A number of years ago, I said that the day will come soon when TSCC stops reporting numbers. They will stop publishing the so-called "Church Almanac" and then they will stop reporting numbers in "General Conference".

I just read an article in the Trib that had "church" and "almanac" in the title of it. It grabbed my attention because I thought to myself "humph, I would have guessed that they would have stopped publishing that by now".

I was right.

In the article, it made mention that per TSCC they will no longer publish the church almanac.

Gee, I wonder why??????

I'd be willing to bet within 5 years, they will no longer be announcing unit counts at GC. They will continue to report on the NUMBER of mormons on the books, but they will stop telling us how many stakes/districts/wards/branches.

Sometimes the truth isn't very useful, is it Boyd?

Sounds like you could be the next Joseph Smith with your accurate prophecies! Just kidding.

That's funny though.

I don't want ONE wife, much less 33!

Wait..he's been making correct prophecies, so how does that make him like JS at all?

I, too, noticed that TSCC stopped publishing a Church Almanac. The reasons are obvious -- the numbers stink!

As dishonest as TSCC is, not even though could put a positive spin on so many numbers.

So, I think the only numbers you will hear from LDS Inc. are positive numbers, like total membership and total missionaries, etc.

They automatically propped up the missionary numbers by allowing 18 year olds to go while the 19-21 year olds are still in the field. This move automatically adds 1,000s more without the current missionaries going home yet.

Brilliant # manipulation...

On my mission we had a bunch of old ensigns dating back to the 80s. I went through the conference editions and compiled the data into my journal, and note that there were certain categories that stopped being published...if I can remember correctly, this includes stakes, wards, number of 8 year old baptisms vs convert (I believe its aggregated now)...

I'd really be curious to see activity statistics, stats by country (US and Europe on decline), etc.

Along those lines, shouldn't there be some rule that non-profits must publish donations and where they are going? Or are churches exempt?

The church is legally required to report on its finances in the UK and Canada, but not in the US. There are links to those docs in old threads. To avoid giving any real info they designated almost all of the millions collected in Canada as donated to BYU. UK accounting had a little more info but was also quite opaque compared to the accounting info provided by my local Christian church, which only asks for 2% of your income, expects less, and has paid staff and sponsors medical missions, help for foster youth, the homeless, and elderly, prisoners... Amazing amounts of real charity with no strings attached.

Levi,

You are absolutely right. Sometimes the truth is not very useful. That's why we count the newly born children of all members, current members, past members, and inactive members until a very old age. If we counted the people who identify still as mormons and active attendance rates, our numbers would be about 1/4th of what we proclaim at General Conference. In fact, we have had more people resign the last few years than have joined and been retained within that same time period. Our main goals for continued church growth are to rally people against the gays and against family members who look at church history on the internet, they are following Satan and must be stopped. I will talk more about these principles at the April General Conference, thanks for your note Levi. Sincerely, Boyd Packer

Hey there Boyd, does this mean your talk won't *entirely* be you nonsensically babbling about your homophobia like usual? Wowzers!

I've heard even if you're excommunicated or resign, either way they still include *you* in that total membership number each year. It wouldn't be too faith promoting if numbers kept dropping each year, now would it? ;)