Church Lowers Minimum Missionary Age for Women to 18

This morning, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter‑day Saints announced that young women may now begin full-time missionary service at age 18 — the same minimum age as young men

This decision carries significant potential: by providing additional options for young women to serve missions right after high school (or its equivalent), the worldwide full-time missionary force may grow in scale and diversity. It opens a new season of opportunity for women who desire to serve, whether before pursuing further education, entering the workforce, or undertaking other life ventures. While missionary service remains optional for young women, the change reflects a continued evolution in how the Church supports individual choice, preparation, and contribution with its proselytism efforts Effective immediately, young women graduating this year and going forward will be eligible to submit mission applications starting at age 18. Moreover, the recent announcement to create 55 new missions in 2026 will provide additional support to accommodate potentially large influxes in young women serving missions in the next 12 months.

I will provide additional analysis of today's announcement in the coming days.  

More than 71,000 Full-Time Missionaries Serving and Predictions for New Missions in 2024

In his General Conference address yesterday, Elder Neil L. Andersen mentioned that there are more than 71,000 full-time missionaries serving throughout the world. This marks an increase of at least 8,456 full-time missionaries serving from year-end 2022 when there were 62,544 full-time missionaries serving - a 13.5% increase in nine months. This is a major increase in the number of members serving full-time missions within a short period of time. The Church would have an increase of 11,275 missionaries by year-end 2023 for a total of 73,819 if the assumption is made that the average of 939.56 more missionaries serving each month is sustained until the end of December. Since 1978, there have been only two years when the number of full-time missionaries serving has increased at a more rapid rate: 2022 (14.7%) and 2013 (40.8%). However, these two years had artificially higher numbers of new missionaries serving because of delays in members serving missions from prior years due to the COVID-19 pandemic (2022) and the lowering of the minimum age for missionary service (2013). The next year with the highest percentage increase in the number of full-time missionaries was 1989 when there was a 10.0% increase in the number of missionaries serving compared to year-end 1988. 

It is unclear what is driving this acceleration in the number of full-time missionaries serving. Members postponing full-time missionary service due to the COVID-19 pandemic may account for some of this increase, although this likely accounts for a small percentage of recently called full-time missionaries given that it appears that most members who postponed missionary service began their service in 2022. I made a post in early July 2023 about additional details regarding the number of full-time missionaries serving, as the Church had disclosed during its annual new mission presidents training seminar that there were 67,800 full-time missionaries serving as of June 2023. The Church at the time also predicted that there may be as many as 72,000 full-time missionaries serving by the end of 2023. As I noted in my post in July, "This increase has occurred even though there is a smaller demographic of mission-aged young adults in the Church (which is supported by historical children-of-record annual increase numbers, which did not surpass 100,000 until 2008), suggesting an increasing percentage of young single adults serving full-time missions." Currently, the number of full-time missionaries serving has surpassed the number of full-time missionaries serving in year-end 2016 (70,946) - the most recent year that had more than 70,000 missionaries serving. Only three years have had more full-time missionaries serving than at present: 2015 (74,079), 2013 (83,035), and 2014 (85,147). 

A statistic that can give insights into full-time missionary service is the percentage of church membership currently serving full-time missions. See the graph below. As of year-end 2022, 0.37% of church membership were serving a full-time mission - comparable to the percentage of membership serving full-time missions in the late 2000s and early 2010s. However, approximately 0.55% of church membership was serving full-time missions between the late 1980s and early 2000s. To put this into perspective, if 0.55% of church membership were serving full-time missions as of year-end 2022, there would be 93,514 full-time missionaries serving. The decrease in the percentage of church membership serving missions since the early 2000s appears attributed to gentrification of church membership caused by decreased birth rates, low member activity rates in most of the countries with the largest church memberships, and potentially lower rates of full-time missionary service among young adults, particularly in countries where the Church reports large numbers of members.

The number of convert baptisms also increased by 25% in the first quarter of 2023 compared to the first quarter of 2022 as I noted in my July 2023 post. If this trend continues for the rest of 2023, there will be an increase in the number of convert baptisms that is approximately twice the rate of the increase in the number of full-time missionaries. If this rate continues for the rest of the year (i.e., if there are 25% more convert baptisms in 2023 compared to 2022), there would be 265,215 convert baptisms for the year - the highest reported by the Church since 2014 when there were 296,803 convert baptisms. If there are 72,000 missionaries serving at the end of 2023, then there will be an average of 3.68 convert baptisms per missionary. However, the number of converts baptized would remain below many years between 1989 and 1999 when there were as many as 330,877 converts baptized in a single year (1990). The average number of converts baptized per missionary has decreased substantially over the past several decades from a high of 8.03 in 1989 to a low of 2.43 in 2020 (see graph below).

Finally, an increase in the number of full-time missionaries serving raises the likelihood that the Church will organize new missions to accommodate this increase, especially if it is anticipated that this increase will be sustained in the coming years. The Church reached an all-time high of 421 missions in 2016 and 2017. There are currently 414 missions worldwide. If the Church were to keep its ratio of 152 missionaries per mission as of year-end 2022 and there are 72,000 missionaries by the end of 2023, the Church would need to have a net increase of 62 missions in 2024 to maintain this ratio. However, decisions on where new missions will be organized will likely depend on what world region recent increases in the number of full-time missionaries serving has come from, with new missions most likely to be organized in the world regions with the greatest increases in the number of new full-time missionaries serving. See below for a list locations that appear likely to have new missions created in the near future along with the number of stakes/districts/mission branches likely to be assigned to each mission if it is organized. Coincidentally, there are 100 locations listed below. I did not plan to have a nice, round number like this, and it instead came from reviewing current mission boundaries and identifying what locations appear most likely to have missions organized given a combination of factors such as the size of the population to be served by the mission, current church infrastructure in the area, recent growth trends, and opportunities for expansion (rarely are locations on this list a perfect combination of all four of these factors and instead many of these prospective mission locations are based on just one or two criteria being met). This list was initially posted on this blog in March 2023, and it has been updated given these recent developments with increases in the number of full-time missionaries.

