40% Of LDS Missionaries Are Leaving The Church Within 6 Months?

[Everybody Wang Chung]

I had a niece who went to Brazil and within 6 months was giving blowies . . .

Within six months of returning from Brazil, or within six months of arriving in Brazil?

Some people don't even make it out of the MTC without greasing the weasel.

[Dr Exiled]

I can see it. I went back to my old fraternity/high school friends within a month of coming back from my mission and started partying again because I was so traumatized by the selling, selling indoctrination. They push the missionaries too much and don't give any credit to them regardless of what they do. Right after I got back, I told one of the GA's in my ward how I led baptisms by a mile when I was in Brazil. He scoffed and didn't comment as if 130 baptisms in the inner city of Sao Paulo was a failure when the average in my mission was 20 baptisms.

I said to myself at that point, what was it all about?

[Everybody Wang Chung]

I can see it. I went back to my old fraternity/high school friends within a month of coming back from my mission and started partying again because I was so traumatized by the selling, selling indoctrination. They push the missionaries too much and don't give any credit to them regardless of what they do. Right after I got back, I told one of the GA's in my ward how I led baptisms by a mile when I was in Brazil. He scoffed and didn't comment as if 130 baptisms in the inner city of Sao Paulo was a failure when the average in my mission was 20 baptisms.

I said to myself at that point, what was it all about?

130 baptisms?! Holy crap! That's probably as much as my whole mission had for an entire year.

Let me guess, the GA in your Ward was Brad Wilcox?

[Dr Exiled]

I can see it. I went back to my old fraternity/high school friends within a month of coming back from my mission and started partying again because I was so traumatized by the selling, selling indoctrination. They push the missionaries too much and don't give any credit to them regardless of what they do. Right after I got back, I told one of the GA's in my ward how I led baptisms by a mile when I was in Brazil. He scoffed and didn't comment as if 130 baptisms in the inner city of Sao Paulo was a failure when the average in my mission was 20 baptisms.

I said to myself at that point, what was it all about?

130 baptisms?! Holy crap! That's probably as much as my whole mission had for an entire year.

Let me guess, the GA in your Ward was Brad Wilcox?

He's been dead for a few years, but back in the day was in the presidency of the 70. Anyway, it's the ethos of the sales/business side of missionary work. Numbers over actual relationships with the converts and the 70's get yelled at by the apostles if the numbers aren't meeting goals.

[I Have Questions]

"We have it on very good authority that the church is now telling people in secret private meetings that 40% of Mormon missionaries who are returning from their missions as of late are leaving the Mormon church within six months." (John Dehlin)

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/nhZw36seLKk

If true, this is terrible news for the Church. If 40% of missionaries are leaving the Church, then it seems the mission is actively deconverting more people than if they had just stayed home. So, going on a mission now puts one at risk of leaving the Church much more than someone who doesn't go on a mission?

So strange. I would love to learn more about this.

What’s his source?

[Moksha]

Actually, if one missionary converts two people during their mission in the two years they are out, and then they leave when they go home, they will have covered their loss and increased the numbers. So even if they are leaving, the numbers are still going up.

So it is a numbers game, eh?

Members come
And Members go,
but a slight increase
is sufficient.

[sock puppet]

I can see it. I went back to my old fraternity/high school friends within a month of coming back from my mission and started partying again because I was so traumatized by the selling, selling indoctrination. They push the missionaries too much and don't give any credit to them regardless of what they do. Right after I got back, I told one of the GA's in my ward how I led baptisms by a mile when I was in Brazil. He scoffed and didn't comment as if 130 baptisms in the inner city of Sao Paulo was a failure when the average in my mission was 20 baptisms.

I said to myself at that point, what was it all about?

Years after I was back home from a mission--and years after I quit the Mormon church (my belief snapped a few months before I finished)--I was reminded of the "selling, selling indoctrination" during my mission when in 1992 I watched the movie Glengarry Glen Ross. The desperation that the Alec Baldwin character was traumatizing the salesmen into was unsettling given my mission experience. I identified with the emotions that a salesman played by Jack Lemmon in that movie portrayed. I consider it a very good movie, but one I will never watch again. It hit too close to home for me given my mission experience.

[Dr Exiled]

I can see it. I went back to my old fraternity/high school friends within a month of coming back from my mission and started partying again because I was so traumatized by the selling, selling indoctrination. They push the missionaries too much and don't give any credit to them regardless of what they do. Right after I got back, I told one of the GA's in my ward how I led baptisms by a mile when I was in Brazil. He scoffed and didn't comment as if 130 baptisms in the inner city of Sao Paulo was a failure when the average in my mission was 20 baptisms.

I said to myself at that point, what was it all about?

Years after I was back home from a mission--and years after I quit the Mormon church (my belief snapped a few months before I finished)--I was reminded of the "selling, selling indoctrination" during my mission when in 1992 I watched the movie Glengarry Glen Ross. The desperation that the Alec Baldwin character was traumatizing the salesmen into was unsettling given my mission experience. I identified with the emotions that a salesman played by Jack Lemmon in that movie portrayed. I consider it a very good movie, but one I will never watch again. It hit too close to home for me given my mission experience.

Loved that movie and have watched it several times. For me the sales pressure wasn't as bad as the purpose behind it and the reaction the GA gave me when I expected a pat on the back. Numbers were rendered empty. We were supposed to be saving the world from an eternity of lesser kingdoms and here this guy acted like it didn't mean anything. Thinking about it afterward, maybe there was some petty jealousy or perhaps he got the same response from the higher ups, eg, no special reward for doing your job type thing. Anyway, it's just another corporation selling something and the goal is to just get them to sign on the line that is dotted and then move on, without emotion.

[Gadianton]

Where were you at activity wise? Did the GA think maybe you weren't active anymore?

[Alphus and Omegus]

For me the sales pressure wasn't as bad as the purpose behind it and the reaction the GA gave me when I expected a pat on the back. Numbers were rendered empty. We were supposed to be saving the world from an eternity of lesser kingdoms and here this guy acted like it didn't mean anything. Thinking about it afterward, maybe there was some petty jealousy or perhaps he got the same response from the higher ups, eg, no special reward for doing your job type thing. Anyway, it's just another corporation selling something and the goal is to just get them to sign on the line that is dotted and then move on, without emotion.

I don't know when you served, but in the early 1990s, the former approach of maximal baptisms was dropped and presidents who promoted it were frowned upon. Perhaps you knew one of the opponents of the soccer baptism strategy? I forget the anecdote, but one or more of the apostles was sent to various Latin American countries to reorganize things because the numbers were so ludicrously out of line with attendance.