mba mormon monson profit

LDS Church discloses the $37.8 billion stock portfolio of its biggest investment fund

The Salt Lake City Tribune
By Nate Carlisle
March 7, 2020, 6:37 a.m.

For the first time, the LDS Church’s biggest investment fund has disclosed its Wall Street holdings, revealing $37.8 billion in stocks and mutual funds.

The federal filing may be the best answer ever to how The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has invested the excess tithing paid by its 16 million members. The detailed list included 1,659 stocks and mutual funds, including household names like Amazon, Chevron and Walmart, that the fund held for the quarter ending Dec. 31.

The investment fund, called Ensign Peak Advisors, quietly submitted the filing Feb. 14 to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The stock portfolio appears to represent a large portion of the total value of Ensign Peak, which whistleblowing brothers Lars and David Nielsen said in a complaint sent to the IRS controls assets worth at least $100 billion.

The SEC filing is standard for “institutional investment managers” with assets of at least $100 million.

Ensign Peak Advisors has met that threshold for years, yet the SEC website shows this is the first time the fund has submitted such a filing.

The LDS Church, through a spokesman, declined to answer questions about the recent filing or why it wasn’t submitted before.

“They may have previously read the rules to exempt advisers to religious institutions, and are now disclosing in light of the recent controversy,” said Jeff Schwartz, a University of Utah professor who focuses on corporate and securities law and reviewed the filing for The Salt Lake Tribune.

This filing doesn’t encompass all of the church’s financial holdings. Some assets are held in shell companies that file separately.

In 2018, The Truth and Transparency Foundation, the nonprofit newsroom behind the former MormonLeaks site with a stated mission to disclose information about religions, said it had found 13 such shell companies with assets of $32 billion.

Ensign Peak Advisors itself is far larger and more diversified than any of those smaller funds, the Feb. 14 filing shows. About $3 billion of the Ensign Peak Advisors stock holdings — or 7% of the value reported in the filing — was almost evenly split between Apple and Microsoft stock.

Two-thirds of Ensign Peak Advisors’ reported stock holdings came from 100 companies or mutual funds. Of those 100, the plurality of the investment — 26% — was in the technology sector.

The next two biggest sectors were health care, including Johnson & Johnson and Merck stocks; and financial services — stocks such as Bank of America and Berkshire Hathaway.

There also were investments in two Utah-based companies.

The fund reported owning $91.8 million of stock in Zions Bank. That bank can trace its history to a bank founded in 1873 by LDS Church President Brigham Young. The church sold its majority stake in Zions in 1960.

Ensign Peak Advisors also owned $76.7 million of stock in Pluralsight, an online education company based in Farmington.

While the LDS Church owns for-profit insurance and personal investment businesses as well as radio stations and Salt Lake City’s NBC affiliate, KSL-Channel 5, Ensign Peak Advisors invested in those businesses’ competitors. It owned stock in SiriusXM, the three companies that combine to own the local ABC, CBS and FOX affiliates, and in The New York Times Co.

The church counsels its members to not consume tobacco, alcohol or hot caffeinated drinks. And the portfolio reflects that. There were no cigarette or beer manufacturers, nor was there an investment in a coffee chain, such as Starbucks.

Of the 30 companies that comprise the Dow Jones Industrial Average, Coca-Cola is the only one Ensign Peak Advisors did not invest in. The fund didn’t own stock in soda makers PepsiCo or Keurig Dr Pepper, either.

Caffeinated sodas are not part of the church’s health code, known as the Word of Wisdom.

The SEC filing discloses only Ensign Peak Advisors’ holdings in publicly traded companies or funds, and such filings do not include investments in real property or private companies.

How the LDS Church plays the stock market has been the subject of speculation for decades. After the church in 2018 expressed opposition to medical cannabis, for example, some online forums wondered if the reticence was influenced by church investments in pharmaceutical companies that sell opioids.

