Singapore: Church Chronology

March 1854 • SingaporeElder Elam Luddington briefly visited Singapore en route to Siam.

September 6, 1964 • SingaporeThe first sacrament meeting of Latter-day Saints in Singapore, all expatriates, was held in the home of a British military officer.

1967 • SingaporeSisters Rachael and Rebecca Wong heard the missionary discussions and were baptized in Hong Kong, then returned to Singapore and joined the small group of Latter-day Saints as the first local members.

March 1968 • SingaporeSouthern Far East Mandarin-speaking missionaries Melvin D. Shurtz and Rhett Todd Blake, who had been working in Taiwan, and Kim A. Shipley and Joel Richards III, Cantonese-speakers from Hong Kong, arrived in Singapore.

May 4, 1968 • SingaporeAlice Tan Kee Eng was the first local Singaporean to accept baptism.

October 13, 1968 • SingaporeThe Singapore Branch was organized.

April 14, 1969 • SingaporeElder Ezra Taft Benson offered a dedicatory prayer for the preaching of the gospel in Singapore, at Mount Faber.

1970 • SingaporeEddie Chew Cheng Kiat became the first local branch president of the Singapore Branch.

January 1970 • SingaporeThe Church and its missionary program came under attack by local newspapers and leaders of other Christian groups.

February–March 1970 • SingaporeThe Young Women’s and Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations were organized.

April 15–16, 1970 • SingaporeAfter the government refused to renew visas for twenty-nine missionaries, they departed to other missions, leaving only three foreign missionaries in Singapore.

January 4, 1971 • SingaporeTeo Thiam Chye was called as the first local member to serve as a full-time missionary in Singapore.

November 1973 • SingaporeEddie Chew Cheng Kiat became the first local member to become president of the Singapore District.

June 11–25, 1983 • SingaporeIn conjunction with the local “June Arts Festival,” Latter-day Saints convened for music and dance performances, an outdoor flea market and food fair, car wash, and roadshow featuring ensemble performances (the overall championship and Award for Best Script went to the Toa Payoh Branch with “The Latter-dayta System,” a script about computers and missionary work, with members playing roles such as semi-conductors, diskettes, and Satan).

March 18, 1988 • SingaporeElder M. Russell Ballard of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Salt Lake businessman Jon M. Huntsman, and U.S. Senator Jake Garn met with Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew to discuss issues including government, business, and the upstanding work of local church members in Singapore. The number of missionary visas was subsequently raised to twelve.

June 1994 • SingaporeChurch members participated in government-sponsored events to promote family values.

February 26, 1995 • SingaporeThe Singapore Stake was organized with Leonard Woo as president and Winnie Yeo 杨丽云 as Relief Society president, with 1,600 members in four wards and two branches including Mandarin-language, Filipino, and expatriate units.

April 5, 1997 • SingaporeTan Su Kiong 陳思強 was called as an Area Authority Seventy.

January 30, 2000 • SingaporePresident Gordon B. Hinckley, Sister Marjorie Pay Hinckley, Elder Boyd K. Packer, and Sister Donna Packer visited Singapore. The Saints held a special fireside at Kallang Theatre.

January 12–13, 2007 • SingaporeMembers spent two days hosting an open house for the newly constructed Singapore Stake Center, a five-story building able to house six wards in one stake. Members of Church organizations such as Young Women, Young Men, and Primary presented on their programs to visitors.

2008–09 • SingaporeChurch members preserved the images of about 5,000 tombs at the Kwong Hou Sua Teochew cemetery, off Woodlands Road, before they were exhumed for development.

March 20, 2010 • SingaporeOver 80 youth from the Young Women and Young Men organizations of the Singapore Stake presented a musical with an original script focusing on the nine “Be” standards for youth taught by past Church President Gordon B. Hinckley.

2011 • SingaporeMore than 200 Latter-day Saints participated in a service project in the Bukit Brown Chinese Cemetery, where they cleaned and photographed tombs before the cemetery was exhumed in preparation for building the Lornie Highway.

June 25, 2011 • SingaporeCompassvale Chapel Open House—1,000 guests and neighbors, including the Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chew Hean 張志賢 and Member of Parliament Gan Thiam Poh 颜添宝, visited the brand-new chapel and learned about the Church’s programs.

Iftar group

May 27, 2019 • Singapore

Iftar, the breaking of fast by Muslims during the month of Ramadan, was held in the Singapore Stake Centre on Bukit Timah Road. The event, organized by Church leaders and the Muslim missionary organization Jamiyah Singapore, was attended by 700 people including Mr. Melvin Yong 杨益财, Member of Parliament and Assistant Secretary-General in the National Trades Union, and Mr. S. Iswaran, Minister for Communications and Information.

September 28, 2019 • SingaporeSingapore members observed the 50th anniversary of the Church’s establishment with lavish productions and special events.

November 20, 2019 • SingaporePresident Russell M. Nelson visited Singapore as part of his Southeast Asia ministry. President Nelson spoke in the Bukit Timah Stake Center.

April 4, 2021 • Salt Lake City, UtahChurch President Russell M. Nelson announced the construction of a temple in Singapore.