https://ldschurchgrowth.blogspot.com/2019/09/request-for-informationfeedback-claims.html

There are so many I don't know where to start, but have fun!

I am confident that many wards outside the morridor are having trouble filling the most basic callings. Geez, I even gave a true report from my home ward; even a shortage of young men to bless/pass the sacrament.

Is it Rusty's way to show church growth by having hunched over high priests (with canes) to administer the sacrament?

If so, then I must have grown up in a different Mormon church.

I recall that cl2 used to guide 20-30 beehive age young girls years ago. A good mormon ward would be lucky to have a total of 30 ym/yw.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/22/2019 10:01PM by messygoop.

What was it Nellie called us the other day?

Having read on this board all these years, I feel proud to have found my way out as I'm amazed at the intelligence of the people who have posted here over the years. I'm in awe.

I've been wondering if Nelson will announce that the two priesthood quorums will be combined.

That's a very astute observation, Summer. I had been thinking about that as well. Maybe even allow the young women to pass the trays, but keep the boys saying the Sacrament prayers. You realize that the person that reads the sacrament prayer has to kneel down. Might not be proper for those sitting up on the stand to be watching a woman in a dress getting up after kneeling.

It's far from Utah, so even when I was growing up in that ward it was never as fully populated as a typical SLC ward would have been back then.

But still it was not operating with a skeleton crew. We had plenty of kids in every age group, so all of the programs for kids and teens were fully operational and provided lots of opportunities for socializing, making friends, having fun group activities with peers and so on. There were many adult leaders. Some very experienced, retirees. Many in the middle of good careers. Some just starting out as newlyweds.

The current situation is depressing. When I visited the ward last year, it was like a ghost town. Between ages 12 and 18, the total number of kids appears to be around 7 or 8.

In Sacrament meeting, the congregation was singing horrible hymns (that I didn't even recognize). The melodies sucked. Nobody was able to follow along and the conductor lady was grimacing most of the time. It sounded like a bunch of zombies trying to remember a song, a few remembering a bit here, then some others chiming in for a couple of lines before they all falter...and then one zombie remembers two words and belts them out and then fades as she forgets what comes next. It was a horror show.

The Sunday school lesson was just an exercise in virtue signaling, with a handful of people trying to outdo each other with their faith-promoting answers in response to the scripted questions in the lesson manual. Stuff like: "I think it means that we are always to pray with the attitude that whatever happens next is what God wants and we may not fully understand why until we get to the other side." The teacher then nods and pats the virtue signaler on the head. In another setting, it would be easy to imagine the teacher saying: "Yes, brother comrade Blowhardinov, you are correct. That is the attitude we all must have to ensure the success of the 5-year plan, which will then guarantee that the Revolution will shine with the brilliance of a billions suns for the next trillion years and all counterrevolutionaries will be swept aside like cockroaches and the bourgeoisie pigs that they are!"

I walked out of there wondering how anyone could find anything remotely spiritual or engaging in any aspect of the Mormon church meeting routines as currently constituted.

1993, from the dead and buried mind of Boyd K. Packer, during a speech to seminary and institute teachers, acknowledging that kids were falling away from belief in the church:

"Not too many days ago, in a moment of great concern over a rapid series of events that demonstrated the challenge of those within the Church who have that feeling of criticism and challenge and apostasy, I had an impression, as revelations are. It was strong and it was clear, because lingering in my mind was: 'Why? Why—when we need so much to be united?'

"And there came the answer: 'It is permitted to be so now that the sifting might take place, and it will have negligible effect upon the Church.'"

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/teaching-seminary-preservice-readings-religion-370-471-and-475/the-great-plan-of-happiness?lang=eng


So they get to have it both ways...

1) The church is still strong, still growing! The enemies are lying!

2) Okay, the church is shrinking because ghawd is allowing the weak and the twisted to walk away, to their detriment, but it doesn't matter!


Believers gonna believe.

Like so many things in TSCC, they see it as “heads I win, tails you lose.”

"The keys of the kingdom of God are committed unto man on the earth, and from thence shall the gospel roll forth unto the ends of the earth, as the stone which is cut out of the mountain without hands shall roll forth, UNTIL IT HAS FILLED THE WHOLE EARTH."(Doctrine and Covenants 65:2)

"[The] Church WILL FILL North and South America; IT WILL FILL THE WORLD" (Conference Report, April 8, 1898, p. 57, see also History of the Church 6:318-319).

Every pronouncement made by a Mormon "prophet" or "apostle" comes with an automatic footnote: "Except to the extent that things turn out otherwise."

