Salt Lake City, USA - Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were urged to increase the number of young men serving as church missionaries during last weekend's semiannual general conference.
Currently more than 59,000 Mormon missionaries are at work in 339 mission fields around the world, but their ranks have been decreasing in recent years, said M. Russell Ballard, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve, which leads the church along with its First Presidency.
Men embark on the optional missions at age 19, and women at 21. Leaders in each of the church's 26,000 wards and branches were asked to identify at least one more young person for missionary work this year to swell the ranks.
In other talks, both President Gordon B. Hinckley and Dallin Oaks of the Quorum of the Twelve lashed out against pornography.
"The corrupting influence of pornography, produced and disseminated for commercial gain, is sweeping over our society like an avalanche of evil," Oaks said. "I know that many of you are being exposed to this and that many of you are being stained by it."
Mormons gather twice yearly to hear from church leaders, with more than 20,000 filling the church's downtown Conference Center. Proceedings were broadcast in 75 languages to Mormons in more than 80 countries.