News Release

Friends of Religious Freedom

Building relationships with opinion leaders, the media, those not of our faith is an important role of Public Affairs.

Building relationships with opinion leaders, the media, those not of our faith—with those who may or have befriended The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is an important responsibility of Public Affairs Councils. Mormon Newsroom and other social media can evoke favorable impressions of the good that the Church represents.

A new member of the Coordinating Council Public Affairs (CCPA) had just completed an assignment of photographing and writing a story about the planning meeting for the upcoming FSY (For Strength of Youth) event. The plan was to take some time to train the new member and later publish the story in Mormon Newsroom, but members of the CCPA felt the need to immediately push ahead with publication.

Within a few hours after publishing, a phone call came from the Assistant to the President, Joel Okindo, division evangelist for the Seventh-day Adventist, an influential church in Africa. The membership of this church is substantial, but Okindo mentioned after reading the FSY article in Mormon Newsroom about our upcoming 500 youth conference for strengthening standards, he wanted to come speak with us.

                    

He politely inquired if the Church would be interested in sending leaders to an All African Religious forum in September in Rwanda. The 1000 expected delegates will be made up of opinion leaders in government, business, academia, and religions.

                  

Parallel to this event, the following week a scheduled meeting of 20 Public Affairs people will take place in Johannesburg. The Area Presidency in South East Africa will be presiding.

 

Who is piloting the rudder of this ship?

    

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