APO AE 09213-1315
September 12, 1994
President Thomas S. Monson
Church Headquarters
47 East South Temple
Salt Lake City, UT 84101
Dear President Monson:
I've never had occasion to write you before, though I worked quite closely with Presidents Hunter and Hinckley when I was at the American Embassy in Madrid and they came to Spain to look into registering the Church there. I also served on the Washington, D.C. High Council when Elder Scott was in our stake presidency, know Elder Maxwell from U of Utah days, and Elder Hales and Bishop Bateman from graduate school in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
I'm writing for two reasons: first is the talk you gave at last April Conference in which you related the sacrifice of lives in Normandy to the blessings of liberty. As I sat in the Sunday School class of my Branch here in Bucharest, I wondered if you'd reflected on how your words might sound to a people for whom the Allied Victory in WW II meant only the imposition of an even worse tyranny lasting another 46 years before even the first glimmerings of religious and political freedom. Your talk was discussed in the following Priesthood Meeting, and I believe you'll be as happy as I was to hear local brethren saying that they understood why the Western Powers could not at that time confront their Soviet "allies" to prevent the take over of Eastern Europe. And what a blessing the gospel is, even if its advent was delayed another half century in its arrival.
Second reason has to do with missionary work.
I'm in the Presidency of the Romanian Mission. There have been missionaries in Romania for just over two years -- initially operating out of Budapest. President John Morrey has been here for only a year, and the full mission presidency has been organized for just six months.
I'm an economist and can't seem to help analyzing things in benefit/cost terms. And I know that as a former newspaper businessman you also understand that after passing "breakeven", virtually all revenues from extra output appear in the profits column. So even modest increases in output can result in startling two or threefold jumps in returns.
As a Mission Presidency we've been analyzing mission statistics.
Our most disturbing datum shows that while baptisms have been rising, baptisms per missionary have been declining.
We attribute this to the fact that we've been receiving relatively large numbers of new missionaries -- up from a total of only 40 a few months ago to 65 today, and we're told we'll have 85 by year end. At the same time our first experienced missionaries have started going home, diluting our missionary effectiveness factor. This means that fully eighty per cent of our current elders and sister missionaries have been in the field less than six months. Even with two month's LTM training, it takes another four months or so for them to get up-to-speed in Romanian so that they become fully effective proselyters. And the loss of our first contingent of fully language effective missionaries has, as noted, hit baptisms hard. Our projections were based on initial missionary effectiveness. We obviously did not take into account the dilution higher numbers and the departure of our most effective elders would cause.
Until the Vietnam war, foreign language missionaries customarily served six months longer than English language Elders to make up for this effectiveness lag. I fully understand why the Church found it essential to compromise with Draft Boards during the war (and to take into account diminished family resources during the recent recession), reducing all missions to 2 years (and sister missionaries to 18 months). But both the war and the recession are over.
Let me run some shirt-cuff figures past you:
It costs $350 per month to support a missionary in the field -- not taking into account mission office overhead (mission president support, office rent, utilities, cars, vans, etc.). For a two year mission, this amounts to $8400, plus transportation to and from the mission field, say another $1600. Total = $10,000 per mission served.
In this mission our goal has been 2 baptisms per month per missionary -- though at present we have fallen (for the reasons already discussed) to only 0.8. At 0.8 baptism/missionary/month x 24 months, this equals 20 baptisms per missionary during a two year mission. Now I realize that souls can't be valued in dollars and cents terms, but missionary results -- as almost everything else -- can readily be evaluated in terms of benefit/cost analysis. At present, it is costing $520 per baptism.
If, by resuming 21/2 year calls for Elders and 2 years for Sister missionaries, we could through increased missionary effectiveness restore our 2 baptisms/month/missionary target (discounting to 0.8 for the first six months of getting in the groove), each missionary would then average 53 baptisms during his/her mission for an average cost of $190 per baptism. Missionary effectiveness would be increased 165 per cent for an increase in time spent in the field of only 25 per cent . And cost per baptism would fall by two- thirds. Perhaps you can now see the relevance of my reference to substantially increased profits from marginally increased inputs and outputs.
Just thought that in bringing to your attention the favorable reaction of the Romanian Saints to your most recent Conference address, I'd take this extra page to draw your attention to the possibility of substantially increased rewards from missionary service from a modest extension of the time spent in the mission field to the period spent by most of our current Elders' fathers. You may wish to share these thoughts with the Missionary Committee.
With continued prayers for you and Presidents Hunter and Hinckley, I remain,
Sincerely yours,
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