2015-2016 Anchorage Children'S Theatre: Fill & Download for Free

This answer may contain sensitive images. Click on an image to unblur it.The Hunter: Alaska’s Most Notorious Serial Killer“Shut up, sweetheart, or I’ll blow your brains out.”Robert Hansen Robert Hansen is Alaska’s most notorious serial murderer. Several television shows have portrayed his life; numerous books have detailed his horrific deeds; and a 2013 movie, The Frozen Ground, starring John Cusack as Hansen and Nicholas Cage as an Alaska State Trooper, chronicles Hansen’s crimes and dramatizes the police investigation and apprehension of Hansen.I hesitate to repeat this story, but if my goal is to recount some of the worst crimes in the history of Alaska, I would be remiss not to include those of Robert Hansen. This story is also important for two other reasons. First, it showcases the time during the construction and early operation of the trans-Alaska pipeline when thousands of people flocked to the state for jobs, and crime soared. Second, this case represents the beginning of the change in the criminal justice system in Alaska when investigative techniques, evidence processing, and dealing with sexual-assault crimes and victims moved out of the dark ages and into the present.This is not a tale of Alaska’s criminal justice system at its finest. Hansen should have been caught and prosecuted years before he was, but a perfect storm of circumstances allowed him to remain free and continue killing. Robert Hansen was a skilled liar, able to talk his way out of nearly any situation. He owned a bakery and maintained a reputation as a respected businessman with powerful friends he could convince to lie for him and provide him with critical alibis. He was married with a family and had strong ties to his church. Hansen was smart and adept at navigating the wilderness. He was a pilot with his own plane, allowing him to kill and dump bodies in remote locations. He was also an avid big-game hunter with a small arsenal of guns he knew how to use well. Several of his trophies scored high in the record books, and his hunting buddies admired him. He did not fit a typical criminal profile, and on those occasions when he was caught doing something wrong, the justice system repeatedly gave him the benefit of the doubt, despite his criminal record.Anchorage in the 1970sAlaska Pipeline Anchorage in the early 1970s was a frontier town with growing pains. Construction began on the trans-Alaska oil pipeline in 1973, and it was completed in 1977. During this time, 28,000 people worked on the pipeline. Oil-field workers made good money, and while many pipeline employees hailed from Alaska, others came from the lower 48. The high wages created boomtown conditions in Fairbanks and Anchorage, and unemployment dropped to nearly zero in those cities. Off-duty workers spent lavishly, and crime rates spiked. Mobsters, drug dealers, prostitutes, and topless dancers followed the money to Alaska. Fourth Avenue in Anchorage became a string of endless taverns, and the Avenue was known as the longest bar in the world. Several topless bars opened in Anchorage, and the dancers and prostitutes who worked on Fourth Avenue lived a high-risk, nomadic lifestyle, often working awhile in Alaska, moving back to Seattle for a spell, and sometimes even traveling to Hawaii to work before perhaps again returning to Alaska. Few people noticed when a prostitute disappeared, and their absences rarely were reported to the police. This pool of transient, young women willing to climb into a stranger’s car for the promise of money, created the perfect atmosphere for a monster like Robert Hansen.Law enforcement in Anchorage and throughout the state was not prepared for the rapid influx of people and the increase in crime in the early 1970s. As the population of Anchorage exploded, the city quickly expanded past the city limits in every direction. The Anchorage Police Department patrolled the city itself, but the Alaska State Troopers with a smaller force were not only responsible for policing the portions of Anchorage outside the city limits, but they were also charged with patrolling most of the rest of the state of Alaska. Criminals quickly learned they were less likely to be caught committing crimes outside the Anchorage city limits. By 1970, the Alaska State Troopers had developed no protocols for dealing with sexual assault cases, and Alaska did not have a decent crime lab for processing evidence. The Hansen case would change all this, but the changes came at a horrible price.Robert HansenHansen Robert Hansen grew up in Pocahontas Iowa, 125 miles northwest of Des Moines. After graduating from high school, he joined the Army Reserves and received advanced military training at Fort Knox, Kentucky. Hansen returned to Iowa and worked at his father’s bakery in 1959. In 1960, he was arrested for setting fire to the bus barn at a local school and was convicted of arson and sentenced to three years in prison. A psychiatrist diagnosed Hansen with the infantile-personality disorder and said Hansen imagined doing violence against girls who rejected him. Two years later, another psychiatrist reported that Hansen’s antisocial behavior had improved, and Hansen was paroled a year early.Hansen soon met Darla Henrichson who was studying to be a teacher, and they married in 1961. Hansen then took a series of jobs in bakeries in Minnesota and North Dakota. In 1965, Hansen was arrested for shoplifting from a sporting goods