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Former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman Jr. was unanimously confirmed as United States Ambassador to China. He and his family are on their way to that great country. When I was a little girl, Communist China would not allow LDS missionaries inside the mainland. Except for the leased port of Hong-Kong, Mormons hardly ever entered China.
One day, President Spencer W. Kimball suggested that we prepare to send missionaries to China and recommended that Latterday Saints begin to learn Mandarin Chinese. We all laughed because the Communist government had consistently rejected efforts to send missionaries to the country.
Several years latter, a team of blood bankers from my Laboratory in Utah were invited to mainland China to teach the Chinese the practice of blood-banking and transfusion medicine.
My Mormon friends entered the country and began to assist with the modernization of the Chinese Healthcare system. They realized that the average Chinese blood donor was much smaller than the typical American so they decided that each donor could only donate half a unit of blood. They stayed and cared for the people until a modern blood bank was fully operational. The Chinese gradually began to “open their doors” until finally, they just decided to invite the whole world to their land for the Olympics.
God has opened up China. He is establishing close bonds between the Chinese people and the LDS Church.
Congratulations and best of luck to Ambassador Huntsman and his family.
We love you and miss you already. God Bless.
Interesting news. That is cool. Too cool. That’s wonderful. I’m sorry for this, someone delete it if it’s inappropriate. Missionaries have been going to Taiwan since 1956, where mandarin is spoken, the first taiwan mission was organized in 1971, BoM translated to chinese in 1965.(cantonese and mandarin use essentially the same written language)
It’t not inappropriate, swimordie. It just highlights how long missionaries have been so close to traditional China but unable to crack that final hurdle. This is my take on the issue–keep in mind, I’m a PS major, that leans left. Huntsman’s appointment has a few basic, obvious purposes. 1)Huntsman is/was a real contender in the Republican Party for the Presidential nomination in 2012–people become President from the Governor’s Mansion, but not from ambassadorships. 2)Huntsman has been an ambassador in Asia before, he speaks the language, and he’s politically savvy. 3)It was a way for Pres. Obama to make a bipartisan appointment, while helping himself in the process. Huntsman is moderate so it won’t infuriate liberals, and he’s conservative enough that it pleased most Republicans. I don’t personally see this as the sort of issue that will advance missionary work in China. Utah has had a good relationship with China since Huntsman became governor, and hopefully, Huntsman will improve the US/China relationship as well, but I don’t see this as “God working in mysterious ways”. Until China changes its communist government to some form of democracy, they will always be hostile to “foreign” religions–they don’t want anything to compete with one’s love of country. I could very well be wrong, but my “prediction” is that there won’t be proselytizing Mormon missionaries in China as long as it is communist. It is true that Taiwan/Hong Kong have had missionaries for quite a while, but those territories have a level of autonomy from China, and they aren’t directly run by communists.
I think having a temple in East Germany before the wall came down is a pretty good reason to allow for possibilities – even if they aren’t probabilities. Old-Timer wrote:I think having a temple in East Germany before the wall came down is a pretty good reason to allow for possibilities – even if they aren’t probabilities.
Valid point. One difference is that East Germany was a puppet of the Soviets, and the small amount of autonomy/sovereignty they had increased as Soviet power decreased throughout the 80’s. Either way, you’re right, it is possible to see missionaries and even Temples in China, even if it doesn’t seem probable.
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