LDS Scene

Church Sends More Aid to Venezuela and Brazil

The Church Humanitarian Service division continues to send aid to residents of flood-ravaged northern Venezuela and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where heavy rains and mud slides affected thousands last December. Twenty-eight shipments of medical supplies, food, and clothing, as well as quilts and hygiene kits, have been sent to Venezuela. In Brazil, Church members have been gathering and distributing food boxes, and the Brazil South Area Presidency is assessing future needs.

175 Volumes of Chinese Family History Donated

A major collection of Chinese family history will soon be available on microfilm. On 20 December 1999, Ching Ning and his two sons, Simeon and Francis, donated to the Church Family History Library their family history, which includes 200,000 names dating back to A.D. 602.

Acknowledging that a collection of this size represents a monumental effort on the part of many people over hundreds of years, Richard E. Turley Jr., managing director of the Family History and Church Historical Departments, accepted the paperbound books amid a gathering of Ning family and friends.

More than 100 volunteers in Brother Ning’s extended family in China gathered the family history into one compilation over a four-year period. Brother Ning funded the publication of the 175 volumes.

In 1995 in China at a Ning family celebration that included a marching band and fireworks, 6,000 family members gave Brother Ning a copy of the published family history. Since then, he and his family have fulfilled a long-held goal of completing the temple ordinances for 24 generations of his direct ancestors.

Persons interested in searching these records on microfilm may soon do so at the Church’s 3,400 Family History Centers worldwide.

Procession of Light in Huntington Beach

Some 300 members of California’s Huntington Beach and Huntington Beach North stakes took part in an interfaith celebration on 2 January asking God’s blessings on their community and the world.

The “Procession of Light—2000” was designed to unify citizens of diverse faiths and cultures through prayer, song, and a procession of caring citizens bearing electric candles. The event drew more than 2,000 people to the downtown Pier Plaza.

Thirty-six missionaries from the California Long Beach Mission assisted with arrangements for the celebration.

Mayor David Garofalo praised the work of the Greater Huntington Beach Interfaith Council in planning the event and spoke of the celebration as “a prayer being answered. It’s a message about what the 21st century could be.”