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The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Philippines

Open-knowledge reference entry

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 6, 2026
Entity authorityQ7723005 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church; Filipino: Ang Simbahan ni Jesucristo ng mga Banal sa mga Huling Araw) in the Philippines refers to the organization and its members in the Philippines.

The Philippines ranks as having the most church members and members per capita among Asian countries and the fourth most members worldwide.

History

The first contact the church had with the Philippines was in 1898 during the Spanish–American War. Two church members, Willard Call and George Seaman, who were part of the United States artillery battery, were set apart as missionaries and began to proselytize after being deployed to the Philippines. However, they met with little success. Active proselytizing stopped at the onset of World War II.

The first Filipino to join the LDS Church was Aniceta Pabilona Fajardo in 1945, who was introduced to the church by Maxine Grimm, who was in the Philippines with the Red Cross in the aftermath of World War II.

The Luzon Serviceman's District was organized during the Korean War under the Japanese Mission for American servicemen stationed in the Philippines. In August 1955, the district was then transferred to the newly organized Southern Far East Mission, under the direction of Joseph Fielding Smith, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve. During this time, Smith visited the Philippines. Due to legal issues, the LDS Church could not send missionaries to the country. Missionary work, however, was done by Latter-day Saint servicemen and American residents, including Kendall B. Schaefermeyer, a returned missionary serving in the U.S. Navy.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Philippines” is open-knowledge reference entry. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Church, Jesus and Christ, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1898, 1945, 1955—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Church, Jesus and Christ is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “open-knowledge reference entry” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7723005. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1898, 1945 and 1955.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

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  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Philippines”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Philippines primary sources, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Philippines archive and Church research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Philippines” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.