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The Future Is Bright

Go Forward with Faith

In a way, the conclusion of any history book is but an introduction to the next. The Church is growing and changing so rapidly in Asia that only a few years will pass before a new edition or an entirely new book will be required to tell the entire story. Updating and new editions are especially needed for books like this one, which includes a journalistic effort to be current. How rapidly events have transpired and how great the changes have been in the development of the Church in Asia are illustrated well in my own writing. In 1979 I wrote:

Since President Spencer W. Kimball delivered his monumental address to the Regional Representatives in April 1974,1 the Church has entered a new era of missionary fervor. The Saints have "lengthened their stride" and "quickened their pace." Numbers of missionaries and new converts have increased. In March 1979, President Kimball again encouraged the Latter-day Saints to pray that the gospel might be taken to the nations and peoples in which the doors are not open to our missionaries. He emphasized the need to pray for entry into China and the need to study the Mandarin language.2

President Kimball's urge to open China is not surprising. With its 958 million people (1979), China is the most populous country in the world. Approximately one- fourth of the world's people speak Chinese. China is an ancient land with a magnificent history and a well-developed culture. As a rule the Chinese people are intelligent and able.

For more than a millennium Christian missionaries have considered China the "grand prize." But for various reasons, China has resisted Christianity. Historical circumstances, political intrigue, religious and philosophical disagreements, and cultural differences between missionaries and the Chinese people have thwarted the success of earlier Christian missionary groups.

Other great Asian nations are also within President Kimball's worldwide missionary vision. Although approximately 250 Indians near Coimbatore, India, are baptized Latter-day Saints, most of India's 675 million people are yet to be introduced to the restored gospel. The peoples of Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka (Ceylon), Burma, Malaysia, Laos, Bhutan, Nepal, Tibet, Vietnam, and Mongolia too lie beyond the bounds of concentrated LDS missionary work. The small number of LDS missionaries in Indonesia is inconsequential in comparison with the 145 million people in that far-flung island nation. Obviously the major part of the Lord's children wait for messengers who can communicate the restored gospel to them.

When I read my own words, written eighteen years ago, I was struck by several points. First, that our beloved prophet, Spencer W. Kimball, has been gone from us for so long; and second, that the excitement he engendered within the Church to spread the gospel to the entire world has not faltered but increased under the leadership of President Ezra Taft Benson, President Howard W. Hunter, and President Gordon B. Hinckley. The approximately thirty thousand missionaries of President Kimball's time has expanded to more than fifty thousand in late 1996-and no limits are in sight for this growing army of the Lord.