53 Wards/Branches Discontinued in Mexico

[oliblish]

http://ldschurchgrowth.blogspot.com/201 ... nches.html

In the last couple of months, 53 wards and branches have been eliminated in Mexico. The details are not easy to find since the church shut down any website publishing changes in wards or branches.

This is all in spite of the number of missions in Mexico increasing to 34 since the missionary age change. If there are about 175 missionaries per mission, that means that even with around 6000 missionaries in the country, the number of members that show up to church is still dropping.

At what point can we say the tipping point has been reached? It is probably premature to say that Mexico has reached that point, but things are not looking good in Mexico right now.

[Mormorrisey]

Thank the stars for Matt's blog - I have it bookmarked and check it regularly, but not today. Thanks for the update. That's a pretty big decrease in units - it brings the number of discontinued stakes for the year to nine, and they've only created 22 for the year. Not great numbers, no wonder they don't want to advertise during GC. So much for double digit stakes "every week of our lives," this is barely one stake per week.

But this sure has me wondering if the church is going to let Matt continue, if he keeps bringing the bad news.

[Hagoth]

Central American people used to flock to the LDS church in great numbers when we lived in an alternate universe in which they were Lamanites and God was inspiring them to accept the church's message. Now that God has learned, via DNA sequencing, that they are not really Lamanites he has allowed Mr. Schrodinger's cat to pull the lever that parallax-shifted us into the universe where our friends south of the border are, and always have been, Beringia Pedestrians and there is no reason for God to do them any special favors.

[moksha]

Mr. Schrodinger's cat to pull the lever that parallax-shifted us ...

Divergent Mormonism

[Cnsl1]

Maybe related, I've noticed that every missionary from our ward has a mission that's combining with another mission. I think the sudden influx of missionaries that occurred with the age change has leveled out and now we're seeing even fewer kids go and stay out. It's also not as big of a social embarrassment to come home early or not go at all.