From Deseret News archives:

Transcript: National Press Club Q&A with President Gordon B. Hinckley

Published: Monday, March 27, 2000 8:16 a.m. MST
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A. That comes from an alumnus. I don't know. I hope not. I think we have got to bring about a turnaround, but they are working on it. They are working very hard on it. I hope that something good comes of it. I like to see a winner. I say that.

Q. What you do you consider to be the greatest challenge the church faces?

A. I just told you — training of leadership. Every local congregation in Japan is Japanese. Every local congregation in Hong Kong is Chinese. Every local leader in Sweden is Swedish, Norwegian, etc., etc. These are people who have to be trained in leadership. We carry forward a great program, and the product is wonderful to behold. I think we could even train you, Mr. Cushman (laughter).

Jack Cushman: You are doing pretty well so far.

Q. With more members of the church outside the U.S. than within the U.S. does this present a need for greater decentralization of the administrative functioning of the church?

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A. We are doing that. We know we can't lick every postage stamp in Salt Lake City. Of course, we do. So we have established area offices across the world where we have three of what we call our general authorities presiding over an area of the world. We now has such offices in Brazil, in Argentina, in Bolivia, in Chile, in Japan, in Hong Kong and Manila, South Africa and West Africa, and so on. We are decentralizing in that respect. We have to.

Q. A questioner asks whether you see a prospect for missionaries in China?

A. Well, as I have said, we go in the front door. When we go to China doing missionary work, the Chinese government will know about it. Now, there are provisions, as we understand, in their constitution which at this time make that very difficult if not impossible. They'll have to say when, and we'll respond. We have two or three branches of the church in China which are comprised of outsiders who are from the United States and other nations. We have one in Beijing. We have one in Shanghai. Of course, we have strong work in Hong Kong, we have strong work in Taiwan. The Chinese government has its rules and regulations, and we believe in honoring, obeying and sustaining the law, and that's were we stand at the moment.

Q. Please tell us a little about your book and how did you get a tough guy like Mike Wallace to write an introduction?

Recent comments

A kind man; a good man...
A wise man.
Thank you for sharing this.

Joe | April 7, 2008 at 8:59 a.m.

Wonderful. I have learned a great deal about the LDS church from this...

Derek | Dec. 24, 2007 at 3:19 p.m.

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