New Mission Formed for Alaska, Yukon

ANCHORAGE, ALASKA—To facilitate the missionary activities in this vast area of the United States, a new mission has been formed by the First Presidency to include Alaska and the Yukon Territories.

The new Alaska Anchorage Mission, the 113th in the Church, was created from what was the Canada Vancouver Mission, previously known as the Alaska-British Columbia Mission, and even earlier as the Western Canadian Mission.

President Weston F. Killpack, formerly president of the Canada Vancouver Mission, has moved to Anchorage to head the new mission territory, while President E. Bruce Preece, formerly area director for the Department of Seminaries and Institutes in Bend, Oregon, has taken up residence in the Canada Vancouver Mission home. For President Preece this is a “return engagement” in Vancouver, where he served as area director for Seminaries and Institutes until his move to Oregon in the spring of this year.

Born in Vernal, Utah, President Preece is married to the former Nancy Glee Brighton. They have four children.

The Canada Vancouver Mission covers nearly all of British Columbia’s 366,255 square miles, although the eastern edge of the province, including the Kootenany River Valley communities of Cranbrook and Kimberley, are included in the Canada Calgary Mission. In addition, there is the Vancouver British Columbia Stake within the overall mission area.

In Anchorage, the home of the new mission, and also in the Anchorage Alaska Stake, President Killpack administers an area of approximately 800,000 square miles, or the approximate equivalent of one-quarter of the continental United States.

These enormous areas brought about the creation of the new mission, a mission call for an expanded missionary force with proselyting into the Yukon as well.

Earlier this year five other new missions were created with headquarters in Sendai, Japan; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Cebu, Philippines; Pocatello, Idaho; and San Diego, California.

map of Canada and Alaska