Missionary Assignments by Language and Region

More missionaries are serving than at any time!  The post updates a previous post, “May Update on Mission Assignments by Language.”  I use data collected from YouTube videos if missionaries reading their calls to show where missionaries are serving and the languages they speak.  I collected 814 videos in which the missionary reads both the mission and the language, 471 calls are to men and 343 to women.  As an important note, a number of observations, 156, did not name the language to be spoken; given the country that these missionaries will be serving, most of those missionaries will be speaking English.  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches missionaries approximately 50 languages; my data set includes 35 languages. 

June 2013 YouTube Missionary Calls

In “Temporary MTC opens, LDS Church projects 47 percent increase in missionaries,” Church officials reported that the number of missionaries serving would reach 85,000, a 47% increase from the prior year due in large part to the lowering of the age that missionaries can begin service.  As pictured in the graph, “Mission Calls Posted to YouTube,” applications surged.  In June, missionary applications may have peaked.  The graph separates the calls to young women and men from November 2011 to June  2013.  In June, calls to men fell from 125 in May to 74 and calls to women fell from 91 to 61.  

The surge peaking does not imply that the number of missionaries serving has peaked.  As long as missionary calls in the coming months exceed the calls issued in the previous year’s corresponding months, missionaries serving will continue to rise.  As a reminder the YouTube data has a weakness: it over reports the increase in applications after President Monson’s announcement.  The next two graphs show month to month comparisons of the number of calls posted to YouTube for the past two years.  The lower line representing calls before the announcement should be higher.

The number of calls issued to sisters remains significantly above the number of calls issued the previous year and should remain higher than the previous year at least until November, the first month that calls could be issued after President Monson’s announcement lowering age requirements.  Likewise, the number of calls issued to Elders remains at high levels.  Again, November will be an interesting month. 

The graph, "Three Month Moving Average of the Location of Mission Assignments," shows a three month moving average of the percentage of calls read on YouTube to seven geographic regions. They are the regions reported by the Church on the “Facts and Statistics” page of the “Newsroom” with one exception. I divided the North America region into two groups: the United States and the rest of North American (North American not US). As demonstrated in the June graph, the influx of applications has not precipitated major changes in the percentage of missionaries called to each region although calls to the United States have risen since January and calls to Europe have declined.  A similar trend in calls by region occurred the prior year.