Thursday, November 15, 2018

Georgian Translation of The Book of Mormon Completed and Published

The Church has finished and published its Georgian translation of the Book of Mormon. The translation can be found here. The committee to translate the Book of Mormon into Georgian was first established in early 2012. This translation has been in the works for many years and is finally available for members in the two Georgian-speaking branches located in the Republic of Georgia. The new translation will be a valuable tool and resource for proselytism, teaching, and testimony development in the Republic of Georgia. Members have previously relied in Russian translations to study the scriptures. There were 268 members in the Republic of Georgia as of year-end 2017. There are 3.7 million speakers of Georgian worldwide.

There are now 112 languages with a translation of the Book of Mormon.

33 comments:

Unknown said...

This extremely exciting and great news for Georgian members!

Eduardo said...

Nice news. Do any Georgian members live in the U.S. or elsewhere?

steve_j said...

I taught quite a few Georgians in Germany (and baptized a couple of them). We mostly had to teach them in English and relied on Russian materials. They were great people and this is very exciting news.

Chris D. said...

The Santaquin Utah East Stake (2128233) is shown on Classic LDS Maps website, with the Santaquin 2nd, 3rd, 8th, 10th, 12th, 16th, 22nd Wards and 17th Branch (Care Center). It must have been organised last Sunday November 11th, instead of this coming Sunday the 18th.

John Pack Lambert said...

I would guess there are a few Georgian members in the US and UK as well as Germany, and probably multiple ones in Russia. I had a home teaching companion when I was in a YSA ward who got married to a sister who was an ethnic Armenian, born in Azerbaijan, fled there to Armenia during the early 1990s pograms, then lived for about a decade in Russia, then came to the US for medical school and joined the Church while a medical student. I have to admit I have known more Armenians than Georgians, in that I can not recall having known any of the latter. However many of the Armenians I have known were from families that fled the Turkish initiated Genocide. The large numbers of such Armenians in the US is one factor in more Armenians coming to the US.

The Book of Mormon was first translated into Russian by an Armenian member in Britain in the 1930s. He associated with Elder John A. Widstoe during the time Elder Widstoe was European mission president (which I believe was for six years), altough I cannot rembmer exactly how. I believe this brother was either branch president in London, in the district presidency, or maybe even district president at that time. He did the translation of the Book of Mormon into Russian on his own time and initiative.

On the other hand it was either Tamil or Telugu that had the first translation of the Book of Mormon done by a baptist minister whose daughter and son-in-law had joined the church in Samoa while his son-in-law was there as some sort of advisor to the Samoan government. That minister died before he was baptized. However shortly after his death his daughter and son-in-law returned to India as missionaries.

Germany probably has more total immigrants from the Caucuses and Turkey than the US. Turkey absolutely for sure, Germany has had a significant Turkish community since the 1950s when large numbers of Turkish "temporary works" were brought in, and nothing is more permanent than populations designated temporary. The roots of this go even deeper to the relationships between the Ottoman Empire and Germany before World War I, in which German capital and technicians were key to the development of railways in Turkey. These reciprocal relationships create the systems the lead to emigration from the periphery to the Metropolis. This has most been seen by emigration from the former French and British empires to France and Britain, and is also the process we see that leads to so many Filipinos in the US, since the Phillipines were a colony of the US from 1898 to 1946.

It is also why there are Marshallese-speaking units in the US, but not to my knowledge any Gilbertese/Kiribati/i-Kiribati units, even though there are more members of the Church in Kiribati. It is why there are so many Samoans in New Zealand.

However many of these connections are built on networks that were never formally imperial. Thus one factor with so many Mexicans in the US is the large amount of American capital investment and texchnical works who were present in Mexico prior to the revolatuon of 1910. US military intervention and capital investment in other parts of Latin America created similar networks.

On another note here https://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/church-changes-recommendation-process-young-missionaries is an announcement about the new process for reccomending missionaries. A few things I like. I think it will lead to some with full-time instead of service calls who may feel their conditions neccesitate the later, but when actually reviewed by competent medical personel the former will seem doable. I also wish the structure to complete a mission in a service capacity had existed when I came home early do to mental health issues.

Tony said...

The church is playing catch-up in Georgia as the Jehovah's witnesses have 18,000 active members and 225 congregations in Georgia. John Lambert you mention that a Georgian first translated the BOM into Russian. He fell out with John Widtsoe and left the church! A friend of mine met him while on his mission in Switzerland in the 1960s! He showed them all the work he did on translation and his notes.

John Pack Lambert said...

My ministering companion is my wife. I know such was allowed under the old hometeaching/visiting teaching plan, but I often saw it not done per actual instructions, which was that such a companionship was to be both visiting and home teachers. More often I saw a man going hometeaching with his wife who also had a seperate visiting teaching assignment. On the other hand my parents always had formally assigned companions who they normally went with, but for a time at least one of the people on both their lists was the same so sometimes they would do a joint HT/VT visit to that person.

