In some ways, I came to appreciate the European sensitivity for considering what others thought, inasmuch as it led one to not engage in annoyingly bad behavior.

However, tradition has its negative points too. Political correctness has been important in Europe for millennia, I would suppose. Independent thought is encouraged as much as among European youth as getting piercings and tattoos is among American youth, supposedly demonstrating their “individuality”, as they all get tattoos and piercings in places I can’t help but think have to be bothersome and problematic, to show their “bravery” to each other (Ouch!).

I long have done and continue to do all that I can to steep my own children (and wife) in the scriptures and doctrine, and having a clear and complete understanding of it as possible. The foundationless great and spacious has an increasingly greater allure to those of little understanding (but the relevancy of that symbollicaly charged dream has as much bearing on the world 2600+ years later as it did then). In Europe, the “traditions” (practices) of the world have very long held great sway. As Jesus pointed out nearly 2000 years ago, if it were possible, even the very elect shall be deceived. (Of course, proof positive of the ‘very elect’ is that they are not deceived).

This said, I felt the ‘Monsieur Durant’ “discussions” (in which my mostly Catholic friends in France never seemed to have memorized their Protestant replies to that script), showed that the (LDS) Church put no thought and little appropriate effort into adapting their message for each segmented audience.

While I am an engaged and true believer (in ‘The (LDS) Church’), I feel that the Church’s “brethren” (in SLC) and bureaucracy are often slow and reluctant to respond appropriately to what different parts of the world need as far as adaptation of teachings and responses to localized needs.

Calvin Grondahl’s “Marketing Precedes the Miracle” title for his Mormon cartoon book put out a quarter century ago always sounded like a sacreligious spoof on President Kimball’s “Faith Precedes the Miracle” book. (It was). But in another vein, truth often makes humor funnier (or there often is some amount of truth in most/much humor).

Canned messages and solutions won’t help too many. But a better understanding of the scriptures and of the world today as it is (and not as it is or should be) would be helpful.

As an institution, the Church is both trying to help members and non-members repent (turn to correct practices – which draws them toward God). Church members everywhere need to greatly increase and develop their understanding of the things of God (much of it coming, at the core, from the scriptures), as well as from/through prayer and revelation with/from God.

We need a spiritual renaissance in the Church. Remember, a spiritual renaissance/awakening basically began with one man, Abinadi, in a remote portion of the “vineyard”, influenced one man, Alma, who rose to the task, influenced others, and brought them back to the main body of their culture and Church.

We need such a miracle today!

They completed their degrees and served as Bishops and Stake Presidents. Uchtdorf is the prime example. There are another dozen like him in Germany.

Many of my generation went on missions. My estimate is that less than 20% of us remain active. Some of us are in jail. Many others are divorced.

The numbers game and the bureaucratic chicanery was just more than any of us could stomach. In Germany, and I suppose that the same is true of the Netherlands, the Congregationalist roots of Mormonism are a lot more important.

The inefficiency and authoritarianism of the correlated Church was more than any of us had bargained for.

It took my peers and us more than ten years to figure our why we were so miserable but in hindsight, all of us agree, the full time missions set us on a path that led us straight out of the Church.

First would be the immigration of the more religious types to the U.S. over the past 300 years.

Second would be the general loss in faith in god due to two very destructive wars in the 20th century.

Third would be the rise of the State in taking care of everyone’s needs. God is a great emotional fall-back mechanism for those who worry about the present and the future. Now, the state takes care of everything: food, shelter, retirement, health care, child care. When Europeans lost faith in a traditional god, they found faith in a new god, the State. The new god provides more than the old god.

Re: whether the church is “growing or shrinking”, here are the statistics for the Netherlands for the past 30 years:

1978: 7486 members
1988: 6600 members
1998: 7500 members
2008: 8548 members

Average activity rate for country: 30%

Source: http://www.cumorah.com/?target=main&wid=150