TORONTO — Each spring, the city of Toronto opens some 150 venues of architectural, historic, cultural or social significance for "Doors Open Toronto."

This year for the first time, the Ossington chapel of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was included.

Displays in the rooms during the Doors Open event attracted visitors' attention. One woman was excited to see home-bottled fruit at the Relief Society display and asked if she could be taught how to do it. A couple from Portugal was asked the names of their fathers in the family history center and was astonished to see their names appear on the computer screen in FamilySearch. A young woman from Hong Kong studying music said she had never been in a Mormon chapel before and was amazed by the number of pianos in the building.

Since its dedication in 1939, the building has had two major additions. The Primary now meets in the area where the original chapel was and the room retains the old stained-glass windows and high ceilings. The original dark oak pulpit with the carved words "Thy Word is Truth" was displayed along with an original bench which some members remembered sticking to during long, hot summer meetings in the days before air-conditioning.

Doors Open visitors saw a draft copy of "The Toronto Branch," 1836 to 1960, by local historian Everett Pallin. One of the highlights of the tour was Mark Mabry's "Reflections of Christ" in the cultural hall.

More than 300 visitors came to the chapel, including Toronto's deputy mayor, Joseph Pantalone, who mentioned how beautiful and peaceful it was, and Olivia Chow, a member of parliament for Trinity-Spadina, and wife of Jack Layton, federal New Democratic Party leader.

Dedicated in 1939 by President Heber J. Grant, the chapel was the first LDS building in Eastern Canada and is on Ontario's Places of Worship Inventory. Over the years, five prophets have spoken in the building, including Presidents Grant, Joseph Fielding Smith, Spencer W. Kimball, Ezra Taft Benson and Thomas S. Monson, who arrived with his wife, Frances, and their two children, Tom and Ann, to serve as mission president of the Canadian Mission in 1959.

The Mormon presence in Toronto goes back to 1836 when Apostle Parley P. Pratt arrived with a letter of introduction to John and Leonora Taylor. John Taylor, who later became third President of the LDS Church, was a lay Methodist minister and cabinetmaker, and Leonora had come to Canada as a member of the staff of the Governor-general, Lord Aylmer. Within a few months, Pratt's converts included the Taylors, the Theodore Turley family and Joseph Fielding with his sisters, Mercy and Mary (who married Hyrum Smith and was the mother of Joseph F. Smith.)

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The Prophet Joseph Smith came to the city. In 1837, and Toronto newspaper, the Constitution, reported that "Mr. Smith, a famed chief of the new sect called Mormons, who have suffered much persecution in Missouri, and the great preacher, Mr. Rigdon are in town." Both of Joseph Smith's "foreign" missions were to Canada.

By 1850, it is estimated that 2,500 converts joined the church in Canada — mostly in Ontario. No sooner did they join that they immigrated to Zion — whether that was Ohio, Missouri, Illinois or the Salt Lake Valley. Some came back as missionaries and urged their converts to join the Saints in the West. In the 1861 census, only 74 Latter-day Saints were listed in Ontario.

During the 1890s, converts began to remain in Toronto, and in 1919 the Canadian Mission was formed, signaling the beginning of steady membership growth. There are now more than 45,000 members in Ontario.

Helen Warner is the director of public affairs for the LDS Church in Ontario, Quebec and the Atlantic provinces.

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