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450 and counting

It could be labeled the Latter-day Saint version of “mission creep.”

After seeing 36 new missions come on line this year, boosting the faith’s global total to a record 450, independent church tracker Matt Martinich foresees even more missions being created in 2025, especially given the recent rise in the number of full-time proselytizers.

His tally, shown at ldschurchgrowth.blogspot.com, identifies 28 potential new missions in Latin America and the Caribbean; 14 in Africa; 14 in North America; nine in Europe; eight in Asia; and seven in Oceania.

The list includes possible missions in Belize, Cuba, Iceland, Ireland, Kiribati and Sri Lanka.

The big red machines

The church’s Light the World Giving Machines — those big red kiosks of kindness — will be spreading more Christmas cheer than ever this holiday season.

The pop-ups will be popping up in a record 107 cities in 13 countries across five continents, including the first in Africa and Asia, a news release noted, allowing charitable shoppers to donate food, shelter, clothing, medical services, school supplies, even livestock with the simple swipe of a credit card.

Machines will be set up in locales stretching from Anchorage to Atlanta, Logan to London, New York to Nairobi, Perth to Panama City. See the full list of cities.

Since 2017, the machines have provided more than $32 million in aid. This year, 500–plus nonprofit groups will benefit, double the number from 2023.

The latest ‘Mormon Land’ podcast: The end of ‘Saints’

Six years after the first volume in the “Saints” series hit the stands, the church is out with its fourth and final installment in the faith’s latest official history.

Titled “Saints: Sounded in Every Ear,” the text documents the years of 1955 to 2020 and covers a range of milestones, including the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the end of the priesthood/temple ban against Black members, the struggles over LGBTQ rights, and the church’s opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment.

The managing historian of the series and a key writer for this volume discuss the memorable experiences of top church leaders and everyday members from this period in the quickly globalizing faith.

Listen to the podcast.

Apostles travel

• Apostle Ulisses Soares met last week with French Sen. Stéphane Demilly in Paris, where the pair talked about the importance of religion, peacemaking, humanitarian aid and building egalitarian societies.

“He is very positive about the church,” Soares said of his French host in a news release. “He knows the church. He has been to BYU, and he wants to continue this relationship.”

Soares later huddled with Catholic leaders in Portugal about humanitarian aid.

• Fellow apostle Gary Stevenson met with members and missionaries recently in the Netherlands, Greece, Bulgaria and Italy.

In Athens, he and a group of missionaries visited Mars Hill, where the Apostle Paul gave one of his most famous biblical sermons.

“In a time when many young people are forgoing organized religion,” Stevenson said in a news release, “it is remarkable to be with faithful young adults in [the church] who choose to sacrifice time to serve the Lord and invite all to receive his gospel.”

• Another apostle, Gerrit Gong, discussed the church’s welfare and humanitarian aid program as well as global and societal challenges in a meeting last week with Paraguay’s president, Santiago Peña Palacios, in the nation’s capital of Asunción.

The Latter-day Saint leader also gave Peña a book detailing his family history, a news release noted. “You cannot imagine,” the 46-year-old president said, “what this means to me.”

• Meanwhile, Kristin Yee, second counselor in the global Relief Society presidency, traveled to Finland, Sweden, Denmark and England.

She met with members, visited a food bank and helped distribute meals to displaced individuals on the street.

“I ended up in a little depot area [in Stockholm] with a dear sister named Veronika,” Yee said in a news release. “Her head was down, and she was sitting in a wheelchair. I remember tapping her on the shoulder, and she looked up, and I said, ‘Would you be interested in a meal tonight?’ And she said, ‘Yes, I’ve been hoping for one. I just didn’t know if it would come.’”

• In their groundbreaking new book, “This Abominable Slavery: Race, Religion, and the Battle over Human Bondage in Antebellum Utah,” historians W. Paul Reeve, Christopher B. Rich Jr. and LaJean Purcell Carruth document and dissect the pivotal 1852 legislative session in which the rules were set for the servitude of African Americans and Native Americans in the Utah Territory.

The debate also made public the now-disavowed rationales for the church’s former priesthood/temple ban against Black members and the titanic battle between church President Brigham Young and apostle Orson Pratt.

From The Tribune

• In their latest federal court filings, plaintiffs pressing a class-action lawsuit over tithing say their beef isn’t with the church’s wealth but rather the deception they allege leaders used to amass it.

• Technology’s “Magnificent Seven” stocks helped boost the value of the church’s publicly reported investment portfolio at Ensign Peak Advisors to a five-year high.

• See what a Latter-day Saint horror author thinks of the movie “Heretic.”

• Donald Trump has set a new low bar, says Atlantic political reporter McKay Coppins, for “expectations of presidential behavior.” Read excerpts from last week’s “Mormon Land” podcast with the Latter-day Saint journalist, or listen to the full episode.