 Since their first international performance at the 1970 World Fair in Osaka, Japan, they have performed in over 68 countries.Ernest L. Wilkinson, then president of BYU, asked Janie Thompson, who had just returned from a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), to found the Program Bureau in 1952.She accepted Wilkinson's request, though she had to reject an offer from the Ike Carpenter band.