David O. McKay’s missionary experiences, apostolic assignments, and prophetic initiatives helped transform the Latter-day Saint faith into a global religion. Known for his warmth, charisma, and attentiveness to people, McKay combined personal ministry with a visionary approach to leadership. He traveled the world as an Apostle to meet members, assess local needs, and expand missionary work. As the prophet, President McKay also created new missions, adapted racial policies in response to local conditions, and established the first temples outside the United States and Canada. In this interview, biographer Brian Q. Cannon traces the lasting impact of David O. McKay on the international Church.
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Overview of President McKay’s Global Leadership
Why was David O. McKay so beloved by so many people?
David O. McKay was handsome, charming, and affable. To many Latter-day Saints living in the 1950s and 1960s, he looked the part of a prophet. He possessed an imposing physique, was clean-shaven, and dressed impeccably.
He was a people person. His wife, Ray, said that if President McKay could choose how he spent his time, he would spend nearly all of it preaching at funerals and performing weddings, because he wanted to be with and serve people in the most crucial moments of their lives.
He cared deeply about people, including those who were on the margins socially, mentally, and religiously, and they could sense that.
He was an engaging teacher and storyteller, he related well to young people, and he went out of his way to minister to others.
People felt they could approach him with questions and problems, and they sought him out at his home on South Temple Street and his apartment in the Hotel Utah.
People knew of his lead foot and his love of fine automobiles and nice clothing. These were human qualities and passions that made him relatable.
How did President McKay’s first mission shape his views?
David O. McKay set out on his mission having studied at the university, which made him better educated than most missionaries of his era—but he had not traveled beyond Utah, and his worldview was limited. By sending him overseas to live and work, the mission gave him firsthand experience with a broader array of humanity, racially, religiously, nationally, and socioeconomically, making him more open to diversity.
The spiritual confirmations and assurances he had sought as a young man came during his mission. He would repeatedly recount the call to responsibility and maturity he sensed early in his mission as he read the words on a building, “What e’er thou art, act well thy part.”
He learned the value of education, polish, and poise in overcoming anti-Mormon bias.
He learned to love and minister to the needy. He developed patience and diplomatic skills as he struggled to mediate disputes between church members and as he worked to improve the church’s reputation through public relations initiatives. He learned the value of education, polish, and poise in overcoming anti-Mormon bias.
He experienced loneliness and temptation and learned the importance of probity and self-control. He witnessed firsthand the ravages of alcohol and emerged from the experience primed to be a prohibitionist and proponent of the Word of Wisdom.
As a missionary, he learned that the absence of dedicated houses of worship hampered the Church’s growth and compounded the difficulties of establishing stable congregations abroad. Much later in life, he would address these deficiencies while presiding over the church.
How were “administrative decisions and globalizing priorities as church president” his most enduring institutional legacies?
The emergence of the church as a global religion is one of the most significant developments in the history of the modern Church. David O. McKay played a key role in promoting the Church’s global reach.
His missionary zeal and focus, international experience and perspective, and commitment to extending the full range of church blessings to members living abroad through the construction of temples overseas facilitated and accelerated international growth.
In part due to his expansive vision, modern Church-operated schools and chapels were dedicated around the world.
By making the full range of ordinances, blessings, and programs available overseas, McKay incentivized converts to remain in their homelands and build the church there.
David O. McKay’s World Tour
What was David O. McKay’s 1920–21 World Tour, and why is it significant?
McKay was called by President Heber J. Grant to visit the Church’s missions abroad and investigate the possibility of taking the gospel to new lands.
He and his companion, Hugh J. Cannon, visited Japan, China, the Pacific Islands, Australia, Java, Singapore, India, the Middle East, and Europe as they circumnavigated the globe.
He was the first apostle to visit many of these lands, and the experience gave him a much broader vision than his colleagues possessed; their travels had been confined to Europe and North America (aside from Heber J. Grant’s time as a missionary in Japan).
How did the World Tour influence his views?
David O. McKay’s travels reinforced some of his racial and cultural biases, but they undermined others. In some interactions he observed, non-Western peoples demonstrated greater nobility of character than their Euro-American counterparts.
