The Church released its
statistical report for 2012 in General Conference today. Below is a summary of church statistics reported in comparison with the
statistical report for 2011:
- Membership: 14,782,473 (increase of 341,127 from 2011; a 2.36% annual increase)
- Congregations: 29,014 (increase of 230 from 2011; a 0.43% annual increase)
- Stakes: 3,005 (increase of 59 from 2011; a 2.00% annual increase)
- Districts: 591 (a decrease of 17 from 2011; a 2.80% annual decrease)
- Convert Baptisms: 272,330 (decrease of 8,982 from 2011; a 3.19% annual decrease)
- Increase of Children on Record: 122,273 (increase of 2,356 from 2011; a 1.96% annual increase)
- Full-time missionaries: 58,990 (increase of 3,580 from 2011; a 6.46% annual increase)
- Church service missionaries: 22,961 (increase of 662 from 2011; a 2.97% annual increase)
Notable progress in these statistics for 2012 include the perpetuation
of six percent annual growth in the number of missionaries serving that
began in 2011, the largest increase in church membership since 1999, and
the largest increase in the number of stakes since 1998. Concerning
numbers include congregational growth occurring at less than one-fifth
the rate of membership growth, a decline in convert baptisms
notwithstanding an increase of 3,580 missionaries serving, and a 2.80%
decline in the number of districts.
37 comments:
Surely the decrease in districts is largely due to districts becoming stakes?
Since much of the increase of the number of missionaries came during the last few months of the year, it is unlikely it would directly affect the number of convert baptisms as of yet.
56uinnelCan't wait to compare with next year ! ! !
In south America, where I grew up they are not dividing wards and branches till they grow in numbers bigger that ever before. That is one of the reasons that congregational growth s much slower than membership growth there. This in my opinion is good but also it does not let other members have leadership positions for future growth and development.
i am glad they mentioned the aaronic priesthood holders going out with the missionaries. This will give them the experience and desire to serve a mission and fellowship new members.
It is interesting to see that the membership growth rate has gone from 2.2% to about 2.4% in the last year in spite of a slight drop in the number of convert baptisms.
There are several factors that come into play. Perhaps the death rate has dropped slightly. Perhaps fewer children have reached 9 years of age without being baptized. Also there may have been a reduction in those who have left the Church.
In any case it is heartwarming to see an uptick in this rate of growth. I believe this is the start of a new trend now that there are so many new missions organized and missionaries serving and about to enter the mission field.
The increase of missionaries serving in 2012 had no correlation with reducing the mission age as the first 18 year old men and 19 year old women began their missions in late December 2012 and early January 2013. Elder Holland also reported that there were 58,000 missionaries at the time the announcement was made.
In one of the talks today, it was noted that there are about 35 countries/territories without a congregation. Do we know what those countries are? Is there a list compiled somewhere?
Downtownchrisbrown, that would be interesting to look at a evaluate. I'm sure cumorah.com has that information, but you'd have to go looking for it. I don't know it is anywhere all put together.
I can think of a short list of 35.countries without an LDS congregation:
1. Iran
2. Syria
3. North Korea
4. Libya
These are places that is hard to be a US person, let alone a Christian or Latter-day Saint.
Other places I wonder about:
Saudi Arabia, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar (Burma), Laos, Niger, Mauritania, Senegal, Algeria, Somalia, Eritrea. Also, the church is not too organized in Central Asian countries like Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan or Kirgizstan.
Azerbaijan is a question mark, and there are are some small territories or islands like the Comoros that may not have much of an LDS presence. Even Monaco or San Marino of Europe, plus a few small spots like Faeroe Islands or the Isle of Man, or some places in the Caribean that are quite small, like maybe Barbuda or Montserrat.
Also, the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic Oceans have some territoties without much church presence like Georgia, East Timor, Orkney Islands, and some other very isolated areas surrounded by water.
That said, the State Dept and US and other military installations have members in many of the above places and may have LDS Groups which are usually are administered by far away Districts, like many military church groups in theatres of war or extremes, either poverty or isolation.