store, but Darla persuaded the pastor at her Lutheran church to vouch for her husband, and the charges were soon dropped. The Hansens then moved to Anchorage, where Darla took a job as a teacher, and Robert worked as a baker. Darla was active in her church, and the couple enjoyed the outdoors. Robert was a serious hunter, and he shot record-book mountain goats, caribou, and Dall sheep. He soon met and became hunting buddies with John Sumrall, a well-respected Anchorage insurance man.Hansen’s CrimesIn 1971, Hansen approached eighteen-year-old Susie Heppeard as she got out of her car at her apartment. He pointed his gun at her face and said, “Shut up, sweetheart, or I’ll blow your head off.” Susie screamed, and one of her roommates called the police while the other roommate yelled at Hansen and told him the police were on the way. Hansen pushed his gun into Susie’s back and forced her toward the street, but when the police arrived, Hansen ran away into the night. The authorities easily apprehended Hansen, but he was released on his own recognizance. A month later, the grand jury charged him with assault with a deadly weapon.Three days later, Hansen kidnapped a topless dancer and took her to a cabin on the Kenai Peninsula where he raped her. On the way back to Anchorage, he stopped the car, pointed his pistol at her, and told her to start running. She pleaded with him not to kill her, and Hansen finally relented and took her back to Anchorage. To keep her quiet, Hansen wrote down her parents’ names and address and said he would kill them if she reported this incident to the police. If Hansen had known her father was an Alaska State Trooper, she might not have been so lucky. On Christmas day, when the half-naked body of a college freshman was found in a ravine near where Hansen had taken the dancer, the young dancer decided she couldn’t remain silent. She went to trooper headquarters, reported her abduction and rape, and identified Hansen from a photo.Hansen was arrested again, and the latest charges were added to those already filed against him. On December 29th, Hansen was arraigned and held on $50,000 bail. Hansen’s family minister, as well as John Sumrall and another influential friend, appeared as character witnesses for Hansen and stated that Bob Hansen would not harm anyone. They argued the dancer must be mistaken. Hansen’s attorney attacked the topless dancer’s reputation and pointed out she used drugs. The charges in the case of the dancer were finally dropped, and Hansen received a five-year sentence for assaulting Susie Heppeard. He would be eligible for parole when doctors determined he was psychologically fit.A psychiatrist diagnosed Hansen with schizophrenia and said Hansen would commit violent acts and then not remember them later. Hansen learned how to manipulate the prison system and was a model inmate, effortlessly convincing psychiatrists and jailers his condition had improved. He was released to a halfway house after serving only three months and soon was allowed to move home with his family.Hansen owned a boat he moored in a small boat harbor at Seward, Alaska, 125 miles south of Anchorage. Megan Emerick was last seen July 7th, 1973, folding her laundry at a dormitory in Seward. Police believe Hansen murdered her and buried her on the shore of Resurrection Bay near Seward.In the summer of 1975, friends drove Mary K. Thill to Seward. She got out of the car, and they never saw her again. Troopers believe Hansen also buried her near Seward.A few weeks after Mary Thill disappeared, Hansen lured a dancer from the Kit Kat Club on the Old Seward Highway near Anchorage. He drove her to Chugach State Park, raped her, and then let her go. The woman reported the rape but refused to press charges. The trooper who took her statement notified Hansen’s parole officer, but Hansen claimed he thought he and the dancer were on a date, and the parole officer let the matter drop.In November 1976, security guards caught Hansen trying to shoplift a chainsaw from a store in Anchorage. The court sentenced him to five years in prison and sent him to the Juneau Correctional Institute. After serving only sixteen months, the Alaska Supreme Court reviewed his case and decided since his other offenses were several years in the past, and since Hansen provided well for his family and was a respectable member of the community, he should be released. The judge who initially sentenced Hansen expressed outrage at the court’s decision. Soon after being released from prison, investigators believe Hansen committed a series of rapes and murders.In 1982, Hansen opened his own bakery. Business thrived, and he soon made enough money to purchase a small airplane. The plane offered Hansen increased mobility. He no longer had to drive his victims into the wilderness to kill them. He could now fly them there.The body of Joanna Messina was found in a gravel pit near Seward in May 1980. A second body was discovered two months later over a hundred miles away in a shallow grave on a remote road outside of Anchorage. The second victim was never identified. The two bodies were found so far apart, authorities assumed two different people had murdered the women.On September 13th, 1982, two off-duty Anchorage police officers were moose hunting on the Knik River when they found the remains of Sherry Morrow on a sand bar. When Alaska State Trooper Sergeant Lyle Haugsven arrived to examine the remains, he began thinking about the growing list of missing dancers