Local Branch Revolution

The Church and the missionaries had only been in the country for a few years. The members were all very young in the gospel, and most of them very poor. The first native branch president had recently been called, and one of the first things he was charged to do by the mission president was to reform the welfare and fast offering system in the branch. It had begun to get out of control with well-meaning senior couple missionaries serving as branch presidents writing checks they probably shouldn't have. Unfortunately many of the members had become converted to the gospel of welfare support rather than the gospel of Jesus Christ, and as the new native branch president (who understood more than foreign missionaries about what help was necessary to sustain life in the country rather than a certain lifestyle) began to make changes to how assistance was given to members many of them became angry. Side note: We need to remember that these people had grown up in a communist state where everything was given to them by the government.

One day, right as sacrament meeting was beginning, the unhappy members stormed into the church building during opening announcements. They were carrying a petition that they had written in which they stated that they were going to force out the branch president and put in their own branch president (the leader of their little revolution, who promised them more welfare money). They were going to read their demands over the pulpit, and they even had camera equipment to film the whole thing. We missionaries were so stunned by what was going on we hardly knew what to do. They definitely did not train us on this in the MTC. We escorted our investigators out of the building and tried to undo any damage that might have been done to their fragile testimonies. The senior couple missionary jumped up and grabbed the sacrament table cloth by the four corners and just carried the sacrament trays full of bread and water in a heap out of the chapel. Most of the members who were not with the revolutionaries followed us missionaries out and went home.

We left the dissenters alone in the chapel to read their petition or whatever, and for a moment they thought they had won. They were now in possession of the building, and as far as they knew they ruled the branch. This was to be short lived, however.  Side note: They probably got the idea to do this from watching the new president of the country, who had just done something similar, in which he stormed the president's office with a large host of his men and basically kicked the president out of office and took command of the country. He had the support of most of the country, since most of them were angry with the president and didn't support him anyways, so it worked out. When we told our mission president what had happened he got on the first flight to where we were and held a branch conference early afternoon on Monday. With fiery indignation he put the dissenters in their place. He preached the word of God with power and authority and made clear the order of God's kingdom. He eliminated all welfare support to the branch, and a few members were excommunicated. Most of the others never came back to church. For the next long while church attendance was basically the missionaries, a few investigators, and the few awesome, solid, converted members we had. From that experience I gained a deep appreciation for "boring" sacrament meetings, and awesome mission presidents. To be honest, when it was all happening I thought it was the end of the church in that area, at least for a long time, but it was all over rather quickly because of the power and authority of the mission president, and the church was able to eventually grow stronger from it all.