Roger Clarke, the head of Ensign Peak Advisors, told The Wall Street Journal last month that one reason for the shell companies was to make church investments harder to track so that parishioners with insufficient information didn’t mismanage their own portfolios by trying to mimic what Ensign Peak Advisors was doing. The Journal reported that the fund also owns Florida timberland and investments in big hedge funds.

D. Michael Quinn, a historian who has focused on LDS Church finances, said it’s no surprise the church invests in blue chips stocks. But the specifics offered in the SEC filing represent a milestone for an institution that has been famously secretive about its money.

“It’s great detail that we haven’t had before,” Quinn said, “but it’s only part of the picture.”

Quinn says Ensign Peak Advisors is just one of the church’s investment firms. There are other firms working on both the nonprofit and for-profit sides of the church that combine to handle even more money than the $100 billion Ensign Peak Advisors is said to be worth.

As to Clarke’s concern, Quinn suspects only journalists, academics and historians will be interested in studying the portfolio. He doubts rank-and-file Latter-day Saints will refer to the SEC document for investment advice.

“Members of the church don’t need to do extensive research to invest in blue chip stocks,” Quinn said.

Schwartz, the law professor, believes any penalty Ensign Peak Advisors might face for failing to file a quarterly report until now would be light by the standards of a multibillion-dollar fund. He found one case in which an investment firm failed to file the necessary reports for three years. The SEC issued a fine of $100,000.

“It doesn’t seem like there would be huge penalties,” Schwartz said.

If Ensign Peak continues issuing quarterly reports, the next one would be available on the SEC website in mid-May.

The Nielsen brothers’ complaint, first reported by The Washington Post, drew international attention to the church’s financial interests and shocked many outsiders and members of the faith. The brothers argued that the church was violating tax laws by not spending more of this reserve on charitable purposes.

The church’s governing First Presidency — made up of church President Russell M. Nelson and his counselors, Dallin H. Oaks and Henry B. Eyring — rejected that allegation in a news release, saying the faith “complies with all applicable law governing our donations, investments, taxes and reserves.”

Other Latter-day Saint officials later said they didn’t previously disclose how big the financial reserve had grown because they didn’t want to discourage members from tithing, which is donating 10% of one’s income to the faith.

The church collects that tithing, which it uses to run its operations around the world, and it sends the excess to Ensign Peak Advisors to invest.

Church officials have called the fund a “rainy-day account” to help pay for operations in poorer parts of the world — such as Africa, where the faith is booming — and at some future time when member donations stagnate.

Mormon Church has misled members on $100 billion tax-exempt investment fund, whistleblower alleges

The Washington Post
By Jon Swaine, Douglas MacMillan and Michelle Boorstein
December 17, 2019 at 5:20 p.m. EST

A former investment manager alleges in a whistleblower complaint to the Internal Revenue Service that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has amassed about $100 billion in accounts intended for charitable purposes, according to a copy of the complaint obtained by The Washington Post.

The confidential document, received by the IRS on Nov. 21, accuses church leaders of misleading members — and possibly breaching federal tax rules — by stockpiling their surplus donations instead of using them for charitable works. It also accuses church leaders of using the tax-exempt donations to prop up a pair of businesses.

The church did not respond to detailed questions from The Post about the complaint and said in a statement Monday that it does not discuss specific financial transactions. On Tuesday, after the first version of this story was published, the church said it takes seriously its responsiblity to care for members’ donations.

“Claims being currently circulated are based on a narrow perspective and limited information,” said a statement attributed to the church’s First Presidency, its top governing body. “The Church complies with all applicable law governing our donations, investments, taxes, and reserves.”

The complaint provides a window into the closely held finances of one of the nation’s most visible religious organizations, based in Salt Lake City. It details a church fortune far exceeding past estimates and encompassing stocks, bonds and cash.

The complaint was filed by David A. Nielsen, a 41-year-old Mormon who worked until September as a senior portfolio manager at the church’s investment division, a company named Ensign Peak Advisors that is based near the church’s headquarters.

