Missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (better known as the Mormon Church) in Whitehorse have begun a new outreach strategy to spread their message and to offer up their help for acts of service in the community.  The Local church hosts young missionaries from across the world, who frequently go door-knocking, offering to perform chores, yard work, and other forms of service directly for individuals that they meet throughout their stay. They have taken to reaching out through the social media platform of Facebook, utilizing the Yukon Helpers Network Facebook page. 

Elder Connor Cottle, originally from Utah, says: “Technology is getting bigger and bigger. So we thought: ‘oh Facebook  might be good.’ And we saw these local groups and so we thought: ‘Oh maybe if we can offer some church tours and just kind of get people involved in a stress-free kind of environment.’ And we thought Yukon Helpers would be a good place to start.” 

The Church building in Whitehorse stands across the river from the downtown waterfront. The Church is so close to the bustle of traffic down Front Street, to the library and Kwanlin Dun Cultural Centre and the shops on Main Street, but the closeness is made far by the river that passes between them. 

Before their current building was built in 1980 (part of a larger investment and expansion of 11 other churches across BC, Yukon, and Alaska), meetings were held in the Old Masonic Hall and baptisms were performed at the Takhini Hotsprings. To fundraise for the new building, members volunteered to deliver Yukon Electric bills and sell their baked goods at bake sales at various community events. They used to have an annual float at the Canada Day parade and sold tickets for the Sourdough Rendezvous. 

These are not just examples from a more collaborative era for the Church with the wider community, but also examples of collaborations and relationships that were also necessities. With their church funded and built (and expanded in 1990), their need to be so directly in relationship with the outside community was lessened, and they could rely on their own community and resources within the church.

Today, Branch President Andrew Swensen insists that the sign outside the church that says “Visitors Welcome” remains an important tenet to the congregation: “Our meetings are open to the public, we invite everyone to come and be part of our meetings and to strengthen us as well because having people come adds to our congregation and in turn we become a more strengthened community” 

The Church has a congregation of about 230 on their records, with approximately 50 attendees each Sunday meeting. 

The main form of community outreach for the Church is in the form of the work that the missionaries do. They are set to volunteer with the Yukon Quest this year, but pressed for more specifics about other planned partner-based volunteering in the community, Swensen admits: “As far as charities and organizations, at this time there is not [any other than the Yukon Quest]. We’re certainly open to having those conversations, and we’d really absolutely love to. So if there’s anyone out there, come see me, I’d love to talk.”  

Local member Amy Hrebien, who grew up in the Whitehorse congregation, notes: “I think as a whole we could be more involved [...] And a lot of that is just families moving away and to the local membership a lot of them are getting older so they’re not getting out and doing as much […] There’s not very many families with kids anymore. ”

Hrebien says. “The truth is that I really wish we were more involved in the community and sometimes we struggle to find ways to do that because some people don’t have a very good opinion of the church.” 

Hrebien notes specifically the Church’s stance on LGBTQ marriage, in which queer members of the church are expected to stay single. Hrebien says: 

“And I mean I can’t speak for the church as a whole, but obviously there are some aspects of church doctrine that I don’t understand and that I don’t know if I will ever understand, but I do understand that it makes other people uncomfortable.”

Despite this, the Church provides important social support to its membership; Hrebien notes that “if something happened and I was sick and stuff like that the church would actually help me pay my rent." 

There are 60,000 missionaries serving in the Church worldwide, including young men and women and elder couples. Missionaries are always paired together with one or two “companions.” They serve 4-6 months in a branch and are transferred around different branches in the larger “stake” by a Mission President one at a time, oriented and given the ropes of the community by another missionary who has already been working in Service of the local community. Service can include a whole range of activities for the missionaries, from meeting and talking to people, helping people move, doing yard work or snow shovelling, besides just trying to convert people. 

Joseph Beesley, one of the missionaries stationed in Whitehorse for the last three months, says, regarding adapting to new places:

"We’re taught mission-wide and worldwide certain skills that help us do that, ways we can interact with people that will be most effective. But like you said, it has to be adapted to local needs. Every place is different. And so obviously it really helps to have someone who has had that experience in the area, they know the lingo, they know how you should - certain political things that we should watch out for, certain cultural things, and obviously the people that are there."

Facebook is not the only use of technology the church uses. The Congregation has utilized a camera and live stream set up for their Sunday meetings for the benefit of members who live in communities outside of Whitehorse for years even before the normalization of digital meetings during COVID. Says Branch President Swensen:  

“We have or have had in the past members in many of the communities - Watson Lake, Faro, Carmacks, Dawson, Beaver Creek - and they’ve been blessed to be able to have our meetings broadcast through technologies for many many years and we’re blessed certainly by them for tuning in and even taking part in our meetings from their various locations”

Besides geographical diversity, the membership is also composed of a diverse range of people, including Indigenous folks and people from the Philippines. Despite being tucked away across the river from the downtown core, the Congregation continues to meet every Sunday.