My father, who was first made a high priest to be in the high priest groupleadership in 1991, and who went to the Family History Library in Salt Lake with my mother on their honeymoon, he would shortly later be made high priest group leader and better than some exemplified it as being the family history/temple leader that we can now have. His ministering companion is a fairly recent convert who under the old program he would never be assigned with since that man would be an elder. This is a clear sign to me that the new program is better using our existing resources.

Anyone else know how common assigning husband/wife ministering teams is, and if this has become more of a thing with the new program. I know it has in my branch. One of the people I am assigned to minister to just moved out of our branch to another part of Detroit because she got robbed.

On another note, I am going to have to put in a lot better effort on creating lesson plans for my job, so I might not make as many comments here as I have in the past. They are putting me on a 30-day teacher improvement plan and if I cannot do better I will be fired. This really worries me. I know I can do it, but weather I can build up the internal desire to do it is a bigger struggle. I want to, but sometimes my desire to do things is to shallow. However I really, really, really want to keep this job.

John Pack Lambert said...

It has been announced that the temple in Haiti will be dedicated in May. As I was going through new stake presidencies I found that the CROIX-DES-MISSION HAITI STAKE got a new president. It is Fresnel Charles, who is temple facilities manager. He is succeeding Kerving H. Joseph, who at least at one point worked full-time for the Church Educational System in Haiti. Brother Joseph also was the mission president at the time of the earth quake. Despite having the last name Joseph in common with the new temple president, I do not believe they are related.

John Pack Lambert said...

President Charles first counselor is Church facilities manager.

Anonymous said...

I've personally never thought of there being that many Georgians in Germany -- their number is likely minuscule compared to the number of Turkish and Russians (including the roughly two million who are ethic Germans who've returned from Russia in the last 100 years since the end of WWI). But I'm very happy to see this translation finally completed.

While we're talking about Germany - the convert baptism tally in my ward is now up to three since the beginning of November, and there are several more scheduled before the end of the year. We might end up with as many as 10 more convert baptisms in 2018 if all our most solid investigators make it through. I actually heard from one of the missionaries here that the Germany Frankfurt Mission is on track to more than double their baptism numbers from last year in 2018, which I think is a really nice sign that things are looking up after a few years of very stagnant growth (even by our standards).

John Pack Lambert said...

Another fun fact, Christopher M. Keith Tompkins, who succeeded Joseph L. Lindsay as president of the Fort Myers Florida Stake when the Naples Florida Stake was formed is married to Ilaisaane Tu'pou Taanea Pahulu. I have to admit I have known more couples where the husband was Polynesian and the wife white. Although for all I known Sister Thompson formerly Tahulu is part white. Paula does show up as a last name in Hawaii, and if from Hawaii Sister Thimpason would almost certainly be only partly Polynesian. However knowing Polynesian culture, I would suspect Pahula is present as a last name on several islands, so without more information I have no way of ruling out anywhere in the Polynesian triangle.

John Pack Lambert said...

Unless there was an error in preparing the articles, Brother Thompkins and his predecessor Brother Lindsay appear to be attorneys with the same law firm. I also keep wondering if Brother Lindsay is closely related to Sister Gong. Her maiden name was Lindsay. he father was a general authority. Sister Gong has 5 siblings, one of whom is Bruce Lindsay, who was an anchor with KSL and got an Emmy for his coverage of the 1980 Democratic National Convention. Sister Gong's mother's maiden name was Bangerter. I wonder if she is related to W. Grant Bangerter, the founding father of the Church in Portuagal and a key figure in the history of the Church in Brazil and later a general authority, and his brother Norman Bangerter, who was governor of Utah in the early 1980s.

John Pack Lambert said...

hVery good to hear about positive developments in the Frankfurt mission.

I went to a baptism today. The person baptized was an 18 year old woman. I believe this is at least the 5th baptism my branch has had since the start of September. Last Sunday two of those baptized were ordained to the Aaronic priesthood. I believe another had been ordained the week before.

John Pack Lambert said...

There are between 4500-5000 Georgians in Germany. I have not found even an attempted estimate for the US. The head of the Joint Cheifs of Staff in the early 1990s John Shalikashvili was of Georgian origin. He was born in Poland the son of an aristocratic emigre. About 20% of Georgia's popuation emigrated after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

John said...

Richard P. Lindsay is married to a sister of Grant and Norman Bangerter. I wonder if he is father to Bruce Lindsay and Sister Gong.

James G. Stokes said...