Nonprofit organizations, including religious groups, are exempted in the United States from paying taxes on their income. Ensign is registered with authorities as a supporting organization and integrated auxiliary of the Mormon Church. This permits it to operate as a nonprofit and to make money largely free from U.S. taxes.

The exemption requires that Ensign operate exclusively for religious, educational or other charitable purposes, a condition that Nielsen says the firm has not met.

In a declaration signed under penalty of perjury, Nielsen urges the IRS to strip the nonprofit of its tax-exempt status and alleges that Ensign could owe billions in taxes. He is seeking a reward from the IRS, which offers whistleblowers a cut of unpaid taxes that it recovers.

Nielsen did not respond to repeated phone calls and emails seeking comment.

His twin brother, Lars P. Nielsen, provided a copy of the complaint to The Post, along with dozens of supporting documents. Lars Nielsen, a health-care consultant in Minnesota, said he prepared the complaint with his brother and helped him submit it to the IRS.

Lars Nielsen said in a statement to The Post that his brother asked him to write an exposé on his former employer.

“Having seen tens of billions in contributions and scores more in investment returns come in, and having seen nothing except two unlawful distributions to for-profit concerns go out, he was dejected beyond words, and so was I,” Lars Nielsen wrote.

He said he was coming forward without his brother’s approval because he believed the information was too important to remain confidential. “I know that sometimes newspapers use anonymous sources,” he said. “But that is usually not best for a story.”

In remarks last year, a high-ranking cleric in the church, Bishop Gérald Caussé, said it “pays taxes on any income it derives from revenue-producing activities that are regularly carried on and are not substantially related to its tax-exempt purposes.”

The church typically collects about $7 billion each year in contributions from members, according to the complaint. Mormons, like members of some other faith groups, are asked to contribute 10 percent of their income to the church, a practice known as tithing.

While about $6 billion of that income is used to cover annual operating costs, the remaining $1 billion or so is transferred to Ensign, which plows some into an investment portfolio to generate returns, according to the complaint.

Based on internal accounting documents from February 2018, the complaint estimates the portfolio has grown in value from $12 billion in 1997, when Ensign was formed, to about $100 billion today.

The church also owns real estate worth billions of dollars, according to the complaint, which focuses on surplus tithing money and says that the church may have additional holdings not managed by Ensign.

While accumulating this wealth, Ensign has not directly funded any religious, educational or charitable activities in 22 years, the complaint said. No documents are provided to support this claim, which is attributed to information David Nielsen gleaned from working at the company.

Philip Hackney, a former IRS official who teaches tax law at the University of Pittsburgh, said the complaint raised a “legitimate concern” about whether the church’s investment arm deserved its tax-exempt status.

“If you have a charity that simply amasses a war chest year after year and does not spend any money for charity purposes, that does not meet the requirements of tax law,” Hackney said in an interview. Hackney, who served in the IRS chief counsel’s office, has been retained by The Post to analyze the whistleblower documents.

IRS rules dictate that a nonprofit organization must carry out charitable activity that is “commensurate in scope with its financial resources” to maintain its tax-exempt status. No threshold for this test is specified, and the agency instead considers examples case by case.

In its statement Tuesday, the church said the “vast majority” of the funds it receives from donations are “used immediately to meet the needs of the growing Church,” including temples, education and missionary work.

“Over many years, a portion is methodically safeguarded through wise financial management and the building of a prudent reserve for the future,” the statement said. “This is a sound doctrinal and financial principle taught by the Savior in the Parable of the Talents and lived by the Church and its members. All Church funds exist for no other reason than to support the Church’s divinely appointed mission.”

Details of the church’s expenditures on charitable work are not publicly available, but in a lecture at the University of Oxford in 2016, a senior elder said the church had spent about $40 million a year over the past 30 years on welfare, humanitarian aid and other international projects. He did not mention Ensign. The church said in a report last year that its charitable arm had spent $2.2 billion in assistance since 1985, but did not provide a breakdown on spending.

