Mexican Mission Report

My dear brethren and sisters, I deem it a great privilege to stand here before you, and I feel very humble and very weak in accepting the responsibility of occupying a few moments of your time, for I know that, if computed, those few moments multiplied by the number of persons here present, would run into a great deal of human time, for which I am responsible. ¶

I feel very humble, also, my brethren and sisters, in accepting the call that has come to me. I feel weak, incapable, of myself, of discharging the responsibilities depending upon me in the Mexican Mission. But I do have a testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, a testimony of the truthfulness of the words of Nephi, referred to by President Grant yesterday. I know that our Father makes no call on any of us without he himself prepares and opens the way for the fulfilment and the discharge of that call. It is only in this testimony and in my testimony of the truthfulness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ that I have the courage to accept the call that has been made of me. ¶

I have also to my advantage a very deep respect and love for the Mexican people. It has been my pleasure and my privilege to be raised among them, to live among them practically all of my life. As has been described to you this afternoon in regard to the natives of the islands, the Mexicans, who are also of the house of Lehi — the Lamanites — are a good people. They come nearer to living up to their ideals than any other people with whom it has been my pleasure to associate. ¶

I regard it a great honor to work among the Mexican people in the Mexican Mission. I feel almost that it is a family heritage. My grandfather was a member of the first party of missionaries to the Lamanite people. My father, in company with President Ivins, was a member of the first missionary party to the Republic of Mexico, and later was associated with the Mexican Mission directly and indirectly all his life. My brother, the late President Rey L. Pratt, spent more than a quarter of ¶

a century laboring among the Mexican people. I feel that it is my privilege and my responsibility to continue the work that they have, up to this date, so nobly carried on. ¶

I feel it an honor to succeed President Antoine R. Ivins as president. I am sure that he has established a precedent that it will take my utmost efforts and the blessings of my Heavenly Father to live up to. I wish to take this opportunity to thank him for his kindly help and cooperation and the encouragement he has given me in taking over the mission. ¶

I wish to bear my testimony before closing, that I know the Gospel is true. I know as I know that I stand here before you today that Christ lives. I know that he is the Savior of the world. I know that this Gospel, established by him while here upon the earth, was taken from the world, and that it has now been restored through the instrumentality of the Prophet Joseph Smith and has been carried down to us. ¶

I testify unto you that the officers, the presiding authorities, President Grant, and those associated with him today, are in very deed, as we sustained them yesterday, prophets, seers and revelators, representatives of our Father in heaven here upon the earth. I beseech each and every one of you to give heed always to the counsel, to the direction of these brethren, that in the last days we shall not be found wanting. ¶

I pray the blessings of the Father upon you all, and beseech an interest in your faith and prayers, that I may be blessed in the discharge of my responsibilities. I do it in Jesus' name, Amen. ¶