AFRICA (25 missions)

• Cote d'Ivoire Daloa (1 stake, 6 districts) 
• Democratic Republic of the Congo Likasi (3 stakes)
  
• Democratic Republic of the Congo Kinshasa (third mission) (4 stakes)
  
• Gabon Libreville (4 mission branches)
  
• Ghana Accra (third mission) (4-5 stakes)
  
• Ghana Koforidua (3 stakes, 2 districts)
  
• Ghana Kumasi (second mission) (2-3 stakes, 2-3 districts)
  
• Ghana Takoradi (2 stakes, 2 districts) 
• Ghana Tamale (1 district)
  
• Kenya Eldoret (3 districts)
• Kenya Nairobi (second mission) (1-2 stakes, 1-3 districts)
• Liberia Gbarnga (5 mission branches)
  
• Liberia Monrovia (second mission) (3 stakes)
  
• Malawi Lilongwe (2 districts) 
• Mauritius and Reunion (2 districts)
  
• Nigeria Benin City (second mission) (4-5 stakes)
• Nigeria Calabar (4 stakes, 1 district)
• Nigeria Eket (6 stakes)
  
• Nigeria Lagos (second mission) (4 stakes)
• Nigeria Makurdi (3 districts)
  
• Nigeria Warri (3 stakes, 3 districts)
• Senegal Dakar (1 district, several mission branches in neighboring countries)
  
• Sierra Leone Bo (4 stakes, 1 district) 
• Sierra Leone Freetown (second mission) (2-3 stakes, 1 district)
  
• Togo Lome (2 stakes)

ASIA (9 missions)

• Georgia Tbilisi (2 mission branches) 
  
• Korea Daejeon (4 stakes)
  
• Middle East/African North Service Mission (2 stakes, 3 districts) 
• Philippines General Santos (3 stakes, 3 districts)
  
• Philippines Ormoc (3 stakes, 4 districts)
  
• Philippines Palawan/Mindoro (1 stake, 4 districts)
  
• Philippines Tuguegarao (3 stakes, 2 districts) 
• Sri Lanka Colombo (1 district)
  
• Thailand Ubon (1 stake, 1 district)

EUROPE (10 missions)

• Austria Vienna (2 stakes)
  
• Belgium Brussels (2 stakes)
• France Paris (second mission) (3 stakes) 
• France Toulouse (2 stakes)
  
• Germany Düsseldorf (2 stakes) 
• Iceland Reykjavik (4 mission branches)
  
• Ireland Dublin (2 stakes, 1 district) 
• Italy Palermo (1 stake)
  
• Portugal Porto (3 stakes)
• Spain Granada (5 stakes)
  

LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN (33 missions)

• Argentina Buenos Aires (fifth mission) (5-6 stakes)
  
• Argentina Posadas (2 stakes, 5 districts)
• Argentina Tucumán (4 stakes, 1 district) 
• Belize Belmopan (2 districts)
  
• Bolivia Riberalta (3 districts)
• Bolivia Tarija (4 stakes, 2 districts)
  
• Brazil Juazeiro do Norte (1 stake, 2 districts, 2 mission branches)
  
• Brazil Joinville (5 stakes)
  
• Brazil Manaus (second mission) (5-6 stakes)
• Brazil Novo Hamburgo (6 stakes, 1 district) 
• Brazil Porto Velho (2 stakes)
  
• Brazil São Luís (2 stakes)
• Brazil São Paulo (sixth mission) (4-5 million, ~7 stakes)
• Brazil Sorocaba (5 stakes, 2 districts)
• Chile La Serena (3 stakes, 3 districts) 
• Colombia Bucaramanga (4 stakes)
  
• Cuba Havana (1 district)
• Ecuador Machala (4 stakes, 1 district) 
• Mexico Acapulco (3 stakes, 1 district)
• Mexico Ciudad Obregón (3 stakes, 3 districts)
  
• Mexico Coatzacoalcos (3 stakes, 3 districts)
  
• Mexico Juchitán (3 stakes, 4 districts) 
• Mexico Morelia (4 stakes, 1 district)
  
• Mexico Reynosa (5 stakes, 1 district)
• Mexico San Luis Potosí (3 stakes)
  
• Mexico Tijuana (second mission) (5 stakes)
• Mexico Toluca (3 stakes)
  
• Panama Panama City (second mission) - (3-4 stakes, 1-3 districts)
  
• Peru Lima (seventh mission) (6-7 stakes)
• Peru Pisco (4 stakes, 2 districts)
  
• Peru Pucallpa (2 stakes) 
• Peru Puno (3 stakes)
• Peru Tacna (5 stakes)
  

NORTH AMERICA (16 missions)

• Arizona Scottsdale (~10 stakes)
  
• Canada Toronto (second mission) (4 stakes)
• Colorado Grand Junction (5 stakes)
  
• Connecticut Hartford (5 stakes)
  
• Florida Orland (second mission) (5 stakes)
• Georgia Macon (5 stakes)
• Idaho Nampa (~20 stakes)
  
• Illinois Peoria (4 stakes)
  
• Missouri Springfield (5 stakes) 
• Nevada Las Vegas (3 mission) (10 stakes)
  
• North Carolina Raleigh (second mission) (6-7 stakes)
• Ohio Cleveland (5 stakes)
  
• Oklahoma Tulsa (5 stakes)
• Pennsylvania Harrisburg (6 stakes)
• Texas Longview (5 stakes)
  
• Wyoming Casper (5 stakes)
  

OCEANIA (7 missions)

• Australia Brisbane (second mission) (~6 stakes)
  
• Australia Sydney (second mission) (~6 stakes)
• French Polynesia (second mission) (~5 stakes) 
• Kiribati Tarawa (2 stakes, 3 districts)
  
• Papua New Guinea Daru (1 stake, 3 districts)
  
• Samoa (second mission) (~12 stakes)
  
• Solomon Islands Honiara (1 district)

Missionary Developments From Recent 2023 New Mission Presidents Training Seminar

The Church News recently published articles regarding comments Elder Cook of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles made during the recent 2023 New Mission President seminar in regard to recent missionary developments in the global Church. These included:

• The number of full-time, proselytizing missionaries serving worldwide increasing from 57,000 in April 2022 to 67,800 in early June 2023 (click here for article). This time frame was provided because President Nelson reemphasized the need for young men to serve full-time missions in April 2022 in General Conference. The last time the Church had this many members serving full-time missions was in 2016 when there were 70,946 full-time missionaries serving at the end of the year (which was at the tail-end of the double-cohort of full-time missionaries caused by the lowering of the minimum age for missionary service). There were approximately 67,000 or fewer full-time missionaries serving between 2017 and 2022.
  
