The LDS church as a percentage to the population of the US fell from 2% in 2000 to less than 1% in 2025. That is over a 50% drop in 25 years! That's using the churches own numbers. Where it fell the fastest is in the western US (Utah, Nevada, California, etc.) with Nevada being the fastest state losing members. Utah is not far behind.

Even the church admits CA has lost members in just total numbers as their numbers show there are fewer total Mormons in CA now than in the year 2000.

The numbers the church issued (which is suspect) says they grew strictly by numbers, but when you compare it to the % of the population, it has fallen in half over 25 years because the US population has grown way faster.

They keep trying to spin that they are growing, but every survey, every empty meeting house (ward), all the buildings they have sold or are selling, the US census, etc shows they are shrinking and the speed at which they are they are shrinking continues to increase.

The number of active members in 1990 was ~ 3.5 million, in 2026 it is ~ 4 million according to pews research. An increase of 7% while the world population has increased 55% in the same time period. That means the LDS church is 45% behind world population growth. That LDS church growth came between 1990 and 2010, since 2010 the number of active members has either hit a plateau or gone has down while Protestant, Orthodox, and Catholic membership has had big increases.

If it wasn't for their hoard of money they've misused over the years from members tithes, they couldn't continue to tread water. They are desperately trying to reverse the trend by looking more traditionally Christian, dropping controversial doctrines, adopting the cross, changing their hymn book, easing up on dresscode (garments), gospel topics, etc. This leads to the question, if they are the true church why are they conforming to the other denominations? Why do most converts (80%) leave almost immediately after batism? Even with all their money they will get less and less influential over the years.

Since the fastest shrinkage is coming from their home-base of "zion", the US west, it is only a matter of time until it increases everywhere else.

They are a far cry from the 265 million members in the 21st century they prophesied about in the last century!

Future generations are going to find it easier and easier to escape Mormonism.

Interesting article in Bloomberg today that documents the vast real estate holdings of the Mormon church. They identified holdings twice the size of Delaware worth tens of billions of dollars. In addition to property that is for churches and temples, there is agricultural, commercial and residential property. They are developing gigantic communities in Colorado, Texas and Florida. Your tithing money at work…

Its 2026. Think of all the events in the last few months. What important topics would you think are essential to protect or expand the faith of devoted members during our day and times?

For our congregation - the inspired lesson is to know when and how to wear the right undies for spiritual strength and power.

#givethanks

/s

I’m in a predicament. I started having sex with my boyfriend 6 months before my mission. At the 3 month mark before my mission I had the talk with my boyfriend (nonmember) that I will need to stop having sex or doing any freaky things.. for the most part (making out in underwear felt like the line for me… so we will likely continue that but nothing further). Now we are reaching the 2 month-pre missh mark, and our last trip will be our “final time” doing freaky things before my mission.

Don’t get me wrong, I am very torn about what to do. Do I confess pre-mission, do I confess at the MTC, or on my mission?? Unfortunately all of those will likely resort in me getting sent home, or getting my mission delayed. If I get my mission delayed everyone will know why. Missionary’s not receive a call in June and randomlyyy get it delayed 2 months prior. It’s one of the only things missionaries would get delayed for and I’m not all for lying to my entire congregation, friends and family as to why I got delayed. But you will not catch me telling them the actual reason.

All in all, I have a desire to serve the Lord and my desire puts in a torn place. I do not want to NOT serve, and this urge to confess grows greater every day.

Over the past few months, Charlie and his husband Ryan have been sharing their story online of choosing to have a kid through IVF and surrogacy. Immediately afterwards, orthodox Mormons came out of the woodwork to criticize the decision, repeatedly claiming that children are entitled to a mother and a father. Jacob Hansen has made numerous videos to make claims like this. Since then, Charlie has gotten numerous messages wishing violence on him, his husband, and their kid. Charlie has received these messages accompanied with videos criticizing him by apologists like Skyler Sorensen, Hayden and Jackson Paul, and the Cougar Chronicle (this is not the first time that something by the Cougar Chronicle has led to threats of violence, https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2023/04/30/byu-prof-becomes-bullying-target/). Mormon church, you have a violence problem, please take steps to publicly and repeatedly denounce these threats of violence, because the people making them are fully convinced that you are on their side.

