In June in Iowa City, Iowa — the staging point of the first five Mormon handcart companies to migrate to the Salt Lake Valley 150 years ago — President Gordon B. Hinckley addressed a fireside, which was transmitted over the Church satellite system.
"We must ever look back to those who paid so terrible a price in laying the foundation of this great latter-day work," he said.
It is hardly conceivable that the handcart pioneers could have foreseen how the Church they sacrificed for would grow during the next 150 years. However, numerous events in the past 12 months reflect the great marching forward of the Church on many fronts. The Church that grew and flourished in the Salt Lake Valley now reaches the corners of the globe.
President Gordon B. Hinckley — Church president since March 1995 — also reached a milestone in 2006. On Nov. 2, at 96 years and 133 days, he became the longest-lived President of the Church.
He continued his travels in 2006, dedicating the Sacramento California Temple on Sept. 3 and the Helsinki Finland Temple on Oct. 22 and rededicating the Chile Santiago Temple March 12. In addition, the Papeete Tahiti Temple was rededicated Nov. 12.
In 2006, world leaders both visited Salt Lake City, and received visits from Church leaders. Countries received their first stakes, and other countries were dedicated for the preaching of the gospel. Technology continued to help spread the gospel word for the Church, which, thanks to entities such as the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, is becoming more recognizable than ever before in history. Following are some examples of Church growth and recognition during 2006:
Church leaders met with the President of French Polynesia, Oscar Temaru; with Armenia President Robert Kocharian; and with the president of El Salvador, Elias Antonio Saca. U.S. President George W. Bush visited the First Presidency at the Church Administration Building on Aug. 31 and Mexican President Vicente Fox visited the First Presidency during a trip to Utah May 24. President Fox's visit marked the first time a president of Mexico has visited the Church Administration Building in Salt Lake City.
The Lao People's Democratic Republic (Laos) was dedicated for the work of the gospel on Feb. 23 and the country of Slovakia for the peaching of the gospel on May 12. In addition, the first meetinghouse constructed by the Church in Malaysia was dedicated on March 19. Slovakian government officials granted official recognition of the Church on Oct. 18.
The first stake in Hungary was created June 4; the stake was the Church's second to be created in the former communist-controlled Eastern bloc of nations.
In addition, a new area of the Church, the Caribbean Area, was created by the First Presidency, effective Aug. 15.
On March 3, Church leaders announced that new and faster technology, using high-end computers, will cut decades off the expected completion date of its epic process of digitizing 2.4 million rolls of microfilm stored at the Church's Granite Mountain Records Vault, southeast of Salt Lake City.
The Mormon Tabernacle Choir aired, on April 30, the 4,000th consecutive network broadcast of "Music and the Spoken Word." Now in its 77th year, "Music and the Spoken Word" is the longest continuous program in broadcast history.
Sixty thousand volunteers from 180 stakes in Brazil participated in the Church's Helping Hand of Public Hospitals project on May 1 at more than 200 hospitals in 150 cities in every state in the country. And the Church continued a mammoth humanitarian effort in Southeast Asia, following the Dec. 26, 2005, tsunami.
Still, Church leaders didn't forget the Church's rich heritage. The 160th anniversary of the Mormon Pioneers' exodus from Nauvoo was commemorated with several activities, highlighted by the re-enactment of the exodus.
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