I looked at the CIA's world factbook, and discovered some interesting things about Israel. Actually, I already knew them, but I decided to contrast them with the Mormon Church, since Mormons like to pretend they are Jewish and stuff.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/is.html

First, there are 7,590,758 people living in Israel, though about one quarter of these are non-Jewish, and mostly Arabs. It is my understanding that only Jews are regularly drafted into the military, though non-Jews may volunteer to serve after being cleared of any connections with terrorist organizations.

The average Israeli woman has 2.6 children, which suggests that the population may be aging. By contrast Mormons are known for having large broads of children.

Upon turning 18 all Israeli men are required to do 36 months of military service (or three years) while their women are required to do 21 months of service, or just under two years.

Most interesting 62,000 Men, out of a population of 7,000,000 reach military age each year, and in theory are eligible to be drafted.

Now let's look at the official Mormon membership numbers for 2011 as reported in the Spring Conference of 2012.
https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2012/04/statistical-report-2011?lang=eng

The church claims to have 14,441,346 members. This is known as twice the size of the state of Israel. Upon turning 19 years old, a Mormon is strongly pressured, almost made into going on a two year mission. If there are twice as many Mormons as Israelis, then there should be 124,000 new Mormon Missionaries going on missions each year. Hell, since Mormons have such large families, the number should probably be actually much higher then that.

There are only 55,410 missionaries, both male and female, and those numbers include Senior missionaries. There are of course, 22,299 Church service missionaries, mostly Senior missionaries, so let us assume that for every young missionary on a service mission, there is a senior missionary among the full timers. That means only 25,205 missionaries are entering missions a year, or almost a hundred thousand less then the church should be sending. This doesn't even take into account that Mormons have much larger families then Israelis, meaning the number of full time missionaries should be much higher. Since the Israeli model is for men only, and the church model is for male and female missionaries together, the disparity grows farther. Let's say there are 24,000 males going on a mission a year. That is a hundred thousand a year short of the mark.

This means, that at best, there are only about one half as many families raising children to missionary age, as their are Israelis families raising sons to become IDF soldiers, and again Mormons have much larger families. That means that at best, of the nearly fourteen and a half million members reported by the church, only about one fifth, or about two and a half million to three million people are actually members, at best, with the actual number being closer to somewhere just barely over the two million member mark.

Brilliant. I think they are making up some whoppers about the 14 million members.

Thank you, I thought comparing their mission program to the Israeli program would be extra insulting. I tried to figure out exact numbers for the IDF, but the Israelis are almost as secretive about their military strength as the church is about its own statistics.

with much more justification as their national security has depended on such secrecy while the church is under no such threat aside from the threat of the truth... Interesting to figure into such figures: How many of those Israeli youth are physically and mentally qualified for military service? How many of the Mormon youth likewise? Obviously being 80lbs overweight is much more significant as a potential draftee than it is as a missionary who may drive a car all day instead of march with 120lbs of gear.

In the Brazilian mission where I served I had areas where I averaged 20+ KM/day of walking, I burned through shoes like they were going out of style, the heavier missionaries all developed stress fractures in their feet and had other complications, even the more fit guys would develop joint inflammation. Not all missions are equal.

With the rise in autism, add, bipolar disorder, etc. Not all young people may qualify to carry an automatic weapon and high explosives, though oftentimes the church sees no problem in allowing them to represent their interests. Obviously the church has lower standards and a larger potential pool to draw from, why do they not have 2-3x the number of 'soldiers'?

You keep secrets from those who would harm you with them. Kind of weird that the people who would do the most harm to the church with the truth, are the members.

Lies, damned lies, and statistics.

Its what "God's one true church" is all about!

Israeli soldiers are much higher on the hotness scale than Mormon missionaries (just thought I'd add that in there as food for thought).

groaaannn...