He came away from the experience with an appreciation for the maturity and capability of church members in faraway lands, and a willingness to trust their judgment over that of young American missionaries.
His travels enabled many church members in the South Pacific and Japan to meet their first apostle. In greeting, hosting, or visiting with him and listening to him preach, many of the faithful sensed a connection to forces and institutions much larger than themselves.
How did McKay approach assessing the needs of the Church in the Pacific?
David O. McKay visited with the missionaries and mission presidents in each area. He also solicited advice from local church and community leaders.
For instance, he met with Samoan chiefs and asked how the Church might better serve them. The chiefs made a number of recommendations, including:
- Additional and improved schools (including a high school)
- Seasoned missionaries familiar with Samoan culture
- Larger meetinghouses
- A plot of land near the pier where members from outlying islands could camp while selling their crafts and farm products.
McKay also toured Church properties and made recommendations for facility improvements.
Could you explain the vision he had in Samoa?
Original account (David O. McKay)
In the harbor of Apia, Samoa, David O. McKay fell asleep after witnessing a spectacular sunset. He experienced what he called “a beautiful vision … suggested no doubt by the scene” earlier in the evening.
The following morning, he jotted a few notes of this dream in his diary. “City – multitude led by Savior” and “these are they who have renounced the world – who have been born again.”
Embellished version (Clare Middlemiss)
An embellished and more detailed account of the vision was published by David O. McKay’s secretary, Clare Middlemiss, in a collection of McKay’s experiences, but the provenance of that embellished account is unclear.
When it was first published, Middlemiss claimed it was taken from McKay’s diary, but she removed that claim before publishing it in a second collection in McKay’s voice:
I then fell asleep and beheld in vision something infinitely sublime. In the distance I beheld a beautiful white city. Though it was far away, yet I seemed to realize that trees with luscious fruit, shrubbery with gorgeously tinted leaves and flowers in perfect bloom abounded everywhere. The clear sky above seemed to reflect these beautiful shades of color.
I then saw a great concourse of people approaching the city. Each one wore a white, flowing robe and a white headdress. Instantly my attention seemed centered upon their leader, and though I could see only the profile of his features and his body, I recognized him at once as my Savior! The tint and radiance of his countenance were glorious to behold. There was a peace about him which seemed sublime – it was divine!
The city, I understood, was his. It was the City Eternal; and the people following him were to abide there in peace and eternal happiness. But who were they?
As if the Savior read my thoughts, he answered by pointing to a semicircle that then appeared above them, and on which were written in gold the words: These Are They Who Have Overcome the World – Who Have Truly Been Born Again!
How did McKay try to help Armenian Latter-day Saint refugees?
David O. McKay visited Aintab, a city in Turkey where thousands of impoverished Armenian refugees, including a few dozen Latter-day Saints, were living. They feared that as the French occupation forces withdrew, the genocidal slaughter of 1915-16 would resume.
Thirty members and 40 others attended a meeting with McKay. Having learned that the French were planning to withdraw soon, McKay authorized Mission President Joseph Booth to relocate every member to Syria within 10 days.
The following year, as European Mission President, McKay returned to the Middle East to meet with the refugees in a branch conference in Aleppo.
He and Booth hoped to use church funds to colonize the refugees and provide them with agricultural land along the Euphrates River, but their hopes did not materialize.
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David O. McKay and the Global Church
Mexico
What was McKay’s role in both the formation of the Third Convention schismatic group in Mexico and in its later reunification with the Church in the 1930s and 1940s?
Over 1,200 members defected from the Church in the mid-1930s as part of the Third Convention, a nationalist movement within the church that demanded that the First Presidency appoint leaders who were Mexicans, including a Mexican mission president.
McKay was unsympathetic. In a 1936 letter to mission president Harold W. Pratt, Grant and McKay instructed:
The privilege of their receiving the Gospel should merit their appreciation and support of those who have been sent down, appointed, and set apart to preside over that Mission. The Lord will dictate when reappointment or reorganization should be made.
In 1937, on behalf of the First Presidency, McKay instructed the mission president to initiate excommunication proceedings against the leading protesters.
