OPINION: Statistics don’t tell whole story of new LDS policy
I don’t normally respond to newspaper articles from the opinion column, and for one reason: opinions are just that: opinions. Responding to someone’s opinion with your own has about .001 percent of changing the other person’s mind. It is an irreversible fact of life that everyone is free to think however they choose about whatever they like, and frankly, that is a wonderful thing.
However, it’s when people try and use statistics to support their opinion of why something is right or wrong that I become confused.
Liz Emery’s article, “Why the missionary age change?” offered plenty of statistics that apparently try and “prove” that the LDS Church is losing members. I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and frankly it doesn’t matter to me how many members my church has or does not have. What matters to me is that my faith is a part of me that influences my daily decisions. It motivates me to do the best I can to be a good person in this wacky world we all live in. Numbers are just numbers, not doctrine. However, I would like to point out that Emery’s statistics, like many facts in life, should be taken with a grain of salt.
The LDS Church in Mexico over the past two decades alone has achieved significant growth – the number of LDS church members there has more than doubled from half a million to 1.23 million, the number of LDS stakes from 106 to 223, and the number of LDS congregations from 1,133 to 2,000. The number of LDS temples is steadily increasing worldwide as more are announced nearly every year. Two new temples in Africa were announced last October in Durban, South Africa and Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Church doesn’t spend its money on building temples where there is no demand for them – temples are built to accommodate the number of church members in the area. That fact is plain to see from the number of LDS temples in Utah alone. In countries all over the world, membership in the Church is increasing in some and decreasing in others, but the fact remains that the Church influences people to do good wherever it is found.
Which brings me to my next point. Emery seems to be confused as to what the purpose of a mission is. Missionaries don’t go out into the world hoping to acquire as many new converts as they can. They go to serve people, hence the phrase “serving” a mission. Emery also says that going on a mission “prevents them from being exposed to the real world.” Saying that missionaries don’t learn anything about other cultures while they’re abroad just because they are there to share their beliefs is like saying I’m not going to learn anything about Irish culture when I study abroad in Limerick next year just because I am only going to be studying history at my host university.
Another point Emery brings up is that serving a mission “empowers 18 year-olds to believe they have all the answers when they don’t.” I am confused as to where she gets some of her assumptions. Missionaries don’t have all the answers. we as Mormons believe that God does, which is what any Christian church teaches. In fact, another reason people serve missions is to learn more about their faith than they knew before – ask any returned missionary who put forth all the effort they could during their service and they will tell you how their mission changed them for the better. As to keeping youth out of college for two years and decreasing their chances of getting scholarships, I only have this to say: how is choosing to give up two years of your life in order to give service to people and to your faith a bad thing? In fact, adding information to your resume about giving service for two years for your church is good, because potential employers are impressed by people who show a willingness to give service abroad for so long, especially while they are so young.
Saying the Church is “desperate to keep up appearances” is also confusing statement. As for me, I don’t have anything to prove by being a member of the Church. What I do have are brothers and sisters all across the world who share my faith: Latter-day Saints in Ireland and Italy who don’t drink alcohol because their faith is more important to them than impressing their peers, Latter-day Saints in Japan who give up the only day off they have during their week to spend it in church, Latter-day Saints in Kenya who spend up to six hours on a bus to go to the temple.
Emery uses a lot of statistics to support her argument, and I commend her for doing so much research just to prove how angry she is with the LDS Church. However, the strength of the Church does not lie in its membership numbers. It lies in the ordinary people who try their best to live by their faith, wherever they are in the world.
– Callista Cox is a senior majoring in international studies at USU. Please send comments to statesman@aggiemail.usu.edu