TPS 70.1 · 1,844 words · 8 min read · Is The LDS Church After You, Your Money, or Your Ancestors?

Is The LDS Church After You, Your Money, or Your Ancestors? — show notes

Post by German Zoomer (@phemeralemerald) on X: “She’s so cute I love seeing ads with her” + a screenshot of a YouTube ad featuring a young LDS missionary “Sister Wise” smiling while holding the Book of Mormon.

• LetsHAveGoodTimes responds:“Bruh that’s how they get you💀”
• German Zoomer replies: “Yep I purposefully watch the ad longer than would be necessary even if I can skip so Youtube understands that it should show me stuff like this and not some retarded slop”

So what’s going on here? Is this some play to make up for falling birth rates among American Mormons? Also, how

Would Targeting Europeans Be a Smart Move for the LDS Church?

LDS birth rates are down:

• Early 1980s (around 1981): U.S. LDS TFR was approximately 3.31 children per woman (versus a national TFR of about 1.81).
• Mid-2010s (data from the 2016 Next Mormons Survey): Completed or median family size for U.S. Mormons (especially Gen X, who had largely finished childbearing) was around 2.42. This represents a drop of roughly 0.9 children (about 27%) from the early-1980s figure.

Europeans are increasingly godless and facing crises of cultural identity

Germany:

• Approximately 43% of Germans without a migration background report no religious affiliation. (In 1990 the overall non-affiliated share was only ~22%.)
• No religious affiliation: 43%
• Catholic: 27%
• Protestant (evangelisch): 28%
• Other (including Orthodox, Muslim, etc.): negligible
• Polarization between genders is high
• In the 2025 Bundestag election, the gap among the youngest voters was the largest recorded in postwar German history for that age group:
• Die Linke (The Left): Roughly 35% support among young women vs. ~16% among young men (a gap of about 19–20 percentage points). It was the strongest party among young women.
• AfD: Roughly 27% among young men vs. ~15% among young women (a gap of about 12–13 points). It was the strongest party among young men.

Is it enough to just show a friendly young woman to tempt Eugopeans to join the LDS church with the hope they can rediscover a cohesive community?

Is the LDS religion growing in Germany or elsewhere in Europe?

• The Church reported 40,398 members, 148 congregations, four missions, and two operating temples in Germany at year-end 2024.
• That’s 1.1% above the previous year
• Spain: +3.85% in 2024
• Italy: +2.62% in 2024
• France: +1.79% in 2024

The Bigger Story: Online LDS Ads

https://adstransparency.google.com/?region=anywhere

LDS advertising is far more interesting than I previously thought. They may be the most sophisticated and prolific religion out there when it comes to ads:

• Let’s first look at ads by other major religions: (looking for ads anywhere by advertisers with the religion’s name and advertisers linking to main religion websites)
• Roman Catholicism (~1.4 billion members): Under 300 ads
• Eastern Orthodoxy (over 250 million members): Only one ad that’s not even for the religion (Eastern Orthodox Icons LLC)
• Islam (~2 billion members): Under 300 ads, and mostly for private companies built around Islam
• Judaism (~14.8 million members): Under 300 ads, mostly for the Jewish museum (which alone has 108 ads; the rest advertising have under 10 ads)
• Hinduism (~1.2 billion members): Under 300
• Sikhism (~25-30 million members): Under 300
• Bahá’í Faith (5-8 million members): Under 300
• Shinto: None
• Daoism/Taoism: Under 100
• Confucianism: Under 20
• Next, let’s look at ads for the LDS faith
• Which has ~17.5 million members of record—so admittedly 18% larger than Judaism, which is impressive, but Islam is 114X larger and Catholicism is 80X larger
• The main church hasapproximately 2,000 ads on Google properites in the US and approximately 3,000 globally and around around 5,000 ads on Meta
• One of their affiliated for-profit advertising businesses has hundreds more on Google properties
• In comparison
• 7.3M ads for Amazon.com
• 1.2M ads for Walmart.com
• 400K ads for Facebook.com
• 400K ads for Instagram.com
• 40K ads for chatgpt.com
• 40K ads for sephora.com
• 700 ads for claude.com
• 64 ads for Grok.com
• So the LDS church advertises more on Google properties than X and Anthropic (but not anywhere close to chatgpt or Meta)

What supercharges their ad prowess:

• Multiple non-profit and for-profit organizations running ads
• Centralized organization (the Roman Catholic Church doesn’t have a consolidated ad buyer; local groups run ads—ditto for evangelical protestants)
• Multiple non-profit and for-profit organizations serving as funnels into the religion
• Including the BYU university system, radio stations (Bonneville International), news publications (Deseret News), digital content (Radiant Digital), books (Deseret Book Company), and hospitality service companies (Temple Square Hospitality Corporation)

The only reason I knew the church had several advertising arms was because I could not find the missionary girl German Zoomer saw within the main church’s ad sets.