• The number of full-time, proselytizing missionaries serving worldwide is anticipated to reach as high as 72,000 by the end of 2023 (click here for article). This increase has occurred even though there is a smaller demographic of mission-aged young adults in the Church (which is supported by historical children-of-record annual increase numbers, which did not surpass 100,000 until 2008), suggesting an increasing percentage of young single adults serving full-time missions. Although it is unclear what the current percentage of young men serving full-time missions is, "Researchers found that in the early 1940s approximately five percent of young men served missions and that this statistic increased to 20% in the late 1940s and 30% in the early 1960s. Between the early 1960s and early 1980s the percentage of young men serving missions varied from 25-35% and was 32% in 1981 (click here for reference). 
• Recently, the number of weekly mission applications received that require processing by apostles for mission assignment has increased from approximately 150-200 to up to 300. Typically, two apostles complete the weekly processing and assignment of mission applications. However, as many as four apostles have been required to complete this weekly task due to the influx in applications (click here for article).
  
• Convert baptisms for the worldwide Church were up 25% during the first quarter of 2023 compared to the first quarter of 2022 (click here for article). If this rate continues for the rest of the year (i.e., if there are 25% more convert baptisms in 2023 compared to 2022), there would be 265,215 convert baptisms for the year - the highest reported by the Church since 2014 when there were 296,803 convert baptisms.
  

It is unclear what particular age/gender demographics or world regions are driving recent increases in full-time missionaries serving and higher numbers of convert baptisms than what has been seen in recent years. It will likely take years before we begin to see congregational growth rates and the creation of new stakes accelerating if these recent trends are continued. The increase in convert baptisms is unsurprising given missions have returned to "business as usual" with strategies that often result in the greatest growth of the Church, especially with the opening of previously unreached cities to proselytism and creating new congregations in these locations (which primarily occurs in Africa, the Philippines, and Latin America). Moreover, increases in full-time missionaries serving should produce higher numbers of convert baptisms. However, the most interesting and positive development with these few statistics shared by Elder Cook is that the percentage of young single adults serving full-time missions appears to be increasing - something that could have some major long-term impacts on general church growth trends, particularly those in regard to natural increase. Moreover, if these trends are sustained, we will likely see many new missions organized in 2024 to help accommodate this increase, and it appears most likely that these mission resources will be allocated to more productive areas rather than creation new missions in less productive areas with greater preexisting Church infrastructure (which occurred in many areas of the world in 2013 when huge increases in the numbers of full-time missionaries serving required a fast solution to find a place to put them all). 

Love, Share, Invite Missionary Broadcast: Analysis and Opinion

This morning, I watched the Church's Love, Share, Invite broadcast. The broadcast can be found here. I found this broadcast to be one of the most fascinating and unusual broadcasts I have ever seen in the Church. Here are reasons why I think this:

• The entire broadcast was on member-missionary work, and it was not about referring others to the full-time missionaries, preparing members for full-time missionary service, or how full-time missionaries should do missionary work
  
• The focus was on children, youth, and young single adults doing missionary work, not older adults, families, or full-time missionaries doing missionary work
  
• Addressing rejection of member invitations in missionary work
  
• The need to continue to share the Gospel even if previous efforts seem unsuccessful
  
• Avoiding pressuring others or using methods that are not natural to share the Gospel
  
• No talks given as part of the broadcast by Church leaders - just commentary and testimonies
• A brief interview with the parents of a convert who disagreed with their child's decision to join the Church and who have not since joined the Church, but who later noted a positive change in their son's life
  
• The implicit message that we, as a Church, need to change our culture to be more effective missionaries in regards to how we interact with those who are not members of the Church
  

Elder Bednar provided many quotes that hit right on the mark of the problems the Church has had with its lack of worldwide effectiveness and progress with its missionary program, namely that the culture in the Church has been such that missionary work has been seen as something just full-time missionaries do for 18 months or two years rather than it being a part of lifelong discipleship. This attitude neutralizes missionary efforts for almost the entire duration of the average member's life. First, Elder Bednar stated, "Love, Share, and Invite should not be seen as the Church's new program for sharing the Gospel," and rather he emphasized that the purpose of the broadcast was "fundamental Gospel principles that we are reemphasizing." He emphasized that missionary work should "become a natural expression of genuine love." The need to totally reshape member attitudes about missionary was highlighted when he said we should "not talk about missionary work as a discrete and separate activity that some of do some of the time," and instead it should become an "integral permanent part of our daily lives." Ultimately, Elder Bednar emphasized "Church leaders will no longer have to ask members to add sharing the Gospel to their already lengthy list of things to do" once Church culture to conform to these standards. Elder Uchtdorf also highlighted this need by stating missionary work must use "normal and in natural ways" in order to "invite people to come and see, come and help, and come and belong." Another implicit message from the broadcast was that these changes need to happen with the Church's leaders around the world first if there is any hope that change is to happen to the main body of active membership in the Church. In other words, the leaders need to lead by example and not just occupy some type of managerial role in supervising and cheering on those under their stewardship.

I was also pleased to see that this broadcast directly addressed some of the points mentioned in my blog post from February 25th, 2019 entitled The Urgent Need to Reform the Missionary Program. It is quite concerning that the culture about member-missionary work in the Church has been such that it seems most members do not know how to to do it. I believe this has arisen due to a combination of factors which I have seen through the data I have collected as well as my own personal experiences. First, the high-pressured tactics and quota-driven approaches to missionary work, which began to be implemented in the early 1960s in the United Kingdom, eventually spread to most areas of the Church, and this has resulted in members usually only referring people to the missionaries if they are confident that these individuals are ready to join the Church or are able to be comfortable with such pressure. Thus, the negative relationship between members and full-time missionaries often appears to be the result of concerns whether full-time missionary efforts are motivated by secondary gain (i.e., reaching a goal to have X many baptisms) or genuine concern for the well-being of the individuals involved in their missionary efforts. Second, active Latter-day Saints in many areas of the world develop their own sub-culture in the area and tend to spend much of their socialization with fellow active members. This results in fewer opportunities to associate with "non-members" and can also result in greater anxiety about interacting with those "outside the Church" due to differences in culture, practices, and beliefs. Third, many members of the Church are afraid of rejection or offending others. These members may lack sufficient member-missionary skills and/or had negative or unsuccessful past experiences sharing the Gospel. Fourth, missionary work has long since been something done by full-time missionaries for a discrete period of time rather than something expected to occur on an everyday basis (a point I mentioned earlier). One of the main points driven in the broadcast was for members of the Church to invite others to activities they are already doing - whether they were official Church activities or social gatherings or activities. Although the broadcast is a major step in the right direction, it will probably take many years, or perhaps decades, for there to be an effective shift in culture in the Church in most areas to try to effectively adopt these principles. Efforts to deliberately change culture are not easy, and sometimes these efforts can even backfire. However, the research I have conducted, and the messages shared in the broadcast today, make it clear that a change is warranted nonetheless for there to be any type of measurable improvement in missionary efforts, and these measurable improvements will ultimately be reflected at some point by the statistical data published by the Church.

