Lithuanian Saints Celebrate 30th Anniversary of Missionary Work

 
On May 20 and 21, Lithuanian Church members gathered at the meetinghouse in Vilnius, the capital city of Lithuania, to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the organization of the Baltic States Mission. They also invited their friends and family to the event, sounding the call to “come and see.”

The first Latter-day Saint missionaries to preach in the modern territory of Lithuania did so in 1907 in Memel, Germany (now Klaipėda, Lithuania). A branch was established in Klaipėda in 1909, but contact with the branch was lost during World War II.

Some 80 years later, Robert and Ruth Rees served as humanitarian missionaries in Kaunas, Lithuania, in October 1992. They taught English to locals, consulted with the Ministry of Education and worked with the media to broadcast Church-produced programs on Lithuanian television.

The couple was followed by the first four young missionaries that served in Lithuania — Neil Checketts, Greg Lorenzon, Spencer Glende and Jason Swenson — who were sent from the Russia St. Petersburg Mission to work in the city of Vilnius on December 21, 1992.

Missionaries would continue to serve in Lithuania, thanks to the creation of the Latvia Riga Mission on July 1, 1993, with an area including Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. The mission’s name was changed to the Lithuania Vilnius Mission on April 16, 1996, before eventually becoming what is now simply known as the Baltic Mission on July 1, 2002.

These missionary milestones were part of the gospel spreading in Lithuania, which also included other events such as when

• the first native Lithuanian missionary, Marek Vasilkov, started his service in the Utah Salt Lake City Mission in November 1994;
• the Vilnius Lithuania District was organized on January 18, 1998;
• and when the first copies of the Lithuanian translation of the Book of Mormon were distributed in January 2001.

On May 20, 1993, then-Elder M. Russell Ballard of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles traveled to Vilnius and dedicated the land for the preaching of the restored gospel, also giving a prayer to bless the land with water to bring it out of a time of drought. The prayer was answered two days later with plentiful rainfall in Lithuania.

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Thirty years later, on Saturday, May 20, Lithuanian Latter-day Saints welcomed former missionaries who served in Lithuania and anyone interested in the gospel or the Church to join their celebration of missionary work at the meetinghouse in Vilnius.

As part of the event, members put photos on a wall in the chapel depicting the progression of the gospel in the Baltic States Mission from 1993 to the present day. Attendees mingled and appreciated their memories of missionary work and testimonies of the gospel.

Later that day, some of the attendees made a trip to Mount Gediminas, the same place where Elder Ballard announced the start of missionary work in the Baltic States in 1993, to remember the historic event. On the mountain, President Genadijus Motiejūnas, president of the Vilnius Lithuanian District, offered a prayer of gratitude for the blessings of the gospel in their country.

After the trip to Mount Gediminas, members of the district shared their testimonies of the transformative power of the gospel in their lives and its advancement in their country at a devotional in the meetinghouse in Vilnius. They also shared photos of the most important events of the Church in Lithuania, including members’ temple trips and different holidays and events held by the local Latter-day Saints.

Finally, the members finished their day’s celebration with service by planting 30 flowering trees near the meetinghouse. The following Sunday, May 21, Church members gathered again for the Lithuanian district conference, again sharing their testimonies by giving talks and singing hymns.