LDS Scene

The Arizona Temple has a new presidency. L. Harold Wright of Mesa, Arizona, is temple president, with counselors Marion I. Vance of Kyrene, Arizona, and Leo B. Hakes of Phoenix. Leah Thomas Wright, wife of President Wright, is temple matron.

Two counselors have been named for the Tokyo Temple. They are Yukus Y. Inouye, American Fork, Utah, and Yashuhiro Matsushita, Kawagoe, Japan. Temple President Dwayne Nelson Andersen’s appointment was announced several weeks ago.

Elder Marion D. Hanks of the First Quorum of the Seventy has been elected to the advisory council of the Boy Scouts of America.

October sees another in the series of Reader’s Digest inserts. This one will deal with the Church’s missionary efforts, describing the purpose and procedures of missionary work.

Canadian Studies is a new program at Brigham Young University, and the newly appointed chairman, Ken L. Cutts, president of Fort Garry Trust Co. and Bestland Development Ltd. of Winnipeg, will juggle that job and his present professional responsibilities.

Canadian Studies is part of the BYU Center for International and Area Studies. An average of 780 Canadian students enroll each year at BYU, more than at any other university in the United States. BYU is one of about twenty officially designated depositories in the U.S. for documents distributed by Federal Supply and Services Canada, and is the only such depository between Minnesota and the west coast.

The program will prepare students for government, business, and educational careers that require knowledge of Canadian affairs. Brother Cutts will work with business, civic, and educational leaders in Canada to help create a financial base for the development of the Canadian Studies Program.

The Cody Wyoming Stake plans to begin rebuilding its stake center immediately on the foundations that are still reusable. The $1.8 million-dollar structure, scheduled for completion by 1 October, was nearly destroyed by arson on 28 May.

Between ten and twelve million Japanese viewers saw a ten-minute broadcast on Latter-day Saint family preparedness. The family of Bishop Lex De Azevedo of Studio City Second Ward, Los Angeles California North Hollywood Stake, canned cherries and ate a meal prepared from food storage items before the cameras in May on the World ’80 show. The network asked for another segment, this time twenty minutes long, for an estimated sixteen to twenty million viewers. Again family food storage was featured.

Mark W. Cannon, administrative assistant to the chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, spoke at Morris Brown College’s commencement exercises, its first white man in years to be a graduation speaker and probably the first Latter-day Saint to receive an honorary doctorate of laws degree from any university with a predominantly black enrollment. The college choir sang, “Come, Come Ye Saints.”

American Latter-day Saints who serve in the armed forces can have gravestones marked with the special emblem of Moroni blowing a trumpet. Catholic graves have traditionally been designated by a cross, Jews by the star of David, Buddhists by the wheel of righteousness, and so forth.

These emblems are placed on the headstones at government expense; Latter-day Saint families have been required to pay for any distinctive marking they might have wanted up to this point. Brother Donald L. Wardle, director of the Veterans Administration, Department of Memorial Affairs, was instrumental in securing approval for the emblem which had been authorized by the First Presidency.

Austria has its first stake. The Vienna Austria Stake, the first one created in that country, was formed April 20 from the Austria Vienna Mission. Austria was opened for missionary work in 1865, and the first branch was formed there in 1901. The first Vienna branch was organized in 1909. The Church was officially recognized by the Austrian government in 1958. There are more than 2,750 members in the new stake.