I am a member of the Kirtland Ward of the Kirtland Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Ward is located in Kirtland, Ohio. Our Ward meets at the Kirtland Stake Center which is only about half a mile from the Kirtland Temple, the first temple built by the Latter-Day Saints.
The early Latter-day Saint pioneers began to gather in Kirtland Ohio in 1831 and by a revelation given to the Prophet Joseph Smith, Jr. began to plan a house of worship in 1833. At great personal expense and through their own labor and sacrifice, these poor pioneer Saints built the Kirtland Temple and it was dedicated on March 27, 1836. Elements of the dedication of that first Latter-day Saint Temple continue to be followed today in the dedication of Latter-day Saint Temples.
Internal dissension and external pressures caused the Latter-Day Saints, including Joseph Smith, Jr., to leave Kirtland only a few short years after the Kirtland Temple was dedicated. Most of those Saints would travel eventually to Nauvoo, Illinois and begin a second Temple under the direction of Joseph Smith, Jr. After Smith was assassinated in 1844, work on the Nauvoo Temple was continued by Brigham Young. Those Pioneer Saints worked tirelessly to finish the Nauvoo Temple even knowing that they soon would need to abandon it due to pressure from the surrounding communities that where hostile to the Church. Sacred ordinances where being performed in the Nauvoo Temple even as those Pioneer Saints struggled to compete the work.
Those Pioneer Saints were forced to leave Nauvoo and abandon their newly built Nauvoo Temple in 1846. The majority of those Saints followed Brigham Young to the Salt Lake Valley in the Utah Territory, where they began their third temple, the Salt Lake Temple. The Nauvoo Temple was burned to the ground by arsonists in 1848.
Much like those early Pioneer Saints who built the Kirtland Temple in the 1830’s and later the Nauvoo Temple, the Church has other groups of Pioneer Saints throughout the World today. Much like those early Saints in Kirtland, many of these groups of Pioneer Saints find their ability to worship as they choose under attack.
One of those places where Pioneer Saints struggle today is in Hong Kong. Missionary work was begun in Hong Kong around the time of Mao Se Tung’s victory in the Chinese Civil War, in 1949. The membership of the Church had grown to the point where a Temple was dedicated in Hong Kong in 1996. Today, the Church has over 25,000 members in Hong Kong, far in excess of those early Pioneer Saints in Kirtland.
Hong Kong was turned over by Great Britain to Communist China in 1997. In recent years the people of Hong Kong and mainland China have seen their personal rights and freedoms, including their religious freedoms, curtailed more and more by the Chinese Communist Party under the rule of Xi Jinping. In July of 2019 the Hong Kong Temple was closed for renovations with the work expected to be completed in 2022. With the current period of repression of religious freedoms in Communist China today, I find it doubtful that the Hong Kong Temple will be reopened or used for its intended purposes anytime soon.
Another area where Pioneer Saints are being threatened in their ability to exercise their religious freedoms is in Taiwan. The island nation of Taiwan was settled by the Nationalist Chinese after their defeat by Mao’s Communist forces in 1949. The first missionaries visited in 1956. The Taipei Taiwan Temple was dedicated by President Gordon B. Hinkley in 1984. Taiwan is home to over 60,000 Church members today.
Just as the people in Hong Kong are seeing their freedoms threatened by Mainland China, so are the Pioneer Saints in Taiwan. The Chinese Communist Party views the island nation of Taiwan as a renegade province. In recent years, Xi Jinping had made veiled threats and not so veiled threats to forcibly “reunify” Taiwan under the banner of the Chinese Communist Party and oust the country’s democratically elected government. Taiwan’s sovereignty and the freedoms of her citizens, including those Pioneer Saints, is under threat today by Communist China.
Another group of Pioneer Saints to come under threat are those in Ukraine. The building of the Kyiv Ukraine Temple was originally announced in 1998 and eventually dedicated in 2010. The Kyiv Ukraine Temple was the first to be built in the former Soviet Union. The Church has about 11,00 members in Ukraine today.
On February 24, 2022, Russian military forces invaded Ukraine upon the orders of Russian President, Vladimir Putin. The Kyiv Ukraine Temple has been closed ever since. Much like Xi’s attitude towards Taiwan, Putin does not recognize the sovereignty of Ukraine and wishes to oust Ukraine’s democratically elected government. The Russian government does not recognize the rights and freedoms of the Ukrainian people, including those Pioneer Saints, and has indiscriminately bombed residential buildings and targeted civilians. When and if the Kyiv Ukraine Temple opens again will be determined by the brave and heroic Ukraine military and their supporters at home and throughout the World.
For Latter-day Saints, understanding the early history of the Church in Kirtland is important for understanding how the Gospel has and will spread throughout the World. Without connecting the history of the early Church with the life experiences of modern-day Saints today, our knowledge of the early history of the Church is of very limited value. Those early Pioneer Saints where able to choose to follow the Gospel of Jesus Christ only because they had the ability to settle in a place where they could worship freely. A person without the freedom to hear the message of Jesus Christ cannot accept the message of Jesus Christ. A person without the freedom to choose cannot choose to follow Jesus Christ. Without the freedom to choose, there is no Gospel of Jesus Christ.
The Pioneer Saints in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Ukraine do not have the luxury of fleeing to some distant mountain sanctuary, like the early Pioneer Saints. These modern-day Pioneer Saints must stand and fight for their freedoms where they stand. We should support the modern-day Pioneer Saints, and all those who stand firm and fight for freedom Worldwide.