It Is Indeed Refreshing

My brethren and sisters, it is indeed refreshing to me to meet with you in this conference, as I have been away for a number of years from the body of the Church, laboring in what was once a foreign land, ¶

but which today forms a part of Zion. It is indeed pleasing to meet so many who have taken upon themselves sacred covenants and obligations to serve the Lord with all our might, mind and strength, and rely upon His promises which will not fail. The Lord has said, through His prophet, in this day and dispensation in which we live, that "I, the Lord, am bound when ye do as I say ; but when ye do not as I say, there is no promise." I feel that we, as Latter-day Saints, should take this to heart. We should remember these precious promises that have been made to each of us. Every soul in this room, and in the other vast congregations in conference assembled, have, if they are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, received such a promise, and that promise is sure if we do our part. Therefore, I rejoice, as the brethren who have spoken have expressed themselves, more today than ever before in my life that I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ, that I have been called, by the servants of the Lord, to preach the words of life and salvation to a nation of people who have been hidden up by the power of God, the Eternal Father. Great promises have been made to that people, the Hawaiians, who have been despised because not properly known by but very few. They are a good people; they are of Israel, and a remnant of them will be saved in the kingdom of God, because the promises have been made. There are thousands who live in that far-off land who are true Latter-day Saints, true to their covenants, faithful in payment of tithes and offerings ; and they are a prayerful people, and teach their children to pray. When the missionaries found that people in the year, 1820, (missionaries of the Protestant denominations), they 'found them believing in God, a truly prayerful people, for they pray in a child-like manner, they open their souls unto the Lord as little children do. I have often envied them in their devotion, in prayer, for it has seemed to me that they could get nearer to the Lord than I could. I bring greeting from that people to the members of the Church in conference assembled. They send their "Aloha nut ia onkou a pan." Many of them would love to gather to Zion, and I feel that many of them will. I hope that before the war is poured out upon all nations, many of them will be gathered to this land of safety, this land of peace, where the Lord has promised peace. ¶

My heart goes out to those that have joined the Church in foreign lands, in Europe. They must 'feel sorry, yea, very sad to think that they have not gathered to Zion. Perhaps there are many of them who could not, that is not for us to say, but no doubt they will feel in their hearts to wish they were in Zion, a land of peace. ¶

I feel that we should heed the admonitions that have been given us as a people by the President of the Church, that man whom we all love, that we should pray, that we should go into our closets, our secret places, and there offer up our devotion to God as He has directed. We should teach our children to pray, and to do what the authorities in the Church ask them, to honor and sustain those over them in authority. We who preside over missions realize the need for this, because we receive elders from different parts of this country, from ¶

families who have been brought up under different conditions, and we find that some of them need to be taught to pray. On one occasion an elder told me, when I asked him to pray in our family devotion at headquarters, that that was the first time in his life he had knelt down to pray with a family. He had faith enough in the Church and kingdom of God to leave his home to go and preach the gospel of peace to the world, but it would have been better for him had he been taught to pray at home. ¶

I believe, my brethren and sisters, that young men and young women who are called to the mission fields should not try to direct the Priesthood as to where they are to go, but let the Priesthood say. That has been my faith always. We ought to learn the little song the chorus of which runs something like this: ¶

"I will go where you want me to go, I will say what you want me to say, And will do what you want me to do. ' ¶

And sing it until its principle becomes part of us. If our young men and our young women learned this, and really realized it in their hearts and in their souls, they would say to the brethren who called them to go to the nations of the earth, wheresoever it might be, "I will go where you want me to go ; I will do what you want me to do, and I will say what you want me to say, by the help of Him who rules on high. .We ought to do this, because we would then go feeling in our hearts that we were just where the Lord wants us to be. I have never known in my life an instance of the Lord making any mistakes, or of the brethren who were called to preside making misELDER SAMUEL E.WOOLLEY. ¶

takes when guided by the influence of the Holy Ghost. It is the right and privilege of all to be guided by that influence, because it has been conferred upon us for that especial purpose. I feel that we Latter-day Saints ought to be faithful, and appreciative of the goodness and blessings of our Father. ¶