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While declining to discuss the extent of their holdings, church leaders have sought to explain the practice of continuing to collect tithes while accumulating financial reserves.

In a speech in March 2018, Caussé linked the church’s financial strategy to the “prophecies about the last days.” Just as the church maintains grain silos and emergency warehouses, Caussé said, so it “also methodically follows the practice of setting aside a portion of its revenues each year to prepare for any possible future needs.”

According to the complaint, Ensign’s president, Roger Clarke, has told others that the amassed funds would be used in the event of the second coming of Christ. Clarke did not respond to an email seeking comment.

Nielsen’s complaint is sharply critical of church leaders for continuing to ask for tithes, even from members who are struggling financially, while the church sits on a fortune. “Would you pay tithing instead of water, electricity, or feeding your family if you knew that it would sit around by the billions until the Second Coming of Christ?” he wrote in a 74-page narrative that accompanied his complaint.

He suggests church leaders favor continuing to collect tithes to avoid “losing control over their members’ behavior” by releasing them from their financial obligations. In June, the church raised the monthly charge paid by most families to cover the cost of their children serving as missionaries from $400 to $500 per month.

Leaders have consistently tried to downplay speculation about the extent of the church’s wealth. Quoting a former church president during the speech last year, Caussé, said: “When all is said and done, the only real wealth of the church is in the faith of its people.”

When interviewed by a German reporter in 2002 about suggestions that the church had amassed billions, then-President Gordon B. Hinckley said: “Yes, if you count all of our assets, yes, we are well-off. But those assets, you have to know this, are not money-producing. Those assets are money-consuming.”

Unlike other nonprofits, religious organizations are not required to publicly report their income or assets.

Nielsen’s estimate of Ensign’s assets places the Mormon investment organization among some of the country’s wealthiest companies and charities. Microsoft, Alphabet and Apple each hold between $100 billion and $136 billion in cash, according to the most recent company filings, while Harvard University has the country’s largest academic endowment at $40.9 billion. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is the largest private philanthropic foundation in the world at $47.8 billion.

In addition to criticizing the scale of wealth accumulated by the church, Nielsen’s complaint accuses church leaders of acting improperly on the rare occasions that funds have been paid out from the investment division.

According to Nielsen, $2 billion from Ensign has been used over the past decade to bail out a church-run insurance company and a shopping mall in Salt Lake City that was a joint venture between the church and a major real estate company.

Citing an internal presentation that he includes as an exhibit, Nielsen alleges that in 2009, Ensign spent funds on rescuing the insurance firm, Beneficial Life, which was suffering from its exposure to mortgage-backed securities amid the financial crisis.

At the time, a church-owned newspaper reported that a different commercial church company, Deseret Management, had injected $594 million into Beneficial Life to make up its deficit. Mark Willes, Deseret Management’s president and chief executive, was reported to have said that no tithing money was used in the transaction.

Yet the internal presentation supplied to the IRS by Nielsen refers to a $600 million “withdrawal” from Ensign to Beneficial Life in 2009, citing a page from an Ensign slide presentation entitled “Framework and Exposures” and dated March 2013. Nielsen said the funds were taken specifically from the Ensign account that receives surplus tithing. Nielsen said the transfer was not treated as a loan and was not recorded as an investment on Ensign’s balance sheet.

Despite the bailout, Beneficial Life announced it would terminate 150 of its 214 Utah workers and stop writing new insurance policies.

Neither Willes nor an official from Beneficial Life responded to messages seeking comment.

Nielsen’s complaint further alleges that between 2009 and 2014, Ensign pumped $1.4 billion in several installments into the City Creek Center, a shopping mall in downtown Salt Lake City featuring a retractable roof. The mall, partly owned by the church, had also been hit by the financial crisis.