in Anchorage. Was there a serial killer prowling the streets of Anchorage? Haugsven compiled a list of women who had been reported missing, and then he created a suspect list. More than thirty names made his list, including Robert Hansen, but as the months passed and no more bodies surfaced, police rejected the idea of a serial killer and decided the murder of Sherry Morrow was an isolated event.On June 13th, 1983, a trucker encountered a 17-year-old girl named Cindy running down a street near an airfield in Anchorage. A man with a gun was chasing her. Cindy was barefoot and handcuffed, and when the trucker stopped, she climbed in his truck. The trucker tried to convince Cindy to go to the police station, but she was confused and terrified and demanded he drop her off at a motel. He complied with her demands but then continued to the police station where he reported the incident. When Anchorage Police Officer Gregg Baker arrived at the motel, he found Cindy still in handcuffs and hysterical. Cindy led Officer Baker to the airfield and pointed out a plane and told Baker her assailant had tried to force her to climb into it. The aircraft was registered to Robert Hansen.Police went to Hansen’s home, but he denied the incident had happened, saying he and another friend had been at John Sumrall’s home. Both friends backed up Hansen’s story, providing Hansen with an alibi for the time when Cindy said she was abducted. The prosecutor had to weigh the testimony of a teenage prostitute against the testimony of two highly regarded Anchorage businessmen, and he dropped the case before charges were brought.On September 2nd, 1983 the body of another woman was found on the Knik River near the spot where Sherry Morrow’s body had been found, and Alaska State Trooper Sergeant Glen Flothe was assigned the case of the Knik River murders. Flothe remained convinced a serial killer stalked the streets of Anchorage, and Robert Hansen topped his list of suspects. He ordered twenty-four-hour surveillance on Hansen, and Flothe comprised a list of twenty-two missing women he felt were possible victims of the murderer.The InvestigationFlothe contacted the FBI’s Behavioral Sciences Division and asked for their assistance in identifying the murderer. Agents John Douglas and James Horn came up with a profile stating the murderer stutters and is an excellent hunter. They said the unknown subject is a hardworking, successful businessman, and his wife is probably religious and not aware of her husband’s activities. Their profile perfectly described Robert Hansen and his wife, Darla. The FBI agents also told Flothe their killer likely has a stash of items, such as jewelry or clothes, he has taken from his victims and saved for trophies.Flothe convinced a judge to issue a search warrant for Hansen’s bakery and house. Behind the headboard of Hansen’s bed, officers found an aviation map with twenty-four X marks on it, but at the time, the map meant nothing. An officer searching the attic in Hansen’s home found a cache of weapons, including a rifle they matched to shell casings found near the bodies on the Knik River. The officer also found a bag of jewelry: the souvenirs the FBI agents believed the murderer would have.Hansen’s weapons cache in his attic With mounting evidence, John Sumrall and Hansen’s other buddy recanted their testimony, saying Hansen was not with them when Cindy was abducted. After several days of interrogation, Hansen finally confessed to killing fourteen women over twelve years, but when Flothe reviewed the evidence in the case, he came across the aviation map covered with the twenty-four X marks, and he realized each X might represent the burial spot of one of Hansen’s victims.Authorities suspect Robert Hansen murdered more than thirty women, and some speculate he also murdered men. Although Hansen never admitted it, investigators believe from studying the evidence of where Hansen’s victims started and where they were finally killed, that Hansen would abduct a woman, take her into the wilderness, rape her, and order her to run while he hunted her down as if she were one of his big-game trophies.Hansen was sentenced to 461 years plus life, without parole. With the aid of the marked aviation map of Southcentral Alaska, troopers found human remains near seventeen of the X-marks on Hansen’s map.Hansen was incarcerated at the Spring Creek Correctional Center in Seward, and he died from natural causes on August 21st, 2014. After his conviction, his wife and children moved back to Arkansas to be near her family.As an interesting side note, a few investigators believe Hansen could have been responsible for some of the murders attributed to the Green River killer in Seattle. Hansen denied any connection.During the Hansen case, Alaska State Troopers began developing protocols for dealing with sexual assault cases and started building and supporting safe houses around the state for victims of abuse. Also, the Department of Safety in Alaska built a state-of-the-art, $56 million crime lab for evidence processing.Unfortunately, much work still needs to be done in Alaska. A 2016 report by the Violence Policy Center ranked Alaska first nation-wide as the state with the highest homicide rate per capita of female victims killed by male offenders. According to a 2015 University of Alaska Justice Center victimization survey, fifty out of every one-hundred women residing in Alaska have experienced intimate partner violence, sexual violence, or both.