The Nature of LDS Ads

Tracking Google Ads

You can see what’s going on with ads using the Google Ads Transparency Center:

• You can view advertiser details for Corporation of the President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
• The Corporation of the President is a legal “corporation sole” established to hold property, manage finances, and handle legal affairs for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It ensures church assets pass legally from one church president to the next. (ChurchOfJesusChrist.org has a whole history page on it)
• They have approximately 2,000 ads in the US and approximately 3,000 globally
• You can drill down by time, region, platform (e.g. Google Maps, ad formats, etc.) and

Heavy Emphasis on FamilySearch.org

• “Create a free account today - Create Your Free Family Tree // Your family’s stories live inside you. Add what you know and discover more. Get started. Your family story is worth remembering. Start preserving your family’s stories for free”
• “Discover Your Ancestors Free”
• Also advertisements in multiple languages
• Arabic
• French
• German
• Italian
• Some I don’t even recognize
• Spanish
• Tiene parentesco con un futbolista famoso? Averiguelo! (basically: omg are you related to a famous soccer player? Find out!)
• Note: They leaned heavy on the world cup across several languages; I also found French ads with the same format

Other Ads Focus on

• Some are job ads for Deseret Industries, encouraging people to “find your new beginning”
• (Deseret Industries is a nonprofit thrift store and vocational job-training organization operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Founded in 1938, it functions similarly to Goodwill, offering low-cost goods while providing career training and work experience for people in need of support.)

Work Done in Germany

• You can also drill down by region to see where they’re pushing
• There are approximately 500 ads running in Germany

The LDS Church’s Facebook Ads

You can see what’s up with Meta ads via the Meta Ad Library:

• You can enter “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” and see all the ads that are listed now
• As of my first search, there were approximately 5,000 results
• They lean heavily on imagery of female missionaries and lean heavily on messages targeting loneliness

Heavy Emphasis on Loneliness

• Do you feel alone? 🙁 Life is not meant to be a solo journey. Come join us this Sunday at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints this week to connect with God and make new friends! Sign up to connect with your local congregation! ❤️
• Are you searching for a community of people who care? Church is a place where we gather together to learn about Jesus Christ and how we can better follow Him. He is the light of the world and offers healing and hope to all who come unto Him. 😇🙏 Join us this Sunday! We are excited to meet you. ❤ Representatives from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will reach out to you soon!
• There’s a loving church community somewhere near you. You’ll find people there who will help lift you when times are hard and sit next to you as you worship Jesus Christ. Interested? Tap the link to find your local congregation at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Missionaries will save you a seat and introduce you to future friends.
• Are you looking for a community that feels like family? 🫂Come join us this Sunday at church—a space where faith brings us together and friendships grow. Whether you’re new or just curious, you’ll find a community of people who center their lives on Jesus Christ 🙃Sign up below and we will be in touch soon. We know that coming to church not only provides us with a community of believers in Christ, but lifelong friendships that connect us to heaven. Missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will be in touch soon and help connect you with a local church near you!

What is the LDS Church Selling?

• A sense of continuity
• FamilySearch.org
• A sense of community
• Friendly missionaries
• A community of people who care about you

What would we do differently?

First thought: No notes!

Appendix: Hunting for Mormon Missionary Girl

I still haven’t found the source of the ad that inspired this episode.

I did a reverse image search using the image of the girl from the ad:

Bingo! Ad found! This same young lady appears in a short posted by Church of Jesus Christ | Come Unto Christ which has 1M followers.

In the short, she offers the Book of Mormon as a gift, talking about how it changed her life.

The YouTube channel presents the following links:

Facebook – https://facebook.com/ComeUntoChrist

Instagram – https://instagram.come/comeuntochrist

Twitter – https://twitter.come/ComeUntoChrist

Website – https://ComeUntoChrist.org

Email – https://ComeUntoChrist.org/email

That “Come Unto Christ” URL redirects to the church’s main website: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/comeuntochrist?cid=41000889

Note that the copyright holder of the website is Intellectual Reserve, Inc. (IRI), a non-profit corporation founded in 1997 and based in Salt Lake City, Utah that’s owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

• IRI holds and manages all legal rights, copyrights, and trademarks for the church

Do they have a Google ads profile?

Back to the the Google Ads Transparency Center!

• Nothing comes up for Intellectual Reserve
• But it looks like that nonprofit has employed one of the church’s affiliated for-profit media entities, because…
• There are 9 ads associated with ComeUntoChrist.org, but none feature Missionary Girl and they’re all by an organization called Bonneville Communications Corporation
• Which formed in 1980 to support broadcasts of the LDS General Conference
• It is associated with Deseret Management Corporation, which is is the Church’s for-profit holding/operating company.
• The Church expressly says DMC manages its for-profit media, communications, financial, and hospitality businesses.
• Bonneville Communications Corporation has around 700 ads running in Germany
• They’re not exclusively for the LDS church
• Other ads promote things like Utah-based vacation destinations and bicycle safety
• Some of their Church-related text ads read: “Sing, Pray, and Study with Us - A Family-focused Church Group // Missionaries can introduce you to a loving church community near you.”

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