Some time ago, a group of Mormon missionaries who had been playing basketball once a week in Berlin as a means of worth-while diversion, was approached by representatives of the German Olympic Association and invited to assist in the organization and instruction of likely candidates for the German Olympic Basketball team. The opportunity was accepted with pleasure, with the result that the American boys were the recipients of generous nation-wide newspaper publicity. Later two of the Berlin missionaries, Charles E. Skidmore (Logan, Utah) and H. Bowman Hawks (Ogden, Utah) spent considerable time at the official Olympic training camp serving as coaches and trainers for the prospective team.

The movement inaugurated in Berlin soon spread into other sections of Germany, being received with particular enthusiasm by the Gera division of the German National Confederation of Athletics. There Elders Blythe M. Gardner (Richfield, Utah) and Morrel Ashby, (American Fork, Utah) were called upon by several athletic associations to provide, at the expense of these organizations, necessary equipment and to undertake the schooling of interested members in the science and technicalities of basketball.

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Largely as a result of the conspicuous activities of the missionary basketball team in Berlin, an amateur league consisting of several teams has recently been organized in that city. The Mormonen were regarded as the most potential contenders for the title, and each victory means another notable step towards popularizing our message and overcoming indifference and opposition. At the same time, the German nation is benefited in a particular way in that the "Mormon boys," both directly and indirectly, assisted her to prepare for the 1936 Olympics.

But even more significant—a new means has been provided whereby the Gospel of Jesus Christ can be preached by words and actions, to the youth of a nation—a youth less available, perhaps, under ordinary circumstances, than at any other period since the establishment of the Church in Germany.