has anyone paid attention to this? This is a trend only begun in recent years

In the arabic world of the Middle East, there are no missionaries. Due to local shariah laws, proselyting is strictly prohibited as well as conversion from islam. Instead, members have the authority given to "teach" those who approach the church and want to be taught.

Nonetheless, the LDS church has found a way through the back door in these countries and is managing to establish itself without even having a single elder or a single native.

The oil rich economies of the Arabic gulf states demand high rates of immigration to the countries, often these come in the form of either a) extremely wealthy western businessmen or b) incredibly poor asian cheap labourers. Many of these immigrants in group b have stemmed from the Philippines, which is a nation highly receptive to LDS (even if activity rates are abysmal).

Two trends have occurred, the existence of active members of the church in these arabic states has caused wards and branches to emerge. They are legally tolerated to exist providing they do not preach. In addition, many non member filipinos have came to the countries but found no place of worship, LDS has often existed as an only option for them. As a result, conversions of non-members have occurred in these countries.

In Saudi Arabia, the church exists but is legally registered as a "community gathering" as the laws are stricter. Details on the church in this country is not published.

The arab world of Mormonism:

United Arab Emirates: 5 wards, 1 Branch
Qatar: 2 wards, 1 branch
Bahrain: 1 branch

all of these congregations are administered over by 1 stake (established 2010), which is international.

Upsetrm Wrote:
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> Many of
> these immigrants in group b have stemmed from the
> Philippines, which is a nation highly receptive to
> LDS (even if activity rates are abysmal).
>
I guess you and I disagree with the definition of "highly receptive."

Looking over at cumorah.com, the number of nominal Mormons in that country is 0.7% of the population. Joseph Fielding Smith dedicated it in 1955, so there has been almost 60 years of missionary work. Of course, the Philippines is one of the worst areas for retention, with almost 600 "members" per unit.

Cumorah.com estimates that no more than 20% of the nominal members are active, so 0.14% of the population is active LDS.

From the site: "The Church has discontinued 10 stakes in Munoz (1992), Olongapo (1993), Ozamiz (1993), Kidapawan (1995), Bauang (2003), Camiling (2003), Mangaldan (2003), Agoo (2004), La Carlota (2004), and Burgos (2005). Primary reasons for the Church discontinuing these stakes include inadequate numbers of active priesthood holders, slowing growth, poor retention among new converts, and transportation challenges."

Damn, I would hate to see what a country which isn't "highly receptive" would look like.

For the statistically challenged folks, if 0.14% of the population is active LDS, 99.86% is not.

Or, if the Philippines were Ivory soap, they would actually be 99 and 86/100% pure nonMormon.

Looking at the FDA rules for labeling.

"Is it necessary to declare ingredients in “trace”, i.e., incidental amounts? Can sulfites be considered incidental additives?

"Answer: FDA does not define “trace amounts”; however, there are some exemptions for declaring ingredients present in “incidental” amounts in a finished food. If an ingredient is present at an incidental level and has no functional or technical effect in the finished product, then it need not be declared on the label. "

If the Philippines were a soup, then the FDA would not require listing Mormons on the label.

outsider Wrote:
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> If the Philippines were a soup, then the FDA would
> not require listing Mormons on the label.

LOL. Love it.

If it looks like a duck...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balut_%28food%29

But a health warning would be called for: may contain traces of peanuts and Mormonism...

However, Philippines is one of the top Mormony countries. If I recall correctly, the five are:

USA
Mexico
Brazil
Philippines
Chile

There's a reason the brethren sent Oaks to Philippines to straighten out the mess the church had there. (Holland was sent to Chile at the same time for the same reason.) ChurchCo might be a trace ingredient in Philippines, but that trace means a lot to ChurchCo.

Any LDS church presence in the Middle East is nominal...The Middle East is Islamic and nothing else is tolerated. The only LDS members are going to be in Bahrain with the Navy, The Air Force in Saudi or Filipinos working in these countries. I don't think the Church even expects any real growth or missionary activity in that part of the world.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/08/2014 12:19PM by whiskeytango.

I don't think this is true. I know an area authority over there - he's not military - he's a businessman and has been over there for several years. The church us working it - to what success I'm not sure...

There is still a lot of Christianity in the Middle East. Past church missionary activity has been restricted to teaching only non-Muslims. The LDS church used to be in Beirut, but it has been too dangerous there for many years. There was and probably still is a large active branch of local Jordanians in Amman. The Jordanians have put out several missionaries from that branch.

In Pakistan (non-Arab Islamic state), there were three branches until about 2005 or 2006, with senior missionaries in charge and proselyting among the Christians there.

The church is relatively successful in the world's largest Muslim state of Indonesia; once again, they preach to the many Christians. Another Islamic state where the church has been reasonably successful is Albania, where the Muslims are mostly secular. And I think that Albania has a lot of Christians, too.

(Back in the early 1900s, the church had the Turkish Mission, that also took in Greece and Armenia. The few Greek and Armenian converts came to Utah, and in the old museum that used to exist on Temple Square, they had an old Armenian BoM among artifacts like BY's top hat. Today the LDS church operates a foundering mission in Greece with only a couple of branches that are always in trouble with the law. There is also another mission in Armenia, I think. Armenia and Greece, however, have cultures that are tightly interwoven with the Orthodox church--something which the upstart American church just doesn't understand--and conversions are close to impossible.)

