300,000. … West African growth is more significant [than in other areas] because it is significantly less dependent on the international church to meet its leadership and missionary needs, and with much higher convert retention and member activity rates.

These years have also seen significant growth among citizens of the People’s Republic of China to the point that there are branches [congregations] and districts [groups of congregations] in many cities. And the number of full-time missionaries has grown from about 52,000 in 2008 to about 70,000 today.

But there was also a significant slowdown in LDS growth in the United States, Latin America and the Philippines. Membership and congregational growth rates have also continued to decline in most of the countries with the largest church memberships such as Mexico, Brazil,the Philippines, Peru, Chile and Argentina.

There has been no increase in the number of convert baptisms despite more missionaries serving. Convert retention and member activity rates do not appear to have significantly changed in most areas of the world during the past decade; they remain at about 30 percent.

(Mike Stack for The Salt Lake Tribune) Sister missionaries Thuy Anh and Reagan Moss teach Primary song in sign language in Hanoi LDS branch.

The international church

Matthew Bowman, Henderson State University history professor • While the bulk of the church’s cultural and intellectual leadership is American, the gravity of its financial and membership concerns is increasingly moving to the global South. … For a long time, the U.S. church has driven developments in the international church — soon this process will