LDS Church says 1 million men, women have served missions

PROVO — The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has sent 1 million missionaries around the world in its 177-year history, church leaders announced Monday.

The milestone was celebrated during a press conference in front of a statue of the very first LDS missionary, Samuel Smith, at the Missionary Training Center in Provo, the largest of the church's 16 MTCs.

The public announcement came one day after LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley spoke about it during a private conference for new mission presidents at the Provo MTC.

"It is reliably estimated that a million missionaries have served since the organization of the church," President Hinckley said, according to a church press release.

President Hinckley also said LDS Church membership worldwide recently passed 13 million, said Elder M. Russell Ballard of the church's Quorum of the Twelve.

The MTC is hosting orientation meetings for 118 new mission presidents who leave later this week for their new, unpaid, three-year assignments. The church has 347 missions in 145 nations.

The church had 53,868 missionaries as of June 15. About 80 percent are young men, 13 percent are young women and 7 percent are couples, a church spokesman said.

Missionaries pay for their own missions or receive help from families, their congregations or the church's general missionary fund.

Most male missionaries are 19 when they begin their two-year missions. Most women go at 21 and serve 18 months.

Elder Brandon Soelberg, 19, of Idaho Falls, Idaho, and Elder Samuel Pelaquim, 20, of Curitiba, Brazil, are in the middle of 10 weeks of learning Japanese and teaching strategies at the MTC. They leave for the Japan Nagoya Mission in six weeks.

"I've been so blessed in my life with the gospel of Jesus Christ," Soelberg said. "I want everyone to experience the joy and happiness I have and the love God has for them, that I've felt."

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