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How much of that growth is due to missionary successes and how much is due to the fact that the LDS Church promotes large families? Until that mix is known, your fact cannot be used to disprove the statement that the missionary activities are having poor results.

Lets reverse this logic. It has been posited that Missionary work in the church is going poorly, it has also been posited that Members are leaving in droves, since the number of members in the church is going up, and the ability to "Create" new members takes a long time (9 months) and it takes a short period of time for a member to leave the church (average two weeks). If these postulates are true the number of members of the church would invariably go down. the numbers are going up, the speed with which a baby is gestated are not in dispute, the length of time to actually leave the church is governed by the General handbook of instructions of the church. The number of people "Leaving" the church is ill defined, the number of new converts is well defined and the number retained beyond one year is well defined. The only number which is not well defined is how many are leaving, therefore it is the most likely, reason for the projected results not being achieved. Ergo, The number of members leaving the church are not as significant as the postulated formula would have us believe.

Simply put, the "Large family argument" does not introduce the upward movement in the numbers we are observing.

Simply put, the "Large family argument" does not introduce the upward movement in the numbers we are observing.

A more direct answer is called for. There must be a breakdown of whether the growth is internal growth (via new births) or external growth (via new converts). Otherwise these numbers are essentially useless.

I think that you are underestimating how much internal growth can affect overall growth. A couple has six children over 12 years. That is a total 300% increase in the family or 25% annualized increase. In a church with lots of families in child-bearing years, this increase can be very substantial. That is every before considering the exponential growth potential when the children start bearing children.