http://ldschurchgrowth.blogspot.com/2017/04/percent-lds-by-country.html

The countries with the highest numbers of LDS (as a percentage of the total population) are in Oceania: Tonga, Samoa, American Samoa, Niue, the Cook Islands, etc. New Zealand has a slightly higher percentage than the U.S.

What really stands out is that for the rest of the world, the LDS church is hardly a blip on the radar. Even the U.S. is at just about 2%. A couple of South American countries (Chile, Uruguay) are at 3%. But honestly, the church is not that big in South America. Despite years of missionary work, it is pretty much a nonentity in Europe, the Near East, Asia, and Africa.

The stone cut out of the mountain without hands is just not rolling that far.

Hey, by looking at that blog I just learned there's a place called Svalbard, with a total population of less than 2,000.

No LDS.

Home of the Global Seed Vault.




I'm kidding, I knew all that already.

My uncle played a key role in Tonga. He spent his mission time there and stayed for several extra years during WWII mormonizing the islands and establishing ward programs.

But read the comment from Mike Johnson after the article regarding Tonga. It appears that Tonga may be very much like Brazil and Mexico in that the numbers reported by TSCC overestimate the number of members relative to the census results.

And, of course, in every country listed, the active members are much lower than the totals listed.

One of my past close friends in the ward before I left was Tongan. He grew up there. The Mormon church took him in and paid for his education. All the way to BYU Hawaii.

He would not leave Mormonism unless Joseph Smith himself appeared to him and confessed it was a fraud. Their dedication to him solidified his to them. Even if it was calculated.

Probably not even then would he leave. And as a rule Tongans have, (anecdotal) huge families. He has thirteen children.

And they indoctrinate them in a way that demands allegiance and compliance because of culture. Even physically. I have witnessed this.

I love him but he is very dedicated to metaphysics and superstition. Which is part of the culture that he supports. Not all Tongans do this. But where I live, thy do.

I am suspect of the membership numbers the LDS church reports, and they are as auditable as are their financials, which is not at all.

As others point out, there is no accounting for active members vs members in name only. More, I wonder if resigned members are included.

TSCC wants to think of itself as a major world faith. That's laughable.

Hmmm. It's hard to imagine that the numbers for Tonga are accurate. I'd love to know exactly how they got those figures. I'd guess that they came from reports given by church officials who had something to gain by inflating the numbers.

And include everyone who is even related to a TBM Tongan.

And all of the Tongan families in other countries.

The change from 2011 is just too huge to seem believable.

I looked up the figures for LDS membership in Tonga on cumorah.com

http://cumorah.com/index.php?target=countries&cnt_res=2&wid=219&cmdfind=Search

Those numbers are hugely different from the census numbers. For 2011, the census says 18,000 Tongans in Tonga are Mormon. That's listed as 18%. The CIA gives basically the same figure (and may simply be a quotation of the census figures). But cumorah.com says that the percentage in 2011 was 56.7%.

Golly, it's so hard to know what is the truth....

Edited to add: Isn't it funny how often truth claims seem to crop up as a problem with the Mormon church?



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 04/23/2017 03:51PM by peculiargifts.

The numbers quoted on the article are the official ,members on the record, figures. So they are meaningless! The numbers active would be more accurate! Take Chile for example , I heard a mission president from there say active membership in Chile is about 60,000 whereas official numbers are about 750,000! So church membership is just a blip in most countries!