Church announces 55 new missions

[Nofear]

There are 55 new missions, often for re-balancing efforts.  E'lder Quentin L. Cook of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, who chairs the Church’s Missionary Executive Council. “These additional missions help to balance the number of missionaries in each mission, allowing mission leaders to better support and mentor the missionaries they lead,” he said.'

https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/55-new-missions

[ZealouslyStriving]

3 hours ago, Nofear said:

There are 55 new missions, often for re-balancing efforts.  E'lder Quentin L. Cook of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, who chairs the Church’s Missionary Executive Council. “These additional missions help to balance the number of missionaries in each mission, allowing mission leaders to better support and mentor the missionaries they lead,” he said.'

https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/55-new-missions

Is the KCMO Mission a split from the Independence Mission? I'm surprised Kansas City didn't already have it's own mission.

[Pyreaux]

7 hours ago, Nofear said:

There are 55 new missions, often for re-balancing efforts.  E'lder Quentin L. Cook of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, who chairs the Church’s Missionary Executive Council. “These additional missions help to balance the number of missionaries in each mission, allowing mission leaders to better support and mentor the missionaries they lead,” he said.'

https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/55-new-missions

This reveals even more about what the Church thinks are the emerging and high-growth areas to place their 20,000 extra missionaries they got in 2 years.

United States has 14 new missions, primarily in the Southwest and West areas, suggesting significant membership movement in Texas, California, and Arizona. Texas and Arizona have had substantial growth, while California's decline has stopped and is even growing a little and still remains the state with the second-highest overall number of Latter-day Saints after Utah.

Africa has 16 new missions in the Central, South, and West areas. With the Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, and Senegal, Africa is currently the fastest-growing region for the Church. Congo is experiencing annual growth rates of about 10% and is rapidly climbing the list of countries with the most Latter-day Saints.

Philippines has 5 new missions. It is the hub of the Church in Asia. The fourth-largest population of Latter-day Saints of any country in the world. With huge pool of missionaries at the Philippines MTC trains a missionary force that is positioned to enter South Asia and is very close to China geographically.

Pacific has 5 new missions. One of the Church's oldest and most established areas, with a very high percentage of Latter-day Saints in their population. The new missions in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands signal a strategic expansion into Melanesia. 

The new missions is a response to actual, realized growth. At least the Church itself believes its own annual statistical report. This seems to contradict many ex-LDS ideas that the Church is simply in decline across the board. There are Issues with retention and member activity, but record removals are less than one-tenth of 1%. The rising "nones", those that have stopped self-identifying as Latter-day Saints, are coming from more secularized regions like the United States outside the "Mormon Corridor" and parts of Europe, which is where some areas, stakes and wards are consolidating.

This increase in new missions is strong evidence that membership is growing, not shrinking, when using the Church's official count of total recorded members and new converts. However, it does not feel like we've disproven the ex-LDS point that the active membership rate and the Church's influence in its traditional heartland is still declining, not yet anyway. I should pray more for our missionaries and their burdens, by breaking up larger missions is also a hope the presence of missionaries near them is a source of support, stability and retention also.

[JVW]

I wonder what the Missionaries to Mission President ratio is. I don't view this as indicative of church growth because the number of missionaries we have now is less than we have had (I swear we had over 100k missionaries at one point). I view this change as the brethren wanting Mission Presidents to have more influence in their missions and a better relationship with their missionaries in order to facilitate the work with better focus and vision in smaller geographical areas.

[bluebell]

41 minutes ago, JVW said:

I wonder what the Missionaries to Mission President ratio is. I don't view this as indicative of church growth because the number of missionaries we have now is less than we have had (I swear we had over 100k missionaries at one point). I view this change as the brethren wanting Mission Presidents to have more influence in their missions and a better relationship with their missionaries in order to facilitate the work with better focus and vision in smaller geographical areas.

I actually think that we have more out now than we've ever had before.  Or at least very close to it.

[JVW]

15 minutes ago, bluebell said:

I actually think that we have more out now than we've ever had before.  Or at least very close to it.

I found this, no clue how accurate it is, https://github.com/opensourcehistory/lds-missionaries/blob/main/Number of Latter-day Saint Missionaries by Year.md I think you may be right if the numbers on this page are cumulative missionaries but current numbers are full-time proselyting only.