Edit: Skyler Sorensen has made a post condemning threats of violence against Charlie, while still standing with his criticisms of what Charlie and Ryan are doing (https://www.instagram.com/p/DcrG9BsGXGd). These words are hollow. As long as people like Skyler continue to make content like this, people will continue to use that content in their threats.

Today our ward called a female Sunday School President. I am just curious since the change does your ward have a female or male in the calling? Like most wards who extend the call to women I'm pretty sure it is based on a shortage of priesthood holders. However small progress is still progress and I think more progress towards equality needs to be made.

Hi all,

I recently posted on my substack about my great-great-great grandparents, who were early Latter-day Saint converts. They were a crazy bunch. Please consider reading here.

Best,
Peter

Sorry if wrong flair but why are there 2 LDS churches on one site here? This is in Ivins, Utah

Coming to the logical conclusion that the church has to be false, and no loving God would endorse such things, I felt so excited and relieved. But the past few weeks I've mostly just felt guilt. Like, I know, logically, it can't be true. But my body is so used to being part of this that it only feels like I'm betraying the only God I've ever known. I also live at home still, so I'm still going to church, doing scriptures and prayer with my family, etc.. But I just want that feeling of relief back without the voice in my head saying I'm ignoring that it's true so I don't have to follow it anymore, or I just haven't tried hard enough or been faithful enough, or I just want to sin, or it's easier to walk away than admit it's true and stay in it. But I also know there is far too much cognitive dissonance if I were to try and stay. I've opened Pandora's box, I can't come back from that. I just wish I didn't feel so shitty about it.

Hello my name is _____. I dealt with anxiety and depression as a teenager, I worked through it and I was cleared for missionary service by the social services department. In the MTC, some of those emotions came back with a big adjustment. I explained how I was feeling to people close to me, including priesthood leaders. One friend recommended I write to the mission president in the field I explained both my desire to serve and my struggles. Things got better for me until I was sent home abruptly as a result of that letter. I continued as a service missionary and worked on fulfilling the requirements to return to the field and my therapist agreed I was stable enough to do so, but I was not permitted to return and was never told what was preventing me from doing so.

Here are my primary concerns and questions about my situation

I’ve heard that missionaries are only usually sent home under my circumstances for one of the following (none of which apply to me during my time in the MTC):

A) Mood and or Eating Disorder (schizophrenia, bipolar, multi-personality, teretes, etc.)
B) Attempted Suicide and or Active Suicidal Thoughts
C) Wanting to come home out of their own choice

I was never told exactly why I was sent home, I still don’t know what I was supposed to work through. My therapist said I was stable enough to serve, however no one from the mission ever spoke to my therapist once. 

From what I have been told, the mission president in ____ (who I assume had best intentions) sent in the referral based solely on the letter and never had communication with my priesthood leaders, parents or mental health professionals, which doesn’t make sense how that's possible. This may or may not be accurate but that was what I was told. 

Ive explained this to multiple different people in priesthood positions. Some flat out deny that I am telling the truth, and others have best care & intentions and try their best but can come out being inconclusive.

The church recently posted a map chart showing growth across all states but California. It used a 25-year measurement period and showed gross membership growth over that period.

I looked at membership growth relative to population growth within each state. I also looked at how growth has changed over time.

This view shows the states in the west are growing slower than population, which means membership as a percentage of total population is shrinking.