Finally, I am interested in your thoughts, comments, opinions, and observations. Please provide your comments on what you noticed about the broadcast and its potential impact with the Church's missionary efforts.

Eight New Missions to be Created in July 2020

Today the Church announced plans to open eight new missions effective July 2020. This is the earliest that the Church has announced plans to organize new missions, as these announcements are traditionally made in January. As such, today's announcement proceeded my predictions for new missions that I usually make every year. The world total for new missions will be 407 in July 2020. No mission consolidations were reported in the announcement. There are currently more than 68,000 missionaries serving in 399 missions. There were 65,137 at year-end 2018, indicating a more that four percent increase in the number of members serving full-time proselytizing missions thus far in 2019 - the first year with significant increase in the number of full-time missionaries serving since the "surge" in the full-time missionary force ended in the mid 2010s.

The Church announced plans to open the following eight mission:

• Brazil Recife South 
• Cameroon Yaounde 
• Ecuador Guayaquil East 
• Ethiopia Addis Ababa 
• Mozambique Beira 
• Tanzania Dar es Salaam 
• Texas Austin 
• Texas Dallas East 

Of these eight missions, three are located in countries where the Church currently does not have a mission headquartered within the country (Cameroon, Ethiopia, and Tanzania). Today's announcement signals a major development with greater allocation of mission resources to receptive and under-serviced areas of the world, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. Also, the creation of three of the new missions in Central/East Africa will coincide with the opening of the new Africa Central Area in August 2020.

BRAZIL RECIFE SOUTH
The Brazil Recife South Mission will be organized from a division of the Brazil Recife Mission. It is unclear whether any additional missions will be involved with the creation of the new mission. There are 11 stakes in the Recife metropolitan area, and the current Brazil Recife Mission has 13 stakes and 1 district, and services most of Pernambuco State which has a population of 9.6 million people. The Brazil Recife Mission currently numbers among missions with the most stakes in all of Brazil. The Church has experienced slower growth in Recife than most missions in the Northeast of Brazil in the past two decades. For example, the most recently organized stake in the Recife metropolitan area was created in 2006. Once the new mission is organized, there will be 36 missions in Brazil - more missions than any other country outside of the United States.

CAMEROON YAOUNDE
The Church will be reestablishing the Cameroon Yaounde Mission in July. Cameroon has a population of 25.6 million as of July 2018. The Church originally created a mission in Cameroon back in 1992, but relocated the mission to Cote d'Ivoire in 1993. The Church in Cameroon has had a long history of being reassigned from mission to mission and has received little attention from mission and area presidencies in regards to the allocation of missionary resources. More specifically, Cameroon pertained to the Cote d'Ivoire Abidjan mission from 1993-2005, the Ghana Cape Coast Mission from 2005-approximately 2008, the Democratic Republic of Congo Kinshasa Mission from approximately 2008-2014, and the Republic of Congo Brazzaville Mission since 2014. The Church in Cameroon experienced stagnant growth from its initial establishment in the early 1990s until the early 2000s. However, growth rates have been high since the 2000s. Church membership in Cameroon totaled 155 in 2000, 374 in 2005, 1,003 in 2010, 1,480 in 2015, and 2,215 in 2018. Annual membership growth rates have generally exceeded 10% since the early 2000s. There are only two cities in Cameroon with an official Church presence (the first branch was created in Yaounde in the early 1990s, whereas the first branch in Douala was organized in 2004). In the 2010s, the Church has grown most rapidly in Yaounde, where the ninth branch in the city was recently organized.

The creation of the new mission in Cameroon has been desperately needed given the country's large population that has been chronically under-served by mission resources available. Tens of millions have never received mission outreach, including English-speaking areas in the highlands near Nigeria. The new mission will allow for the Church to expand into previously unreached areas. It is likely that the new mission will also include the Central African Republic and Equatorial Guinea for a total of 32.2 million people within the mission boundaries. Gabon appears most likely to remain assigned to the Republic of Congo Brazzaville Mission.

In 2018, the Church reported 7,903 members in the Republic of the Congo, 2,215 members in Cameroon, approximately 300 members in Gabon, and 239 members in the Central African Republic. There is no Church presence in Equatorial Guinea and likely fewer than 10 members in the country.

ECUADOR GUAYAQUIL EAST
The Church will organize its fourth mission in Guayaquil in July. There are 17 stakes in the greater Guayaquil metropolitan area, two of which have been organized since 2017. The Church organized its first mission in Guayaquil in 1978, followed by two additional missions in 1991 and 2013. The Church in Guayaquil has experienced slow growth for most of the past two decades, with only four of the 17 stakes having been created since 2000. Nevertheless, reports from scores of local members in Guayaquil I have collected since approximately 2015 have noted that most wards in the city have 100-200 active members, and there has been a significant increase in the number of active members in most congregations for the past 20 years. Additionally, several new wards have been created in Guayaquil in 2019 to accommodate growing numbers of active members, particularly in northern areas of the city.

With the creation of the new mission, there will be six missions in Ecuador, with an average of 2.8 million people per mission.

ETHIOPIA ADDIS ABABA
The first mission of the Church in Ethiopia will be organized in July. With 108 million people, Ethiopia currently ranks as the country with the third largest population without its own mission, after Pakistan (208 million people) and Bangladesh (159 million people). The Church organized its first branch in Ethiopia in 1994 in Addis Ababa. Ethiopia originally pertained to the Kenya Nairobi Mission until it was assigned to the Uganda Kampala Mission when it was created in 2005. The Church has experienced inconsistent growth rates that have vacillated from stagnant to rapid growth. At year-end 2018, there were 1,933 members and four branches. Unlike most Sub-Saharan African countries, the Church in Ethiopia has significantly struggled with achieving steady, rapid growth and local leadership development. Furthermore, the Church in Ethiopia appears to experience the lowest member activity rate of any country on the continent. In contrast, other nontraditional, proselytizing-focused Christian denominations have achieved rapid, steady growth in Ethiopia. For example, at the end of 2018 Seventh-day Adventists reported approximately 185,000 members and Jehovah's Witnesses reported approximately 10,500 members.