Per the Wikipedia article on Bruce Lindsay, he is indeed the son of Richard P. Lindsay. Although he goes by Bruce, his first name is also Richard. And per Wikipedia's article on Gerrit W. Gong, his wife is indeed the daughter of Richard P. Lindsay, making her Bruce Lindsay's sister. It is interesting to see the little interconnections that exist between various previous general authorities, current general authorities, and their wives and children.

For any who are interested, President and Sister Nelson, along with Elder and Sister Bednar and Elder and Sister Ochoa are in San Antonio Texas this weekend, where they will be the featured speakers at a devotional tomorrow evening which will be held in the Alamodrome. And it was just reported earlier this evening that piles are being set for the construction barrier on the Ivory Coast Temple, which will officially be known by its' French name (the Abidjan Côte d'Ivoire Temple).

Thanks to you all for your ongoing contributions to my understanding of the topics covered here. And with my ongoing thanks to Matt for his continued reports on major Church growth developments, and for continuing to allow me to do so (along with my profound and sincere apologies if this offends, bothers or troubles anyone here), I wanted to pass along yet again the address of my blog for any who would like to read about the latest topics I have covered there. There has been a substantial increase in the number of Church news stories and reported temple developments, and I hope my reports on those can add to the general understanding of all who read them. Thanks again to you all.

http://stokessoundsoff.blogspot.com

John Pack Lambert said...

I have personally met and talked with Sister Gong's mother, so I can speka for the accuracy of her being the widow of Elder Lindsay. That I didn't realize she was a Bangerter probably says I am less inquisitive than some.

Alex said...

The Urdaneta Philippines Temple Groundbreaking Committee has just been set apart, news from the Mormon Newsroom Philippines. Groundbreaking will be on January 16, 2019 and a temple rendering was just published. Not sure how to share the picture here.

Michael Worley said...

Alex, share the link? I can't find it on the Philippines Newsroom.

James Anderson said...

Not seeing it yet either but this Facebook page has a post about the area presidency going to Urdaneta and giing the mayor a print while there.

https://www.facebook.com/MormonNewsroomPhilippines/

Sérgio said...

Foi organizada hoje a Estaca Feira de Santana Norte, Élder Aidukatis presidiu a conferência.
Foi uma conferencia multi Estaca muito especial.

Chris D. said...

Blogger Chris said...
The Santaquin Utah East Stake (2128233) is shown on Classic LDS Maps website, with the Santaquin 2nd, 3rd, 8th, 10th, 12th, 16th, 22nd Wards and 17th Branch (Care Center). It must have been organised last Sunday November 11th, instead of this coming Sunday the 18th.

November 16, 2018 at 3:54 PM

Jim Coles said...

Obrigado Sérgio

Alex said...

Michael and James, my apologies. The rendering was sent by a member working with a General Authority. I just uploaded it online so I can't confirm if it is final. https://ibb.co/eC9DQL Also the announcement of the committee has been published in the Church of Jesus Christ temple website.

Eric S. said...

Official confirmation of groundbreaking and rendering of the Urdaneta Temple released.

https://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/construction-urdaneta-philippines-temple-january-2019

The Accountant said...

@John Pack Lambert
You had asked a question earlier about husband/wife ministering companionships and how common they are. The training my Stake President received from one of the Apostles was that it should be an extremely rare occurrence. He spoke to us on the high council that every family should still have 2 priesthood holders assigned and the sisters should have two sisters assigned. He mentioned an interesting priority when making companionship assignments. He was told to assign all the youth first. They should not be left out unless the bishop sees a valid reason too. Pres Nelson want all youth assigned so they can begin to learn how to minister. There was a lot more shared but I am sure others have received counsel from their stake president about how ministering is to be structured.

Chris D. said...

Cococodji Benin District - 2125889

Chris D. said...

https://classic.lds.org/maps/#ll=-11.734742,-38.817503&z=9&m=google.road&layers=stakecenter&q=Feira%20de%20Santana%20Brazil%20North%20Stake&find=stake:2128187

Unknown said...

The reality in my branch is the only way to assign two priesthood holders to every family and 2 sister to every sister would be to give out huge assignments.

John Pack Lambert said...

In going over mission calls on the missioncomingsoon instagram I came across a sister from the Philippines who has been called to serve in Hong Kong Tagolog speaking. Considering what I know about the number of Filipinos in Hong Kong, this does not really surprise me.

Eduardo said...

Tagalog. Pronounced Tah-GAH-lug, emphasis on the second syllable.
"Missioncomingsoon" sounds pretty cool.

Unknown said...

I collect Book of Mormons in different languages. I have yet to get a printed one in Georgian. I have the digital version on the gospel library. That's ok, but there is nothing like an actual look and feel of an actual book. Any ideas on where I can find one?

Lfl said...

My son has been serving in Georgia for 9 months now. While the electronic version is better than nothing, book in hand would spread the work by leaps and bounds. We don't know why the wait, but wish it were in the hands of the missionaries and in the homes of those Georgians.