I could recount here briefly the history of the Church and we would see very quickly what a miracle its creation and growth were. But you all know that history. Sufficient to say I believe it all and accept it as truth. What I want to talk about are those who are less impressed with the progress of the church. This last year the number of converts went down. That is to say we baptized less people in 2008 than we did the year before. Now we still baptized 265,593 souls. But it was less than the 279,218 we baptized in 2007. So why is the great work slowing down?
As I looked up these numbers I briefly read a number of articles talking about the same trend. There seems to be a great deal of question as to what the numbers really all mean. Are missionaries in Mexico paying people to get baptized? What about duplicate records? What about records that are removed? There is some room to play around with the numbers. But I don’t have better numbers and even with all those things the numbers are still smaller. 
I, like I believe many members do, always thought that the church would grow faster and faster and get larger and larger until we took over the world. Doesn’t the prophesy say that we will fill the earth? But as a missionary I was reading in the ensign about the church’s missionary program and read a quote from Elder M. Russell Ballard in which he stated that the numbers of the church would be relatively few compared to those of the world. Few? What about the predictions of 280 million members in eighty years? Or those 300,000 converts every year? But he cited scripture which backed him up.
Nephi in his vision of the end of the world talks of two churches that would exist. Then he says something very interesting. “And it came to pass that I beheld the church of the Lamb of God, and its numbers were few, because of the wickedness and abominations of the whore who sat upon many waters; nevertheless, I beheld that the church of the Lamb, who were the saints of God, were also upon all the face of the earth; and their dominions upon the face of the earth were small, because of the wickedness of the great whore whom I saw” 1 Nephi 14:12 How about that? We are always going to be the minority. So while we will grow and do many miracles we should not be expecting to replace the world religions. We will never be more then few and small. Now of course that is relative. We will be small relative to the billions of the hosts of the earth. The point is this. We are a great and wondrous force over the face of this planet. Consider the following.
In 2008 California voted on a marriage amendment. The state was divided into two sides, those in favor and those against. Both had fund raisers and millions were raised. The Yes campaign (in favor of an amendment) raised 38.7 million dollars while the no side raised 44.1 million. That is the most money ever raised for to fight a vote of this kind in California. Reportedly upwards of 40% came from LDS members. So out of some 80 million dollars raised for an election in California some 15 million or 18% came from members. Also thousands of hours and volunteer effort was given by the members and missionaries (but we just helped a little, this was my mission) Now a few more numbers California has 36,756,666 residents (roughly), and there are some 755,747 members living there. That comes out to 2%. So in a public issue that involved more people then perhaps and other issue California has faced 18% of the fundraising, and likely a larger percentage of the work, was done by a small minority that only makes up 2% of the state’s population. Do you think that our small numbers make a difference? (Just a side note, it is estimated that gays, lesbians, and bisexuals make up about 3.2% of California’s population or 861,000 people)
When God declared that a great and marvelous work was about to come forth he doesn’t appear to have been talking about numbers. One does wonder what God considers to be great. For that is what we must be. I do wonder what the future will bring to the stone cut out of the mountain without hands.
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