Amid complaints from members about the church venturing into retail, church leaders have repeatedly made assurances over several years that no money from tithes would be spent on developing the mall, a joint venture with the Taubman real estate group.

“I wish to give the entire church the assurance that tithing funds have not and will not be used to acquire this property. Nor will they be used in developing it for commercial purposes,” Hinckley said when plans for the mall were unveiled in 2003.

On Monday, the church told The Post that through its involvement in the City Creek mall, it had “increased local economic activity during a financial downturn and attracted visitors and residents to Salt Lake City’s historic downtown.”

A Taubman spokeswoman declined to comment.

Hackney, the University of Pittsburgh tax law expert, said the payments would raise red flags if they were indeed made to for-profit entities that were separate from Ensign and not recorded as investments.

While the church may argue Ensign contributes to a broader religious and charitable mission, as a separate corporate entity, it must show that “it furthers a charitable purpose exclusively on its own,” Hackney said.

“Once that money comes in, it’s gotta go back out,” he said. “They have to come up with a justification based on the entity alone. Looking at the other organizations shouldn’t be a means of justifying hoarding.”

IRS rules state that nonprofits “must not provide a substantial benefit to private interests” and that the earnings of registered religious organizations must not benefit “any private individual or shareholder” to avoid jeopardizing tax-exempt status.

The Mormon Church’s wealth and investment acumen has been widely reported. A Time magazine cover story, “Mormons, Inc.,” published in 1997, estimated the church’s total assets at $30 billion or more. A 2012 Reuters article reported that the church owned “about $35 billion worth of temples and meeting houses around the world, and controls farms, ranches, shopping malls and other commercial ventures worth many billions more.”

Nielsen’s complaint comes as many Mormons across the United States are engaged in discussions with their bishops, traditionally held in December, to “settle” their dues to the church. His estimate of $7 billion in annual revenue points to a relatively high rate of contributions from the 15 million members. By comparison, the Catholic church in the United States was reported in 2005 to receive $8 billion in annual tithes. There were 75 million Catholics in the U.S. in 2010, according to Pew Research Center.

The complaint filed by Nielsen comprised a signed Form 211, the formal piece of IRS paperwork for reporting tax avoidance, a notarized cover letter to officials, plus the 74-page narrative document co-written with his brother in which he detailed his allegations at length.

These documents were sent to the IRS whistleblower office in Ogden, Utah, together with a thumb drive containing digital versions of documents and emails that Nielsen collected during his time at Ensign, the complaint says. He also provided information on Ensign’s bank accounts and a list of employees whom officials should contact.

Nielsen told Ensign in a resignation letter dated Aug. 29 that his employment had become unworkable after his wife and children left the Mormon Church and asked him to follow them, according to a copy of the letter provided by Lars Nielsen. David Nielsen offered to continue working until Oct. 4.

Ensign’s human resources director told him in a reply that managers had decided it would be best to terminate his employment Sept. 3.

“We appreciate your years of service and the contributions you have made for the church,” the letter concluded.

The complaint describes an aggressive guarding of information by leaders at Ensign. Ensign employees “are trained to be especially sensitive” about data flowing outside the corporation, the complaint states. “Of course, all corporations need to guard their information, but the lengths that [Ensign] goes to borders on paranoia.”

Only four senior Ensign executives are permitted to see the company’s full financial statements, according to the complaint, and investment staff members may access information only on the Ensign assets relating to their own area of work.

Little has been publicly disclosed by Ensign, whose website address redirects readers to the church’s homepage.

The company files abbreviated annual tax returns that report the taxes it paid on the small fraction of its investment activity that is taxable. The returns, which are publicly available, show that in some recent years, the company has reported losses of millions of dollars — a period in which, according to the complaint, a fuller accounting of its operations would have shown billions of dollars in profits.

This limited type of tax return requires Ensign to disclose the total value of its holdings, which the complaint asserts, has for years run to tens of billions of dollars. On those returns, Ensign has sometimes stated that it held $1 million, other times “more than $1,000,000,” and it once left this section of the paperwork unfilled.

