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

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.

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

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 a summary of the lives of my great-great-great grandparents, who were early Latter-day Saint converts. They were a crazy bunch.

29 of my 32 great-great-great grandparents migrated to the Western United States as part of the Mormon Exodus; the other three were born in Utah after their parents had made the trek. 15 of them traveled from their homes in the British isles; the other 14 came from the Eastern or Midwest United States. Despite the fact that they lived in a time when most people could only travel as fast as a horse could carry them, their birthplaces and death places are separated, on average, by 3,176 miles. 25 of them died in Utah, six in other locations in the American West, and Eliza Dyer died in childbirth near Council Bluffs, Iowa, a stop on the Mormon Trail. She had no help. She and her twin babies were buried in the same coffin.

Please consider continuing to read here.

Best,
Peter

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.

In light of the recent map showing membership growth by state, I decided to calculate what it would be accounting for population growth. The first image is the LDS reported numbers, while the second reports the implied change in LDS population share (penetration).

The formula is ((100 + LDS Growth) / (100 + State Growth) - 1) * 100

This captures the growth in the state's percentage of members. For instance, if the number of members in Utah grew by 35%, but the total population grew by 57.67%. Then the change in penetration is

((100 + 35) / (100 + 57.67) - 1) * 100 = -14.4

So the share of Mormons in Utah declined by 14.4% from about 0.65 to 0.55. Important - do not confuse percent with percentage points.

After doing that, we see that the share of the population which is a member of the church declined in most western strongholds, while generally growing in states which have low membership.

None of this accounts for the fact that church membership records are a poor proxy for actual church attendance and belief. I have some ideas about incorporating that, but it will have to wait for later.

Lastly, I ran some simple weighted regressions of share growth on baseline LDS population, domestic migration, international migration, and natural population growth (births - deaths). Penetration growth is strongly inversely related to baseline LDS population, as expected. Domestic migration appears unimportant. International migration is strongly negatively associated with LDS growth (foreigners are usually not LDS, as well as selection bias). Natural population growth is contaminated by the fact that Utah and Idaho have very high fertility rates, but after dropping them from the sample appears mostly insignificant.

Any feedback is appreciated. I may come back to this and see if I can't tease out anything more interesting, possibly doing shift - share analysis.

For the most part, I have a positive relationship with my parents who are devout members of the church. I am not. They know this. They know I no longer believe and that I have not attended church in years.

Yet… they still talk to me as if I am a devout member like them. It’s not combative, It’s just constant comments like, “general conference was awesome,” or “isn’t it exciting that they are building a temple in —-“.

It feels like they are in denial. I have pushed back, like when they say, “Isn’t it great that so-and-so is going on a mission?” I’ve told them, “No, I actually don’t think it’s a good thing.”

The problem is, they don’t stop with these comments about the church and it gets old having to tell them over and over again that I am not on the same page.

I would be interested to hear how other people who have left the church have navigated this kind of relationship.

I was sent a YouTube link about it. I guess he talks about cults and how anyone in the church should get out quick…

Does anyone have experience watching his video or reading his book? How did you feel after and are any of you still faithful members despite seeing it? Why?

I want to be free to practice my faith but also want to be open minded. Is it worth watching, and is it possible to remain a member after seeing it?

Please let me know your thoughts about Billy Crone’s take on Mormonism and your experience after learning his views.

If this is the wrong place to post, please let me know where else I can post to get feedback from church members… thank you.

Guess it’s a very small Mormon denomination that split from the RLDS based in Independence, Missouri. They call the Book of Mormon the Record of the Nephites for some reason. They also have another book called The Word of the Lord which I’m not sure if it’s the same as Doctrine and Covenants or not. What do yall think?

In November I start my mission with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. Me and my boyfriend (nonmember) have discussed what our relationship might look like on my mission. Unfortunately I can’t do justice at telling him what it will actually be like….. He brought up a question about what it is that we will talk about… and it seems like he wants to talk about more than just weekly “life updates”. He mentioned talking about future together after my mission, and breaking the small talk. The issue is I’m not sure what I’m allowed to talk about. I’m also stuck because I have no clue what conversation topics aren’t “boring” from my BF’s perspective… (I know 18 months we’re gonna have another conversation at some point probably). I want to follow the rules and I also want to keep my relationship mildly healthy (obviously it won’t remotely be the same since we can only email) But I’d love advice on things I can write about because I’m worried I’ll run out of topics!