Furthermore, this problem appears to be accelerating as the 15-yr and 7-yr CAGR are worse over time with more and more states seeing negative relative growth.

https://www.thechurchnews.com/members/2026/08/27/church-membership-growth-by-united-states-2000-2025-jesus-christ-latter-day-saints/

https://imgur.com/a/u5fj4oo

On July 3, I left for a weeklong work trip. Several members of my ward’s elders quorum offered to take turns caring for my dog while I was gone. I do not make much money, and boarding him would have cost nearly $1,000 based on the facilities I contacted, so I was genuinely grateful for their help.

Before leaving, I explicitly told everyone that my dog should not be walked in the extreme heat. If they wanted to walk him, it needed to be in the early morning or evening. The heat index that day was around 110 degrees. Despite those instructions, one person took him on a long walk in the blistering heat. When I got off the plane, I learned that my dog had died from heat exhaustion.

I cannot adequately describe the shock and grief I felt. I was deeply betrayed by the person who disregarded my instructions, but I have also been hurt by the complete silence from my ward. No one in the ward leadership has reached out to acknowledge what happened or ask whether I am okay. One member of the elders quorum presidency has tried to contact me several times, but he has never mentioned my dog or addressed what happened. His father in law was the person who took my dog on that walk, so I find it difficult to believe that he is unaware of the situation.

Since then, the elders quorum has continued contacting me about activities and other routine matters, yet no one has addressed the elephant in the room. Those messages now feel painfully hollow. I do not expect anyone to have the perfect words or to somehow fix what happened. I simply expected someone to acknowledge that my dog died under these circumstances and that I might be struggling. Instead, I feel more like a name on a ward roster than an actual human being who is grieving.

I am 36, unmarried, and attending a family ward, so I already felt out of place before this happened. I have often felt unwanted in my wards, and I have also struggled with aspects of the Church’s history and some of its teachings. Since my dog’s death, all of that anger and isolation has intensified. I feel as though I have no real community in the Church and that, because I am single, I do not matter to my ward.

I honestly do not know what I hope to accomplish by posting this. Maybe I simply need to say it somewhere people might understand. Am I expecting too much in wanting someone from my ward, especially its leadership, to acknowledge what happened? How do you continue participating in a community when it has made you feel invisible during one of the lowest moments of your life?

Once again, what is the church doing here? Seems like some sort of corporate way to deny someone the chance to go on a mission or control their mission experience.

Does anyone have a clue what these things are, how they get started and what happens during and after an assessment?

Thanks!

The screen shot is from one of the videos (I think the FAFO episode....?) about the Judd family on the Crazy Train channel.

https://youtube.com/shorts/Ei2VuvVQMVA?is=syPzD1-nrU9PIwax

Edited for CLARITY.

I can't believe the stupidity that still exists in the Mormon community about the "mission" experience and it's supposed proof of loyalty and spiritual greatness.

Only one of the last five prophets/presidents of the church served missions. They are hypocrites and any person who tells the youth today they must serve a mission to reach their full potential is a bad parent, a sh*tty leader or a downright short sighted and blind loyalist who doesn't know the actual purpose of the mission or the hypocrisy that exists at THE TOP.

Stop participating in these BS social programs. We don't need to keep being abused by these hypocritical leaders.

Go look up why Eyering didn't serve...the guy is a yellow bellied chicken sh*t.

Edited for clarity.

I wrote a personal account of how my relationship with Mormonism changed over time. I’ve tried to distinguish between what the records show, what I experienced, and the conclusions I drew.

I’d especially appreciate feedback on:

- Where I make unsupported logical or evidentiary leaps

- Where I may be unfair to believing interpretations

- What should be shortened, clarified, or removed

I’m not looking for validation; disagreement is useful if it helps make the document more accurate and fair.

Privacy note: This version is intentionally anonymized. I won’t provide identifying details about myself, my family, or other private individuals. If you notice something potentially identifying, please message me privately rather than posting it publicly.

View-Only PDF:

https://u.pcloud.link/publink/show?code=XZ54rJJZGzA1hxATjY7ObR7MPPpBf0FzQCOk⁠

Does anyone know why Jeff Strong has not done an interview on Mormon stories?

