A New Century
In the early twentieth century, Mormon missionaries continued to preach in the traditional lands of Europe and throughout America, while still seeking to reach entire new countries in order to fulfill Jesus Christ’s commandment to “teach all nations” (Matt. 28:19). In 1898, the first full-time female Mormon missionaries were called. In 1901, the 21st Mission of the Mormon Church was created in Japan by President Lorenzo Snow. Heber J. Grant, future President of the Mormon Church, led that mission. In the years before World War I, Mormon missionaries began proselytizing in Africa, Finland, Russia, Palestine, and they returned to areas of Europe like France, Greece, and Italy from which they had pulled missionaries during the dark days of persecution in the late nineteenth century.
In 1925, Melvin J. Ballard, one of the Twelve Apostles, created the South American Mission headquartered in Argentina. He prophesied that, one day, the work South America would grow tremendously and that millions would join the Church. Today, more than 2,000,000 Mormons live in South America and it remains the fastest growing region of the world for the Mormon Church.
The number of Mormon missionaries remained fairly consistent throughout the early twentieth century and the calls to missionary service remained irregular. Not every Mormon was expected to serve a full-time mission, though all were expected to share the Gospel with friends and families in their daily lives and serve in volunteer capacities with their local Mormon congregations. Instead, men or women would be issued calls to go to a certain place for up to three years. Prior to World War II, it was not uncommon for Mormon missionaries to be married.
In the years before World War II, the Mormon missionary force remained at around 5,000 a year, even as, by the 1940s, the Mormon Church’s membership approached 1,000,000. Most Mormons at this time lived in the American West, in the historical band of Mormon settlements that stretched along the Rocky Mountains from Alberta Canada to northern Mexico, though Pancho Villa’s revolt had driven many Mormons out of Mexico and into Arizona. Beginning in the early twentieth century, Mormon leaders began to urge members to remain in their home countries and to build up the Mormon Church in their home lands. This required that temples be built throughout the earth. In the early part of the twentiest century, Mormon temples were built in Hawaii and Canada. The first European temple was built in 1955 in Bern Switzerland. During World War II, few Mormon missionaries served (only hundreds per year as opposed to thousands). After the war, when David O. McKay became President of the Mormon Church, all that would soon change.