Reflections on Missionary Service

My brethren and sisters, I think of all the surprises that have come to me, this is the greatest one. I have rejoiced exceedingly in what it has been my privilege to hear in the sessions of this conference. ¶

I am deeply grateful for the blessing that came to me of presiding over the Northern States mission, and I have earnestly desired that I should come home and be as happily engaged in the service of the Lord in the future as I have been in the past. Sister Pond and our sons have likewise enjoyed the blessings of our missionary experiences, in the growth of Relief Society and other activities." ¶

I can but briefly refer to and give you a faint impression of the feelings that fill the heart of one laboring in the ministry. I know, my brethren and sisters, that all of us at home are missionaries. Responsibility in the Church, membership in the Church, the acceptance of responsibility in the priesthood, constitute us missionaries. But until we go out into the world we do not have a full realization of the importance of our testimonies. ¶

It has been my privilege to stand where the prophets of God have stood. I have been in those memorable cities where the Prophet Joseph, Brigham Young, Sidney Rigdon, Oliver Cowdery, Orson Pratt, Parley P. Pratt and others of our fine leaders in the early history of the Church have ministered. I have stood where President John Taylor stood when he organized the first branch of the Church, nearly a hundred years ago, in the city of Indianapolis, Indiana, and I thought I could actually feel the spirit of that prophet of God. I remember when that Sabbath occurred. I had referred to the history of the Church for verification of time and place and to know that it was true to history. ¶

Early in this past year when Justice Holmes of the United States Supreme Court, approaching the ninetieth year of his mortal life, rendered one of the decisions of the Supreme Court, indicative of the power of his mentality, and the statement was flashed over the country that he bore in his body the bullets that were fired into it by Confederate soldiers, I thought : Well, even this remarkable incident is paralleled in the history of our Church. Like Justice Holmes, President John Taylor, when he organized that branch in Indianapolis, carried within his body the bullets that the assassins had fired into it, and that grand President of the Church carried those assassins' bullets in his body to the grave, and died in exile. A beautiful chapel now stands in Indianapolis where President Taylor organized the first branch. Likewise five other chapels have been erected during the past three and one-half years in Detroit, Columbus, Cincinnati, Dayton and Chicago. ¶

I have seen the sons and daughters, grandsons and granddaughters of those leaders of the Church following in the footsteps of their worthy ancestors and preaching as honestly and as sincerely the principles of the Gospel as they were preached fifty, seventy-five or eighty years ago. I have stood at the doorsteps of the homes of our leaders, Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, Lorenzo Snow, John Taylor, the P'ratts, the Snows — those brick houses are standing or falling into decay, but they are mute and silent testimonies of the substantial solidarity of the building of our people, even the homes that they inhabited. And those memorable cities of Nauvoo, Illinois, and Kirtland, Ohio, where the Saints erected temples in the name and honor of God, have greatly degenerated. I never could have believed that the hand of God would be manifested so powerfully, so positively upon such spots, people, sections and localities, as I have seen in these, the deadest spots in all the world — Kirtland, Ohio, and Nauvoo, Illinois — where temples of God were raised in this century of the existence of our Church and which were so glorious in the beginning of our history. ¶

I bear you my humble testimony, and pray our father's blessings upon his servants. They are as true and as fine in their prophetic calling and leadership today as were those who were called at the inception of the Church. This is my testimony of the divinity of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, in the name of our Savior and Master, Amen. ¶