A new mission has been created in Australia with the division of the Australia Sydney Mission, the First Presidency announced.
The new Australia Sydney North Mission will be the sixth in that nation and the Church's 279th. Australia has nearly 80,000 members, and Sydney is the headquarters site of the Pacific Area presidency.Called as president of the new mission is Elder Glenn L. Pace of the Seventy, former second counselor in the Presiding Bishopric. (Please see biography on page 4.)
The new mission, which has a population of 2.8 million, will begin Jan. 1, with 7,913 members in three stakes and three districts. The realigned Sydney Australia South Mission will retain a population of 3 million with 7,684 members in two stakes and two districts.
Both missions are dotted with cities of 25,000 to 35,000 people, which extend across the most fertile land and populated areas in the nation. Manufacturing and commerce, along with agriculture, mining, forestry and fishing, are the primary sources of income among residents within the boundaries of the two missions.
To contact these people about the Church, missionaries hold open houses, tract and rely on members. About half the investigators are provided by members while missionaries locate the rest, said Pres. Keith C. Nielsen of the existing Sydney mission. He estimated that each stake averages about 100 converts per year, with some doing substantially better than that.
"This division will do a lot for us," he said. "We have plenty of people -running out of people isn't one of our problems. This division will be a real move forward and represents the progress that has to take place in the Church down here. We've made some pretty good inroads, but we've just started. We see young people in all the wards."
He said the Church in metropolitan Sydney is experiencing continual growth. "Sydney is a multi-ethnic city, although most of our converts are Australian. We teach in seven languages - Tongan, Samoan, Tagalog, Chinese, Vietnamese, Spanish and English."
He noted that the Sydney mission has increased its annual baptisms by more than 100 percent in the past year. Most of the converts are retained in activity.
One missionary who is helping win attention for the Church is Elder Shawn Bradley, a 7-foot-6 basketball star from BYU.
"He's one of my best zone leaders," said Pres. Nielsen. `He's a good missionary and a great ambassador for the Church."
The first missionary work in New South Wales was done by Scottish convert Andrew Anderson in 1841. He later established a branch in 1844 in a private township named Montefiores, some 220 miles northwest of Sydney. His lone effort was augmented in 1851 with the arrival in Sydney of Elders John Murdock and Charles Wandell.
With their arrival, an organized missionary effort began that has continued ever since. Converts periodically immigrated to Utah in the 19th century, but that was later discouraged. In 1920, membership in Australia was about 1,000, increasing to 2,000 by 1940. Membership began to increase after World War II, and by 1970, had increased to 25,000.