There are several reasons for the lack of growth in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Ethiopia, such as translations of Church materials only in Amharic, infrequent visits from mission leaders based in other countries, significant challenges with young, full-time missionaries learning local languages, intermittent visa problems for foreign missionaries, negative societal views of the Church, a lack of teaching materials tailored to Orthodox Christians, and internal challenges with long-term convert retention and self-sufficient local leadership. The creation of the new mission will provide many opportunities to rectify these issues with greater mission president oversight and more mission resources allocated to this minimally reached East African country. Furthermore, the mission may also include neighboring Eritrea and Djibouti, which currently are not assigned to a full-time mission.

MOZAMBIQUE BEIRA
Perhaps the most surprising new mission announcement for 2020, the Mozambique Beira Mission will open in July from a division of the Mozambique Maputo Mission. South Africa is the only other country in the history of the Church in Africa that had its second mission organized with as few members of the Church as Mozambique at present (approximately 12,200 at year-end 2018). Generally, the Church in Africa does not organize a second mission in a country until there are at least 20,000 members of the Church and 70+ congregations. The Church created its first mission in Mozambique in 2005 from a division of the South Africa Johannesburg Mission. The Mozambique Maputo Mission also administered Angola until 2013 when the Angola Luanda Mission was organized. The Mozambique Beira Mission will service northern areas of Mozambique, whereas the Mozambique Maputo Mission will service southern areas of the country. There are 27.2 million people in Mozambique.

The Church in Mozambique has undergone two periods of rapid growth, the first of which occurred in the early 2000s and the second of which has been ongoing since 2013. The Church in Mozambique has grown from 200 members in 1997 to 4,216 in 2007, to 10,835 in 2017. The most impressive recent growth developments in Mozambique have been the proliferation of stakes and congregations. The Church organized its first stake in Mozambique in Maputo in 2015, and there are currently four stakes and one district in the country. Growth in active membership and the number of new converts joining the Church in 2019 has reportedly accelerated in 2019, and the mission president earlier this year anticipated the organization of two additional stakes in the next year. Earlier this year, the Church noted that average sacrament meeting attendance in the country is nearly 70% - much higher than most countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. One of the most extreme examples of growth in Mozambique has been in the northern city of Nampula, where the number of branches increased from one in mid-2017 to six in March 2019. The creation of a second mission of the Church in Mozambique will allow for more penetrating outreach in the two most populous cities of Beira and Maputo, as well as expansion of the Church into additional areas.

TANZANIA DAR ES SALAAM
The Church's first mission in Tanzania will be organized in the capital and most populous city of Dar Es Salaam, where the first branch in the country was organized in 1992. Tanzania has been minimally reached by the Church despite widespread religious freedom and a highly receptive population. As such, the Church reported only 1,726 members and six branches in the country as of year-end 2018, whereas the estimated population for Tanzania at the time was 55.5 million. The Kenya Nairobi Mission has administered Tanzania since the first branches were organized. Slow growth has generally occurred for the Church in Tanzania since its initial establishment. Most recently, the Church organized two new branches in Dar Es Salaam earlier this year - the first new branches created in the city in approximately 15 years. There are only three cities with a Church presence in Tanzania: Dar Es Salaam, Mwanza, and Arusha. Other proselytism-focused groups originally from North America, such as Seventh-day Adventists, report significant membership in Tanzania. Adventists reported nearly three-quarters of a million members in the country at the end of 2018. Jehovah's Witnesses maintain a more limited presence than Adventists, but nevertheless claim 18,705 active members organized into 455 congregations. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Tanzania switched its official language for the Church from English to Swahili in 2011, which reportedly made major improvements in the Church's outreach and functionality to meet local language needs. The new mission will undoubtedly permit greater allocation of mission resources and will likely permit the organization of congregations in additional cities.

TEXAS AUSTIN
The Church will create a new mission headquartered in Austin, Texas in July. The Texas Austin Mission will be organized from a division of the Texas San Antonio Mission and likely the Texas Fort Worth Mission. The new mission will probably include nine stakes in central Texas. The first stake in Austin was organized in 1973, and the most recently created stake was organized in September 2019.

TEXAS DALLAS EAST
The Church's third mission for the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area has been long overdue as significant growth in the number of active members, congregations, and stakes has occurred since the last new mission was organized in this urban agglomeration in 1986. The first mission was organized in Dallas in 1961 when there was only one stake in the metropolitan area. When the Texas Fort Worth Mission was organized in 1986, there were eight stakes in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Today, there are now 22 stakes in the metropolitan area. The most recently organized stake is the Little Elm Texas Stake, which was organized in August 2019.

With the creation of the two new missions, there will be 10 missions in Texas, with an average of 2.9 million people per mission. The number of missions in Texas will equal the number of missions in Utah - the state that currently has the second most missions of any state in the United States (California has the most with 15). However, Utah's population of 3.2 million is almost the size of the average population served by a mission in Texas. The most recently organized mission in Texas is the Texas Lubbock Mission, which was created in 2002. There are currently 77 stakes and 2 districts in Texas. At year-end 2018, there were 357,625 members and 698 congregations. Much of the Church's growth in Texas has been attributed to members from the Western United States who move to the state, albeit many Spanish-speakers have also joined the Church in the past several decades. These changes will result in the number of missions in the United States totaling 119.

SSSR Presentation

See below to access my SSSR presentation, entitled: International Saints Missiological Survey (ISMS) of over 6,500 Latter-day Saints, 2012-2019: Key Findings and Analysis.

SSSR 2019 Presentation - Martinich 

The Discontinuation of Temple Missionaries

I have received a report that the Church will be discontinuing temple missionaries. Temple missionaries are senior missionary couples who serve at a temple and assist local membership with temple work and staffing the temple, particularly in locations where local members struggles to be self-sufficient in meeting temple needs. If anyone else has information about this development, please comment.

I predict that we will see some significant announcements this conference weekend in regards to missionary work and the Church's missionary program, which is one of the last areas of the Church that has not undergone a major overhaul within the past couple years.

