness of my gospel.

13  But if the Gentiles will repent and return unto me, saith the Father, behold they shall be numbered among my people, O house of Israel.

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Just now, Vort said:

Growth is stagnant in Europe and slowing in North and South America. It's exploding, percentage-wise, in Africa.

It's partially because Africa is going though rapid growth and development right now. In the next 50 years or so the LDS church will be a minority-majority church, perhaps by a substantial number. 

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4 minutes ago, Sunday21 said:

I don’t know if this is true but some here believe that soon Spanish will become the most common first language in the church.

Yup. Simple demographics, but it'll take a few decades. It's not happening tomorrow. 

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19 minutes ago, Sunday21 said:

I don’t know if this is true but some here believe that soon Spanish will become the most common first language in the church.

If this is to be the case, it's more likely to come through natural increase (read: high fertility) than convert baptisms. The baptismal rate in Latin America is slowing dramatically, from what I understand.

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The church had massive growth in Latin America, but poor retention, and even worse, poor leadership, so they specifically slowed down the conversion rate and focused on nurturing leadership instead.  They have learned from that, and are being far more cautious in Africa and other booming areas, so they aren't booming like they have in the past.  They need to create leaders as much as just converts.

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4 minutes ago, bytebear said:

The church had massive growth in Latin America, but poor retention, and even worse, poor leadership, so they specifically slowed down the conversion rate and focused on nurturing leadership instead.  They have learned from that, and are being far more cautious in Africa and other booming areas, so they aren't booming like they have in the past.  They need to create leaders as much as just converts.

I remember the church in the Philippines being faced with exactly the same situation when I was on my mission there - rapid growth, poor retention and inexperienced leadership. In my first area, the Branch President had only been baptised 5 months before I arrived. I believe that Elder Oaks helped to fix a lot of these problems when he was assigned to live in the Philippines for a few years at about the start of the century. 

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My wife and I were discussing this. When I grew up as a teen in the mid to late 90's there were 18 Priests in my quorum and all 18 went on a mission. None came home early. Now I know of many who have come home early over the last several years. We were trying to figure out if the younger age of 18 had anything to do with it or just a change in testimony/commitment over that time period.

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4 hours ago, bigcreek said:

My wife and I were discussing this. When I grew up as a teen in the mid to late 90's there were 18 Priests in my quorum and all 18 went on a mission. None came home early. Now I know of many who have come home early over the last several years. We were trying to figure out if the younger age of 18 had anything to do with it or just a change in testimony/commitment over that time period.

I think some of the reason is higher standards for conduct and closer monitoring of missionaries. If you talk to some older lds women you may hear some interesting stories about the things that they got up to with missionaries, nothing shocking by worldly standards! For example, one woman who is about 60 told me about hanging out alone with a pair of missionaries in a local graveyard. A man of about 70 here went to France on his mission. He treated his mission as a partial holiday and boasts that he was largely unsupervised. My guess is that currently, unlike previously, missionaries who do not obey rules are sent home. 

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On 4/9/2018 at 7:57 PM, NeedleinA said:

We live in an age where youth are bombard with influences trying to get them to cross that chastity line.
I would hope a young man or woman would know they are loved and continue to fight on despite a "minor" issue and GO and SERVE.

While the bar is raised, I've seen several youth mistakenly feel the bar is taller than Mt. Everest and what is the point of trying.
Raise the bar = great as long we don't scare off the youth who feel they can never be worthy of the title "missionary" because of "minor" issues.

Strikes me as a simple unwillingness to repent.

Edited by The Folk Prophet
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