A Russian Diplomat's Description of Mormons circa 1980s

I came across this as I was doing research for a term paper. You can imagine my surprise at finding that a Russian diplomat had not only heard about Mormons, but had a fairly good idea of some of our doctrines.

"In his book titled The Complete Christian, Elder Robert S. Wood of the Second Quorum of the Seventy, and former international affairs advisor, recounts an experience he had with a Russian diplomat... “In the mid-1980s,” he writes, “I participated in a series of discussions between officials from the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The subject of the talks was the possibility of naval cooperation between America, Britain, and Russia.” On one of these occasions during the course of the negotiation process, Elder Wood happened upon the leader of the Soviet delegation, who was lost in deep thought. Their conversation turned to religion. The Russian diplomat then asked Elder Wood if he had ever heard of Joseph Smith. Taken aback by the question, Elder Wood answered that not only had he heard of Joseph Smith but that he was also a member of the Church he founded. Having been introduced to Mormonism by a book entitled A Marvelous Work and a Wonder, the Russian diplomat proceeded to offer his profound, sincere summary of this religion’s meaning:

“As I understand it, Joseph Smith brought together two ideas that are generally in conflict with each other and combined them in a remarkable synthesis. On the one hand, the Latter-day Saints believe that mortality is but a moment in eternity and that men and women do not spring into existence at birth and are annihilated at death. We existed before birth and shall persist after death. Moreover, there is a link between those who are yet to be born, those who now live, and those who have passed beyond the grave; there is, in fact, communication across those seeming barriers. Some who have lived have returned and communicated with the living, and there is a great cooperative enterprise that links the unborn, the living, and the dead, aimed at their mutual salvation and perfection.”
“At the same time,” he continued, “the Latter-day Saints seem very concerned with improving the lot of mankind in mortality. They do not believe that happiness is simply for another world but needs to be established here through common temporal as well as spiritual efforts. You seem to be community builders. You’re very pragmatic as well.”

http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/commentary/the-grand-enterprise-of-mormonism