Hopefully the surge of more missions and missionaries will help more of these barriers to come down.
Exciting time to observe missionary work for Christ's church.
The Church does have a branch in Laos. The same is true of Nepal. The one convert baptism I went to while a BYU student was of someone from Nepal.
I am pretty sure the Church does not have an organized unit in either Andora or Leinchstenstein. I have known multiple people who served as missionaries on the Isle of Man (including my own mission president) and am very sure the Church has a branch there.
On the other hand I am unaware of any church presence in Senegal, Guine Bissau, Guine or Mauritania.
However in countries like India and Indonesia, there are hundreds of millions of people who live in areas the Church has never reached, so we still have a long way to go even in countries where the Church has presence.
How up to date is the Cumorah.com country information. It lists Angola with 1 branch, but also does not clearly list anything past 2008. I was sure at least one or two more branches had been organized there, especially considering it will soon have a mission.
There is a branch in Andorra. It is part of a new stake in Spain.
There is a ward on the Isle of Man.
I took a wikipedia list of countries and territories and then took the church's list of countries and extracted out those not counted. I deleted US, British, French, Australian and other territories that are uninhabited.
My result (countries and territories that may not have an LDS presence):
Algeria
Azerbaijan
Bangladesh
Bhutan
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Brunei
Burkina Faso
Chad
Comoros
East Timor
Equatorial Guinea
Eritrea
Gambia
Guinea
Guinea-Bissau
Iran
Iraq (there was a military serviceman's district)
Kyrgyzstan
Laos
Macedonia
Maldives
Mali
Mauritania
Monaco
Montserrat
Morocco
Myanmar (Burma)
Nepal
Niger
North Korea
Pakistan
San Marino
São Tomé and Príncipe
Saudi Arabia (I think there are branches here and an area seventy was sustained yesterday that lives in Saudi Arabia)
Senegal
Seychelles
Somalia
South Sudan
Sudan
Syria
Tajikistan
Tunisia
Turkmenistan
Uzbekistan
Vatican City
Vietnam
Yemen
Some of these may have a Church presence, just not listed on the Church's website.
Mali may not officially have a unit, but it does have a major presidential candidate in the election this summer who is LDS.
Others:
The following are defacto independent countries, but not recognized as independent:
Abkhazia
Nagorno-Karabakh
Northern Cyprus
Somaliland
South Ossetia
Transnistria
Western Sahara (disputed territory)
Palestinian Authority
One of the newly called general authorities, Edward Dube, is from Zimbabwe. I should have realized he was going to be called as a general authority when they released him as an area seventy, since he was only called as an area seventy last year. However, I was so excited that they called Fred Parker, the first African-American area seventy, that I really did not notice anyone else. Well, there was L. Jean Claude Mabaya from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but even him I am not sure I would have actually remembered his name.
Actually, I guess when they ran though the actual list the name I noted the most was Moroni Bing Torgan, who is probably the Brazilian member who has held the highest rank in the government. My favorite fact about him is that as a government prosecutor he did so much to wipe out corruption that Moroni became a byword for wiping out corruption to at least some in Brazil. His sister and her husband are among the newly called mission presidents this year. I was fairly certain when I saw she was a Bing Torgan, but also verrified they have the same parents.
Actually, I guess last April I was most excited at Elder Echo Hawk's call. It was good to again have a Native American general authority, even if it sadly meant that the top ranking Latter-day Saint in the federal government stepped down.
What I had not realized until just now is that Gordon H. Smith, who was presviously a US Senator from Oregon, was called as an area seventy at the same time. I knew Gordon Smith was US senator from Oregon, but did not clue in among all the names, and even if I had it would have been at best a question mark, since with a name like that I would not assume it is the same one. Sort of like how President Hinckley mentioned that the Donald Stehli called as a general authority was not the one who was a secretary to the first presidency, back in 1996 April general conference or so. I miss President Hinckley's asides while conducting.