New Temples and Other Announcements in General Conference This October; Rare Church Statistics on Brazil Released

A Church Newsroom article published yesterday noted that President Nelson informed news media that "more temples and other announcements will be made in the October general conference." It is unclear what these other announcements may be, but it appears that a reformation to the Church's missionary program is likely given the new missionary handbook's upcoming release and other matters I have discussed on this blog. Coincidentally, I will be publishing my predictions for temple announcements for this October General Conference over the weekend, which include some significant additions and changes given recent trends in temple announcements since President Nelson's tenure as President of the Church.

Also, the Church Newsroom article I mentioned at the beginning of this post provided some rare statistics published by the Church. More specifically, the article notes that there are currently 5,300 missionaries serving in Brazil at present - the second most of any country in the world after the United States. This indicates there is an average of 151 missionaries per mission in Brazil. The Church does not publish annual country-by-country figures for the number of full-time missionaries serving. There have only been a few other times in Church history that the Church has published information on the number of missionaries serving in a country, such as in the Philippines or Mexico.

The Urgent Need to Reform the Missionary Program

Since 2012, I have collected surveys from returned missionaries about their missions and from ordinary members about their congregations. Analysis of these survey data has been conducted to examine the growth of the Church and the missionary program in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. As of this morning, I have obtained 3,428 responses to the returned missionary survey in English, French, and Spanish, and 3,407 responses to the member survey in English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. These nearly 7,000 responses have provided invaluable data in regards to the convert retention, member activity, proselytism, cultural conditions, leadership development, and factors that have hampered or accelerated growth in nearly every country where the Church has an official presence.

The results of these surveys revealed significant variability among missions and congregations in regards to church growth trends and the success of the missionary program. Some missions report high numbers of converts and high convert retention rates of these converts one year after baptism. However, others report low numbers of convert baptisms and low convert retention rates. Nevertheless, it appears that in most missions of the Church there are significant problems with the success of the missionary program despite repeated efforts to make it more effective. This has been evident in official statistics released by the Church, which reveal that most recently in 2017 membership growth rates dropped to their lowest levels since 1937,  the number of convert baptisms reached a 30-year low in 2017, congregational growth rates consistently lag behind membership growth rates, and the ratio of converts baptized per missionary has dropped from 6-8 converts baptized per missionary a year in the 1970s and 1980s to 3.5 converts baptized per missionary most recently in 2017.

The following are frequent concerns noted by members and returned missionaries that have appeared to be counterproductive to the success of the missionary program to achieve "real growth" in the Church (e.g. consistent increases in active membership, better quality leadership, expansion of the Church into new areas, etc.). I want to emphasize that these factors are not present everywhere in the Church, but occur in most locations. There are likely additional factors that I may have missed, but I have included the most prominent ones I found. All this information has been achieved through my own research and study and does not contain data from unauthorized sources.

CURRENT CONCERNS WITH THE MISSIONARY PROGRAM

A Negative Relationship between Full-time Missionaries and Local Members/Church Leaders
Returned missionaries in many areas of the world complain that there is a distrusting, negative relationship between full-time missionaries and local members. Reasons for this relationship include past negative examples of full-time missionaries who served in an area, skepticism about the motivation of full-time missionaries' member-missionary efforts (e.g. focus on reaching a goal vs. genuine care and concern for the individual), the belief that missionary work is the full-time missionaries' responsibility, a lack of interest, and a disconnect between mission leadership and local church leadership. As a result, nearly all respondents to the returned missionary survey indicated that there is usually only a few individuals or families in most congregations who provide regular assistance with finding and teaching prospective members, whereas the remainder of members stand as idle observers or even obstacles to bringing and non-members to Church.

High-pressured, Salesmen-like Approaches Designed to Reach Arbitrary Baptismal Goal Quotas
This has stood as a longstanding problem in the Church that was first observed on a widespread scale in the British Isles during the late 1950s/early 1960s. The strategy to minimally prepare prospective converts for baptism appeared to first begin here and was implemented in many other areas of the world thereafter. Prior to this shift, it was common in some places in the world to have prospective members attend church for months or even years before baptism, such as in southern Brazil in the late 1950s. The reason the Church has implemented this strategy on such a widespread scale has appeared because it can provide fast results that appear impressive on paper. However, this approach is alarming in regards to not only its ineffectiveness to achieve long-term, sustainable growth, but most importantly its ethical implications when the enthusiasm of new converts is turned to ashes if there is no post-baptismal support. Even worse, reports from returned missionaries within the past decade continue to indicate instances, albeit less frequent than in previous decades, of mission leadership providing an external incentive for full-time missionaries to reach a baptismal goal such as going out to eat at a nice restaurant or a special vacation to an area within the mission. This type of strategy is manipulative and exploitative of both young missionaries and potential converts as it provides secondary gain to the missionaries. Quick-baptism tactics appear to be the primary reason the Church struggles with abysmal member activity rates in most of Latin America and the Philippines. The paragraph below is from the Missiology Encyclopedia entry on www.cumorah.com for "Quick Baptism Tactics" and summarizes the harm to the Church and its new converts by rushing baptismal preparation and objectifying converts.

The intention of rushing poorly-prepared converts into baptisms deserves serious criticism by mission leaders and full-time missionaries. This practice not only does violence to the sacred nature of the ordinance and lessens the significance of the long-term commitment to follow Christ and remain active in the Church, but results in the Church achieving only a small portion of its potential growth. Many converts baptized do not have friends among members of their assigned congregations prior to receiving missionary lessons and were rushed into baptism before any solid friendships were developed. Oftentimes these converts exhibit greater trust and socialization with full-time missionaries rather than ordinary members. The vast majority of converts baptized in locations where quick-baptismal tactics are employed do not remain active a year after their baptism and accumulate over months, years, and decades on church records. Returned missionaries in some missions have reported convert retention rates as low as 10-15% one year after baptism. Mission leaders enact quick-baptismal tactics in many locations with high receptivity to the Church but where there is little cultural emphasis on regular church attendance, participation in church responsibilities, and meaningful, daily religious practice on an individual or family level. Consequently the development of these attitudes and habits depends on the Church. The brief and at times shallow depth of conversion and commitment to fulfill gospel-related duties and follow church teachings results in many never developing daily and weekly habits of individual and collective religiosity. 

The Missionary Dinner Program
This program continues to be widespread despite previous statements from Church leaders who advise against it, such as President Ezra Taft Benson in 1975 when he spoke to new mission presidents (see quote #8). The criticism of this program is best worded by David Stewart in his monumental work Law of the Harvest: Practical Principles of Effective Missionary Work.