During his 2002 interview with a German reporter, Hinckley was told that several major denominations in Germany published records of their finances. Why not the Mormons?

“We simply think that information belongs to those who made the contribution, and not to the world,” said Hinckley, who died in 2008.

Monson Named New Mormon Church President

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Thomas S. Monson, a leader who became known for his folksy storytelling as he ascended through church ranks, was introduced Monday as the 16th president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Monson, 80, succeeds Gordon B. Hinckley, who died last month at age 97. Out of respect for the deceased president, the Mormon church never names a successor until after funeral services. Hinckley was buried Saturday.

The church relies on a pattern of apostolic succession in selecting a new president. Since the early part of the 20th century, the position has always passed to the most-senior member of its Council of Twelve Apostles, the second-tier of church leadership. Monson was formally chosen Sunday.

"It's not difficult because he blazed the trail," Monson said at a news conference. "I worked with him for so long — 44 years. We knew each other so well. I knew and testify afresh that he was the Lord's prophet."

Monson named as his two top advisers First Counselor Henry B. Eyring, 74, and Second Counselor Dieter F. Uchtdorf.

Latter-day Saints know Monson as a compassionate storyteller whose parables recount the stories of individuals resolving their struggles through faith.

As a senior church leader, Monson has served as an international envoy for the church and supervised the expansion of humanitarian programs. He's also known for forming ecumenical partnership with other faiths.

Monson was named to the Council of Twelve Apostles in October 1963 at the age of 36, after serving as a local church bishop and as director of the church's Canadian missionary activities in Toronto.

He went on to serve as counselor to Hinckley and two previous presidents in the church's highest leadership circle, the First Presidency.

He is the youngest man to hold the presidency since Spencer W. Kimball, who was 78 when named president in 1973. Mormon presidents serve for life.

As president, Monson will shepherd a growing church with 13 million members in 160 countries. Of those, about 5.7 million are in the United States. One-third of church members live in Utah.

Monson, a Navy World War II veteran, is a graduate of the University of Utah and holds a master's degree in business administration from the church-owned Brigham Young University in Provo.

Professionally, he worked for the church's secular businesses, including the Deseret Morning News and the Deseret News Press. He was also the representative who served on the boards of other church-owned businesses, including KSL-TV and Beneficial Life Insurance Co.

He has been married to Frances Beverly Johnson since 1948. The couple has three children. eight grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

LDS prophet urges "the less active, the offended" to return

Monson extends welcome, pledges his life to church

By Peggy Fletcher Stack
The Salt Lake Tribune
04/06/2008

    LDS Church President Thomas S. Monson invited "the less active, the offended, the critical, the transgressor" Sunday to come back and "feast at the table of the Lord and taste again the sweet and satisfying fruits of fellowship with the Saints."

    In his first address to the entire 13-million member Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as the newly sustained 16th "prophet, seer and revelator," Monson echoed sentiments of welcome and inclusion that were hallmarks of his recent predecessors.

    He spoke during the Sunday morning session of the church's 178th Annual General Conference, held in the giant Conference Center in downtown Salt Lake City and beamed via satellite to Mormon chapels across the globe.

    Monson encouraged Mormons to show kindness and respect "for all people everywhere. The world in which we live is filled with diversity. We can and should demonstrate respect toward those whose beliefs differ from ours." (Webmaster Note: Mormons will resort to personal slander when confronted with the truth.)

    The new president said he was overwhelmed by church members' symbolic gestures of support offered Saturday. "As your hands were raised toward heaven, my heart was touched. I felt your love and support, as well as your commitment to the Lord," he said.

    Monson has enjoyed meeting with Mormons in many nations, he said, and he plans to continue traveling, as the late President Gordon B. Hinckley did.

    "I pledge my life, my strength - all that I have to offer - in serving the Lord and in directing the affairs of his church in accordance with his will and by his inspiration," Monson said.

