Mormon missionaries go global with help from online campaign

Mormon missionaries are doing more proselytizing online than ever, including 600 missionaries assigned to 20 visitor centers around the world who spend their days chatting with prospective converts online.

Bonnie Oscarson, president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Young Women program and a member of its Executive Missionary Council, said the approach is hardly new but has become more sophisticated.

The operation started as a simple social media experiment at Provo’s Missionary Training Center a decade ago. Since then, it has grown into a global operation with missionaries speaking 30-plus languages.

A partnership with Google allows the church’s mormon.org site to be among the first listed when someone searches the word “Mormon” or “LDS.”

Oscarson said the site had more than 21 million unique visitors last year.