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Show LDS Church growth steady as membership roles near 6.5 million mark in 1988 The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints experienced steady growth during 1987 and worldwide, membership should reach the 6.5 million mark during the first half of 1988. Church membership at year's end is an estimated 6.4 million and records officials say that figure could go higher once all local units have submitted annual reporting forms. The First Presidency Pres-idency will announce the official year-end figure at the Church's annual general conference next April. World membership of the Church at the end of 1986 was 6,170,000. Meanwhile, the Church has grown from 1,622 stakes at the close of 1986 to some 1 ,665 a year later. With 12 new missions organized during the past year and another seven scheduled to begin operations in January, the number of missions will have increased from 1932 to 212. The number of full-time missionaries missionar-ies is up from 31,803 a year ago to just over 35,000 today. The Church was organized in a log cabin in western New York State in 1830 with only a few dozen adherents. Since 1847 the world headquarters has been in Salt Lake City and today there are nearly 16,000 congregations spread throughout every state of the union and in more than 100 other countries and territories. |