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Korea 1977-1996

Balancing Traditional Values with Gospel Service

The Late 1970s

The growth of the Church in Korea during the 1970s was impressive. Church membership at the end of 1978 stood at 12,971, up a thousand from the year before. Approximately three hundred missionaries were in the two missions. Membership growth in the Seoul area continued to be greater than anywhere else in Korea. Because of the growth of the Seoul Korea Stake, it was necessary in May 1977 to create the Seoul Korea West Stake from the original unit. President Kim Chang Sun was called as the new stake president. President Rhee remained president of the mother stake until 1978, when he was called to lead the Pusan Mission. He was replaced by Choi Wook Hwan, his first counselor.

By 1978 the local Saints occupied every major position in the Church with the exception of the presidency of the Korea Seoul Mission, which was held by F. Ray Hawkins. The Regional Representative, Han In Sang, was a native-born Korean. The Church in Korea continued to grow and mature in every way-more missions (the Seoul West Mission was created on July 1, 1979), more members, more wards and branches, more stakes (the Seoul East Stake was formed April 18, 1979, with Ko Won Yong as president; the Pusan Stake was created on September 6, 1979, with Chang Jae Hwan as its first president; the Seoul North Stake was organized three days later, September 9, 1979, with Hong Moo Kwang as its leader; and the Kwangju Stake was constituted on October 25, 1980, presided over by Pak Byung Kyu-all between April 1979 and October 1980-and eight more stakes were created by 1986), and more buildings. But most important, the Korean Saints received the blessing of a temple in Seoul in 1985.

The Mormon Tabernacle Choir made its first visit to Japan and Korea in September 1979. The impressions left by this great musical organization were deep and lasting. Music is an important cultural tradition, and the quality of the music performed in the National Theater touched the hearts and lives of many nonmembers as well as Korean Latter-day Saints. When the choir returned a year or so later, the effect was equally positive.1 The second tour came shortly before the second area conference.

The Area Conference of 1980

In March 1980 the First Presidency announced a second series of conferences to be held in various Asian nations, including Korea. This tour started from the south and ended in Japan, where the new temple was dedicated. Korea was the penultimate stop. The area conference in Seoul was held on October 25 and 26, 1980. A hall large enough to hold the expected crowd could not be arranged, so the conference planners, hoping for good weather, opted to hold the general sessions outside at the Ch'ongun-dong church grounds.

Sheri L. Dew, author of President Gordon B. Hinckley's biography Go Forward with Faith, described the event in these words: "The temperature . . . plummeted to 28 degrees F., forcing the first session of conference inside the Seoul 4th Ward chapel. Thousands of members who couldn't find seats in the building sat outside and listened to the message over a public address system. The afternoon session was moved outdoors so that those who couldn't squeeze into the building could see President Kimball and the other visiting leaders, all of whom sat huddled on the stand in heavy coats and blankets."2 A "cold and violently blowing wind"3 raced through the six thousand conferencegoers, but the crowd was grateful and happy to be in the presence of the Lord's prophet and many other General Authorities and leaders of the Church.4