Adios por dos años, Elder Kerr

Elder Hayden Kerr, son of Charlie and Sarah Kerr, is in final preparation in at home MTC – including several weeks of language training - to serve the Lord and His children in the Oregon Portland Spanish-speaking Mission.

When President Joseph Smith visited Washington, D.C. in 1838, Henry Clay, "the great compromiser," suggested the prophet take members of the Church to Oregon Territory, but Joseph did not take Clay seriously. Although the territory was claimed by both America and Great Britain, Church members from both countries were denied governmental support to settle there.

After Oregon obtained statehood, Church members found more favorable conditions. Latter-day Saint settlement largely began with the arrival of LDS businessmen in 1887. They built a lumber mill on the North Powder River and persuaded several hundred families to migrate to Oregon. Migration continued with the purchase of land for sugar beet farms. By June 1901, enough members had migrated to create a stake in Oregon. Two years later, the five original congregations had grown to twelve, "all in excellent working order." By 1930, Church membership in Oregon was 3,230. When the Oregon Portland Temple was dedicated in 1989, more than 300,000 visitors toured the edifice. 

 

Today the Church in Oregon has approximately 154,000 members in 35 stakes.  And, there are two temples – one each in Portland and Medford – and three missions in the Beaver State, headquartered in Portland, Eugene and Salem. 

 

Te extrañaremos mientras te vas, Elder Kerr. 

Deus esteja com você até nos encontrarmos novamente, Irmã Savannah Evans

Sister Savannah Evans, daughter of Joel and Alisa Evans and granddaughter of Howard and Jeannie Evans, has been called to fulltime service to the Lord and His children in the Portugal Mission.  She begins her at-home MTC studies on Monday, November 15, 2021, and on Monday, November 29, enters the MTC in Provo for a month of language training before departing for the remainder of her 18-months in the mission field. 

In April 1974, the people of Portugal took to the streets to demand a new form of government. The success of the nonviolent Carnation Revolution soon led to the beginning of religious freedom in the country, allowing Latter-day Saints to begin missionary efforts there for the first time. Church leaders acted quickly, transferring missionaries to Portugal from Brazil. In 1975 a branch was organized in Lisbon, and Elder Thomas S. Monson, then of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, dedicated the country for the preaching of the gospel. 

Portugal proved to be like the “good ground” in Jesus’s parable of the sower (see Mark 4), with many taking the gospel fully into their lives and sharing it freely. The first Portuguese convert was baptized in 1967.  By 1980 there were over 1,000 members in the country, with Church branches in Lisbon, Porto, Coimbra, Viseu, and the Azores. The Lisbon stake, the first in Portugal, was organized in 1981. By 2000 Portugal had five stakes and over 35,000 Church members, giving it a higher concentration of Latter-day Saints than almost any other European country. In 2010 Church President Thomas S. Monson announced that a temple would be built in Lisbon.

 

 Today, Portuguese members of the Church number more than 45,500 – 1 in every 226 citizens – in 6 stakes.  The 23,730 square foot Lisbon Portugal Temple – the Church’s 166^th operating temple – was dedicated by Elder Neil L. Anderson on September 15, 2019.

Nossas orações vão com você, Irmã Evans.