What he says IS true. Dubai Mormons are all immigrants and US government, etc. Bahrain is all US Navy, some US government and private business. Qatar is all US servicemen. Jordan has some active LDS missionary efforts among the indigenous Christians. Albania has had some success, but is very secular. (And it's European, not Arab.) Indonesia has some Mormons and a lot of missionary effort, but is Asian. You simply are not allowed to try to convert Muslims. Even the LDS church supposedly supports this.

Methinks the morg is missing a bet if they don't send mishies to the island of Comoros.

Building a temple in the capital city of Moroni would be so speshul, doncha thik?.

I think Mormon misisonaries should go to countries like Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq to sell their particular brand of unspeakable horsesh#it.

If they REALLY believed in their own baloney they would BEHEADING off to those countries.

LOL!

Truth be known they are playing with matches over there.

Suppose some silver tongued Merican boy or of course boys should sway a lonely young oppressed youth and baptizes that willing golden convert into the yankee cult.

Quickening the work as proclaimed by a jerk. An infidel even!

An honor-killing is like unto your well-known blood atonement but as we know it happens over there all the time.

The implications for some bloody sharia-specified spite are unthinkable to a sensible cult leader, one would think.

How can they not see that occurring over in the aljazerra real world outside of the realm of possibility ?

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread

Fools who fuck around in the fountainhead of the one true prophet.

Morg presence in Arab world is infinitesimally small...but, if they really want to know persecution, instead of just bitching about it when someone tells them they're a cult, they ought to try proselyting there!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/08/2014 08:56PM by stillburned.

Anywhere there are a lot of ex-pats from North or South America (or, I suppose, the Phillippines) there will be a Mormon presence. I've heard or read somewhere that the number of South Americans attending branches in Spain and Italy exceeds the number of locals.

Qatar and the UAE are also far more gentle with regards to their laws than places like Saudi Arabia or Kuwait are.

Ironically enough, Utah has a fairly large Muslim student population at the colleges here. BYU in particular, whose honor code closely aligns with Islamic expectations of behavior.

A lot of those South Americans in Italy are in fact Italian. I remember that when the Argentinean economy collapsed, that a lot of Italian Argentineans went to Italy.

... Italian grandparents, hence in proud possession of an Italian passpôrt. Spain had lots of those as well, but the economic crisis made many move back home. Not very Italian at all.

I meant that they were ethnic Italians.

Alpiner Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I've heard or read somewhere that the number of South Americans
> attending branches in Spain and Italy exceeds the
> number of locals.


Yes, my ward in Madrid was 85% Latin American. But the bishopric? All Spaniards and North Americans.

On my mission in the UK we were specifically cautioned about teaching Muslims, particularly Pakistanis. It wasn't outright forbidden, but they did tell us to be very careful, because getting a Muslim to even consider joining an "infidel" religion could put their life in real danger. Even in a country with freedom of religion. Apparently, there is a real threat that their Muslim friends and family would kill them in order to prevent them leaving the faith, and incurring damnation. To Muslims, its literally better to be dead than an ex-Muslim.

So I really don't think there's any reason to worry about Mormonism ever taking off in these parts of the world. Which is actually kind of a shame, because Muslims are one of the only groups on Earth who might actually be better of Mormon than they are in their current religion!

The penalty for apostasy for Muslims is indeed death. Mind you, the Bible also has the same punishment but fortunately nobody follows that any more, in civilized countries at least.

'Those who hath served other gods, which I have not commanded; thou shalt bring forth that man or that woman, and shalt STONE them till they die' GOD, Dt 17:1-5

'But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me. ' JESUS, Luke 19:27

the american muhammad

wives optional of course

"members have the authority given to "teach" those who approach the church and want to be taught." - how does one "approach" the church when nobody dares say they are with the CULT?

the CULT might be popular there come to think of it. The CULT already has something very much like Shariah laws. And women are garbage in both the CULT and the Middle East. Who knows, maybe the sisters will be in burkas soon. MORONS!



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/09/2014 03:48AM by verilyverily.

They do the same thing in india and china. The ward is just americans living there and othrr immigrants that already joined Mormonism.

They meet at a persons home, no church.

I'm echoing capitolmoroni; so the make-up of the members (active?) needs to be given. Some may have converted, but are they active?

I have a dear TBM friend who is involved in oil but moved to U.A.E Now I don't know what the rules were, yes there was freedom of religion, but many of those countries have anti-proselytizing laws. So you could lose your Visa if you tried any sort of missionary work.

Therefore logically, it's not the native populations that are increasing the membership stats; it's rather imported members who could face being kicked out or even jail if they were to try to convert anyone local.

The Church does not report a single member in the entire Arab world. They only have 1 "family history center" in the UAE, probably for tax (evasion) purposes.

I'm am guessing ISIS will greet mormonism with a warm welcome.

The Phillipines is neither Arab, nor predominantly Muslim. Most Filipinos I know are either practicing Catholics, or were raised Catholic & aren't religious anymore.

I would imagine that most of these are American service men and women, as well as employees of contractors from the US.

Conference talk coming soon:

The Book of Mormon: A Second Witness for the Qur'an!