Tahitian Mission Report

It has been almost two years and a half, my brethren and sisters, since we left the Tahitian Mission, but I think I can say that the conditions are about the same there now as they were in 1919. I left there in 1919, after finishing my first mission, and was home ten years before returning. I found the conditions almost the same at that time as they were ten years prior. ¶

My heart thrilled this morning on hearing President Grant speak of his experience with the Hawaiian people. I can appreciate the feeling that he had when he expressed what he did about them. Tahiti is just twenty-eight hundred miles west of the Hawaiian Islands. The native people in that mission are of the same type, the same lovable, wonderful, sincere people. I have never labored among a people to whom the Gospel of Jesus Christ means so much as it does to the Tahitian people. They are handicapped, of course, but with the means at their disposal they do live their religion, and are faithful and true to the Covenants which they have been permitted to make. They enjoy the priesthood up to the office of elder, and they magnify their callings and obey the principles of the Gospel to a very remarkable degree. To know those people is to love them, and to understand them is to love them more. ¶

I am grateful to my Heavenly Father that I have had the privilege of spending almost nine years of my life among those people. They have taught me many things. They have taught me humility. They have taught me what it means to fear the Lord. The Lord does hear and answer their prayers. ¶

There is just one thing that happened on my mission that really cut deep into my heart, as well as the hearts of all the missionaries and friends in that mission, and that was when the members of this Church refused to obey the counsel of President Grant. When I tell you, my brethren and sisters, that we had friends in the Tahitian Mission who would have wagered large sums of money that Utah and the Mormons would have stayed with prohibition, I am just expressing it mildly. I was acquainted with a banker in that town who was the most influential man there, and he told me and told others that there was no question, although the other forty-seven states might go wet, but that Utah would still maintain the principles which this Church teaches. It was a very discouraging, heart-breaking time when the news came to us that Utah had fallen in line with the rest of them, and disobeyed the admonition of the President of this Church. ¶

It happened that one of the missionaries of the Reorganized Church was at the mission home at that time, listening to the broadcast over K. S. L. When the returns came in that man almost wept. Although he had no ¶

love for the authorities of our Church, still he felt that something was giving way. We all felt that way. ¶

I want to say, in conclusion, that I know this Gospel is the truth, that Joseph Smith was a true prophet of the Lord, and that Brigham Young was indeed an inspired instrument in the hands of the Lord to lead his people after the death of the Prophet, and so on down to our present prophet and seer, President Heber J. Grant. I know that he is the mouthpiece of the Lord in this dispensation. That has been made known to me, and I know for a fact that he is the Lord's anointed in this dispensation. ¶

Shortly after I returned from my first mission — I have never said this before in public, but I feel to say it now; it will take just a few moments — it was shortly after I returned from my first mission, in 1919, that the general authorities gave out instructions concerning a temple ordinance. The recommendations caused quite a bit of controversy, and several of my friends at first could hardly see the wisdom of it. I too worried about it considerably, though I did not say much. I remember one night, around two o'clock in the morning, I found myself sitting up in bed. I had been weeping, and my wife asked me what was the matter. This is the thing that I experienced. I don't know whether I was asleep or not, but a voice came to me as clear as any voice I have ever heard in my life. It said: "Thou shalt not speak evil of the Lord's anointed." That was the thing that comforted me. I have a testimony and I know that as long as we adhere to the admonition given us by President Grant and those associated with him, we shall not go astray. ¶

My prayer to our Heavenly Father is that he may bless us all, that we may support those who are in high positions, those who have jurisdiction over this church, that we may give them our support and be loyal to them. I humbly ask these blessings, with all others that we stand in need of, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. ¶