This is the entry explaining the Church is mainland China. I apologize but this entry will not make sense to those who aren’t members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.
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Our very first Sunday was held in Shenzhen on the 13th. It was a very unique experience because it was all held over the phone. I will try my best to explain.
As we well know, there are no missionaries in China. The restrictions are quite tight as to what foreign passport holding members of the church can and can’t do. Before I headed out to China I was under the impression that while we couldn’t actively proselyte, we could at least do it passively. Unfortunately I was wrong. We can’t do either.
I will attach some documents at the end of this post that explain more about this but I will do my best to give a summary of it. As foreign passport holding members of the Church in China we cannot talk to any locals about ANYTHING religious (Christianity-wise). If they ask us, we just have to politely decline to talk about it. We also can’t direct them to sites like lds.org or Mormon.org. We are allowed to freely talk to foreigners about our beliefs.
For church, Chinese locals are not allowed to attend the church meetings of foreign passport holding church members. They cannot be invited at all. Fortunately they are allowed to hold their own worship service but only Chinese nationals are allowed to attend.
So it seems that Church in China is largely a matter of secrecy. We know that there are members in China who converted while they were overseas (which is allowed for them to do). When we asked the president how many Chinese members were in China he said that he did not know. “Truth is I don’t want to know,” said President Lewis. “That way if the Chinese government ever does question me about it, I can honestly say that I do not know.” Peculiar, huh?
While the Church Almanac is rich in details about the history of Church in the area, it is scant on the details of present-day Chinese members of the church in that area. The almanac did note that the branches are found in Beijing, Cuangzhou, Shanghai, Xi’an and Tianjin with smaller group found elsewhere in the country. President Lewis did mention that there are two foreign branches in Beijing with about 200 members each.
For the rest of the foreign members in China there is the virtual branch. How it works is the various members from around China dial a toll-free number and enter a pin code. From that point they will be entered into the call and member of the branch presidency will preside.
When we were at the hotel, we all dressed up in Sunday clothes and met in the conference room. President Lewis set up the conference call and we began. The meeting started out with a seemingly mandatory explanation of the rules. For sacrament we were lucky to have enough priesthood to have it blessed and passed in a traditional fashion. Normally the conference call will be placed on hold and members in their individual area will perform the sacrament. After that, some members gave talks over phone. At the end of sacrament meeting, there was a roll call and Sunday school began.
It was a cool experience to see this happen. As President Lewis stated, it is a really great spiritual experience because of the focus of the members and I would have to agree. It is amazing how being away from the church seems to increase someone love for it. I am looking forward to this experience and how much it will build my testimony.
Below is a link to the newsletter explain the branch and how it works.