Elders Oaks, Holland assigned abroad
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Two members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles will begin assignments outside the United States for one year starting in August. It will be the first time for nearly half a century such senior leaders have lived and presided in an international area of the Church.
Elder Dallin H. Oaks will serve as area president in the Philippines and Elder Jeffrey R. Holland will serve as area president in Chile.
The appointments were announced April 9 by the First Presidency in a post-general conference training meeting with General Authorities.
Assignments of apostles to reside in international areas have not been a practice in the Church for nearly five decades. In the mid-1960s, Elder Mark E. Petersen and Elder Ezra Taft Benson of the Quorum of the Twelve each lived in Europe for about two years while presiding over the West European and European missions, respectively. In the early 1920s, Elder David O. McKay presided over the British Mission while a member of the Quorum of the Twelve.
The move to assign two members of the Quorum of the Twelve to live in and preside over international areas is aimed at meeting the challenges that the Church has faced for years in many developing areas, namely rapid Church growth, the need to train leadership, the need help new members assimilate into the Church and to help members attend the temple. The assignments will enable members of the Quorum of the Twelve to gain additional experience in meeting and resolving these challenges, the press release stated.
Church growth in the Philippines has been pronounced. In the past decade, Church membership there has grown to nearly half a million following implementation of modern-day missionary work in 1961 by President Gordon B. Hinckley, then an Assistant to the Quorum of the Twelve.
By 1969, the Church had spread to eight major islands and had the highest number of baptisms of any area in the Church. The Manila Missionary Training Center was established in 1983.
Philippines membership in 1984 was 76,000; in 1990 it was 237,000. Today, it is approximately 496,000, in more than 1,200 wards and branches grouped in 80 stakes and 13 missions. A temple was dedicated in Manila in 1984. On May 30, 1996, President Hinckley spoke to more than 35,000 people at a meeting in Manila.
Today, Chile has more than 520,000 Latter-day Saints. Elder Parley P. Pratt visited Chile in 1851, and work began in that country on May 26, 1956, when Chile became part of the Argentine Mission. The Chile Mission was organized on October 8, 1961, with 1,100 members. When the first stake was organized 11 years later, membership had grown to more than 20,000. When the Santiago Chile Temple was dedicated Sept. 14, 1983, there were some 140,000 members of the Church in Chile. On October 29, 1988, Chile became the fourth country to reach 50 stakes.
At the 10th anniversary of the dedication of the Santiago Chile Temple in 1993, it was noted that Chile, with the fastest growing Church membership in South America, had doubled in members and in the number of stakes during that decade.
Continued growth, including the creation of 26 new stakes from 1994-96, led to the creation of the Chile Area in 1996. On April 25, 1999, President Hinckley spoke to some 57,000 members in Santiago, the largest gathering of members in South America.
In June 2000, in a "conversation with reporters," President Hinckley spoke of "the greatest challenge" for the Church. "It is growth and the problems that come of growth," he said. "And accompanying that growth, we have two basic problems that we face. One is the training of local leadership. That is a very important thing and we carry on a very extensive program — to train local men to preside over activities in the Church worldwide. The other is the construction of buildings. Our people have to be housed and provision made for meeting together and things of that kind. So those two needs constantly arise out of growth: Training of leadership and building of facilities. And thus far, we have been able to keep up with both."
