A friend posted the following link on FB via the Liahona magazine with the claim that 1 in 30 Chileans are now LDS. Didn't the last census in Chile show that the number of self-reported Mormons and the number of Mormons the LDS church claims is dramatically different? How can you say 1 in 30 are members when only like 1 in 200 actually consider themselves Mormon? I'm probably totally off on those numbers but I know the gap was pretty huge. If anyone has the numbers and links, please post them.

https://www.lds.org/liahona/2014/10/conversion-and-change-in-chile?lang=eng

I used to live in Chile. That is a straight up bold face lie.

I could believe that 1 in 30 Mormons are chilly, but not this.

According to this Wiki article, the church claims that approximately 3.3% of the Chilean population has been baptized. However only 0.9% of the population self-identified as Mormon on the last official census.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Chile

Thank you - that's what I was looking for. The way I see it, the LDS church is claiming three times the Mormons than Chileans are claiming. And the thing is, if 0.9 percent are claiming to be Mormon, that doesn't necessarily mean they are active Mormons - just that they consider themselves Mormons. The actual tithe paying, temple recommend holding, weekly attending Mormons may be much lower.

Isn't that even worse? With almost 18 million people, that means that some 1.6 million would be LDS.

No - read the below post - The actual number of active LDS is only around 60,000. Not 1.2 million. The number would be more like 120,000 that self report because it isn't nine percent of that 18 million it's less than one percent. And even though their website is only claiming 600,000, that is incredibly skewed when they say 1 in 30 - making it sound like there are far more active, believing Mormons than there are.

But the number that matters, the one that they should count, is those who self identify as Mormon not people who they count but don't consider themselves Mormon.

Maybe they are counting dead relatives,pets and livestock of the members.

Even if the claim was accurate, Mormonism still isn't true.

When you start with a lie, you must keep on lying to keep it alive. Truth and Mormonism cannot co-exist.

Sometimes they slip up and accidently tell a bit too much truth though. They claim in the article 600,000 Chilean members in 622 wards and branches. Most members lap this stuff up, but simple division will tell you 965 members per ward/branch demonstrates a serious problem.

Let's assume, conservatively, 100 people attend each unit weekly (I know, that's a generous figure, in most of Latin America unit attendance is much lower)

So by their own figures, the activity rate in Chile is probably less than 10%.

So 60,000 Chileans are 'faithful' members. give or take 10,000

I was told, they don't count livestock and animals as mormons. The ward I attended will kill animals than own one.