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Losing members???

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Faster than you can imagine. According to an acquaintance (we have some mutual friends) who worked in the name removal office, they had a hard time keeping up and that office was the fastest growing.

when I left in the early 1990’s the rumor was about 1200 name removal requests, as of 2001 or so the number was about 40,000. But since the LDS does not release official numbers, it is difficult to pinpoint the loss.

They do admit to a ZERO percent growth rate which means that those leaving every year are close to the number of converts plus children born in the faith.

Add to that that many people don’t even bother with the name removal process. When I was in grad school I knew 14 other former Mormons and I was the ONLY one who went through the name removal process. Only one was ex-communicated (before name removal was allowed). The other 12 just simply quit going. The LDS church does not ex-communicate for non attendance so those 12 were still counted as members of the LDS church and will be until 110 YEARS (!) after their birth date. Someone born in 1970 who leaves the church as a teenager but doesn’t go through the name removal process (which can be a hassle), will be counted as a member of the LDS church until the year 2080 regardless of when they died, if no ‘temple work’ is done for them post-mortem.

All of this shows that, contrary to what the LDS ‘party line’ is they are not the ‘fasted growing church’ NOR do they have 14million members who are ‘active’. The actual number is MUCH lower and thus LDS,inc. has gone on the defensive in order to keep membership.

In my circle of acquaintances, I am the only one who has gone through the hoop-jumping of the name removal process.

There are literally hundreds of inactive, non-believing Mormons among my associates, who haven't taken the time to formally remove themselves.

At my daughters wedding, there were 150 former-Mormon guest who didn't believe in Mormonism and laughed openly about the inanity of the beliefs of the sect but remained on the ‘official’ rolls of the Church.

My gf has had some pretty bad experiences with the LDS church. She was a member in good standing, until she divorced her abusive husband. That’s when the church started to abuse her. She lives in UT, can’t get a job and some other things that sound more than fishy. I doubt this would happen in other states but, it doesn’t surprise me it’s happening in UT.

were still counted as members of the LDS church and will be until 110 YEARS (!) after their birth date. . .will be counted as a member of the LDS church until the year 2080 regardless of when they died.

One small correction. This is only true for those in the "lost sheep" file (those that the church has no contact information on). If someone is not attending, but their records are still with their local congregation, and they die, the local congregation can mark the record with the death information. Those people are then not counted as members.

I would suspect that this represents only a small number, but I know from personal experience that it happens.