But five years later, when he called Arwell Pierce as mission president, McKay urged Pierce to make amends. “You are the Abraham Lincoln who must save this union,” he reportedly instructed Pierce.
McKay toured the mission the following year (1943) and met with members and missionaries. He visited one prominent Third Convention leader, Othon Espinosa, in his home and blessed his granddaughter.
After his return to Utah, David O. McKay encouraged the First Presidency to commute the excommunications to disfellowship status, and they did so.
Within a few months, President George Albert Smith visited Mexico, and during a conference session, he invited a prominent Third Convention leader, Abel Paez, to address the Saints, which helped heal the breach.
Two years later, McKay visited Mexico again and made plans to remodel and properly furnish some of the former Third Convention meeting houses.
Central and South America
How did McKay contribute to the expansion of missionary work in Latin America and Asia?
McKay supported and facilitated the Church’s expansion in these regions, but members living in Latin America and Asia, as well as mission presidents, also played important roles in encouraging it.
McKay’s primary responsibility as a counselor in the First Presidency in the 1940s was missionary work. In that capacity, he visited Mexico, interviewed and encouraged missionaries, and authorized the construction of new Church facilities.
In 1946, there were only 1,200 members in all of South America, and only two missions existed—one in Brazil and one in Argentina.
Sending missionaries to South America
The impetus for sending missionaries into other nations in South America came from former Argentine mission president Frederick S. Williams. He requested a meeting with President George Albert Smith, who invited McKay to join them. They invited Williams to draft a proposal for expanding missionary work in South America.
After Williams submitted his proposal, McKay, under assignment from President Smith, enthusiastically called Williams to open a mission in Uruguay, which soon extended to Paraguay.
In 1951, McKay’s first year as prophet, he authorized the establishment of a Central American mission after determining that the priesthood and temple ban would not “inhibit” missionary work in most of those lands.
In 1953, McKay toured Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and Peru in South America. In the latter two countries, he met with U.S. expatriates who urged him to call missionaries to serve there. Three years later, missionaries arrived in Chile, and a branch was established in Peru.
Slowing Latter-day Saint expansion to Ecuador
Sometimes McKay applied the brakes to expansionist impulses, as he did in 1960 when Vernon Sharp, the President of the Andes Mission, proposed sending missionaries to Ecuador.
McKay feared that anti-American sentiment might endanger American missionaries there. The first missionaries arrived in 1965.
Asia
On his world tour, David O. McKay visited Japan, passed through Korea, and dedicated China for the preaching of the gospel. He also visited Java, Singapore, and India, trying to connect with the handful of expatriate Americans living there.
Having visited these lands, McKay wanted to see the Church become established there. While McKay was supervising missionary work as George Albert Smith’s counselor in the First Presidency, the Japanese mission officially reopened in 1948.
Early in 1949, McKay recommended that “definite steps be taken toward the organization of a mission in China.” The potential reach of that mission contracted when, a few months later, Communists took over mainland China, but McKay called a mission president and arranged for the establishment of a mission headquartered in Hong Kong.
The first missionaries arrived in 1950 and served for the better part of a year before being transferred to work with Chinese speakers in Hawaii due to the Korean War.
After the war, missionaries returned to Hong Kong and began preaching in Taiwan. As the new Church President, McKay told reporters that the Church hoped to establish church schools in China—something that was not done—and send missionaries to India.
McKay’s attention was directed to the Philippines by Assistant to the Twelve Gordon B. Hinckley.
Missionary work began in earnest in 1961.
Hinckley first discussed the possibility of opening the Philippines for missionary work with McKay’s counselor, J. Reuben Clark, Jr., when McKay was out of town. Hinckley later recalled that Clark “hesitated and finally didn’t feel well about it.”
A few months later, Hinckley broached the subject with McKay, who instructed him to “follow your inspiration.”
On his next visit to Asia, Hinckley dedicated the Philippines for preaching the gospel. Missionary work began in earnest in 1961.
India and West Africa
What were the grassroots congregations in India and West Africa, and why did missionary work falter in those areas during McKay’s tenure?
