The Lord spoke to those through whom He restored the Church in the latter days. He said of them that they,
might have power to lay the foundation of this church, and to bring it forth out of obscurity and out of darkness, the only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth, with which I, the Lord, am well pleased, speaking unto the church collectively and not individually (D&C 1:30)
At the same time, we learn in the Book of Mormon that
And it came to pass that I beheld the church of the Lamb of God, and its numbers were few, because of the wickedness and abominations…; nevertheless, I beheld that the church of the Lamb, who were the saints of God, were also upon all the face of the earth; and their dominions upon the face of the earth were small, because of the wickedness … whom I saw. (1Nefi 14:12)
As Elder Uchtdorf of the quorum of the Twelve Apostles commented today, there are more than 7 billion people living on the earth today, and despite the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints growth, the numbers announced today (see below) may seem small. However, again quoting Nephi,
And it came to pass that I, Nephi, beheld the power of the Lamb of God, that it descended upon the saints of the church of the Lamb, and upon the covenant people of the Lord, who were scattered upon all the face of the earth; and they were armed with righteousness and with the power of God in great glory. (1Nefi 14:14)
We know that when compared to the number of people living on the earth, the number of Latter-day Saints will always be relatively small. But the influence of these members and of the Church is, and will be, much greater than one might expect from such numbers. With this in mind, see below the numbers announced today during the General Conference.
Official Statistics of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had 16,313,735 members around the world as of Dec. 31, 2018, up from 16,118,169 at the end of 2017.
The church released that figure and other data in a statistical report issued during the Saturday afternoon session of its 189th Annual General Conference.
Other statistics
The church now has 30,536 congregations, up 30 year over year. The number of stakes has increased to 3,383, up 42 from 3,341 a year ago. The number of districts decreased from 553 to 547.
In terms of membership growth, the church added 102,102 new children of record in 2018, down from 106,771 in 2017. A total of 234,332 converts were baptized during 2018, up from 233,729 a year earlier.
