Conference Address

My brethren and sisters, words cannot express the joy and satisfaction that I have today in being present in our General Conference. It has now been five years since I had the privilege of meeting here, listening to the counsel of the servants of the Lord. ¶

I have been absent in the Norwegian Mission for four and a half years, and I must say that we have been under the leadership, in Europe, of one of the most wonderful men I have ever met, President John A. Widtsoe. I am very thankful that I had the privilege of going into the European Mission while President Widtsoe was taking charge of that mission. He has been a father to us mission presidents. He has been a father to the missionaries — a man whom we could always depend on for counsel and instruction. ¶

But we have missed the counsel and instructions that you receive here twice a year, and as I stated, I have not words to express my joy in having had the privilege of hearing the voice, the instructions and the counsel that we received yesterday from our beloved President, Heber J. Grant, and from the others who have spoken yesterday and today. ¶

I bring you greetings from the Norwegian Mission, from the elders and the Saints. There are only a few missionaries. We haven't had as many as we wish we could have had. I sometimes have said that I was sorry I was called to go to the Norwegian Mission just before the depression came. But when I look back upon the work that has been performed there, I feel that the depression has been a blessing to us. While it has deprived us of the missionaries from home, it has compelled the Saints to be more faithful and more energetic in the work. Every branch in the Norwegian Mission today is thoroughly organized and in the hands of local people. We have no missionaries that are concerned in any way with the branches. ¶

We have all the organizations that you have here at home. While we haven't them as perfectly organized, perhaps, as you have here, they are working toward perfection. Our Relief Society is doing a wonderful work: I don't know what I would have been able to do in the mission if it hadn't been for the good, faithful sisters of the Relief Society. Where we had no Priesthood or male members in the branches or in the cities, these faithful sisters have carried on the Relief Society work, and are doing it today. ¶

Our Sunday Schools are fully organized and doing a wonderful work. We have nearly as many children enrolled in our Sunday Schools who do not belong to the Church as we have who belong to the Church. ¶

Our Mutual Improvement Associations are all in the hands of local people, and are performing a wonderful work among the young people. ¶

We have the Primary Organization, which is just in its infancy, but the sisters who have charge of it are working hard and faithfully ¶

to make it a success throughout the mission. There are many more children who belong to or are attending the Primary Association who do not belong to the Church than there are children who are members of the Church. We are holding in the homes of the Saints and in the homes of our friends, who will open up their houses for that purpose, Primaries in different parts of the city. Eight to ten or twelve children at a time are gathered together and are instructed in the principles of the Gospel. We have been following out to the letter the instructions that we have received, and the lessons that have been sent to us through the Children's Friend. ¶

We have the Genealogical organizations organized throughout the mission, and they are now doing a splendid work. The Saints are becoming interested in the gathering of their genealogy, and I look for the time to come when we shall receive from that land a great many names of people for whom the Saints here in Zion may do work in the temples. ¶

I can join with the other mission presidents in stating that the young men who have been sent to the Norwegian Mission during my presidency are the choicest young men I have ever had the privilege of laboring with. We have only ten missionaries at present in the mission to do the work that was formerly done by twenty missionaries. ¶

In closing, I will state that my first mission to Norway was thirty-nine years ago. I found conditions very much different at that time from what they are now. My second mission was in 1911, 1912, and 1913. I came home in the fall of 1913, and went back to take charge of the mission in 1929. I found that there was great opposition to us during my earlier missions. We had some difficulty in getting missionaries into the country when we received seven missionaries at one time. The government officials asked what we were trying to do. For a time it seemed that we might have to write home and ask that so many be not sent at one time ; but conditions have changed. We could use today as many missionaries as the Church is able to send to the Norwegian Mission. The people are hungry for the Gospel. They are praying to God that men will come to them with the truth. They are searching for the truth. ¶

These ten missionaries were holding seven open-air meetings a week during the summer months, and we figured that we were having an attendance at these open-air meetings of between two thousand and twenty-five hundred people, who came out regularly upon the market places and in the parks to hear the Gospel explained by the missionaries. When I bade the people farewell on the main public square in the city of Oslo, and told them that I was going to return home, perhaps a hundred people came forward out of the audience of about four hundred and fifty people, and bade me farewell, wishing me joy in the future, and thanking me for the enlightenment that they had received through our meetings upon the public market places of Oslo. ¶

My brethren and sisters, I know that God lives. I know that Jesus is the Christ. I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. I thought I had a testimony of the Gospel, a living testimony, before I went upon this last mission, but through the inspiration of God that has attended me in my labors while I was there, and my dear wife, and the good missionaries with whom I have had the privilege of laboring, there has come to me a testimony, and I hope the Lord will never permit me to do anything that will deprive me of it, because it is the only thing that brings joy and satisfaction to me. ¶

I plead with the Norwegian people — you of Norwegian descent — to do more towards teaching your children, your young men, the Norwegian language, so that when they go into the mission field they will be better prepared to preach the Gospel, because it is resting upon our shoulders, those who have Norwegian blood running in their veins, to warn that nation, and to give them the Gospel. May we do it, is my prayer, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. ¶