Disorganized

Mission dress for Skype meetings

It is Sunday, Pazar, our last sacrament meeting in Izmir.  My mind has been filled over the past couple of weeks about the Church in Turkey and what the future holds.  Of course we all believe that eventually everyone will be exposed to the gospel and that there will be saints all over the world.  Sometimes I wonder if being exposed simply means that sometime in your life a member of the Church just passes you in the street or sits by you on the bus.  There are so many people who have no clue about the Gospel of Christ, but more than that, they have no clue about Christ or even why there should be a Christ.  It boggles your mind.

My brother, Sultan of Istanbul

 We have had a most interesting week as we push to get the details gathered for our move to Ankara.  We traveled to all of the Turkish branches, Istanbul, Adana and Ankara to conduct the semiannual financial audits.  I have always believed that you can know much by “following the money” and going through the records of each of the three branches tells a very interesting story of the current reality of the Church in Turkey.  Of course I will not divulge what I know, but it confirms what I have assumed since we arrived in this country and that is the obvious, the growth of the Church has not begun in Turkey.  If all expats went home, there would be less than 10 active Turkish members in country.

The Adana branch would be the first to go because it is 100% military and comprised of 18 total people.  All of the members live on base and rarely venture into the surrounding area.  They serve for 12 to 24 months and maintain all their primary church activity back in their home wards.  Adana makes Izmir seem like a cold country.  When we were there it was over a 100 degrees and nearly 100% humidity.  When we talked to the people at the hotel, they warned us to not go out because the heat was “so dangerous”.  No place to live.  It is also about 75 miles from there to Syria.

 

Tracting the Grand Bazaar with my brother
and his wife linda.

Ankara would be the next to go.  It is comprised of people working in the embassy or a few military families attached to the government.  There are two Turkish members there and the most active is planning to move to Canada.  This branch ebbs and flows based on whether the expats are Mormons or not.  When Elder Nelson visited there in June, he commented how much the branch had grown since he was there last, but in reality at that time there was only one member that had been added without the expats in 3 years since his last visit.

Istanbul is the only branch that actually uses the Turkish language in meetings and activities.  All talks are translated into Turkish and most prayers are offered in Turkish, but the single biggest group of members is from the Philippines.   This little community is the slaves of the rich Turks and expats in Istanbul.  Unfortunately their activity is limited whenever their master wants them to work on Sunday.  The other group is the family of the branch president, Murat Çakir.  He has 5 children and an American wife.  He is employed as a translator for the Church and he truly is the driving force to try to encourage growth in Turkey.  Without his family you would have 4 dependable Turks.

On the Prince Island Marmara Sea

There is another element of membership in this country and that is the members scattered into the remote cities or away from the “centers of strength”.  We are aware of 4 families, but we are not allowed to visit them because they are too far away.  We have 6 investigators in Izmir, but we have been instructed to not encourage baptism because we cannot sustain or support them after we leave next week.  Only in Turkey could one discourage missionary work.  It is an enigma beyond my ability to understand.  After listening to President Monson’s story about home teachers traveling across Europe to do their home teaching, I can not help but wonder why we do not move the earth to serve the members in Turkey.  It is just so strange.  We were told to tell our investigators to simply move to areas of strength.  In other words if you live near a church, we would love to have you.

 

In the Blue Mosque 

The most telling part of our weird approach to the gospel is that last week; I met a member of the local Christian Church, the Lighthouse Church.  A couple from Oklahoma started it in 1998.  They had moved here for whatever the reason and decided to start a Christian church.  Remember that our Church sent the first missionary couple to Turkey in 1992.  This single church in Izmir has now grown to over 400 members with 240 of the members being Turkish nationals.  They baptized over 100 people this year.  The only effort they make is to hold open house twice a month.  We by the way are abandoning 6 investigators along with the entire city of Izmir.  Go figure?

This will sound very unsupportive, but I have come to see the Church in this area, specifically the employees, paid members of the Church in Moscow, headquarters as the “Disorganized Church”.  I had always looked at our Church as a tremendously functional and consistent organization.  Here the excuse is always, “well things are different in this part of the world and we have to exercise caution”.  That may be but it is no reason for plain disorganization and disfuntionality.  I just do not do well with foolish.

I should let sleeping dogs lie.

I could better explain myself, but we have now been restricted in what we share.  Oh the stories I could tell.

By the way my brother Scott and his wife Linda just left this morning and he told me I was not writing very spiritual blogs.  Unfortunately the truth is that nearly every spiritual experience is discouraged by the way we are asked to serve.  Perhaps our new assignment will change that.