The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints recently announced plans to add 55 missions across the globe next year.

That’s the most since the Utah-based faith of 17.5 million members created 58 missions in 2013 and brings its total tally worldwide to 506.

At the same time, the current corps of full-time missionaries has topped 84,000 and, according to apostle Quentin Cook, convert baptisms during the first six months of 2025 ran 20% higher than the first half of last year.

So what do all these positive numbers mean when it comes to the pace and prospects of church growth now and in the future?

Independent researcher Matt Martinich, who tracks such data for the websites cumorah.com and ldschurchgrowth.blogspot.com, wrote an analysis of the new missions and discusses his findings.

The heroic tale of Helmuth Hübener, a teenage Latter-day Saint activist who was executed in 1942 for trying to warn Germans about Hitler’s lies, is familiar to many members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the United States and abroad.

He has been the subject of plays, articles, books and a documentary. For those who still don’t know it, though, there is now a feature film, “Truth & Treason,” that recounts Hübener’s harrowing experience of faith and courage.

What is fact and what is fiction in the film? More important, what is its message to modern believers?

Discussing those questions and more on this week’s show is Alan Keele, an emeritus professor of German language and literature at Brigham Young University, who first publicized the story.

On the November crossover episode between ‘Mormon Land’ and ‘Mormons in Media, ’ Rebbie and Nicole are joined by humor columnist Eli McCann to talk Real Housewives of Salt Lake City. Rebbie is coming in blind to the Real Housewives franchise, so this go around, she's the one with the questions. The three discuss differences between 'Secret Lives of Mormon Wives' and 'Real Housewives of Salt Lake City' and why one is so much easier to consume than the other. How is the church represented in RHOSLC? Let's discuss.

If there is a constant in the history of Latter-day Saint temple worship, it is change. Language used, covenants made, clothing worn and meaning ascribed to all of it — each has evolved since the early 1830s, when Joseph Smith introduced the idea of sacred rituals beyond baptism and confirmation.

In his newly published book, “Holiness to the Lord: Latter-day Saint Temple Worship,” historian Jonathan Stapley explores those changes in greater detail than any other work to date.

Those changes have not only practical but also theological implications, he argues, for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the past and the present.

Of the major Western religious traditions in the United States, only The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints retains the service-until-death policy for its top leader.

Last week, Dallin H. Oaks, at age 93, became the 18th prophet-president of the faith, succeeding Russell M. Nelson, who died Sept. 27 at 101. Unlike a leader in any other American-based faith, Oaks will be expected to serve until the end of his life — as Nelson and 16 others did before him.

Oaks’ first counselor in the governing First Presidency, Henry B. Eyring, is 92. D. Todd Christofferson, his second counselor, is 80, one of four apostles in their 80s. Does this collective “gerontocracy” give rise to a stagnant, intractable, out-of-touch leadership? Would switching to a system that brings younger blood into the leadership invigorate the global faith of 17.5 million?

Historian Gregory Prince, who studied and written about these issues, discusses these, frankly, age-old questions — including how leadership succession has evolved throughout Latter-day Saint history, the advantages and disadvantages or having aging church leaders, and the prospect of apostles and First Presidency members someday being granted emeritus status rather than serving until they die.

It’s fitting this week to revisit our 2021 “Mormon Land” podcast with the biographer of President Dallin H. Oaks, the newly installed leader of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

In this episode, historian Richard Turley discusses his book “In the Hands of the Lord: The Life of Dallin H. Oaks," which documents the personal journey of a church leader known for his devotion to religious liberty, his doctrinal dissections and his pointed preachings from the pulpit.

Oaks’ father died when he was 7 years old. Reared by his mother and his maternal grandparents, he committed himself to hard work and diligent scholarship.

He became a star student, earned a degree at one of the nation’s most prestigious law schools and launched a legal career that would see him rise to the Utah Supreme Court with whispers that he someday could land a seat on the country’s highest court.

Then, virtually overnight, Oaks changed his life’s trajectory, trading his career in the law for a commitment to his Lord. He accepted a call to be a Latter-day Saint apostle, a lifetime appointment in which he now serves as the faith’s prophet-president.

Enjoy this episode and learn about life of the church’s 18th president.

The 195th Semiannual General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints looked much like any other in recent years.

There were talks by apostles and general authority Seventies, along with three women, punctuated by music by The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square and other Utah choirs.

But it might be remembered mostly for what didn’t happen.

It was presided over by the Dallin Oaks-led Quorum of the Twelve Apostles rather than by a church president and a reconstituted First Presidency.

That’s because President Russell M. Nelson died just a week before the two-day meetings and, by tradition, the three-man presidency is not reorganized until after the previous president’s funeral.

On top of that Oaks broke with conference tradition and announced no new temples. Nelson’s presumed successor said that Nelson “loved to announce new temples at the conclusion of each General Conference, and we all rejoiced with him.” Not this time, Oaks said. Due to the “large number of temples now in the very earliest phases of planning and construction, it is appropriate that we slow down the announcement of new temples.”

On this week’s show, Emily Jensen, web editor for Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, and Patrick Mason, chair of Mormon history and culture at Utah State University, discuss what did — and didn’t — happen at the just-completed meeting, plus which speakers were standouts, and what an Oaks’ presidency might look like.

As accolades and adoration continue to pour in after the death of President Russell M. Nelson, it could be time to assess the historical perspective and place of the oldest prophet-president in the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

What will be his legacy? How did his leadership and innovations impact the global faith?

Then there’s the question of how his presumed successor, Dallin H. Oaks, will be “chosen,” how he might lead, how he will navigate the contemporary political landscape and how that relates to other religious groups.

In this week’s show, Latter-day Saint historian Benjamin Park, author of “American Zion: A New History of Mormonism," explores those questions and more.

Passion. Intimacy. Eroticism. Arousal. Sex.

These terms are as much a part of God’s plan in the theology of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as agency, repentance and baptism. Yet they are rarely discussed or even mentioned — save for in hushed, almost apologetic, tones — among members.

Such hesitancy is not found in Latter-day Saint therapist Jennifer Finlayson-Fife’s new book, “That We Might Have Joy: Desire, Divinity & Intimate Love.” In it, she writes, for instance, that “the best sex is never hard work. Good sex is easy” and “the turn-on for most women is being the turn-on” and, finally, “our bodies and sensual natures are not obstacles to holiness, but essential components of it.”

By setting aside cultural taboos, Finlayson-Fife shows that the bedroom is a bedrock not just in marriage but also in Mormonism.

On this week’s podcast, she sheds light on how “soulful sex” can bring couples closer to each other and closer to God.