A worldwide first for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is being marked at its Surrey location this Sunday, with the offering of a Christian worship service in Hindi.
"Sacrament meetings in the Hindi language are not currently being conducted anywhere else in the world right now in the LDS community, so this is a worldwide inaugural event for the Mormon Church," Sherry Marceil, director of public affairs for the church's Surrey Stake, said this week.
The service, to be held at 9 a.m. on June 5 – at the same time as the regular service – is to be led by Bishop Jaynas Prasad at the 6270 126 St. church.
According to a news release, the move is to help Hindi- and Punjabi-speaking members "to better understand the beautiful message of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ."
“I realized that most of the Hindi-speaking members who didn't learn English as another language, were not learning gospel principles and doctrines as they attended church in English (congregations)," Prasad said in the release.
"The Hindi Sacrament meeting will provide the new members and others the enriched atmosphere to learn the gospel of Jesus Christ in their mother tongue.”
It's also hoped to create a more welcoming environment for Indo-Canadian people, and is expected to eventually evolve into an independent congregation that holds all of its meetings in Hindi.
Other sites may follow suit in the future, as member numbers grow.
While Mormons currently have congregations throughout the world with worship services offered in more than 75 languages, the church still conducts the main worship services in English in India and Fiji, where the people widely speak Hindi. The 26 Latter-day Saint congregations in the Lower Mainland, conduct worship services in English, Chinese, Spanish and Korean.
Anyone interested in the new service is welcome to drop in to the service.
For more information, email Prasad at prasadjr@ldsmail.net