My relative currently on a mission in South America included this little tidbit in his weekly email:

"Recently we got some crazy news: the church is slowly reducing the number of missionaries in each mission to about 200 missionaries max. Gradually, of course. Which means that there will be a few missions splitting here in the next year or 2. That'll be crazy. The work will start moving forward like crazy with so much change to make things flow a lot more smoothly."

Is this just a way to eliminate excess missions now that the surge is tapering off? Without making it seem like they are eliminating mission areas entirely?

Or is it just a sign that MPs are being totally overwhelmed trying to deal with 200+ kids who are too young and too immature to cope with a mission?

Two years ago, they decreased the mission age for men from 19 to 18. This meant that an entire cohort that was to go out last year went out a year early, along with the 19 year olds from that year.

Both cohorts will be returning shortly, but only one will replace them. That will mean a reduction in the elders by about half their current numbers. They will be consolidating missions and reducing the missionaries per area to reflect their return to the previous baseline.

There's also the female factor to deal with. If X is the number of ladies who would go at age 21, how much greater than X is the number of ladies who will at age 19?

"Change" is not progress.

It's cute to hear the PR spin. "This will make things flow more easily, proof that God is hastening the work"

So now instead of babysitting 250 of them, they can now babysit 200!??

It will be interesting to see what the numbers look like in the next few years. The morg seems to freely boast about the number of mishies they have out there, but as the numbers dwindle, will they try to keep it a secret?

If some of these missionaries find their way here, it wont be able to keep it a secret...

So, reducing the # of missionaries will make the "work move forward like crazy?"
Because the "surge" didn't?

Sigh.

It is purely a management thing. The church has decided that 200 missionaries is the optimum number that a MP can babysit at a time. Any more and things get out of hand. SO you will see missions split to get to the 200 number.

I always had a problem with references to "the work". If they called it what it actually is:"indentured slavery" that would be accurate.

Ron Burr

On the PR idea...now they can stand up in general conference and talk about how the lord has added 25 new missions since 2014.

My foreign mission, many years ago, had around 100 miss. with many older, and there were lots of problems! 200 or more ---- crazy. These MPs deserve being Mormons!!!

The California San Jose Mission (where the hastening pilot program originated) is now saying "the surge" is over as of this past weekend. They are at 240 missionaries, down from its high of 290-300 missionaries one year ago.