The missionary dinner program neutralizes missionaries by taking them off the street during prime finding and teaching time when families are home. Even when dinner visits are brief, missionary travel time ensures that member dinners consume considerable proselyting time each evening. There is no evidence that wards with missionary dinner programs generate more referrals than those without them, and many wards have experienced a revitalization of member-missionary work when dinner programs were terminated. Members of many other faiths are far more likely than Latter-day Saints to share their beliefs with others, yet rarely if ever have denominational missionaries in their homes.

Poor Relations between the Church and Local Religious Groups
The Church, especially its missionaries, are often viewed negatively in many, if not most, countries of the world. Reasons for this negative relationship significantly vary by location. For example, in Western and Central Europe full-time missionaries are frequently misidentified as Jehovah's Witnesses and full-time missionaries. As a result, much of the hostility and avoidance of the general population to the Church's missionaries in these nations is due to societal attitudes toward Jehovah's Witnesses and not necessary to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Church is confused with other religious groups such as Satanists, Amish Mennonites, Seventh-Day Adventists, and Mormon Fundamental Polygamists in many other countries. There are also instances when full-time missionaries are believed to be under-cover government employees who conduct espionage operations. Misinformation and disinformation appear the primary root of these challenges, although high-pressured proselytism tactics in some nations have also appeared to give the Church a negative reputation. Returned missionaries report that local religious leaders often spread negative misinformation about the Church to their congregants in an effort to try to inoculate them from Latter-day Saint proselytism efforts.

Inconsistent Implementation of Church Policies regarding Missionary Work
The Church could have the best program that strives to be consistent with the doctrine taught in the scriptures, but the program will do not good if it is not appropriately and consistently implemented. The Church has sought in recent years to retool its missionary program through efforts such as Preach My Gospel and the Hastening of the Work of Salvation. However, these efforts have generally yielded mixed results on a global scale. For example, even after the implementation of Preach My Gospel it remained common place for converts to be baptized after attending church only twice even though the manual states that an investigator should attend church at least "several" times (see page 204). Furthermore, many, if not most, members report that they have not heard of the Hastening of the Work of Salvation initiative or that this emphasis has not been implemented in their ward, branch, or group. Thus, any future efforts to reform the missionary program in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will likely experience problems with its implementation.

Conservative Interpretation and Implementation of the Centers of Strength Policy
Almost invariably, returned missionaries report good receptivity and significant growth when new branches or member groups are opened in lesser-reached neighborhoods or cities where no previous Church presence operated. However, the incidence of the Church opening additional cities and towns to missionary work is surprisingly rare. Typically the Church only regularly opens previously unreached cities and towns in more receptive areas such as West Africa and Brazil. Moreover, the Church has strongly relied on full-time missionaries to open new congregations in previously unreached areas. Consequently, the speed and breadth of the expansion of the Church into new areas has been correlated to the number of full-time missionaries serving worldwide. Moreover, the Church continues to assign the vast majority of its full-time missionary manpower to locations where the most members live. The logic in this approach is for full-time missionaries to be assigned where there are local members to support them with referral for people to teach and provide long-term fellowshipping and support. For a comprehensive review of the centers of strength policy and its impact on Church growth trends, click here.

Generalization of Teaching Resources and Approaches
The Church has the struggle to maintain a uniform program for its worldwide missionary program, but also adapt the program to individual cultural conditions. Returned missionaries report that these challenges are especially apparent in missions where most do not have a background in Western Christianity. As a result, missionaries often struggle to have the adequate resources and skills to tailor teaching to the religious background of nonreligious, non-Western Christians (e.g. Eastern Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic, Egyptian Coptic), Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh, and animist individuals.

Negative/Inappropriate Mission Culture
I have received some accounts from returned missionaries about the social interactions between full-time missionaries. Although the purpose of my surveying efforts has been to collect information about church-growth and proselytism-related data, some respondents have provided additional information about concerns with mission culture. Specifically, there are concerns with bullying and missionaries who break significant rules, which results in challenges with trust, unity, and providing missionaries with a positive life experience.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Given these concerns, I believe the following recommendations would be useful to consider in regards to future changes to the missionary program that could have a significant impact on its effectiveness. Although there have been significant organizational or policy changes in many other areas of the Church since President Russell M. Nelson began to preside over the Church in early 2018, only relatively minor changes have thus far occurred to the missionary program such as in regards to the attire for sister missionaries, the sending of missionary calls electronically, the determination of missionaries to serve proselytizing vs. service missions, and permitting missionaries to call home to family weekly. I believe that there will be significant changes made in the coming months and years, and I hope that perhaps some of these changes may include the following:

