Dominican Republic Missionary Training Center to Close in January 2019

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has announced it will close its missionary training center located in the Dominican Republic, effective January 2019. This decision comes as Church leaders continue to seek the best use of resources worldwide according to the needs and demands of each area. Plans for future use of this space are still being determined.

Missionaries who would have attended this center will now be trained at one of the 12 remaining MTCs, including Colombia, England, Mexico and Provo, Utah.

https://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/missionary-training-center-dominican-republic-close

cutting back, cutting out, clamping down, curtailing, cutting costs....

I'm starting to notice a trend.

It's the opposite of thriving.

Maybe barely surviving.

Soon to be nose-diving?

Let's read between the lines:

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has announced it will close its missionary training center located in the Dominican Republic, effective January 2019. [It was in operation for 18 years and turned out to not be worth the cost of keeping it open. Inspiration in action.] This decision comes as Church leaders continue to seek the best use of resources worldwide according to the needs and demands of each area [Projected growth in the area did not pan out. Building the MTC was a waste of resources. Not enough members/missionaries in the region to justify its upkeep.] Plans for future use of this space are still being determined. [The Church is dying so fast in this region that there is no obvious use for a facility of this type for any church-related operation. Maybe they will quietly turn it into a private resort for GAs and their families and friends.]

Missionaries who would have attended this center will now be trained at one of the 12 remaining MTCs, including Colombia, England, Mexico and Provo, Utah. [Again, obviously not enough missionaries in the pipeline to justify upkeep of all of the MTCs. Even after closing the DR MTC, the remaining MTCs will have sufficient capacity to handle the redirected missionaries.]

Evidence of decline is everywhere. Only the number of temples keeps expanding. Everything else is contracting. Makes the temple building program all the more suspect. Money laundering? Cronyism? Funneling tithing money into private pockets? The new temples don't make any sense on the surface.

“Funneling tithing money into private pockets?”


Ding ding ding...we have a winner!

Thanks for sharing this. I was in one of the first groups of missionaries to pass through there (DR Santo Domingo West Mission '01-'03).

I wonder if they are closing down the whole structure (which is also used as housing for temple workers and long-distance visitors to the adjacent temple) or whether they will just repurpose rhe MTC floor.

Seemingly, the more missionaries they put in the field, the fewer people join. They've never had so many missionaries; the baptism rate has never been so low. Maybe they're learning the lesson.

cludgie Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Maybe they're learning the lesson.

They haven't for almost 200 years.

I just talked to a cousin who went to a church leadership meeting in their stake. One of the apostles was at the meeting and he said the church is fine. President Nelson said he loves you and the church needs your help in spreading the gospel.

So the church leadership are throwing it on the members. I remember in the 1980's the church went into the same every member a missionary hype really hard. They seem to do this occasionally and then it tapers down for awhile. Nothing ever comes from passing out more Book of Mormons or some new big PR program the church members are supposed to assist in.

Ministering and gathering Israel is just renaming the same old rehash and I don't think the church is as concerned about finding new members as it is in retaining what it's got.

I don't know where the church is financially but Christianity as a whole is declining. The US is losing 100 church's a day according to one article I read. It's declining for everybody and not just the LDS Church. The church very well could close the whole church part down and just become a holding company in the future. It's got enough temporal assets to go that way. Just the agriculture assets alone are substantial and the world is always going to need food. Probably the most valuable asset the church owns is water rights.

“Christianity as a whole is declining. The US is losing 100 church's a day according to one article I read.”

I too recently read that report. Finding this thread here at RFM prompted me to add a comment.

100 churches a day! Here is my guess why: USA citizens purposely have been and are being impoverished from a hundred different directions.

They have lost faith, hope, jobs, homes, social connections and social standings. Daily dread is the new norm.

They no longer have the simple faith nor the means to support a church. Our middle class has just about disappeared.

It is relatively easy to drop out of a protestant or catholic type church.

No one comes to your door bothering you. Hence they simply shutter them closed.

This is why 100 churches a day are disappearing.

The one percent at the top of our economy has stolen our previous financial security. The workplace for an average American often now means 2 or 3 jobs, and they still live from paycheck to paycheck.

Very few families can even put their hands on $400 for an emergency.

Debt is an albatross around most peoples necks.
The millennial generation born from 1980 onwards carry stultifying school loans.

Their debt is often not even attached to collateral, like a home or car.

The “economic recovery” from 2008 was low interest dollars given by the FED central bank to other banks. They used it to pay themselves huge bonuses.

None was loaned out to help small businesses as promised.

All government and large business is now so corrupt that we will never be able to return to the simpler days when one man’s salary provided a comfortable home and life style for his family.

President Ezra Taft Benson once directed the sisters to stay home with their children, but most wives joined the labor force anyway to pay for food and basics.

I know because I quoted Benson in my High Council talks one season. The sisters all looked away in guilt, but I felt justified because Benson had been a prophet, right?

I resigned from TSCC in 2008, but I have always felt a sharp regret for having hefted another cart-full of guilt upon these loving women. If I could return, I would apologize to them.

My educated vote and hope for this leaky boat we are floating in is an ascension escaping to another world for all the good caring people of this one. AKA the rapture. Food for thought.