Church Leaders Discuss Increased Missionary Numbers and 36 New Missions

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By Scott Taylor, Church News

Key numbers for missions and full-time missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had just been released to the news media on Wednesday, November 1 — including 72,721 missionaries currently serving and 36 new missions to be added next year to push the Church’s total to a highest-ever 450 missions.

Four members of the Missionary Executive Council sat down with media representatives to discuss the increases being experienced by the Church’s missionary program. But the four leaders didn’t dwell on the numbers as much as prophetic calls to serve and the enthusiastic responses by youth and seniors.

“It has really been remarkable to see — we think it is President Russell M. Nelson’s prophetic call that is the driving force behind all of this,” said Elder Quentin L. Cook of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and council chair, pointing to the President of the Church’s call for more missionaries that he made in a April 2022 general conference address.

“The Saints really responded to the Prophet, who did that invitation in such a beautiful fashion. President Nelson made this — in my view — seminal, prophetic call that missionaries have a priesthood obligation to serve, and he did it in such a loving way.”

The result of the overwhelming response was missionary totals returning to and exceeding those going into the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic and the need to expand the number of missions worldwide to accommodate — and provide more personal leadership to — the increasing number of missionaries.

“We have to accommodate this great big number of missionaries, and we need the 36 missions to do that,” said Elder Cook, explaining that the increase in missionaries comes despite the relatively fewer numbers of Latter-day Saint youth available to serve.

Church News With full-time missionary numbers exceeding 72,000, Church to create 36 new missions worldwide

Church projections suggest a continued growth — in small, steady increases — over the next 10 years, he said. “We are going to have over the next 10 years not a huge increase in the number of missionaries, but it is growing,” he said of Church projections. “So we don’t think we are going to have any problem coming back and looking at this [increase of missions] in three or four years. In fact, we think there will be a need for more missions. That is our expectation.”

Elder Cook provided a brief overview on the state of the Church’s Missionary Department, noting that convert baptisms were higher in the third quarter of 2023 than the third quarter of prepandemic 2019. And the Church is receiving more self-referrals in the media than in the past, he added.

“It’s a successful time,” the Apostle said, labeling President Nelson’s messages of avoiding contention and concentrating on the Savior Jesus Christ as an “oasis” that is drawing people.

In one-on-one interviews with media representatives, Elder Cook was joined by three other members of the Missionary Executive Council — Elder Ronald A. Rasband of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles; Elder Marcus B. Nash, a General Authority Seventy and executive director of the Church’s Missionary Department; and Sister Amy A. Wright, First Counselor in the Primary General Presidency.

Elder Rasband echoed Elder Cook’s assessment of the growth catalyst. “I am joyful and grateful for President Nelson being bold and inviting our young men and young women and senior couples. I am grateful for the inspiration that came to me at general conference to invite senior couples very specifically in my conference talk by using my own parents’ example. This is just a good time for the Church as it relates to all of them responding to the Prophet’s call.”

In his October 2023 general conference address, Elder Rasband spoke of the Church’s need for more senior couples to serve missions. Of the 72,721 full-time missionary count as of November 1, nearly 5,300 are senior elders and sisters serving around the globe.

Both Apostles acknowledged the overwhelming response in just weeks since Elder Rasband’s invitation.

“Where we are at right now is people filling out applications. I’m told by our people in the Missionary Department that even in one month, the number of applications that have been started for these missionary couples has exceeded anything else in history. That is in just one month,” Elder Rasband said.

“So that process will continue — we’ll go from starting their applications to getting their medical approvals done and everything else ready so they can receive a call to serve from the President of the Church to serve as missionaries. And then they are going to be out throughout the world serving the Lord, which makes me personally very, very happy.”

Elder Nash saluted the young men and women who are stepping forward — “against all the currents and winds of our society — to serve and follow President Nelson’s teachings that the gospel is the only enduring solution and the greatest cause on the earth is the gathering of Israel.

“This segment of Gen Z is stepping forward to serve God and to help bring other people to God, that they can receive the healing and the peace that only He can give them. And that, to me, is amazing. That’s why these new missions are being created — because we have young men and young woman who have a desire to serve God.”

Sister Wright acknowledged that some missions had gotten rather large in missionary numbers — especially in Utah, with both service missionaries and teaching missionaries being integrated. More missions means smaller missionaries-per-mission numbers.

“We are now able to reduce those numbers in a way that these dear mission leaders can better minister, lead, love and nurture more intentionally their precious missionaries one by one. And that is going to have lifelong consequences for their discipleship.”

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The new missions — and resulting increase in mission leaders — are changes that will be the norms for future missionaries. So will be the adjustment in the application dates, with prospective missionaries now able to submit applications 150 days before their availability, up from the previous 120-day period.

As the Missionary Department executive director, what would Elder Nash tell the mid-teens who will be preparing for missions over the next couple of years?

“I would tell them, ‘You were held in reserve for this day, and one of the reasons you were held in reserve is because our Father in Heaven has confidence in you, His son or His daughter,’” he said.

“Prophets have prophesied of troubled times in our days, and we can observe challenges all over the world. Prepare to serve. As you are true to who you are, you will have a greater joy, greater peace, greater healing in your own life as you embrace serving the Lord as a missionary and getting ready to do that.”

Elder Nash added promises to his invitations for teens to prepare: “It will bless your life now and forever. It will bless your future spouse. It will bless your future children, and it will bless countless numbers of people all around the world. … It’s the greatest work on the earth.”

For Sister Wright, her perspective includes the involvement of Primary-age children — not only preparing for missions but also being involved in sharing the gospel now.

“For children, this goes all the way back to as early as age 8, when they make that first covenant at baptism and confirmation and become full members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And part of that covenantal responsibility is to help gather Israel, and it is natural for children to do this. They are natural gatherers — they invite, they love, they share what they know and feel about Jesus Christ and their Heavenly Father,” she said.

“So, when we’re looking at missionary service, this is simply a full-time continuation of what they have been doing since they were little, as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is such a beautiful, joyful thing.”