ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, March 9, 1996 TAG: 9603120016
SECTION: RELIGION PAGE: B-9 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: SALT LAKE CITY
Mormon Church officials say that more members live abroad today than in the United States for the second time in the 166-year-old church's history.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints now has 9.4 million members worldwide, and is baptizing an average of 950 members each day.
It's difficult to tell exactly when membership outside the United States took the lead, but church statisticians estimate baptisms into the church abroad tipped the scales sometime late last month, spokesman Don LeFevre said.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was formally organized in upstate New York in 1830. Foreign proselyting efforts in England saw the church's membership there surpass American membership in the 1850s, the same time the church was establishing its current headquarters in Salt Lake City.
Many of those English church members, and members from other northern European countries, emigrated to the United States, and the main body of the church has been located in the United States since.
In recent years, the church has grown about 6 percent per year abroad, three times its domestic growth rate.
``The church is growing in a marvelous and wonderful way,'' Church President Gordon B. Hinckley said in a statement.
``We have a demanding religion,'' he said. ``We have great expectations concerning our people. We have standards that we expect them to live by, and that is one of the things that attracts people to this church: It stands as an anchor in a world of shifting values.''
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