Mormon stats inflated

Ever since I visited my uncle out in Salt Lake City a few years ago, I can't seem to stop running into Mormons. Not only have their missionaries visited my house, but I've seen those guys walking around in almost every major city I've been to: Chicago, New York, Seattle, the list goes on. Just the other day I saw a pair walking around in Harvard Square, no doubt trying to shake those Ivy Leaguers of their skepticism. Spreading their message through a dedicated missionary corps is clearly one of their top objectives. They figure, how can you say no to two extremely polite, well-dressed, (and very white-bred, may I add) young men that are passionate about God? They are also very proud to proclaim that they are, in fact, the fastest-growing religion on the planet, nearly "doubling" their membership over the last quarter century (from 6 million to 12 million). But the truth is, according to this article from The Salt Lake Tribune, is their statistics might not be as intimidating as you think.

...[T]he number of Latter-day Saints who are considered active churchgoers is only about a third of the total, or 4 million in the pews every Sunday, researchers say.

Graphing activity: When the Graduate Center of the City University of New York conducted an American Religious Identification Survey in 2001, it discovered that about the same number of people said they had joined the LDS Church as said they had left it.

Take Brazil. In its 2000 Census, 199,645 residents identified themselves as LDS, while the church listed 743,182 on its rolls.

Mormons like to brag about growth rates in South America and the South Pacific, because they feel that their message is tailor-made for the indigenous inhabitants of those areas. But there's a problem with this, and this article points it out.

The LDS message has found a ready audience in Latin America and the South Pacific, where Mormon missionaries can tell people God did not neglect them. The Book of Mormon is the story of a Hebrew family that migrated from Jerusalem to the New World and tells of a visit to their descendants by Jesus Christ after his resurrection.
Still, the church may not fare as well as other Christian religions in Africa and China, since it has no such reassurance for them...

American faith: Mormonism is "so thoroughly American," said [Gerald] McDermott, [a religious studies professor at Virginia's Roanoke College] in a recent phone interview. "God visited [Mormon founder] Joseph Smith in upstate New York. Eden began in Missouri and the millennium will end there. The new exodus took place in North America."

This is the inherent flaw that I see with this religion. The scope of its vision does not extend beyond the Western Hemisphere. This is why I think they are having such a hard time opening up places like India, China, Africa, and the Middle East. What would a Hindu, a Buddhist, an animist or even a Muslim see in this religion that is appealing to them? Any ideas? Didn't think so.