This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2011, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Despite a prohibition on proselytizing in the Middle East, LDS Church membership in the region has grown steadily, apostle Jeffrey R. Holland said last week."We respect the conditions established by local governments," Holland told the LDS Church News, but even without typical Mormon outreach efforts, the Utah-based faith has tripled its membership there through the years."Many members of the church continue to move into the area, representing one kind of growth," Holland said. "Plus, some others in the Christian community in these nations have inquired about the church and have chosen to join the church, which they are allowed to do."The apostle, who declined an interview request with The Salt Lake Tribune, returned last month from a multi-nation sweep, including stops in Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Jordan and Israel. He addressed thousands of members in separate meetings and officiated at the division of an LDS stake (made up of several congregations) into two separate units, one in Manama Bahrain and the other in Abu Dhabi, UAE. Holland reportedly is the first LDS apostle to have returned to that stake since its creation some 28 years ago by Boyd K. Packer, now the Quorum of the Twelve's senior apostle.Mormon researcher Matthew Martinich confirms that LDS membership growth in the region is occurring on the magnitude of hundreds and thousands, adding that this has been "almost entirely concentrated among Westerners and Filipinos."The LDS Church had 3,440 members in the Middle East/North Africa organized into eight wards and 23 branches, says Martinich, who cited the LDS Church's 2011 Almanac.Today, he estimates, about 4,000 members live in those regions, with approximately 2,000 to 2,500 residing with the boundaries of the newly divided Abu Dhabi Stake and Manama Bahrain District.The UAE likely has the most Latter-day Saints in the Saudi Arabian Peninsula, with nearly 800 members at the end of 2009, Martinich writes in an email from his Colorado home. In the past five years, the church has grown from two wards (one in Abu Dhabi and one in Dubai), to four wards and two branches (smaller congregations).Most of the converts in those countries are Filipinos, he says, who are sometimes segregated by nationality. In Qatar, membership is around 350 and two wards: one for Filipinos and one for Westerners.Arab Christians appear to be joining the LDS Church only in Jordan, Israel, Syria and Lebanon, not in the Saudi Arabian Peninsula, Martinich reports. There were between 500 and 1,000 Mormons in Saudi Arabia, 114 members in Bahrain and fewer than 100 each in Kuwait and Oman at the end of 2009.Holland's final stop was in Tel Aviv, Israel, where he dedicated a recently completed LDS chapel.
Even amid the political upheavals engulfing various countries of the region, Holland told the Church News, Mormons are doing "wonderfully well and feel very safe."Peggy Fletcher Stack