“Structural Integrity,” Episode #110 of 99% Invisible, April 15, 2014. When an undergraduate architecture student decided to write a paper on NYC’s Citicorp Center shortly after its construction in 1977, the student just couldn't get the math calculations to work. That's when its chief structural engineer got a strange phone call; the student asked, surely the seventh-tallest building in the world couldn't blow over in the wind?“He’s Neutral,” Episode 15 of Criminal | a podcast, Jan. 30, 2015. When a resident of an Oakland, Calif., neighborhood for 40 years saw drug dealers and prostitutes moving onto his street, he knew something had to be done — and he didn't want to involve the police. Little did he know that his creative solution, though successful in fighting crime, would have significantly unintended (and slightly humorous) results that would forever after affect his daily life.“Urban Wildlife,” May 11, 2011, episode of Encounters. Local fish and wildlife officers take the listener along to witness the daily challenges of dealing with bears and moose living among the population of Anchorage, Alaska.“The Man in the Zoo,” Episode #47 of Radio Diaries, March 25, 2016. The most interesting exhibit at NYC’s Bronx Zoo in 1906 was a human pygmy from Africa who was caged with an ape. The sad fate of Otabenga is retold by interviewing two witnesses who were young children when they met him.“How Anonymous Works,” Nov. 24, 2015, of Stuff You Should Know. Anonymous is an amorphous group of hacktivists with no single leader or power structure. Some call them heroes, others call them criminals. Can they be both?

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was so named in 1838. We would appreciate it greatly if everyone would get on board with the name we choose for ourselves rather than using a term that has its origin and some continued hints of mockery of our belief in a prophet named Mormon who wrote a book.That said, we build people.To help us build people, we spread the gospel of Jesus Christ.To spread the gospel of Jesus Christ we provide resources such as meetinghouses for Sunday worship and temples—which are sanctuaries set apart from the world for the performance of sacred ordinances such as eternal marriages.A meetinghouse is typically used by two or three congregations in an area heavily populated by members of the Church. They are built to similar plans in order to save money and improve efficiency of maintenance. See here: Architecture, Engineering & Construction Division, MFD, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day SaintsWe build smaller more flexible buildings in areas with few members, such as our building on Salt Spring Island off of Victoria Island in Canada.Our meetinghouses are used daily—for example, I teach a morning religious education class to high school juniors every morning at 6:15 AM in our meetinghouse here in Laie, Hawaii. It sits on land that is worth millions of dollars—we easily have over 10,000 meetinghouses and we lease facilities for other meetings. Some of these facilities aren’t cheap:There’s a meeting with our Church President Russell M. Nelson in the State Farm stadium in Phoenix—he’s on the jumbotron there if you look closely speaking to 65,000 assembled members. Not cheap, I imagine, to rent out the stadium.Our temples are considered offerings to God—holy places where heaven meets earth. They are built to a standard of construction unknown on the Earth to any other group and, yes, this costs money. But they are Holy places and no amount of effort is spared—the blessings returned to the people far exceed the sacrifices made to build them. Our temple in Salt Lake City consists of hand-carved granite blocks that were moved from Little Cottonwood canyon via oxcart. It took forty years to build.Here’s a more recent effort in San Diego, California:Not only are they expensive in time and material, but we are building temples in countries far from Utah. Here is the new temple in the Democratic Republic of the Congo:Any group of faithful members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will receive the blessing of a temple when they are prepared to staff it and use it appropriately.Anchorage, Alaska:The meetinghouses and temples are there to help us provide ordinances to our dead ancestors—we do the physical work that they cannot do in the spirit world given that they are now separated from their physical bodies until the resurrection. We do not believe that we are forcing anything upon them, but we make tremendous efforts to gather genealogical records and provide them to the world.Anyone who does family history profits from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints http://familysearch.org libraries, family history centers and website resources. We have millions of pages of microfilmed records that preserved crumbling church registers and other official birth, death and marriage records from all over the world. We’ve been at this work for over 180 years now and now genetic researchers are profiting from that work. God knew what he was doing getting it all on microfilm because data on computers is very hard to make permanent—computers change so rapidly that your storage media have a short life. For example, vital