Bonnie Cordon - “This generation is the best the Lord has ever sent”

[I Have Questions]

If each subsequent rising generation in the church is increasingly valiant, how come decreasing percentages of them remain active in the church once they turn 18?

[huckelberry]

If each subsequent rising generation in the church is increasingly valiant, how come decreasing percentages of them remain active in the church once they turn 18?

Question, that a good question there. It goes along with how does each generation get told this.

I would not care to try and come up with some sort of defense of the idea. Probably easier to just brush past it. I think tell young people this places a sense of obligation upon them, or is intended to.

[Moksha]

Suck it up cupcake, you are replaceable. Each new generation has been more valiant, righteous, worthy and loved and prepared than the previous one since 6 A.D. and it will continue until 4024 A.D.

Does anyone know whether the TikTok disrespect for authority is present in Mormon youth to the extent that it exists in the general population? Not sure where the youth of ancient Athens are getting all their questions from.

[Philo Sofee]

If each subsequent rising generation in the church is increasingly valiant, how come decreasing percentages of them remain active in the church once they turn 18?

Because they've decided to be valiant for truth instead of valiant for church?

[Dr Moore]

Every generation is +1. Just wait until you see the Mormon youth battalion of 2073!!

[I Have Questions]

Here's what Cook claimed...

Applications have soared, Cook said, and a higher percentage of available candidates are now putting in their “papers” to serve missions.

Usually, two apostles a week finalize the missionary assignments, known as “calls,” but in the past weeks, so many are going, Cook said, that it has taken four or five apostles to process them all.

Convert baptisms in the first months of this year are up from last year, he said. “From January to May 2022, the church had 82,000 converts; this year, it was 102,000.” (The Utah-based faith ended 2022 with more than 212,000 convert baptisms.)

“It’s an amazing time,” Cook said. “The [religious] activity of our young people is higher than it has been. We are very, very pleased and excited.”

https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2023/06 ... the%20year.”

Here's the reality...

The number of full-time missionaries has jumped by 13.5% this year, to more than 71,000, apostle Neil Andersen reported at the recent General Conference. That’s a hefty leap.

Even so, the percentage of members going on missions is down from two decades ago.

Independent researcher Matt Martinich notes that 0.37% of Latter-day Saints were serving missions at the end of last year, significantly below the 0.55% in the early 2000s.

If that same percentage held today, the number of full-time proselytizers would top 93,500.

In his post at ldschurchgrowth.blogspot.com, Martinich pins the drop on “decreased birthrates, low member activity rates in most of the countries with the largest church memberships, and potentially lower rates of full-time missionary service among young adults, particularly in countries where the church reports large numbers of members.”

https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2023/10 ... issionary/

[drumdude]

https://youtu.be/DI1OdA1BuMM?si=lyuXQWbOCKN__vQP

It seems the church has begun to pivot the focus on missionaries. No longer is the miracle the sheer number of missionaries, now the miracle is the quality of the smaller number of missionaries.

Here's what she said...

Sister Bonnie H. Cordon, who was serving as Young Women general president at the time of the interviews, narrates the video. “These young people are truly among the best the Lord has ever sent,” she said.

That's like the line in the Book of Mormon amended several times until it became..."After thousands of years, all were destroyed except the Lamanites, and they are among the ancestors of the American Indians."

Good catch!