Postage Stamps Recognize Church in Cook Islands, Samoa

Over the past two years, the Church has been recognized through commemorative postage stamps issued by Samoa and the Cook Islands.

The stamps were designed by Jennifer M. Toombs of Saxmundham, Suffolk, England. In 1988, Ms. Toombs received a commission from British Crown Agents to design a postage stamp celebrating the arrival of Latter-day Saints in Samoa. Ms. Toombs designed a $3 stamp depicting the LDS temple in Samoa.

The stamp was officially issued on 9 June 1988, with an angel Moroni postmark and bearing quotes from two Book of Mormon passages: “Great are the promises of the Lord unto them who are upon the isles of the sea” (2 Ne. 10:21), and, “To him upon whom ye shall lay your hands, ye shall give the Holy Ghost” (Moro. 2:2).

The second stamp was issued in February of this year. It is part of a four-stamp set, each stamp recognizing a religion in the Cook Islands—Roman Catholic, Anglican, Seventh-Day Adventist, and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The stamps each depict a person and a church building representative of that religion. The LDS stamp shows Elder Osborne J. P. Widtsoe (his name, unfortunately, is misspelled), the first LDS missionary to the Cook Islands, along with a typical modern meetinghouse. Bordering the set of four stamps is the text, “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, …

“And, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.” (Matt. 28:19–20.)