Caroline Smith, first daughter of the four missionaries of Eric and Karin Smith, entered the London MTC on Wednesday, November 13 to strengthen her German-language skills before beginning service as a full-time proselyting missionary. Her field of labor is the Alpine German-speaking Mission which encompasses parts of southern Germany, some of Austria, Switzerland and Liechtenstein. Sister Smith, who learned German at the same time she learned English as a young child, defines her mission as "service in German-speaking countries in the mountainous Alpine region of Europe."
This beautiful young woman is comfortable speaking two languages but recognizes she still has lots to learn. She feels confident "the Lord is sending me where he needs me" and would have been happy for a call to anywhere in the world.
Despite problems associated with two world wars, the Church continued to grow gradually in Germany. During the 1920s, there were three congregations in Chemnitz with more than 600 members. At the time, their's was the highest concentration of members in any city outside of the United States.
With the separation of Germany after World War II, East German Church members were cut off from other members until the country's reunification in 1990. Shortly after the end of World War II, Ezra Taft Benson, a member of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles, and later U.S. Secretary of Agriculture under President Dwight D. Eisenhower, organized a great charitable operation to help the starving people in Germany. This charitable organization later became known as CARE.
The Church continued to exist in the former GDR after the War. Faithful members continued to maintain contact with the Church in the West. These ongoing efforts made it possible to dedicate the Freiberg Temple (Saxony) in 1985, the first temple on German soil and the first in a (then) Communist country. Two years later, another temple was dedicated in Germany, located in Friedrichsdorf (Hessia).
Today, Latter-day Saints in Germany total approximately 40,000, many of them second, third, and fourth generation members and are organized in 183 congregations meeting in 161 meetinghouses.
Missionary work in Switzerland began on November 24, 1850. A Church publication, the Millennial Star, reported 20 converts were baptized in 1851, but many Church members emigrated to America until the 1950s.
Today members total approximately 9,000, with many coming from second, third, and fourth generations of Church members in Switzerland. Forty congregations meet in 27 meetinghouses.
The first temple built in Europe was completed in Zollikofen, near Bern, September 11, 1955. Initially, it served Church members throughout Western Europe and the Nordic countries. The temple was later remodeled and rededicated by future Church President Gordon B. Hinckley of the First Presidency in October 1992.
Orson Hyde, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles was first to visit Austria in 1841. More than 20 years later, Apostle Orson Pratt and missionary William W. Ritter arrived in Austria to begin missionary work.
Missionary work returned at the end of World War I, and the number of Austrian Latter-day Saints increased. In 1920, the first district (a geographic area of several congregations) in Austria was organized, and a year later the Relief Society, the Church's women's organization, was formed in Vienna.
Austria granted official government recognition to The Church in September 1955.
Wir trennen uns nur, um uns wieder zu treffen, Schwester Smith.
