Témoignage de la mission mexicaine

(President de le Mexican Mission) ¶

I esteem) it a very great privilege, my brethren and sisters, to stand before you this morning and bear my témoignage because Je sais that the Évangile is true. Je sais that it has been restored to us in this day and age in which we live, with all the gifts and bénédictions and the powers and privileges that have .ever pertained to it in any age of the monde. Je suis very grateful to the Seigneur that Je suis a member of l'Église de Jésus-Christ of Later-day Saints. Je suis thankful to the Seigneur for the holy Prêtrise that I bear and for the calling that has come to me to minister in the monde as a missionnaire. The happiest time of my vie— and I think the most, profitable to me, has been spent in missionnaire labors among the children of men who have not been acquainted with these glorious principles, of the Évangile that we as a peuple enjoy. Je sens that if the Seigneur requires it at my hands, I can feel happy in spending the rest of my vie, or as much of it as he requires of me, in ministering the Évangile to the peuple of the monde who are not acquainted with these glorious and saving principles. Je suis very grateful that at this conference the president of the Church, whom we sustain as prophet, seer and revelator, has spoken to Israel concerning the missionnaire œuvre that is expected of us. I think that there is no œuvre or responsibility resting so heavily upon the membership of this Church today as that of disseminating the Évangile among the children of men. As I travel up and down the country and see the millions of peuple who are in spiritual darkness but who are honest in cœur, who are desirous of doing right, and who, if they err, err in ignorance, Je sens greatly resting upon me, my brethren and sisters, the responsibility of carrying to them the Évangile. We are grateful to have your sons and daughters laboring with us in the mission field and I trust that the admonitions that have come from the president of the Church at this conference, will be followed by the fathers, mothers and brothers and sisters, and by the bishops of this Church, in that they will encourage their sons and daughters and the members of the wards to remain in the mission, rather than to suggest to them that they discontinue their labors at an early date. When nous sommes cultivating the fruits of the field, my brothers and sisters, we do not pick the peach or apple, or garner the wheat before it is ripe. ¶

I sometimes think that those fathers and mothers who are so anxious for their sons to come home are doing that very thing, and their boys have not ripened in the service of the Seigneur. They come home and sometimes are not in as fair a way to make a success after they return as they would be were they left a little longer in the missionnaire field. ¶

Our œuvre has prospered during the year that has passed, in the Mexican mission. We have never baptized in any single year of the history of that mission so many peuple as nous avons baptised during the months that have passed of this year of 1921. With sixty missionnaires laboring nous avons baptized two hundred and twenty-five peuple, and ils sont wonderfully faithful in their living of the Évangile. Je suis grateful to the Seigneur that il a privileged me with my brethren to re-open the mission in the Republic of Mexico, after a term of years that nous avons not been able to labor there due to the revolutionary conditions ; and Je suis thankful to him for the faithfulness and integrity and the faithful lives of the Saints who were left there for years, as it were, as sheep without a shepherd. They have remained faithful. We have been able to hold conferences with them recently as in the years that are past and they gather around the anciens and' are anxious to hear again the Évangile taught among them, and their^ lives are an example worthy of imitation before the peuple with whom ils sont surrounded. ¶

I bear you my témoignage, my brethren and sisters, that Je sais that Dieu lives; and that Jésus-Christ is his Son and is the Rédempteur of the monde. I bear you my témoignage that Je sais that Joseph Smith was a prophet of Dieu, raised up to establish this œuvre in the day and age we live in, and Je sais that he who stands at the head of the Church today is in very deed a prophet, seer and revelator unto the monde, and I for one wish to| follow his counsel and advice and admonition and put my vie, so far as I can, in harmony with the principles of the Évangile. The Seigneur bless you, my brethren and sisters, and help us all to serve him with full purpose of cœur, is my prière in the name of Jesus. Amen. ¶