SALT LAKE CITY — On Saturday night, the president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints released a three-minute video of comfort and hope amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
By Sunday night, President Russell M. Nelson’s video had 2.7 million views across several platforms and was one of the top-three trending videos on YouTube.
In the message, he acknowledged that the global church with 16.3 million members faced a unique challenge due to the virus. He and other leaders had announced last week that the church had canceled all public church services to help fight the spread of COVID-19 beginning on Sunday. His video message said that the gospel of Jesus Christ provided him with optimism for the future.
“That gospel provides certain hope and help to a troubled world,” President Nelson said in the video. “I love you, I pray for you and I promise that you will receive comfort and peace as you continue to hear him.”
Church members around the world watched the video Sunday, many as part of their home-centered gospel study.
“We watched it together on Sunday morning as a family,” said Heo Seungeun, a 47-year-old mother of two in Uiwang, South Korea. “It made me very happy. It was very short but it was good, and I could feel that he prays for us.”
The video had more than 1.1 million views on President Nelson’s Facebook page and more than 887,000 views on the church’s YouTube channel as of 9 p.m. MDT on Sunday.
People had watched the video more than 345,000 times on President Nelson’s Instagram account, with another 254,000 on the church’s Instagram account.
His message also had 204,000 video views on a public Facebook group called The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — Inspiration.
