Analytics
Jason is right; this number seems reasonable. Call 25,000 a year for 40 years and you get 1 million served.
My sense of the question was that Polygamy Porter was asking for a definition. Like Clinton's "It depends on what your definition of is is." Or was. Or might be. So here, what is the definition of "missionary"? Is it a person who spends significant time witnessing to others, teaching Mormon doctrine, and baptizing? Or are we to understand that the rubric "missionary" includes "Kids that come home early? How early? Out only for a day? An hour?"
The question seems to be focused, in other words, not on the number as a mere, flat
quantity but on the number as a representation of
effective missionary
activity (proselytizing and baptizing) -- or of dedication within the missionaries themselves.
A million missionaries serving for two years each is impressive. But if 200,000 served in non-proselytizing roles, another 200,000 were local seventies and elders helping out, and another 100,000 of them quit in less than a year, the significance of "a million missionaries" is lessened, and the credibility of the man who posited "a million missionaries" (implying full-time, proselytizing missionaries), falls into disrepute.
I do not offer these numbers as actual or probably. They are just an example. I
don't know the actual numbers. And
that is what the problem is. Would the Church be so kind as to break these numbers down for us?