Updated Country Profile - Sri Lanka

Click here to access the updated Reaching the Nations country profile for Sri Lanka. The Church in Sri Lanka has experienced some of the slowest growth among Asian nations with a Church presence for over 40 years. As of year-end 2018, there were approximately 1,600 members, four branches, and one member group. Only about 25% of members appear to regularly attend church. Nevertheless, there have been some recent positive developments, such as sustained annual membership growth rates of 5% or higher per year since 2015, the full-time missionary force solely comprised to Sri Lankan members (with the exception of senior couples), and the creation of a second branch in Colombo. Also, senior missionaries a couple years ago reported that church attendance in Kandy increased from 15 to 115 in less than six months (albeit it is unclear whether this increase has since been sustained). See below for the Future Prospects section of this article.

Accelerated membership growth since the mid-2010s and the organization of a second branch in Colombo point to some recent improvements in growth trends. This has been significant given that only local Sri Lankan members and senior couples have served in Sri Lanka as full-time missionaries during this time. However, missionary efforts have not been able to replicate more rapid membership growth attained by foreign, fulltime missionaries during the 2000s, albeit a higher percentage of recent converts appears to have been retained. Branches in Negombo and Kandy may divide when warranted by sustained growth in active membership. Additional branches or member groups in lesser-reached areas of the Colombo metropolitan area appear most favorable for future efforts to expand outreach due to high population density, proximity to other branches, and difficulty accessing the meetinghouse from more distant urban areas. Once there are at least five branches, over 120 active Melchizedek Priesthood holders, and 1,900 members a stake may be established, although current trends suggest that this goal is far distant especially given low member activity rates. Improving convert retention through approaches tailored to the needs of individuals of diverse religious and cultural backgrounds and careful preparation of prospective converts to ensure that gospel habits are in place will be crucial to achieving real long-term growth.

Church Removes Foreign Missionaries in Sri Lanka

Due to visa problems with the government, all non-Sri Lankan missionaries left the country and are currently in India. This has been a problem which has been going on for a while considering the government does not recognize religions/church with less than 5,000 membes in the country very well. Only three missionaries are in the country now, with around 1,200 members and four branches.

Church Pulls North American Missionaries Out of Bolivia

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints finished pulling all the North American missionaries out of the South American country of Bolivia, an action which began last Saturday. Heightening tension between separatists and the Bolivian government has been the main cause of the missionary withdrawal. 102 missionaries were transferred to Peru for the time being. There are three missions of the Church in Bolivia, so I image there are around 200 or so missionaries still serving in the country. There are 160,000 members organized in 24 stakes and nine districts. There is a temple in Cochabamba.

This year there have been two other countries where missionaries have been pulled out of entirely, which are Serbia and Georgia. Countries which have been seeing disruptions in missionary work recently include Russia (due to foreign visa renewal laws) and Sri Lanka (in the city of Kandy).

New Full Translation of the Book of Mormon

According to www.ldscatalog.com, the Book of Mormon was recently translated in its entirety into Sinhala, a language spoken by 19 million in Sri Lanka. Only selected passages were translated in Sinhala back in 1983. Membership stands at over 1,100 in Sri Lanka. Proselyting missionaries in the country have recently encountered difficulty preaching the Gospel due to government restrictions.

Recent Church Growth News

I decided I should periodically write some of the exciting news I come to find out regarding the growth of the Church occuring right now (or very recently). I'll give an update once a month or so of this nature.

Number of Branches in Suriname triples in the past year

At the end of 2006, there were two branches in the country of Suriname (Paramaribo and Wanica). One branch was organized around the Spring of 2007, the Blauwgrond Branch, and another two where organized a few months later, the Nickerie and Tamenga Branches. Finally, towards the end of 2007, the Uitkijk Branch was organized for a grand total of six in the country. I have not been able to find information regarding baptisms in Suriname for 2007, but in 2006 there was a noticable increase in membership. The second branch in Suriname, the Wanica Branch, was organized in the Fall of 2002.

