An event of major significance to the growth of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Asia occured on March 15, 1970, when the Mormon Pavilion at Expo '70 in Osaka, Japan, was dedicated. In The Church Encounters Asia, Dr. Apencer J. Palmer, a former chaplain and mission president in Korea, traced the history of the Church in this most populous area of the world. He goes back to the early days of the Church, when the first missionaries were sent to India and China in the 1850s, and brings the account up to the present, when missionaries may be found in Japan, Hong Kong, the Phillipines, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, and other major areas of Asia.