Nice work everyone. So if we take that list of countries (47) and figure out which ones do have a presence the list of no presence yet should be pretty easy to work out
Amongst those released this conference I noticed Joshua Subandriyo, who is from Indonesia. There is a new Area 70 from Singapore, and another from Kuala Lampur, Malaysia. Despite the fact that in the last five years or a bit more the Church in Malaysia has mainly grown in Eastern Malaysia, I am not surprised the first Area Seventy from that country is from Western Malaysia.
Elder Dyches performed some nose surgery on me several years ago in Reno. He was serving as an Area Authority at the time. It was nice to hear his name mentioned as a general authority.
Hey, Matt already did a post on this. It was two years ago, but I think it's still accurate: http://ldschurchgrowth.blogspot.com/2011/07/countries-and-territories-without-lds.html
Thanks James
Somehow I thought the Church had a presence in Laos and South Sudan, anthough South Sudan may be more planned than in actuality.
I am 100% sure the Church has a presence in Pakistan, and fairly sure it does in Bangladesh. I was also under the impression there was a senior couple in Mysanmar, and maybe even a branch, although no proselyting allowed yet.
Bangladesh and Nepal each have a branch per the 2011 Church Alamanc. I was not able to find the 2012 almanac I have and do not have the 2013 almanc.
There appears to actually be a branch in Palestine (specifically Bethlehem). It is also possible they may have formed a branch in the Faroes in the last two years.
What I really want to know is what country the priest President Eyring spoke of in his talk lived.
Elder Dube was the first stake president in Zimbabwe when the first stake was organized in that country back in 1999. So we now have Elder Dube and Elder Sitati, who are both general authorities who were the first stake presidents in their country. As far as I know the only other general authority who was the first stake president in their home country was elder Angel Abrea. Elder Falabella's father was the first stake president in Guatemala.
I'd be willing to wager that Turkey was the country Elder Eyring was talking about. It fits the timeline he gave and is a Muslim majority country where they'd try to keep info on members more under wraps.
There is a LDS family living in San Marino. They attend Church in the Rimini branch.
When I served in Rimini, I went to San Marino once to visit a member there. (I went there again on a preparation day.)
There is a district based in Bahrain that includes Saudi Arabia. It used to be part of a stake (variously called Arabian Peninsula, Desert Springs, then Manana Bahrain) but a few years ago Bahrain and Saudi Arabia became a district and other Gulf countries (Kuwait, UAE, Qatar, Oman) became the Abu Dhabi Stake.
The location that President Eyring was referring to in his priesthood session talk was Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
This post should address any confusing on which countries are "unreached"
http://ldschurchgrowth.blogspot.com/2013/04/unreached-countries.html
You made an error and stated the 2011 number for service missionaries. It should be 22961
Bangladesh has a small branch in Dhaka, a missionary was called to the Philippines from there, to a Tagalog speaking mission. The story is on the British Mormon Newsroom site.
There are humanitarian missionaries in Laos. There may be a few members due to some other matters as well.
Mali is known for a presidential candidate who ran but the election was never held due to a coup. There is a Youtube video associated with that run. Reports say he may be the only family in that country.
A TRC shift leader at the MTC said that he had heard there is now at least one member or family in every last nation on the earth now.
Myanmar: Program on Mormon Channel talks about it, it may be on the 'Into All the World' or 'Faith in Action' program.
Know of someone who served in CA with a Burmese missionary, one of six that were the first to serve from there. There's at least one branch there. That was mentioned on the Mormon Channel program.
Where did I see or read (early this AM) about the church averaging approx. 1,300 new missionaries/wk since the 1st of the year & if un aborted could be around 100,000 by the turn of the new yr. or 1st part of the next?
Exciting number, and I would actually partly account the reduction in convert baptisms to the church emphasis on real growth. Some missions have been told to only teach less actives for long periods of time because so many have been lost.
When do you expect the release of Dec. 31 membership by state and country?
Last year the country stats came out on the 24th, so it looks like in the next week or so. Not sure in the states.
Ah ok. Thank you Adam.
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