Apollo Program data was almost lost forever but for an engineer who preserved computer tapes that no machine could read. We spend lots of our money on this effort to maintain and protect family history information and we keep those records absolutely secure in a vault:Of course, the temples, meetinghouses and records would be useless if we didn’t have members. So we field tens of thousands of missionaries around the world—67,000 as of the date I wrote this. They are trained in centers built all over the world. In fact, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has the best language training facilities on the Earth. It is said, only half in jest, that two groups of people are capable of learning the Finnish language—babies and missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.We just expanded the primary Missionary Training Center in Provo, UtahMissionaries are flying all over the world at Church expense, daily, as they move to and from their fields of labor. So many missionaries fly in and out of the Salt Lake City airport that the airport itself built a place to accommodate them: Salt Lake City Airport renovation to accommodate LDS missionaries, families, travelersThe Church has a system where it pays the expenses for missionaries without economic means to do so and where each family that can afford to pay is given a flat rate charge of $500 per month. This evens out the costs—back in the day when you paid whatever the mission required, some families were paying $50 a month for a missionary in South America and others $1,500 a month for a missionary in London, England. Now the Church handles all the costs from a gigantic fund and is able to spread the costs among those families with serving missionaries.As a father of nine, I am very thankful for this assistance. Missionaries need room and board, they often have a car—the Church must own and operate a couple hundred thousand Toyota Corollas—and it is self-insured. Imagine the cost of having inexperienced young men and women, often driving on the other side of the road than they were trained for. I served in Australia and it was tougher than you think to learn to shift gears with your left hand.Most people realize the multi-billion-dollar investments in our temples; however, there are over 400 mission headquarters, each of which has a home large enough to accommodate the mission president’s family and hold large meetings with missionaries who are arriving and leaving the mission—in our mission home we also had regular meetings where our mission president would teach people in his home. In some areas of the world, this home has to have serious security. In most developed nations, these homes were purchased well over 100 years ago and now find themselves inside the most desirable (and pricey) neighborhoods. Our Honolulu Mission President’s family resides for their three years in a home in Portlock—there’s an investment that just keeps growing.I suspect we spend a good deal on keeping our missionaries healthy—medical needs are covered by the Church for all its young missionaries as are costs of treating injuries, costs of mental health professionals (missionary work is emotionally difficult, constant rejection and you are taken from your home and your traditional strategies of coping with tough times and you must stay with a companion 24/7 that you may or may not find compatible). The Church covers any needs. A jet was procured and used to evacuate the 200 or so missionaries serving in Puerto Rico after the big hurricane. Jesus taught Peter that when money was necessary—it would be there. Jesus did this by having Peter cast his hook, catch a fish and then take a gold coin out of the fish’s mouth with which to pay the tax. Never worry that the Lord Jesus Christ doesn’t recognize the needs of His people, whether or not they are members of this Church.And when the world causes trouble for its people or our members, we are there with food and support. We maintain a vast network of farms and food processing centers and are able to feed our people and many others with Bishop’s Storehouses that are located near every congregation. A local leader can call upon those resources and many others.Here’s a typical Bishop’s Storehouse:Anything a family needs—meat, fresh produce, cooking essentials, cleaning and hygiene supplies—anything. No member of the Church goes hungry so long as the bishop knows about it. I was a bishop—I had dozens of men and women checking up on every one of the 300 members in my ward so that I could intervene with professional assistance if necessary at the Church’s expense. Because my ward was well over an hour’s drive from our Bishop’s Storehouse, when necessary, I could simply buy the food with Church funds at a local store and distribute it directly. (Under strict supervision and auditing, of course.)The Church food chain includes a network of farms. We own the world’s largest beef cattle operation in Florida, the Deseret Ranch. Deseret Ranches Of Florida We have our own brand and produce everything from soup to nuts. You can barely make out the “Deseret” brand at the top of the cans.So to those who claim we should be feeding the poor with our money—find me anyone who needs food and isn’t getting it and we’ll