This is a post by Witteafval, who served a mission in the Netherlands from 1998-2000.  He made frequent use of what he learned during his mission while pursuing a history degree at BYU. His LiveJournal blog, On My Mind, is followed by seven readers.  Please go visit his blog and make it eight.

By Witteafval

The Church’s introduction to the Dutch-speaking part of the world (the Netherlands and northern Belgium) took place over several decades of the nineteenth century. The first missionary to visit the Netherlands was Orson Hyde, who visited Rotterdam and Amsterdam in 1841 while en route to Jerusalem. During his stay, he met with some local Jewish leaders and wrote a letter to the Jewish people of those cities, which he then had translated and published in Dutch. This letter became the first non-English publication produced by a leader of the Church, though my own research has failed to uncover any copies of it.

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This week is international week at M*.  This means there may be some posts in languages other than English.  There may be some stories of spreading the Gospel beyond the United States.  The goal, I believe, is to celebrate the growing non-American nature of the Church of Jesus Christ.  Given that this is a volunteer blog, things may not go according to any strict plan.

Personally, I am doing my small part for international week by doing some volunteering.  On Sunday, I signed up to help translate family history information from other languages into English for my stake.  This week I will also offer to become a volunteer translator for a local hospital.  I have no idea yet how either of these efforts will go, but I’ll let you know.

The world can be divided into two types of people, those who watch “Lost,” the ABC mini-series that is starting its sixth and final season tonight, and those who don’t watch it.  If you don’t watch it, maybe this post will show an interesting side to “Lost” you may not have considered.  And then again maybe not.

There are some pretty interesting Gospel-related references in “Lost.” Continue reading →

As most readers know, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is increasingly an international church.  As one example, there has been some talk (ht: Kent Larsen) of a Portuguese-language blog starting among Church members.  We have some content (ht:  Bill Stebbing) in Spanish and English on a regular basis.

M* would like next week (week of February Eighth) to be international week.  We are posting in various different languages.  In addition, we are posting in English and other languages on our international experiences.  Please feel free to submit 1)a guest post in a language other than English or 2)a guest post describing your international experiences or 3)a combination of the above.

We will be printing these posts next week.  Thanks for participating in what we believe will be a fun and educational event!

She won a Niblet for her excellent post “Tears in Heaven.”  I can’t think of anyone more deserving of recognition for her writing and spiritual perspectives.  That post was up on M* almost a year ago, but we still get comments often about it.  It certainly has brought comfort to a lot of parents dealing with stillborn babies or miscarriages.  Joanna, you are the best!