Every time you hear some amazing pronouncement from a church leader, just remember to refer to the automatic footnote.

Eventually, this will become second nature and everything will begin to make perfect sense. No more need to have disappointment as a constant companion. Disappointment is a constant companion of people who have high expectations. When you know that everything is subject to the caveat "except to the extent that things turn out otherwise", then you can tell disappointment to get out of your head and not to let the door hit him in the butt as he leaves.

"YOU WILL BE HEALED...except to the extent that things turn out otherwise."

"LET ME TELL YOU, YOU YOUNG MISSIONARIES WHO HAVE BEEN CALLED TO SERVE IN THIS NEW MISSION, THIS FIELD IS RIPE FOR HARVEST AND YOU WILL CONVERT MANY, MANY SOULS TO THE GOSPEL...except to the extent that things turn out otherwise."

"FOLLOW THE WORD OF WISDOM AND YOUR STRENGTH WILL NOT FALTER. YOU WILL RUN AND NOT BE WEARY...except to the extent that things turn out otherwise."

"PAY YOUR TITHING FAITHFULLY AND YOU WILL BE REWARDED MANY TIMES OVER. THE LORD WILL POUR OUT BLESSING UPON YOU AND YOU WILL PROSPER TO A GREATER DEGREE THAN YOU EVER WOULD BY SELFISHLY REFUSING TO PAY THESE SMALL AMOUNTS TO THE LORD...except to the extent that things turn out otherwise."

"THE PROPHET HAS GREAT POWERS OF DISCERNMENT AND WILL KNOW HOW TO HANDLE THESE PRECIOUS DOCUMENTS THAT MARK HOFFMAN HAS DISCOVERED...except to the extent that things turn out otherwise."

---> "8 And gave him power from on high, by the means which were before prepared, to translate THE BOOK OF MORMON;

---> "9 WHICH CONTAINS a record of a fallen people, and the FULLNESS OF THE GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST to the Gentiles and to the Jews also;".....uhmm, well, except to the extent that things turn out otherwise, such as there being no mention of temple sealings, no mention of ordinances for dead people, no mention of the Word of Wisdom, no mention of plural marriage as a "new and everlasting covenant" and so on. But fullness is full enough when it doesn't matter if it's really full of fullness, you know.

Sweden had their difficulties.

http://www.mormonthink.com/glossary/swedish-rescue2.htm

There are people in the Church Office Building who are collecting statistics and keeping track...

...and they aren't sharing any substantive figures with the public.

They aren't sharing because the numbers are not good.

If the numbers were good, you'd never hear the end of the boasting.

All you get is an aggregate number that everyone knows is meaningless because all it does is count the total number of members of record, without any breakdown based on important criteria such as (for example): (1) current temple recommend holders; (2) number of members who claimed to be full tithepayers for the most recent 3 consecutive years; (3) percentage of members of record who are inactive; (4) number of baby blessings that have been performed in each of the past 5 years; and (5) number of people who are counted as members of record who are between the ages of 95 and 100. These are just a few of the statistical categories that should be kept track of.

Without that kind of breakdown, the aggregate number is meaningless.

Even if they did publish those more specific, detailed statistics, there would be room to doubt accuracy. (For example, people who have ward clerking experience frequently report on how fudged up the records are, always fudged up in favor of making the number look better than reality.)

In the past couple of years, it appears that a program of consolidation and contraction is definitely underway, based on the announced closings of overseas missionary training centers, consolidations of missions (which in the expansion phases were always being divided into new missions--a process that has noticeably been reversed recently).

The only area where expansion can still be observed in tangible terms is the temple building program. But that seems to be more of a Potemkin Village type expansion (as well as possibly being an expansion of a money laundering operation designed to transfer tithing money into private pockets of well-connected elites).

IDK what's happening with the cult growth in general.

I do know that my adult kids are OUT. My grandkids will never be Mormon. I have several nieces and nephews that are OUT. Their children (9?) are also out. Their childrens children are out.

I'm so thrilled to see that the generations in my family of origin are leaving Mormonism. The numbers seem to be growing as time goes on.

Funny thing, I've noticed that the kids (nieces nephews, etc.) that are staying in are the ones with the largest financial inheritances to gain. I feel sorry for those kids. They're obviously being manipulated.

What a SUPER IMPORTANT point you brought up!!

What is and what has been the total number of temple recommend holders? Where is this statistic? It is somewhere in the church records but NO ONE is bringing it up even though they could.

