Monday, April 20, 2020

Missing Country-Specific Statistical Numbers - Church Newsroom

For many years, I have contacted the Newsroom staff to alert them that several countries with a non-sensitive Church presence are missing from the Facts and Statistics page on the Church's official Newsroom site. Unfortunately, these efforts have yielded few results. Sometimes I receive a response saying that this information will used to help improve the site, whereas at other times I have received no response. There have been a couple instances when staff at the Church's Membership and Statistical Records Departments has provided myself or colleagues some of these missing data for research purposes. The staff has indicated that all of the non-sensitive data is provided to the Newsroom staff, including most of the countries that I have identified which should be published. The Church used to provide a more thorough and complete statistical breakdown by country, state, and province in the defunct Deseret News Church Almanac series, which reportedly ended after its 2013 edition due to a lack of interest and staff available to update it. In recent years, only a few countries have been added to the Facts and Statistics page, such as Bahrain, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kuwait, and Montenegro.

Here is a list of the missing non-sensitive countries that the Church does not publish statistical data for on its Newsroom site. Congregational data in terms of meetinghouse location are available for all of these countries on the Church's official meetinghouse locator:
  • Belarus
  • Bermuda
  • Bonaire
  • British Virgin Islands
  • Cuba
  • Egypt
  • Gabon
  • Guinea
  • Jordan
  • Kosovo
  • Lebanon
  • Mali
  • Morocco
  • North Macedonia
  • Oman
  • Qatar
  • Senegal
  • Turks and Caicos Islands
  • United Kingdom constituent countries: England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales
  • Vietnam

I am requesting that those who are interested in obtaining these missing data to please complete this website feedback form provided by the Church and request that data for these countries be posted on the Facts and Statistics page. My hope is that if there are enough requests it will prompt the Newsroom staff to update the site with the missing country-specific data. The lack of information about the Church in these countries on the Facts and Statistics page not only makes it difficult to assess the size and growth of the Church in these locations, but it can also lead many to erroneously believe that there is no Church presence in these nations. Please make sure your responses are respectful.
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13 comments:

  1. Mormon_OmarElíasVEApril 20, 2020 at 10:31 AM

    Hello!

    It is true what you say, there is little or no information regarding those countries in their baptized, but without the desire that it seems a criticism, I do not see interest in the information being more, that is regrettable.

    Continuing with sincerity, the Church says little about many important and vital issues in the Church, generating doubts and comments.

    Before www.familysearch was enabled as a platform for genealogy, we used the PAF, at that time we offered ourselves free of charge, to the brother who saw genealogy in the area of ​​that time that was Chile, to photograph and help by making indexes that remained To speed up the work, we never found answers, only evasive.

    Therefore, it is not surprising that these statistical data are not published, despite the modernity of the Church, it has its reservations.

    Thanks for this comprehensive blog,

    Omar Elías Valenzuela
    Santiago de Chile

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  2. HopefulApril 20, 2020 at 2:11 PM

    If I were a member living in Mali, I wouldn't want info published about it and where. That would create risk for members that wouldn't be worth the info.

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  3. John Pack LambertApril 20, 2020 at 2:41 PM

    I can see hesitancy on publishing stastitical information on especially Oman and Qatar. All the more so since members are expatriates and information on expatriates used for negative purposes.

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  4. MattApril 20, 2020 at 2:57 PM

    Hopeful and John Pack Lambert - data on the number of members presents very little risk. Most of the countries I mentioned in this post have no safety concerns whatsoever compared to other nations where the Church does publish these data. Hence, this is the source of my frustration.

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  5. EduardoApril 20, 2020 at 9:34 PM

    Some of the countries are closer hold with information due to political and religious and/or cultural reasons. I have been to Turks and Caicos and I am not sure there. Perhaps some local churches are involved? Like the ones in Ghana wanted to hurt the reputation of the Church?
    Belarus is wacky country, or government, from what I know. They are playing soccer in these quarentine times, from what I gather. I hope that the virus does not spread because of that. Any guesses as to when Church will re-congregate? Hmmmmm
    ...
    Cuba still has Raul Castro in charge. Who is next in line the there.
    Muslim countries are sensitive for many reasons. Doesn't make it right. So cool about U.A.E. and Shanghai. Barriers are falling...

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  6. Christopher NicholsonApril 20, 2020 at 9:57 PM

    Mali has had a Latter-day Saint mayor, presidential candidate and ambassador, Yeah Samake, for several years. He mentioned in an interview once that (unlike Mitt Romney) he had never faced any discrimination or prejudice because of his faith.

    U.A.E. forbids proselytism but is light-years ahead of the rest of the Middle East in religious freedom and tolerance. The government's eagerness to demonstrate this to the world seems to be at the heart of its invitation to build a temple, and may result in a much larger and fancier temple than the number of members would suggest.

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  7. EduardoApril 20, 2020 at 10:37 PM

    Poor Brother Samake was going to make a run for president in that Sahel country when serious war and terrirism broke out, and thosr plans changed, not just his but all elections. I know terrorist strikes and kidnappings are a serious issue in Mali, Burkina Faso, and nations around there.

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  8. coachodeepsApril 21, 2020 at 6:56 AM

    I have submitted a request, Matt. Strange these countries aren't listed. Some may be due to size perhaps (accidentally overlooked?), or others due to not realizing they are a sovereign state, but Vietnam and the countries that make up the UK make no sense.

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  9. Tyler AlleyApril 21, 2020 at 8:18 AM

    I imagine the UAE temple would probably include Pakistan in its district, right?

    Also, I don’t know if it’s been brought up yet, but do you guys think that The Restored Church will now be working feverishly to update all of its signs on its buildings to include the new symbol? If not, do you guys think that the new symbol will be added to newly constructed buildings?

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  10. James AndersonApril 21, 2020 at 11:15 AM

    Thee are still a lot of buildings from the 1970s and 80s with the old 1974 logo either on them or on a sign that is nearby, especially if the standalone sign might be a stone monument type. That older logo was introduced in 1974, before that what you see at the top of a First Presidency letter was seen at times.

    So almost everything we see now will have either logo, they may not be quite able to replicate the Christus part accurately on stone due to the fine detail, but the new text part most certainly on new installs. Found that graphic separate from the text part at the bottom of the Church website too.

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  11. MainTourApril 21, 2020 at 1:12 PM

    Interview with Elder Uchtdorf about the changes in missionary work from Covid-19. https://www.ldsliving.com/Elder-Uchtdorf-Shares-How-Missionary-Work-Has-Changed-Since-COVID-19-Gives-Advice-for-Those-Who-had-to-Return-Home/s/92713?utm_source=ldsliving&utm_medium=email

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  12. NoelApril 23, 2020 at 3:42 PM

    The UK is a nation at the United Nations.
    Single Parliament although Scotland has a Parliament its foreign affairs, military are represented by Westminster, the Scottish Parliament has devolved powers in other areas.

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  13. James G. StokesApril 23, 2020 at 4:13 PM

    For the information of readers of this blog, I wanted to note that the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square has released a new logo, and the First Presidency today announced the location of and preliminary information for the Bentonville Arkansas Temple, which makes it likely that temple will be among those to have a groundbreaking before the end of this year:

    https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/the-tabernacle-choir-at-temple-square-unveils-new-logo

    https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/bentonville-arkansas-temple-location-released

    I have provided further analysis of these developments on my blog:

    https://stokessoundsoff.blogspot.com/

    My thanks once again to you all.

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