Latest from Mormon Land: A bold missionary prediction; a makeover for the LDS ‘Mount Sinai’

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Called to swerve — downward?

The church’s global missionary force soared to nearly 80,000 at the end of last year.

But what goes up, Latter-day Saint data scientist Stephen Cranney predicts, will come down.

“The record-breaking number of missionaries we are currently enjoying is going to peak in the next year or two (or maybe already has), and then start a precipitous decline,” Cranney forecasts in a Times and Seasons blog post. “...The reason is not because of a crisis in confidence in the leadership, smartphones, your cousin reading the CES letter, some policy failure of the seminaries and institutes department or, somehow, Donald Trump… Rather, it’s from something much more banal: demographics.”

Simply put, he notes, Americans are having fewer babies in the wake of the Great Recession — Utah births have fallen below the replacement rate — and that will mean fewer potential missionaries, especially from the West’s Jell-O Belt.

Some commenters on Cranney’s blog point to the international ranks — thanks to rapid church growth in Africa, the Philippines and other regions of the global south — supplying more missionaries to make up for declines elsewhere.

Maybe, Cranney concedes. Guess we’ll find out whose crystal ball was clear and whose was clouded.

The latest ‘Mormon Land’ podcast: Good sex is indeed good

Eroticism. Arousal. Sex. These terms are as much a part of God’s plan of happiness in Latter-day Saint theology as agency, repentance and baptism.

Therapist Jennifer Finlayson-Fife’s new book, “That We Might Have Joy: Desire, Divinity & Intimate Love,” sheds light on how “soulful sex” can bring married couples not just closer to each other but also to God.

Listen to the podcast.

Hill Cumorah enters a new era

Visiting Mormonism’s Mount Sinai, apostle David Bednar on Sunday rededicated the recently refurbished and reforested historic Hill Cumorah in Palmyra, New York.

In the cradle of Mormonism, Cumorah is where church founder Joseph Smith said, after an angelic visitation, that he unearthed gold plates with ancient writings that gave birth to the faith’s signature scripture, the Book of Mormon.

Bednar compared the tree-rich hillside, speckled with fall leaves, to the burning bush of the Hebrew Bible, where Moses reported having his divine encounter.

“Today,” Bednar said, “you and I also stand on holy ground.”

World travelers

• Two top women’s leaders in the church kicked off a tour of Oceania earlier this month with a stop in Australia’s largest city, Sydney.

“I was looking forward to seeing the iconic Opera House, the harbor and the bridge,” President Camille Johnson, leader of the worldwide women’s Relief Society, said in a news release. “It’s even more grand than I expected.”

For Tamara Runia, a counselor in the Young Women General Presidency, the trip marked a homecoming of sorts. She and her husband had served as mission leaders in Sydney.

“I grew up in California. I live in Provo,” she said in the release, “but this feels like my home.”

• Meanwhile, two other high-level female leaders — Young Women General President Emily Belle Freeman and Amy Wright of the Primary General Presidency — visited cities across Europe, including Berlin; Rome; Zurich; Brussels; Warsaw, Poland; and Lyon, France.

“When we serve others, we see them as [God] sees them,” Freeman said during a meeting with humanitarian leaders in Poland.

• At a global gathering this month in Kazakhstan, apostle Patrick Kearon told religious leaders that a model for building world peace can be found in the renovation underway at the church’s iconic Salt Lake Temple.

“Just as holy edifices rise one stone at a time, so too are peace and understanding built, moment by moment, encounter by encounter,” he said in a news release. “...We can draw closer and forge connections as thoughtfully and hopefully as we build and preserve physical sanctuaries.”

• Apostle Gary Stevenson recently wrapped up a 10-day, five-nation journey to West Africa.

Traveling to Ghana, Benin, Senegal, The Gambia and Ivory Coast, he met with members, missionaries and leaders.

He urged Gambian Latter-day Saints to be “proud pioneers” and “press on with faith,” a news release noted, as they grow the church in their nation.

From The Tribune

• Apostle Ronald Rasband praises the family proclamation on its 30th anniversary as a “forthright guide” not only for families but also for governments.

• Latter-day Saint Republicans in Utah cheer as President Donald Trump eulogizes slain conservative commentator Charlie Kirk as a Christian martyr.

• Members will be singing this song by President Russell Nelson for decades to come.

• A Latter-day Saint historian, examining Nelson’s presidency, says his message during COVID-19 was clear: Get vaccinated.

• A few weeks after a mudslide shut down a Provo chapel, another gush of gunk hit the area.