India
David O. McKay announced early in his presidency that he hoped to establish an official Church presence in India. In 1954, an Indian in his 30s, Paul Thiruthuvadoss, learned of the Church. He wrote to Salt Lake City requesting curricular materials and established a Sunday School in a small village near Coimbatore.
Under assignment from McKay, Elder Richard L. Evans met with Thiruthuvadoss in 1960 when he visited India in connection with Rotary International.
The Church would need to work slowly and quietly.
When he returned to Utah, Evans reported to McKay that the Church would need to work slowly and quietly through Indian citizens like Thiruthuvadoss to become established there, due to adverse government attitudes toward foreign churches.
In 1962, Gordon B. Hinckley visited Thiruthuvadoss and his congregation with Southern Far East mission president Jay Quealy. “These are earnest people, but they have been schooled in the Pentecostal ways, which are not our ways,” Hinckley reported.
He did not see a clear way to assimilate these “converts” into a recognizably Latter-day Saint organization and theology. Thiruthuvadoss and his family requested baptism, so Quealy returned to India, accompanied by missionaries on tourist visas to fulfill the request.
The missionaries remained for 6 months and baptized a handful of additional converts. Twenty-four more joined in 1968, but the members had only sporadic contact with church representatives.
Africa
In Africa, Honesty John Ekong from Nigeria began writing to the Church headquarters requesting visitors and curricular materials in the late 1950s.
Lamar Williams from the Church Missionary Department began sending materials in 1959, which Ekong shared with others, who also began using church materials and claiming an affiliation with the church. Some requested funds to improve their facilities, and others requested baptism.
Thousands of Nigerians sincerely desired baptism, even after they learned that they could not be ordained to the priesthood.
Inspired by their requests and the scriptural directive to take the gospel to all people, David O. McKay desired to “permit these people to be baptized and confirmed members of the Church if they are converted and worthy.”
He recognized, though, that some hard-pressed congregations might be primarily motivated by the need for economic support.
Eventually, Williams was dispatched to Africa on a short investigative trip. He reported that thousands of Nigerians sincerely desired baptism, even after they learned that they could not be ordained to the priesthood.
The prospect of baptizing black congregations in Africa raised many practical questions that the First Presidency considered:
- Could local Sunday Schools and other auxiliaries function with black leaders under the direction of a white mission president?
- Would this arrangement set undesirable precedents that would spawn problems for the church elsewhere, including the United States and South Africa?
- Would some of the new converts immigrate to Utah?
- Would that lead to interracial marriage outside the temples for white Latter-day Saints?
Despite these concerns, David O. McKay pressed ahead with plans to send Williams back to Nigeria as a temporary mission president along with a handful of senior missionary couples. However, visa problems, opposition to the Church’s racial policies from Nigerian students studying in the United States, and requests from the Nigerian government for funds presented new complications.
McKay acquiesced to their concerns.
Williams returned to Nigeria to continue negotiations with the government.
However, when members of the Quorum of the Twelve learned of his mission, they raised concerns with the First Presidency about the wisdom of proceeding, particularly fearing that the move into Nigeria would jeopardize the Church’s standing in South Africa.
McKay acquiesced to their concerns, and Williams was recalled to Salt Lake City. Thirteen years would pass before Latter-day Saint missionaries returned to West Africa.
David O. McKay and International Access to Latter-day Saint Temple Ordinances
How did McKay adjust the temple and priesthood ban while visiting South Africa?
While visiting South Africa, President McKay authorized the ordination of men who appeared white and who had no known African ancestry. Converts no longer had to research their family history to prove that their ancestors had immigrated to Africa.
McKay announced this policy change because the mission president warned that “if the present policy were continued for another 25 years, it is doubtful whether the Church would have sufficient men to carry on the work of the branches.”
McKay acknowledged this altered policy would result in the ordination of at least some men with black African ancestry, but he reasoned, “I would much rather make a mistake in one case and if it is found out afterward suspend his activity in the priesthood than to deprive ten worthy men of the priesthood.”
How did he alter the temple and priesthood ban while visiting South Africa?
On his world tour in 1921, Elder David O. McKay wrote that due to their dark skin, the Melanesian/Fijian people were “as repulsive to me as the Polynesians are attractive.”