I thought, while President Smith was saying this morning that none of us could make a blade of grass grow without the power of God, how true it is that "Paul may plant and Apollos may water, but God giveth the increase." Let us have complete faith in God who gives the increase, and that He is at the helm, guiding all things. ¶

This work will go on, brethren and sisters, I have no doubt of it ; the only doubt I have is in my ability to prove faithful under all conditions. I want to be faithful; I want to be true ; I want to be loyal to the Priesthood ; I want to be loyal to the work of God in every particular, and I want to do my duty faithfully and well. ¶

Now I believe that we have, as I have said, a good people clown in Hawaii, there are not very many of us — a little over 8,000 souls that belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. There are other thousands who have belonged to the Church and have passed to the other side, who will need to have ordinance work done 'for them in the temples. I am trying to encourage those who are faithful to see to it that they gather their genealogies. It is going to be a difficult task, because those people do not take the name of the parent as we do ; a man might be called John, and that would be the only name he would be known by, and his father's name Samuel, only; furnishing no ¶

clue in names as to parenthood, except so far as their recollection goes. It appears to me that, after a while, the Lord will have to reveal many things pertaining to that good people, because of the promises that He has made through His prophets. ¶

You will remember reading,' in the Book of Mormon, of the promise made to Joseph, the son of Lehi, that a remnant of his seed should be preserved, and they would receive the Gospel. And then we read of one Hagaoth, a Nephite ship builder, who builded a large ship and took emigrants of the Nephites to the north, then he came back and builded other ships, and some of those were lost and driven away, and whether they sank in the mighty deep or were drifted to other lands, the writer says he knows not. But we believe, through tracing their genealogies, traditions and legends, that they are of that people who were lost, the Nephites that were migrating to the north, and that they drifted off to Hawaii-. The natural currents of the ocean teach us that. ¶

I have a glass bottle in my office, at the mission headquarters, that was picked up on the shore of Laie, upon the island of Oahu. That bottle was thrown overboard from a vessel, north of San Francisco, and it contained documents giving the date, the latitude and longitude, the name of the vessel and the name of the captain of the ship from which it was thrown. How long this bottle had lain upon the sands of the sea shore we do not know, but we know that it was found, and we know that not so very long a time elapsed between the throwing of this bottle into the sea, containing the information that I have named sealed within it, until it was picked up on the shore at Laie a place familiar to all the elders and sisters who have labored in the islands of Hawaii. ¶

Laie used to be a city of refuge in the days of the old kings, and it is now a city of refuge for the Saints living in that land, a gatheringplace. The servants of the Lord, the committee chosen to select a gathering place for the Saints of that mission, one of whom was our beloved President Joseph F. Smith, had the land shown in vision to them, and they reported the same to President Young, who authorized the purchase of the land, and since then it has been owned by the Church. It is a beautiful place. We are trying to build it up, and make it a city of refuge indeed for that people, where they can be cared for. I feel that the time has come when we need to have them gather together more than heretofore. They are being oppressed, and their lands are being bought by other people, and many of them are left homeless, so to speak. * We need to teach them to cultivate the soil more than they have done before. The spirit to plant and to cultivate has come over them ; and there will be a market for everything they can raise, because of the large number of United States troops located upon that island ; and also that they may have something in time of famine to feed the needy. We are trying to teach them to' save foodstuffs, that they may be prepared for a time when they will need it, as we have been taught, not only to provide for our spiritual welfare but for our temporal wants also. ¶

Now I pray the Lord to bless this people, to bless all Israel, to bless al our missions in the earth, and all the elders and sisters who go out to preach peace and good will to ¶

gather Israel and to bring them home to Zion, where they may escape the judgments that are to be poured out upon those who will not repent. ¶

May the Lord bless the people here in Zion, and help us to appreciate these beautiful valleys, and mountains of ours, and what the Lord has done and will do for us, if we are faithful ; and that He will finally save us all in His kingdom, with the redeemed and sanctified, I ask in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. ¶