Amid the 2018 statistic report announced Saturday by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, there is a startling finding: the largest number of membership records ever removed in a single year — 140,868.
To get the number of records removed, Martinich adds the number of convert baptisms to the increase in number of “children of record” born to Latter-day Saints. That brings the total to 336,434. Then, he subtracts the number of members reported in 2017 from the ones reported in 2018, which makes the net increase a mere 195,566.
“This is the lowest net increase in church membership since 1978,” Martinich said on his blog, ldschurchgrowth.