    Other speakers on Sunday discussed prayer, finding spiritual light, forgiveness and resurrection, the courage to uphold LDS standards and the role of the apostles. Many reiterated their support for and allegiance to Monson.

    "I cannot help but feel that the most important privilege [of this historic conference] has been to witness the settling of the sacred prophetic mantle upon [Monson's] shoulders, almost by the very hands of angels," said Apostle Jeffrey R. Holland, in an emotional and unscripted comment. (Webmaster Note: Long-term Mormons lack rational thought.)

    In his speech, Holland took on the church's Christian critics who condemn Mormonism for using extra scriptures beyond the Bible, including the Book of Mormon.

    "The fact of the matter is that virtually every prophet of the Old and New Testament has added scripture to that received by his predecessors," Holland said. "Continuing revelation does not demean nor discredit existing revelation." (Webmaster Note: Mormon prophets have only two major "prophecies" since 1844. Both helped the church to conform to the morals of the United States and helped to eliminate polygamy in 1890 and racism in 1978 from church practices.)

    Apostle M. Russell Ballard focused on the "essential" and "eternal" role of mothers. (Webmaster Note: Mormon women are to mothers and raise children.)

    "There is no one perfect way to be a good mother," Ballard said, acknowledging that every situation is different. Some are full-time homemakers, and many others would like to be. Some women work full or part-time. Some work at home; some divide their lives into periods of home and family and work.

    What matters, Ballard said, is that "a mother loves her children deeply and, in keeping with the devotion she has for God and her husband, prioritizes them above all else."

    Quoting New York Times writer Anna Quindlen, Ballard urged young mothers to live in the moment more, enjoying each stage of their children's development. He discouraged over-scheduling children's activities, while encouraging mothers to take time for themselves. He urged husbands to offer to help their wives with the children, even providing a "day away" for her from time to time.

    Between the Sunday sessions, the three women named Saturday as new leaders in the church's Young Women's Organization described their approach and priorities regarding the 554,600 Mormon girls between 12 and 18 years old in 170 countries.

    When asked how they planned to cope with the fact that as many as 80 percent of the single Mormon women between 18 and 30 are no longer active in the LDS Church, Elaine Dalton, Young Women president, said, "That is the question of the day. . .I don't know that we have all the answers right now." (Webmaster Note: Many women are escaping Mormonism to escape depression.)

    Dalton said she and her two counselors plan to "reach out and strengthen those young women. . .to help them understand who they are and the divine mission they have on earth."

    Dieter F. Uchtdorf, Monson's German-born second counselor in the governing First Presidency, represented the international members, many of whom are the only Mormons in their families.

    "I claim the legacies of modern-day church pioneers who live in every nation and whose own stories of perseverance, faith, and sacrifice add glorious new verses to the great chorus of the latter-day anthem of the kingdom of God," said Uchtdorf. "We honor and respect sincere souls from all religions, no matter where or when they lived, who loved God, even without having the fullness of the gospel." (Webmaster Note: The Mormon Gospel is not the Christian Gospel.)

- Tribune staffer Jessica Ravitz contributed to this report.

Webmaster note: With the death of Joseph Smith and the excommunication of Sidney Rigdon, control of the Mormon church shifted from the con-artist false prophets to the business manager false prophets led by Brigham Young. The business managers ceased making the numerous false prophecies that were characteristic of the Smith and Rigdon era. Brigham Young gave only one being Doctrine and Covenants section 136 that told the Mormon membership to obey his commandments and how to be organized during the western migration to Utah. Other business manager prophecies were the 1890 declaration that polygamy was no longer allowed and the 1978 declaration that blacks would no longer be discriminated against. The 1890 and 1978 declarations were simply made to keep the Mormon church in step with the accepted morals of the United States of America. The business manager false prophets of the Mormon church (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) continue to practice disinformation to the present about Mormon history.