BRIEF REPORT OF EUROPEAN MISSION

The European Mission of the Church, whose affairs in a general way I have directed as its president during the last two years, consists of twelve separate and distinct missions which are located in sixteen different nations of the Eastern Hemisphere. The geographical area it covers is bounded by and includes South Africa on the south, Palestine and Czechoslovakia on the east, Norway on the north and Ireland on the west. Each of these twelve different missions has its affairs carefully directed and its work carefully supervised by an able and experienced mission president who has had years of effective training in the different branches of Church activity. Mission presidents are called from ordinary pursuits and give three or more years of service without compensation other than payment of mere expenses.

In general our Elders are kindly received and fairly treated in all of the sixteen different countries included in the European Mission. Old prejudices have largely disappeared.

Last year President Heber J. Grant, world-wide head of the Mormon Church, visited all of the missions in the European Mission except South Africa and Palestine. He was greeted everywhere by the people and by the press with hearty words of welcome. Members of the Church and their friends came out in large numbers to see and to hear him.

The missionaries live in accordance with that great fundamental teaching and practice of the Church appearing in our twelfth Article of Faith, namely: "We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law." They refrain from discussing governments or governmental policies and they are all instructed positively not to participate in the politics of the countries where they labor. They are sent forth to give purpose to living, to improve the conditions of the present and to inspire in the hearts of the people hope for the future.