• Increase the Duration of Training for Missionaries at Missionary Training Centers (MTCs). Many of the challenges noted above can be addressed through better equipping new full-time missionaries with better teaching skills, social skills, and spiritual preparation. I believe the greatest deficits or needs are in regards to people skills, emotional and social maturity, and developing genuine love and care for those who missionaries teach. With younger people serving full-time missions who may have never lived away from home, there needs to be more training and help in areas where they may lack life experience. Emphasis on psycho-education regarding bullying and how to handle situations when a fellow missionary is disobedient such as conflict resolution strategies would be helpful to equip missionaries with the training to better handle these situations in the field. Follow-up training should occur in the field as well to make sure these tactics are effectively implemented.
• Discontinue Use of Baptismal Goals. The cons to baptismal goals have appeared to outweigh the pros given concerns noted above with rushed prebaptismal preparation and objectifying converts. Replacement of the primary focus from baptismal goals to other metrics such as church attendance for both hours of church, daily scripture study and prayer, and number of friends/family who attend a lesson may provide some improvements to convert retention and member activity by targeting behaviors more closely related to genuine conversion.
• Reduce Disconnect Between Local Church Leaders and Mission Leadership - Have Bishops/Branch Presidents Extend Baptism Invitation to Prospective Converts. One of the biggest challenges with the missionary program is that there are two organizational systems that are at least partially focused on the same goal (missionary work) but that these systems struggle to communicate and collaborate with one another. It may be effective in some areas of the world to have bishop and branch presidents be responsible for full-time missionaries instead of, or in addition to, mission presidents to help reduce this disconnect and better empower local leaders to utilize resources at their disposal. Lastly, the local church leader extending the commitment to be baptized may be more appropriate than full-time missionaries as the local church leader will be ultimately responsible for the new member should they chose to join the Church.
• The Calling of "Planter Families" to Expand Outreach. This is a church growth strategy employed by other religious groups that may have some relevance for the Church to expand into unreached areas. The Church can call a member family to relocate to a city where there is no Church presence and start a new congregation from scratch. The Church already utilizes this strategy to expand its presence around the world, although the current and past strategy has relied on fortuitous events for this to occur instead of assigning families to move to expand the Church. This method would require care to select appropriate families that are stable and have adequate flexibility in employment to relocate in order to minimize potential harm and make this approach effective.
• Create a Member-Missionary Manual.  The Church has made many statements in recent years and decades that member-missionary work is the key to growth. However, the Church only has a full-time missionary manual that does not generalize to ordinary members in many aspects such as learning mission language. The development of a manual that provides instruction on methods to teach other basic Gospel principles, appropriately handle rejection, and ideas for casually sharing the Gospel with others could significant improve the confidence of members and reduce fear. Limitations to Preach My Gospel are noted on page xi: 
• "Preach My Gospel" is for the full-time missionaries of the Church. However, the principles and doctrines taught herein are also applicable to ward missionaries and leaders as they seek to build the Lord's kingdom. Frequent study of this manual will enable them to fulfill their responsibilities as member missionaries and will foster unity with the full-time missionaries." 
• Use of Special Events Designed to Attract Local Community Members and Leaders. One consistent finding across returned missionary surveys is that musical firesides or other types of special community events sponsored by the Church have been effective to improve relations with the Church and community and religious leaders, and find interested individuals who later join the Church, especially in secular nations. Regular special events that promote family history, art, music, theater, and team sports may be effective to address concerns with misinformation and disinformation about the Church.
• Development of Teaching Resources for Specific Religious Groups and Cultures. The development of teaching guides that educate members and missionaries with accurate information about other religious groups, and provides methods to adapt teaching skills to present the Latter-day Saint Gospel message in a relevant manner, appears warranted.
• Widespread Implementation of Cottage Meetings - Discontinue Missionary Dinner Appointments with Members. Cottage meetings are a highly effective method to provide a low-pressure, informal environment that presents a brief lesson and opportunities for prospective members or inactive members to socialize with members. Replacing missionary dinner appointments with cottage meetings that are organized by the members (not the missionaries) would be an effective approach to engaging local members in missionary work. See below for a description of cottage meetings from David Stewart's book,  Law of the Harvest: Practical Principles of Effective Missionary Work.

A cottage meeting is an informal gospel-based meeting held in a member's home with nonmembers present. Cottage meetings are not a substitute for investigators attending church, but they represent a valuable supplement that facilitates the consistent achievement of vital teaching and fellowshipping tasks that are at times difficult to accomplish by more traditional methods. I find that investigators and new members have consistently given excellent reviews to cottage meetings held in member homes. More significantly, I have found a much higher return rate for investigators who attended both church and cottage meetings than those who attended church meetings alone. Cottage meetings have also played an essential role in laying the foundation for the church in some new areas and nations, including the Russian Far East area, Armenia, Kazakhstan, and Georgia. 

In conjunction with regular church attendance, cottage meetings are typically able to foster a higher degree of enthusiasm for the gospel in investigators than attendance at church meetings alone. This is because the problems with many conventional church meetings -- the unpredictability of talks, lessons not specifically tailored to investigators, and inconsistent fellowshipping -- are almost entirely eliminated in the setting of cottage meetings. Investigators enjoy cottage meetings because they are attractive, relevant, and appealing. Cottage meetings are held weekly on a specific night (other than Monday) in a member's home with predictable teachers and consistent interaction. Quality fellowshipping in cottage meetings is almost inevitable, and the relationships that develop are much stronger than those developed in Sunday meetings by a greeting or a handshake in the hall. All this is achieved while simultaneously reaching multiple people within a limited time. 

Following are some specific principles and practices that I have found to be helpful in conducting cottage meetings. Others may have found different approaches to be effective in their area. Individuals are encouraged to try different approaches and discover what works best for them. 

1. Audience. In addition to the members who will lead the discussion, new members, investigators being currently taught by the missionaries, and a pair of missionaries are invited each week.  

2. Topic. The goal of cottage meetings is to help the attendees become better people and establish essential gospel habits. Some of the things we focus on include daily personal or family Book of Mormon reading, weekly church attendance, full Sabbath day observance, consistent personal and family prayer, the Word of Wisdom, and family history work. We also address some fundamental doctrinal topics including prophets, the Holy Ghost, the apostasy and restoration, divine authority, and families. If the investigators understand doctrinal issues but are not reading scriptures and attending church, our teaching has failed. Lessons are scripture-based, and questions are answered from the scriptures when possible. 

3. Timing. Respecting the time and other obligations of investigators is vital, and the lesson should always end before the spirit leaves. We keep our meetings relatively brief so that they can be relevant and powerful. In this way, the investigators are eager to come back for more instead of regretting that their whole evening was soaked up. We aim for sixty minutes and never allow cottage meetings to go past ninety minutes, including time for refreshments and socializing. The purpose of cottage meetings is not to provide detailed doctrinal discourses, but to furnish a simple lesson, provide fellowshipping, address questions and concerns, and demonstrate the gospel in action in the home. 

4. Relevance. Lessons involve frequent feedback and interaction with participants and are never lectures. The lesson plan must be flexible and meet investigator needs. If the investigators have multiple questions on topics that are more important to them than the lesson, address those questions and topics instead. One must always keep in mind the goal of giving investigators practical teachings that will make their lives better. I will briefly answer questions on tangential or deep doctrinal issues (but to the listener's satisfaction) before leading the discussion back on topic. If you find yourself facing a question you do not know the answer to, tell the questioner that you will have an answer the next week. 

5. Consistency. Cottage meetings are most effective when held in the same place at the same time every week. The missionaries know that they are welcome to bring anyone they are currently teaching. The new members and investigators who have attended once know that we will be looking for them the next week. Tuesdays or Thursdays have worked the best for us because Monday is family home evening, Wednesday is our ward activity night with scouts and mutual, and Friday and Saturday are inconvenient for most people for social reasons. When cottage meetings are not held consistently or are held in unpredictable locations, it is difficult to achieve a regular turnout. 

6. Relaxed atmosphere. Everyone should be involved. Ask open-ended questions, and avoid manipulative or leading queries. 

7. Refreshments at the end. We find this to be a productive time when investigators will open up even more and share things that they might not share even in the small group setting.