Local wedding businesses provide hope to couples during the pandemic byu.edu - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from byu.edu Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The pandemic plunge
All church statistics for 2020 should carry a COVID-19 asterisk. While everyone expected the pandemic to shrink growth, we now know the extent: Convert baptisms cut in half, for instance, and new children of record down by nearly a third.
Independent researcher Matt Martinich, who religiously tracks these demographics at ldschurchgrowth.blogspot.com, sheds more light with some eye-popping observations:
Total membership • 16,663,663, up 98,627 (0.6%) from 16,565,036 in 2019.
“The last time the church reported an annual membership growth rate that was slower than 2020 was in 1857, when negative membership growth occurred (this was during the time of the reformation movement when church leaders advocated rebaptism to recommit to their covenants and to church teachings),” Martinich writes. “.The last time there was an increase of less than 100,000 for total church membership was in 1973, when there was a net increase of 87,750 members.”
Latest from Mormon Land: COVID led to slowest church growth in 160 years; new group seeks to elect LDS women msn.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from msn.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
It didn t take long after the surprise announcement of a Latter-day Saint temple in Smithfield for locals to start expressing their excitement â along with a strong helping of speculation.
The announcement came at the end of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints s semiannual General Conference on Sunday. Church President Russel M. Nelson announced 20 new temples. At the end of the list was Smithfield, Utah, astounding many locals, as Smithfield is only about 7 miles north of the Logan Temple.
Smithfield resident and Latter-day Saint Tia Howell was watching conference Sunday and was stunned by the announcement.
×
Advertisement My husband actually joked about it before he (Nelson) announced it, he was like, Oh, is Smithfield going to get one? Howell said. And I was like, No, and then they announced it and we were just so shocked. Because we re close to Logan Temple.
Church updates status of temples as COVID-19 restrictions ease byu.edu - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from byu.edu Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.