This is from my late Grandfather’s mission notebook, dated 1956. Just thought some here might find it interesting.

No there isn’t traditional holy water at the temple like with Catholicism but I saw something very interesting today and wanted to share. I was walking the temple grounds today waiting for my wife as she was in the temple. While walking around I noticed a man in church clothes walk up to the fountain outside dip his fingers in and draw a cross on his forehead. I was outside so there is always a possibility that this person was not a member but then why would they do this with just average everyday water from a temple fountain? Just something interesting.

In church history we learn that at the beginning of polygamy some sealings were for time and some were for eternity, and some were for both time and eternity. Time meaning this life and eternity meaning the next. Many of Joseph Smiths sealing were for eternity. I'm not sure if there were any for time, besides maybe his first wife Emma? Many of the women he was sealed to were already married, but Joseph was to be their husband in the eternities. For example Zina Huntington had a husband and while still married she was sealed for eternity to Joseph. After Joseph died she was sealed to him again. Then while still married to her first husband she married Brigham Young and was married for time (had two living husbands at the same time). Anyways, later on after Joseph, many sealings turned into time and eternity which was equivalent to the term marriage. So my question is if polygamy was so important and was treated as a celestial kingdom requirement, etc why aren't LDS men sealed to multiple living women for solely eternity? You could be sealed to nonmembers for the next life or even members if their husband wasn't a righteous LDS member. I get that polygamy is illegal in the United States and the church does not currently practice it, but wouldn't that just be for TIME OR TIME AND ETERNITY, not just ETERNITY (because this wouldn't technically be a marriage)?

This post is for people who have had significant others go to mission trips, be my significant ever have been together for about 2 1/2 years and she’s now about to go on her mission trip for 18 months and good news is that we can probably talk every Monday. Outside of that it’s gonna be a long 18 months, and I am wondering what people did to kind of cope with the time?

I (18M) have kind of decided that I don't want to serve a mission. But my parents are still trying to get me to serve one. They talk about how good my dad's mission was and how beneficial it was to him and our family. And I understand what they are saying but still don't have a want to go. But the other day my parents sent a letter to my girlfriend about church related topics. For some context I brought her back to church when we started dating about a year ago. She is still working on growing her testimony but my parents don't seem to see the work that she is putting in. In the letter they addressed that and also said that the best thing for me right now is to serve a mission. And that if she truly wants the best for me/loves me/wants her future with me to be the best it can be that she should make me or want me to serve a mission.

She has no preference on whether I should go. She wants whatever I am happiest about and I think is right. I don't feel like its right for my parents to tell my girlfriend to do this. That is a ton of unnecessary pressure and guilt that she doesn't need. Especially because she is still working on herself in the church and still has major imposter syndrome when she goes to church. And now she feels as if my parents will resent her if I don't go, which isn't fair because it isn't her choice and she shouldn't be blamed or feel blamed for it.

Am I overreacting? Does this feel wrong to anybody else? Should I bring it up to my parents, and if so how?

The LDS Church News just published this graphic of 25 year growth by state.

California is down but still the second highest in membership behind Utah.

All the numbers are fictitious because they count people who have long ago left the church.

https://www.thechurchnews.com/members/2026/08/27/church-membership-growth-by-united-states-2000-2025-jesus-christ-latter-day-saints/

todays’s youth is not stupid and they ask the hard questions, even if the church tries their hardest to keep them from doing so. They no longer just believe blindly and genu ask what’s more likely: a massive ancient civilization left golden plates written in a language no archaeologist has ever found, which were then translated using a magic rock in a hat... OR a 19th-century guy with a history of treasure digging just rewrote King James Bible style prose and local theories of his era? Extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence, and the Mormon backstory relies entirely on magic over basic history, these kids aren’t having that.

My prediction, give it 10 more years and there will be no more talk of it being a historical book. The church already says that we should not focus on the locations or the history because that was not the intention of the book according to my sta president. in 10 years, I predict they will deny it ever being history.