An event of major significance to the growth of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Asia occurred on March 15, 1970, when the Mormon Pavilion at Expo '70 in Osaka, Japan, was dedicated. By the time the fair closes, an estimated nine million persons will have visited the Pavilion and seen and heard the story of the Church in spoken word and attractive visual displays and films.
Of this number. it is expected that many thousands will eventually Join the Church.
In The Church Encounters Asia, Dr. Spencer J. Palmer, a former chaplain and mission president in Korea, traced the history of the Church in this most populous area of the world. He goes back to the early days of the Church, when the first missionaries were sent to India and China in the 1850s, and brings the account up to the present, when missionaries may be found in Japan, Hong Kong. the Philippines, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, and other major areas of Asia.
The rapidity with which the Church is growing in Asia may be seen In Japan, where less than a thousand members were found in the years immediately after World War II. By 1957, there were some fifteen hundred members, and just nine years later. 21,000. Where in 1968 there was one mission, In 1970 there are four plus the first stake to be organized in Asia-the Tokyo Stake.
As western eyes turn toward Asia, drawn by interest in Expo '70, the Church continues to expand its missionary activity there and to take the vital message of the Restoration to the people of these lands. As Elder Ezra Taft Benson of the Council of the Twelve has said.
"In the timetable of the Lord, the door is now open and this is the time for the work in Asia."