make an effort to reach them. The Church contributes heavily to other charities with proven records of low-overhead and successful delivery of food and services. See, e.g. LDS Charities Releases 2018 Annual ReportWe have also repurchased our historical sites—places where our ancestors were attacked and often killed by mobs. Here’s Nauvoo, Illinois where we not only rebuilt our temple but recreated the city itself and staff an attraction that has been visited by millions.We are scripturally bound to reclaim the lands of MIssouri that we once owned—but slowly and in the Lord’s time and under His direction:52 For, behold, verily I say unto you, the Lord willeth that the disciples and the children of men should open their hearts, even to purchase this whole region of country, as soon as time will permit.53 Behold, here is wisdom. Let them do this lest they receive none inheritance, save it be by the shedding of blood.54 And again, inasmuch as there is land obtained, let there be workmen sent forth of all kinds unto this land, to labor for the saints of God.55 Let all these things be done in order; and let the privileges of the lands be made known from time to time, by the bishop or the agent of the church.56 And let the work of the gathering be not in haste, nor by flight; but let it be done as it shall be counseled by the elders of the church at the conferences, according to the knowledge which they receive from time to time. Doctrine and Covenants 58We repurchased and continue to acquire lands in Nauvoo—a City built by our forebears.We repurchased and restored the Joseph Smith family farm and the nearby Hill Cumorah where Joseph Smith was led to the ancient record that became the Book of Mormon.We own the jail where Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum Smith were martyredWe educate our members as well as feed them. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has a huge educational system with a first-rate research University as the crown jewel. Its newest building—the Life Sciences building—alone has more square footage than the entire campus of Brigham Young University Hawaii, where I work. BYU College of Life Sciences - WikipediaBrigham Young University is widely recognized as among the great universities of the world, a top-rated value for the money because the Church heavily subsidizes tuition for its members. We even won the United States National College Football Championship in 1984 and field first-rate athletic teams that compete at the highest levels of collegiate sports. BYU No. 1 in new Wall Street Journal ranking of colleges 'worth the cost'I attended the Marriott School of Management and have an undergraduate in accounting—our School of Accounting at BYU is one of the top three in the nation. Accounting students land BYU another No. 1 rankingI attended the J. Reuben Clark School of Law at BYU and received a legal education that was the equal of any law school you could name. It’s founding dean, Rex Lee, was a United States Solicitor General who I believe is among the attorneys who have argued the most cases before the United States Supreme Court. BYU Law’s pipeline to the U.S. Supreme Court continuesBYU is staggeringly expensive to operate and maintain—top-rate professors do not come cheaply. But, the Church has learned that the more educated its members are, the more faithful and devoted they are—dollar for dollar, investment in education is the best dollars we spend in terms of the return we get. Five of my children, so far, have attended Brigham Young University.We have sister universities in Idaho and Hawaii. I work at BYU-Hawaii where the Church bought a significant chunk of Oahu in 1865 and presently runs the state’s number-one cash attraction, the Polynesian Cultural Center. www.polynesia.comI’m typing this answer right now inside the building at the lower right hand margin of this photograph—on a Saturday, i.e. my own time.BYU-Hawaii isn’t cheap, but we are educating young Church members from over 70 different countries and sending them back to build a strong middle-class in their communities in developing countries. The Church invests in its young people—that is why it continues. Its leaders know and appreciate the value of education.My accounting students work at the Polynesian Cultural Center in demanding and responsible positions dealing with millions of dollars of cash—they get amazing jobs and are welcomed by many graduate schools where they excel and bring honor to our school.BYU has study abroad centers all over the world. I attended our center in Jerusalem, Israel.Here’s the view from the auditorium—that is the Dome of the Rock shrine on the Temple Mount in the backgroundThe entire center is an amazing facility.My daughter attended BYU’s London Center in Kensington at 27 Palace Court:In addition to our universities, we maintain Institutes of Education adjacent to most Universities and colleges. There are a total of 324,537 students enrolled in these institutes of religion at present.Here is the one at Yale University:The Church itself has sixteen million members, about 400 missions, 11 missionary training centers, and 30,536 congregations. See, Statistics and Church Facts | Total Church MembershipWe also have a state-of-the-art publishing