What would it mean if the number of temple recommend holders declines while they announce new temples to be built?

Obviously the temples being built are for some other reason than satisfying the "demand" for temple services.

as closely as a doctor in the intensive care unit monitors the vital signs of a patient in critical condition.

But they won't share the figures with the public because, year on year, it's steadily (perhaps even precipitously) moving in the wrong direction.

If it was increasing at an average rate of, for example, 10% each year, they would want to boast about it.

Another problem with that figure is that it would immediately be compared to the total membership number (16 million or 20 million or whatever ridiculously exaggerated number they're using these days). The comparison of total current temple recommend holders would clearly indicate the fraudulence of the total membership number. I wouldn't be surprised if the total number of current temple recommend holders is less than 1 million--and probably 60% of them live in Utah, Idaho and Arizona.

My local ward has plenty of baptisms - maybe fifty a year - but these people don't tend to hang around. I'm told some have names removed but this is uncommon. Most just vanish. Many of the baptisms are foreign students, so after a year or two, they go back home. The size of the ward simply does not reflect the large number of baptisms.

My Bonnie, could you give us a hint as to what part of the world you are referring?

A ward with 50 baptisms a year is to me a stunning figure!

specifically "foreign students".

I've been in some areas where the church has a ward in an area where there are many students living far from home. Often students will seek out a church in the area because they feel a need for a community to belong to. Without it, they feel exposed, alone and like there's nowhere to turn if they get into a bad situation.

I don't know what it's like these days, but back then the missionaries were able to baptize at much higher rates than in wards in more "normal" areas (i.e. areas that weren't skewed toward having a high percentage of students and other transient populations).

Of course once the students moved on and out of the area, and no longer felt an urgent need to belong to a church in order to have a support community, they probably never even bothered with Mormonism again.

I remember seeing some of the new student "converts" over time. A lot of them didn't really know much about Mormonism and expected it to generally be similar to attending a Methodist or Presbyterian church. Week after week, you'd see with increasing frequency that they had confused, puzzled and frustrated expressions on their faces. "Why are they talking so much about Joseph Smith?" Things like that. All they really wanted was to get to know other people in a traditional religious setting. Mormonism was more than they bargained for.

Sharapata Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> There are so many I don't know where to start, but
> have fun!
===============================

Ah yes, the various & sundry comments remind me of

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmInkxbvlCs

Fun reading! :-D

The PNW used to be known - Far & Wide - as the Promised Land for member support of missionary work & baptisms...

Now, not so much; if the PNW was the 'Promised Land' and is still a valid indicator of growth, they're in Deep do-do.

Blogger probably doesn't travel, or think, or experience much.

I would be surprised if there was even a stateside mission that was baptizing 50 converts a year. From all the observations and blogs, there isn't a lot of missionary work/teaching going on. A lot of "We are excited today because some guy let us mow his yard. We hope to teach him my gospel soon, but so far he's not answering his phone. But we're not giving up 'cuz the spirit says this guy is the next counselor in the bishopric." A whole lotta of bored missionaries popping wheelies because nobody wants to hear the non-google version of Joseph Smith.

I suspect they're slippery with counting-

Are there some circumstances where children of converts previously baptized could be counted as 'converts' when they turn 8?

Maybe others also, IDK

my dimming memory of things Mormon seems to remember mish's coming to 'tisms of children of members..., kinda like 'Practice conversions'



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/24/2019 02:34AM by GNPE.

My dear sister, who will be the last Mormon of all, has told me that she doesn't care if no one attended her Ward. She would continue to go, and ponder, pray and enjoy the Spirit.

She is totally aware that Satan has succeeded to a great degree in reducing the numbers and strength of members, since the internet.

She can't wait till the new Tooele Temple is finished in two years, and has already written to express her heart's wish to serve when the Temple is operational.

I hope my sister isn't the only Temple worker there, but if she is, it wouldn't surprise me.

She KNOWS that everything about the church is true. If it weren't, the Lord would tell her.

It's that simple, she says.

No one has to prove false information to claim it, especially Mormon Joseph Smith's rhetoric and current LDS (dis) figures, (mis)leaders, stats, promises and claims

In 1987, for the 150th Anniversary of the Church being established in Scotland, the Chuurch had 53 Wards and Branches.
Today, in 2019, that has been reduced to 36 Wards and Branches.

That's growth when viewed through a spiritual mindset.

53 -> 5 + 3 = 8

36 -> 3 + 6 = 9

9 is more than 8, therefore, growth!!!!