So what's the 70k figure coming from, some leader said that?

I have some thoughts about all this.

The numbers are pretty bunk to begin with. Without going into a detailed analysis, a substantial % of those "converts" aren't actually converts. Kids that got baptized after 9 even though they were totally born into the church. Old farts. Mentally or otherwise unstable people. Put another way, people who are "takers" not "contributors." Very few of those who get baptized are who we want.

Two questions. 1) What kind of toll will this have on the missionaries? 2) What kind of a toll will this have on the wards?

Missionary service is a fickle bitch. If you have some moderate success you might feel ok, even good. If your whole mission feels like a wasted failure though, I wonder if that makes them more likely to leave the church after they get home? Baptisms down, number of missionaries up, this is a recipe for some really demoralizing missionary experiences.

So let's see, 220k baptisms divided by 85k missionaries, average of 2.6 baptisms/missionary. Those are lousy numbers to begin with. But then after you consider that a small number of areas have a disgustingly high baptism rate, the overall average drops by a lot. For example, according to cumorah.com Nigeria grew by about 12,000 members between 2013 and 2014. Ghana grew by 4,200. I haven't gone to add it up, so making up numbers here, but let's say 25% of baptisms come from 5% of the areas. So if we're starting with 220k minus the outliers = 165k baptisms for 95% of missionaries. Now you're down to an average of ~2 baptisms/missionary. And then what percent of those are real baptisms (not kids, not old or unstable)?

I posit that most missionaries will come home not having seen a single real baptism. Not even one. That's a lot of depressed missionaries coming home. In addition to being depressed it also reinforces the persecution and evil world complexes. Those who don't abandon the church will become raging assholes. That's basically what happened to me. They have to, it's the only way they can cope with the depression. Either 1) they were a shitty and unrighteous missionary unworthy of the holy ghost, it's my fault, or 2) the world is just that bad. Spent two years talking to countless thousands of people and couldn't fine even one good person the whole time. Geez. Or 3) you give the church the finger and leave.

So they become even more weird and unable to exist as a functioning member of normal society. And then the worse all this gets, people leaving, critical voices getting louder, weirdos staying, there will be more and more demand for leadership from our prophets... which based on the pattern, won't come. Leadership will become more insular, more trite and hollow, etc. Those who get baptized will create more work for the functioning members, adding to their stress loads. And then imagine this also in the context of failing economies around the world, particularly in the USA. Imagine all this is going down, and at the same time tithing revenue drops by 50% or more. Haha. Even more pressure for leadership. Even more top-down pressure for obedience because they depend on that revenue. A huge % of Utah economy is the church.

See where this is going? This is an accelerating cycle of crazy. Some basic calculus tells me that this can't go for very long before an explosion happens. Maybe it's wishful thinking on my part, but I see a real storm starting to form.