A congregation of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in British Columbia will conduct a Christian worship service in Hindi and Punjabi at its church building located at 6270 126th Street in Surrey starting on Sunday, June 5, 2016, at 9 a.m.
This is a notable event for the Latter-day Saint community. Although the Church has congregations throughout the world that offer worship services in more than 75 languages, the Church still conducts the main worship service (called “sacrament meeting”) in English in India and Fiji, where the people widely speak Hindi. The 26 Latter-day Saint congregations in the Lower Mainland already conduct worship services in English, Chinese, Spanish and Korean.
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The initiation of the Hindi/Punjabi worship service helps local Hindi- and Punjabi-speaking members to better understand the beautiful message of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ.
Bishop Jaynas Prasad, a priesthood leader of one of the Church’s congregations in Surrey and a Hindi-speaking native of Fiji, observed, “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]. 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.”
Not only will the Hindi/Punjabi services benefit existing Hindi- and Punjabi-speaking Latter-day Saints, but, according to Bishop Prasad, they will also create a more welcoming environment for local Indo-Canadian people who want to visit The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and learn more about its beliefs.
Bishop Prasad, with a friendly smile, exclaimed, “All Hindi-speaking people from the area are welcomed to visit these services held in their own tongue, regardless of their religious or cultural background.” He went on to report, “At a recent Hindi/Punjabi social event, we had about 45 people in attendance. About 40 of them spoke Hindi fluently.”
Due to the heightened interest from the Indo-Canadian community, all are welcomed to this Hindi/Punjabi worship service regardless of fluency. No reservation or personal invitation is necessary.
For further information, please contact Bishop Jaynas Prasad at prasadjr@ldsmail.net.