New Branches in Cambodia

Less than a week ago, I was going through Church unit listings on www.mormon.org/worshipwithus and I noticed two new branches were created recently in Cambodia. What is so exciting about these branches is that they are in cities which have never had branches before, Siemreap and Kampong Thom. There is only one other city which has a branch in it that is a considerable distance from the capital city of Phnom Penh which is Battambang. Hopefully this indicates an increase in convert baptisms and activity among members, since the number of new branches created in Cambodia has declined in recent years along with baptisms.

47 New Stakes Organized in 2007 and Counting

From information provided by http://www.lds.org/ on temple district listings, I have found at least 47 new stakes created in 2007 and five stakes which were dissolved (three in California, one in Louisiana and one in Liberia). In 2007, 13 stakes were organized in Brazil, which is the highest number of new stakes organized in that country since 1998. Furthermore, in Peru, four new stakes were organized (all from mission districts) which is the largest number of stakes created in that country since 1997. Two-thirds of the stakes created were outside of the United States and Canada and the net increase for stakes in the United States and Brazil was almost the same (Brazil had two more).

Recently Organized Mission Districts

Something I have noticed over the past year or two is that the number of new mission districts being created has declined. Over the past year, the only new mission districts I know of that have been organized where in Oldenburg Germany, Nkawkaw Ghana, Monrovia Liberia and Monrovia Liberia Bushrod (both from the dissolved stake), Monte Plata Dominican Republic, and Nicosia Cyprus. Furthermore, 12 of the organized stakes in 2007 were created from mission districts, which indicates that the trend of declining mission districts which began in 2005 will continue. Of course it is a positive thing to have districts maturing into stakes (which require a lot of active, devoted LDS Church members) but the creation of new mission districts signifies the Church moving into areas of the world (or nations which it is already in) which it has not had a strong presence in before. The majority of districts are created in countries where there is a strong LDS presence, and decisions to form districts is made up to local, regional and global Church leadership.
I do have a list of potential districts to be organized, which I will save for a later date.

The New Delhi India Mission

The First Presidency organized the second mission in India last November which not only covers the northern half of India, but also Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, and Bangladesh. There are several reasons for why this new mission was organized.

1. This very populated area of the world has very few LDS members; all of India has 7,000 and is the country in the region with the most LDS members. This mission will allow for more emphasis on training current Church leadership in New Delhi and Pakistan which have a small but active LDS membership. The mission president will also not have to travel as far as before to train and meet with missionaries and members.
2. The growth of the Church in Sri Lanka and Malaysia has been impressive. Church membership in Malaysia jumped from 2,917 in 2005 to 3,633 in 2006 and Sri Lanka's membership has increased from 963 to 1,108 during that same time period. The new mission in India administers to several of the countries originally covered by the Singapore Mission such as Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh. Now the Singapore Mission is responsible only for Singapore and Malaysia. The India Bangalore Mission is now only responsible for Southern India along with Sri Lanka. This allows for more missionaries to be focused in this region along with more access for the mission president with missionaries and members.
3. The two original missions covered very large regions of Asia; now the only mission which covers a very large area is the India New Delhi Mission and this mission has very few members in it (almost all of whom reside in the city of New Delhi or in Pakistan).

Countries with the highest membership growth rates

Below is a list of the top 10 fastest growing countries for the Church during 2006 (over 300 members).

1. Cameroon - 492 members - 31.6%
2. Malaysia - 3,633 members - 24.5%
3. Estonia - 874 members - 16.4%
4. Ethiopia - 708 members - 15.7%
5. Zambia - 1,905 members - 15.6%
6. Sri Lanka - 1,108 members - 15.1%
7. Armenia - 2,359 members - 13.3%
8. Ghana - 32,965 members - 12.5%
9. Guyana - 2,072 members - 12.3%
10. Latvia - 920 members - 11.8%

The top three nations which have the highest increase (not %) in membership per year usually are the United States, Brazil (which also just reached over 1,000,000 members) and Mexico.