He came away from the world tour “with the distinct impression that there are other people better prepared for the preaching of the Gospel than the Fijians are.”
He received distinctly different impressions more than three decades later.
Over three decades later, while on his 1955 tour of the South Pacific, McKay received distinctly different impressions. He and his party were grounded in Fiji due to a tropical storm, and he interpreted the storm-induced delay as a sign that there was something for him to learn there.
Walking the streets of Suva, the McKays were surprised to meet two missionaries. They were unaware of any official Latter-day Saint presence there. Over the weekend, they met with a group of 28 Saints at the home of Tongan immigrant Cecil B. Smith, who served as branch president.
McKay was encouraged by Smith’s perception that the Fijians had no African ancestry, and on the strength of that, he authorized their ordination of dark-skinned Fijians to the priesthood as long as they had no known African ancestry.
What was the significance of these changes?
These were historically significant departures in policy because they chipped away at the notion that black skin itself was a curse.
Additionally, they demonstrated that modification of Church racial policies in response to local exigencies and conditions was possible and could be appropriate.
How did McKay make temple ordinances available outside of the U.S. and Canada, and why was it important that he did so?
The first temples outside the US and Canada were announced, constructed, and dedicated during President McKay’s tenure as prophet, reflecting his desire to make it simpler and less costly for members living overseas to attend the temple.
For many, the barriers to traveling to America to receive the crowning, essential blessings of the gospel in a temple were overwhelming.
McKay encouraged Richards to identify possible temple sites.
In 1951, Stayner Richards, President of the British Mission, returned to Utah for his son’s funeral. While there, he lobbied McKay for a temple in England.
Richards’s inspiration was a crucial catalyst for international temple building. McKay encouraged Richards to identify possible temple sites.
After Richards had identified a site (not the one that was finally selected), the First Presidency decided that “Great Britain should have the first temple in Europe.”
A few weeks later, after further reflection, McKay concluded that the more numerous German-speaking Saints in Europe should have a temple of their own—probably in Switzerland—as it seemed the safest, most stable, and most easily accessible German-speaking nation.
David O. McKay envisioned small temples in Europe that could be built for roughly the same price as a stake center in the United States. The temple endowment would be presented in multiple languages using technology. McKay dedicated the Swiss temple in 1955 and the London Temple in 1958.
The impetus for this temple came from McKay.
In 1955, the prophet sent Wendell Mendenhall, soon to be named the head of the Church Building Committee, to New Zealand to scout out a possible temple site.
A few weeks later, when McKay arrived, he confirmed that the temple should be built on a site adjacent to the Church College of New Zealand. Three years later, in 1958, the New Zealand Temple was dedicated.
The impetus for this temple, like the one in Switzerland, came from McKay.
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About the Scholar
Brian Q. Cannon is a historian and professor of history at Brigham Young University, where he serves as chair of the History Department and holds the Lemuel Hardison Redd, Jr. Chair in Western American History. He specializes in western, rural, and Latter-day Saint history, with particular focus on twentieth-century Church leadership and institutional development. Cannon’s publications include Building a Global Zion: The Life and Vision of David O. McKay, which examines how David O. McKay shaped the Church’s global reach and influenced its members worldwide.
Further Reading
Explore more From the Desk articles about David O. McKay:
- Global Mormonism: Latter-day Saints Around the World
- Who Was Clare Middlemiss?
- David O. McKay Diaries with Harvard Heath
- Why Did Marion D. Hanks Love David O. McKay?
- What Did David O. McKay Teach About the First Vision?
David O. McKay and the International Church Resources
Read what top scholars and publishers say about the ninth President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints:
- Building a Global Zion: The Life and Vision of David O. McKay (Signature Books)
- David O. McKay Diaries – “International Church” (University of Virginia)
- An Apostle in Oceania: Elder David O. McKay’s 1921 Trip around the Pacific (BYU Religious Studies Center)
- Building a Global Zion: The Life and Vision of David O. McKay: A Review (Times and Seasons)
- David O. McKay and Blacks: Building the Foundation for the 1978 Revelation (Dialogue [PDF])
- Ambassador of the Faith (Liahona)
