Learning to Listen

The First Integrated Branches in South Africa

While Latter-day Saints are united by shared faith and goals, we also come from a wide range of backgrounds. Ultimately, our different perspectives can be a source of strength, but first we have to learn to work together despite different experiences and assumptions.

In the 1980s, when the first Latter-day Saint branches in black townships in South Africa were organized, the country was still divided by apartheid, leaving people from different racial groups with very different lives and little exposure to each other. Pioneering black and white Church members learned to bridge their differences in background to lay the foundation for future Church growth across the country. In this video, they share insights about their learning process.