I wondered why they removed announcing church statistics during General Conference last year, but they left it the Audit report, which is exactly the same talk every year. My suspicion is because the numbers have been demonstrating a slowing of growth for many years now. That doesn't mean the church isn't still growing, but at this rate, the church is 7-8 years away from seeing its numbers actually shrink.
Total Membership - 16,313,735 represents a 1.21% increase from last year, but this is the fifth year in a row the church has failed to see at least 2% growth. This has never happened in the history of the church, even in the 1850's where the numbers shrank two years in a row. This is also the sixth year in a row where growth is lower than it was the year before. Compare this to the average growth rate of 2.47% in the 2000's or 3.61% in the 1990's. The 2010's so far average 1.81%. 2018 was the slowest growth rate for the church since 1937. It's also the first time since 1982 that total membership didn't jump by at least 200,000 members.
Children of Record - This is where the church is seeing steady decline. This is the fifth year in a row where the number of children of record has gone down. 2008 was the year where this number hits its all-time high of 123,502. The church had a natural fountain for growth with increasingly large families, but with more and more young people waiting for marriage and have fewer children, this can no longer be counted on.
Converts - The spike in the amount of missionaries had zero effect on the annual convert baptism number. 1999 is the last year the church saw over 300,000 convert baptisms.
Dead/Names Removed - This is not a number the church releases. I calculate this based on the other numbers by adding the converts/children numbers and subtracting from the total membership number of the year before. This year that number would be 140,868, a record high. Now granted, there's no way to really know the accuracy of this numbers based on all other reported numbers. Because when you look at them over the year, 1999 was a year where the numbers suggested that no one died or had their names removed, and another 8456 members materialized out of nowhere. We've seen some high profile excommunications lead to mass resignation movements lately. I think it shows that more people who leave the church aren't just not attending; they're actively taking the steps to have their names removed from the records.
