By Sandra Tanner

In 2012 the LDS Church announced that it was lowering the age of its male missionaries from 19 to 18 years old. The age of women missionaries was dropped from 21 to 19 years old. This resulted in a significant increase in the number of missionaries for 2013. Below are the statistics for both 2012 and 2013, taken from the LDS conference reports.

The new report is of particular interest as it gives us an idea of the effectiveness of increasing the number of LDS missionaries last year. The results are less than impressive. The Salt Lake Tribune reported:

In the year and a half since the LDS Church lowered the minimum age for full-time missionary service, the Utah-based faith has seen its proselytizing force swell from 58,500 to more than 83,000. That’s a 42 percent leap.

The number of convert baptisms last year grew to 282,945, up from 272,330 in 2012. That’s an increase of—less than 4 percent.

How can that be? Why would a surge of 25,000 additional eager and earnest suit-and dress-wearing, scripture-packing, pamphlet-peddling young “elders” and “sisters” not translate into a similarly dramatic jump in the number of Mormons on membership rolls?
(“Mormon conversions lag behind huge missionary growth,” Salt Lake Tribune, May 2, 2014)

Matt Martinich, an independent researcher, saw it as market saturation. The extra missionaries were sent into areas where the LDS Church had already done significant proselytizing. The article continues:

As it stands, the ratio of converts to Mormon missionaries has slipped from 5-to-1 in 2010 to less than 3.5-to-1 last year.

The article concludes: “Ultimately, though, the goal of Mormon missionary work may be as much about converting the proselytizer as converting the proselyte” (Salt Lake Tribune, May 2, 2014).

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