facility that prints, among other things, The Book of Mormon, which is currently printed in over 90 languages and which reached a total publication of 150 million volumes in 2011.We will give you a copy for free: The Book of Mormon brings you closer to Jesus. | ComeUntoChrist.orgWe also print the Bible and other scriptures and there is a regular monthly periodical available in many languages—all of which are supplemented by an amazing website and mobile apps. Our former president Gordon B. Hinckley prophetically understood the value of the internet and we are all over the internet with advertising and resources for Church members. www.churchofjesuschrist.orgWe have a state-of-the-art media production facility and team that produce amazing work. Recently, the Church funded a series of video representations of the New Testament. Watch Scenes from the BibleHere’s my favorite one:Peter and John Heal a Man Crippled Since BirthObviously, an operation the size of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints needs a headquarters and has thousands of employees who make their careers working to administer and run the Church’s operations—myself, for example, here at BYU-Hawaii:One of the office buildings above and our Administration Building below:A facility fit to receive Presidents and world leaders who come to pay respects:We have a new Church History library that provides resources to researchers, even our critics, regarding our historical records. It is all out there and public. See, The Joseph Smith Papers: A comprehensive digital collection of the papers of Joseph SmithThis is the library, Utah State Capital dome visible in background.Finally, we have our humanitarian projects. We have facilities with the materials necessary to clean up after disasters. Governments have studied our supply chain. We can field tens of thousands of workers within hours and we can equip them with generators, lighting, chainsaws, tools, cold storage, food—we can turn any of our meetinghouses into a shelter capable of housing hundreds temporarily in the case of natural disasters.We are widely recognized for expertise in this area and are usually the first on the ground with aid.Mormon humanitarian donations quadruple in response to disastersNews excerpts:The church provided mattresses, shelter, food and water in Sierra Leone and food and emergency items in Nepal during August and September.In response to hurricanes, it has shipped about 90 truckloads of food, water, clothing and other relief supplies to Texas and Florida and more than 40 ocean containers of food, water, building materials, hygiene kits and cleaning supplies to Caribbean islands. Two planes each delivered 80,000 pounds of food, water and tarps to Puerto Rico.The church sent nearly 15,000 food boxes and hundreds of hygiene kits and tents to Mexico to support government relief efforts. Mormon Helping Hands also provided thousands of hours of volunteer work.In recent years, the church has provided annual reports about its emergency response efforts.In 2016, the church provided aid to 119 emergency response projects in 49 countries.In 2015, it responded to 177 emergency situations in 56 countries.In 2014, the church helped people amid 132 disasters in 60 countries.Those numbers are an incomplete picture of the church's overall efforts. For example, in 2016, LDS Charities worked on 488 refugee aid projects in 54 countries, according to its annual report.And, we fund all of this from the income.We reinvest a large portion of our income every year.We have built up a reserve that allows us to provide services in perpetuity, that means forever. We don’t believe in just giving out money—one and done cannot solve the problems the world faces.So we are slowly increasing our outreach as our investments grow in their ability to fund the mission of the Church. The Mormon Church Amassed $100 Billion. It Was the Best-Kept Secret in the Investment World.Those who criticize the Church for investing its money simply fail to understand the power of relying solely upon the income or interest from investments. This means that the resources will always be there. We are not at the mercy of economic cycles.By not overspending our resources and maintaining steady growth, the Church of Jesus Christ will be able to fulfill its prophesied mission of filling the earth:44 And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.45 Forasmuch as thou sawest that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it brake in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold; the great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter: and the dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure.Daniel 2Come and see. Meetinghouse Locator | LDS Maps You are welcome to visit our Sunday meetings. You will feel most comfortable in “Sunday-Best” dress, i.e. dresses for women and white shirts with tie for men; however, we are happy to host you as you come, so long as your manner of dress is not outright disrespectful to a Church service.Come and serve with us. Help us build people by bringing the message of Christ to the world. The best information you can receive about the Church will come from your own personal observations of its members and practices.JustServe