https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/programmes/datelinepacific/audio/201842814/tonga-tops-global-stats-in-mormon-membership#:~:text=Tonga%20has%20been%20ranked%20as,Christ%20of%20Latter%2Dday%20Saints.

Link Title: Tonga tops global stats in Mormon membership

Date of article: May 2017

Summary:

Tonga has been ranked as the country with the highest percentage of Mormons.

Figures show that 60 percent of the kingdom's (106,000) inhabitants are listed as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

For those in-the-know, e.g., returned missionaries, former and current Tongan members, and those who frequent the island(s), a big questions for you:

If SLC never sent another tithing dollar, or North American born senior couple or proselyting Elders, could ChurchCo survive there?

Your other thoughts would be mucho appreciated.

My take(s):

The Church in Tonga is not self sufficient, even with the lofty
numbers reported in the article.

The Church in Tonga is like other places, it has an activty rate of 25-30%. And only 5-10% of these folks pay a full tithe and attend the temple.

The 2d announced temple in Neifu likely won't be constructed for some time. The announced temple is a carrot, dangled to increase the money flow to SLC.

There will never be a Tongan Lamanite in the 1st or 2d Q of 70. These quorums will be reserved for Non-Lamanites.

Is Neifu the Tongan way to pronounce Nefi?

>Figures show that 60 percent of the kingdom's (106,000) inhabitants are listed as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Not according to the Tongan census of 2011

https://web.archive.org/web/20140205070928/http://www.spc.int/prism/tonga/index.php/component/docman/doc_download/247-census-report-2011-vol-1-rev?Itemid=111

Executive summary
Religion
Free Wesleyan Church is the dominant religion in Tonga, with 36% of the population affiliated to this church.
This is followed by the Church of Latter Day Saints (18%), the Roman Catholic Church (15%), and the Free
Church of Tonga (12%).

See also table G17 on page 39

https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/religious-beliefs-in-tonga.html
"As per the 2011 census of Tonga, the adherents of Free Wesleyan Church account for 36% of the country’s population. Even the king and most of the royal members are affiliated to this church. The LDS Church/Mormon has the second highest number of adherents in the country, accounting for 18% of the total population of Tonga"

From cumorah.com:

"The LDS Church claimed 52,421 members in Tonga at year-end 2005, whereas only 17,109 Tongans identified the LDS Church as their faith of preference on the 2006 national census (32.6% of official membership claims)"

"Nationwide active and semi-active membership is estimated to number between 18,000 and 20,000, or approximately 30-35%."

So like pretty much every other country, LD$, Inc. claims a bunch of members who do not identify themselves as mormons. Surprise.

Great info! And to your point that ChurchCo likes to chest-beat that Tonga is the most Mormon-y country in the world, here is a link to a SL Trib article, which used the Church's own stats.

https://www.sltrib.com/news/2017/06/02/the-most-mormon-country-in-the-world-its-tonga/

"Of Tonga's 106,513 inhabitants, 64,156 are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, according to the Salt Lake City-based faith's official statistics."

Yes, great divergence between church stats on census data.

Does anyone know if Neifu, Tonga, the location of the new temple named after Nephi? Just a coincidence in spelling?

I'm not an expert, but I did a bit of reading. The name of the city is Neiafu, which takes it phonetically farther from Nephi.

Also, the name applies to a city in Samoa, too, which indicates that it stems from the common Austronesian language and almost certainly predates the arrival of Mormons.

Excellent, thanks for your research. Was thinking that if there were a large number of LDS Tongans in the area, they might have prevailed in renaming the place after Nephi. Glad this is not the case.

He was a missionary there for eight years, throughout WWII and for a few years prior to the war. He decided to remain on his mission instead of joining in the war effort. He was a main mover and shaker in bringing in converts during that time. He was talented in music and was key in establishihg mormon hymn singing among the early converts.

I still have a few Tongan trinkets from that time.

Regular mormon food made him sick when he was used to eating mainly raw fish for so many years. He had to catch river trout in Utah until he could adjust to eating beef, pork, and funeral potatoes again.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/08/2020 05:38PM by Cheryl.

Follow The Money...

There's money in Tonga? All I see it providing is some tenuous bragging rights for LDS Inc.

It also provides confirmation that LDS membership statistics are vastly inflated. Next year the Canadian census, which asks religious affiliation, will perform the same role in Canada, a country that has had a Mormon presence for well over a century (and not a hell of a lot to show for it).

Know what? ALL of the inhabitants in the entire Lincoln County, Nevada, are Mormons--nearly 100%. Almost every last one. Lincoln County is huge, too. But what's the population? Only 5,200 souls. It sounds like a success story, but it is really about three small LDS-founded towns (Panaca, Pioche, and Caliente) in the remote desert. It's so remote that there is still a history of polygamy, FLDS, etc., that goes pretty much unnoticed. AND, for such a small population, they now have their own Mormon temple. And although there is a number of FLDS in the area, their numbers are rightfully included under the rubric of "Mormon."

So I remain unimpressed that Tonga has such a high percentage of Mormon. It's Tonga, beautiful, to be sure, but remote and not influential.

"The LDS Church claimed 52,421 members in Tonga at year-end 2005, whereas only 17,109 Tongans identified the LDS Church as their faith of preference on the 2006 national census (32.6% of official membership claims)"

The percentage of self proclaiming Mormons, via the census, versus the Mormon church claims seems to be consistently in the 25% range world wide. That is, the Mormon church claims 4x as many members than reality where we can verify with reasonably accurate data. This is true for Brazil and other countries where census numbers are available. This lying by the cult is clearly obvious. For some reason this week, the lying by the corporation has bothered me more than normal. Perhaps it's due to the political season. We gave so much of our time and money to an organization that has no qualms about lying. We were lied to and it continues unabated.

EricK, nice summary of how ChurchCo is drunk on their own stats. Its particularly sobering that they continue to believe in their own non-sense, goof-ball stats, that 60% of the the Tongan population are loyal Mo's.

It might be true that 60% of Tongan's have an LDS Baptismal Cert, but what is more important now is that LDSism has been rejected by the majority. If it were otherwise, there would be 5 operating temples, and there aint.