22,000

With all due respect to the general authorities of the church, I have a working theory about the real number of members of the church. They say there are 13,000,000. I say there are 22,000.

I started working on this theory when my parents and I visited the home of the son of my partner, Jim Drollinger and his Chinese wife, Sandy. They lived in Bountiful, and it was nearly five years ago we visited with them. My parents were born and raised in the Midwest, and barely stepped foot out of the US until they served missions in Mongolia, and later in the Hong Kong area office. Their responsibilities took them to China once or twice. Within five minutes of entering Sandy's home, whom they had never met, they had established a connection with a mutual friend who worked at a radio station somewhere in China (as I recall). I started to think that the world is much smaller than we think.

I decided the real number of members of the church must be around 22,000 because that's the number of people that will fit into the conference center, and that way every church member would have a seat. (Okay, it's really 21,000, but this is all just made up anyway. Work with me, people.)

So following is my evidence that there are really only 22,000 members of the church, because when you think about it, we really all know each other.

Before leaving on my mission, I corresponded from time to time with a woman named Phyllis Galloway. I was working on my husband's family history, and my mother-in-law introduced Phyllis to me as a member of the Cole side of the family--Dan's maternal grandmother's family. Phyllis lives in Canada. There is a man named Darryl Sadler who works at the US embassy here in Quito. I had never before seen him in my life. He is Phyllis Galloway's son, and thus my husband is a second (third? fourth?) cousin to him.

22,000.


Darryl Sadler and family. They hosted a FABULOUS Thanksgiving dinner for the Wards and I.

I have blogged before about Emily Zilles, the foreign exchange student from Idaho. She was telling me one day about the grandfather of a good friend of hers who had served in the area presidency of Hong Kong. I asked his name, and she said it was Bryan Richards. He was in the area presidency when my parents were in Hong Kong. I probably met him when I was in Hong Kong one time or other. Later, I served as an ordinance worker in the Bountiful temple while he and his wife served as temple president and matron.

22,000.

President Sloan worked for the temporal affairs departments of the church before being called as a mission president here in Quito. Among other things, he created the Career Workshop and the Self-Employment workshop that is used by the Employment Resources division of the church. During the course of his employment he traveled all over the world. He had dinner with my parents in their apartment when they were in Ulan Bataar, Mongolia.

22,000.

My son, Chris, teaches photography at Lehi High School. Sister Sloan was in the PTA presidency at Lehi High School.

22,000.

We have a new senior couple that has been here for three weeks, the Curtises. Their son served a mission in Guayaquil, Ecuador. He trained an Ecuadorian named Elder Scotland (No, I don't know how he got that name in Ecuador.) Elder Scotland, now a member of the stake presidency of the Esmeraldas stake in our mission, stopped by last week to give his regards to the Curtises and catch up on the life of his missionary trainer.

22,000.

My mother joined the LDS Church in Columbus Ohio 50 years ago. The transition was not easy. Mormonism is a different culture, with a language and set of behaviors that are different than other religions. Cal and Mary Katzenbach are two of the people who taught her how to be a Mormon. We say they "fellowshipped" her in the church.


This is Elder Matt Katzenbach. He is the grandson of Cal and Mary Katzenbach. He lives in Arizona. He was one of President Sloan's assistants until last week when he received a long-sought-after reappointment as zone leader. We worked together in the office for about 6 months.

22,000, 50 years removed.