Missionary Work 3

Reaching the Deaf with American Sign Language

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been providing American Sign Language (ASL) translation for more than 30 years. Now it is increasing its efforts to provide Church documents, pamphlets, manuals, and videos in ASL to aid the Deaf as they learn the gospel.

The Mormon Church considers ASL a foreign language. Thus, experts follow the same process used to translate into any other language.

Although many Deaf people read and understand written English, ASL does not follow the same sentence structure that English does. Rather, it follows the pattern of most romantic languages. For this reason, printed material and closed captioning services do not always provide the Deaf with clear understanding. [1]

Some deaf people read English very well, while others prefer to actually read ASL. Written ASL is more like a romance language than pure English, and uses more imagery. Many deaf people feel the holy spirit more easily when reading ASL.

“The Book of Mormon translation into ASL has made a huge impact on the Deaf community in terms of being able to learn and have access to the gospel.

ASL is just one of many sign languages used throughout the world. Most languages—and even countries—have their own sign language. Eventually, the goal is to translate church materials into the various worldwide sign languages, beginning with ASL. The patterns established will help make translating into other sign languages more efficient.

A few products, like the movie Legacy, offer more than ASL. Legacy is translated into both British and Japanese sign language as well.

To begin, translators transform English sentences into a series of keywords and symbols. The symbols indicate what types of emotions and movements that the signer should make to convey the meaning of the words. This translated piece is called a gloss.

The gloss is then put on a teleprompter, and a native Deaf signer is filmed signing what is indicated on the screen. The end result is a visual product that Deaf people can watch.

The growing list of materials available in ASL includes items like the Book of Mormon, selected hymns, the Gospel Principles manual, general conference, and many other faith-building films, pamphlets, and documents. The ASL page on LDS.org (http://lds.org/asl) also provides translated materials and broadcasts.

These products are useful both to Deaf members of the Mormon Church and their families, and to missionaries who teach Deaf investigators.

LDS Church Growth in South America

More and more people in South America are converting to Mormonism. Since the church built its first Latin American temple in Säo Paulo, Brazil, in 1978, 31 new temples have been built in Latin America and nine others are underway.

Recently, the Mormon Church announced plans to build new temples across the world, including one in Barranquilla, Colombia. The church builds temples based on the number of Latter-day Saints living within a certain geographic area, so the construction of new temples means the church is growing. The goal of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is to make Mormon Temples easily accessible to all members of the Church.

"It is very exciting because when a new temple is announced, it indicates there is a real growth happening, not just in numbers," said Brad Wilcox, who served two volunteer missions in Chile, once as a child and once as an adult. "A new temple reflects a growth in meeting attendance, tithe paying and overall spirituality." [2]

The growth in Latin America is one of the reasons that there are more members of the LDS Church outside the United States than in it. Much of the growth is driven by missionary work, and Latin American is like a field ready to harvest. For example, the city of Santiago, Chile, contains four separate missions.

According to University of Florida religion professor Dr. Manuel Vásquez, the success of the Church in Latin America is due to several factors:

"It comes from the combination of effective outreach of well trained missionaries who know the culture and the languages of the society they are missionizing in. Mormons propose a lot of beliefs that really fit the Latin American culture. Mormons place emphasis on family, ancestors, self-improvement, cleanliness and respect for the law, and this hits home for many Latin Americans whose culture already reflect those values.

LDS Church Recognition in Hungary

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been added to a list of eighteen faiths formally recognized by the new coalition government of Hungary. [3] Mormon missionaries have been proselyting in the country without formal government recognition since 1986. The recognized churches include Buddhist and Islamic groups, as well as Christians.

Under a new law that went into effect in 2012, only 14 Christian and Jewish congregations were granted official status. This latest action expands that list to 32 churches, although a total of 82 churches, congregations and religious groups petitioned Parliament for formal recognition status. One of the purposes of the law is to block business ventures posing as churches.

The new list of officially recognized churches was approved by a two-thirds majority of the Hungarian Parliament. Sixty-six other petitioning religious groups were rejected, which means they will be allowed to function as associations in Hungary and can reapply for recognition next year. "Formal recognition gives churches tax-free status, qualifies them for government support and allows them to collect donations during services and do pastoral work in jails and hospitals," the Associated Press reported.

On June 1, 1988, the church was given full recognition by the government. The first Hungarian meetinghouse was dedicated in 1989. The Hungary Budapest Mission of the LDS Church was created in 1990, and the Book of Mormon was published in Hungarian in 1991. At that time, there were about 75 members of the church worshiping in several small congregations. Fewer than 15 years later, church membership in Hungary had grown to 4,147. In 2006, the Budapest Hungary Stake — an ecclesiastical unit consisting of a number of congregations, similar to a Catholic diocese — was created. As of Jan. 1, 2011, LDS membership statistics indicate there were 4,738 Latter-day Saints in Hungary living in 22 individual church congregations.