Southern States Mission Report

This is a great honor, my brethren and sisters, to have the privilege of representing the Southern States Mission and the fine army of young men and women who are there as missionaries from the wards and stakes of Zion. I feel very grateful for my membership in the Church. I have learned to love it more than I love my life, and I love it because I see what it accomplishes in the lives of men and women. ¶

I am grateful that we are being led by prophets of the Lord. I realize that the Lord has committed to us a great program, and if we live up to it and apply it in our lives it will make us better men and women. Justly can we come together and sing, "We thank thee, O God, for a Prophet, to guide us in these latter days," and while we sing this with all our hearts ¶

and souls there are men and women all over the world who are in spiritual despair, who realize the need of prophets to guide us in these days. ¶

Some of these men reside down in that southland from which I came to attend this conference. ¶

In the August 9th issue of the Journal, one of the largest papers in Atlanta, Bishop Warren A. Candler of the Methodist church, one of the outstanding leaders of Atlanta, decried the condition of the people, saying that the whole world and especially our country needs a revival of genuine religion, and closes his article with these words: "We need the reappearance of prophets sent from God." ¶

The world is clamoring for that kind of leadership. ¶

Another article that appeared during the month of August in the Alabama Christian Advocate, a Methodist paper, "The Cry for Prophets" contained the following: ¶

O timorous Church of Christ, ¶

Cease counting your gain and losses ! The future, imperilled, is calling ¶

With the voice of a million crosses ! Calling for faithful prophets and seers, ¶

To rise up and prophesy — To kindle a fading vision afresh, ¶

Lest a visionless people die. ¶

Our sins are many, our needs are sore; ¶

O prophet, show us the roll — Take up the scales of God once more, ¶

And weigh the things of the soul. Point not alone to the patriarchs ¶

For the leading we need today — Scrolls of the Ancients we cherish, ¶

But the prophets must lead the way. ¶

In our mission we point out to the people that we have no quarrel with their churches, we are willing to grant all they have to offer. This great church, led by prophets of God, is in the earth to take up where they leave off. It presents a constructive program to assist men and women to overcome their bad habits, to enlist them in the service of God our Eternal Father, to surround their boys and girls through its auxiliary organizations and the marvelous program they have to present, with an influence that preserves them in their virtue and in their integrity, and in their manhood and womanhood. ¶

The Atlanta Constitution of August 9th last, reports an address by Reverend Peter Marshall, of the Westminster Presbyterian church of Atlanta, while visiting a Bible conference in Virginia, where he made the statement that every condition that preceded the fall of empires of the past faced America today. He said we should awaken to a realization of this fact. "In Atlanta," he said, "society thinks it cute for debutantes to be carried home Monday morning gloriously drunk." And then he appeals to the young people and says he hopes the youth will rise above the standards of their parents. But it is very difficult for water to rise above its source. ¶

Recently, in Carolina, I presented our youth program at one of our conference sessions. Following the meeting a lady school teacher, not a member of our Church, a woman with much experience and dearly beloved, came to me and said : "President Richards, I would like to volunteer my services to help put over that program in this community. We have discussed the possibility of a program for the young people in our schools, but we realize we cannot accomplish it because when we have a party or entertainment we have to contend with drunkenness and disorderly conduct." ¶

I said : "Yes, it is hard to raise the children above the standards of their parents, isn't it?" But I said : "We can do it because our standards are higher, and if our children can be raised to the standards of their parents they will live clean lives." She volunteered her services and is now helping in our Mutual work in that community. ¶

We feel very grateful for the influence of the M. I A. in our mission. During the month of August we held four inter-district conventions, bringing together in the neighborhood of three or four hundred of our young people each time, first in the parks with our athletics and games, and then in the evening in our appreciation work ; and in the parks during three such events I saw only two cigarettes smoked. ¶

Compare this and the statement which appeared recently in The Improvement Era, reporting the June conference here in Salt Lake, when approximately nine thousand of our boys and girls were at Saltair Beach and not one arrest was made for disorderly conduct, and very little tobacco seen on the grounds, and no one found intoxicated, with anything the world has to offer in its leadership of youth. ¶

I received a letter from one of our missionaries recently upon his release from a six months' mission, his home being in Jacksonville, Florida, and in this letter he expressed his gratitude for the opportunity he had had of serving as a missionary, and he said the one outstanding thing for which he was grateful was his association with the Elders of that mission. He said : "Before I came on my mission, not one of my boy friends, not of the Church, did I know to be morally clean, and in associating with these missionaries, to the contrary, I found none who had not been." ¶

Realizing these conditions, why shouldn't we thank God for a prophet to guide us in these latter days ? Why shouldn't we realize the blessings that are ours while a despairing world is crying for prophets to point the way? ¶

It would be interesting to you to be in the mission office at Atlanta and read some of the letters we receive. We received a letter from a man in Florida recently who said he was a reader of the Book of Mormon; he had found it the most interesting document he had ever read in his life, and he wondered why it was not used by all people in preference to the King James or any other translation of the Bible. A lady wrote in from Alabama. She said she had come to the conclusion "that Mormonism was the only true religion, and" she said, "I have always thought I could never ¶

be anything but a Baptist." Then she asked for a price list of our literature, and added : "Mormonism is truly the most wonderful thing I have ever heard of. I have read different philosophies, psychology, psychiatry, Christian Science, etc., in fact I have almost exhausted every source of information in search of answers to my own life's problems ; needless to say the problems were not solved, but now I have hope." Then she added a word of gratitude to the Mormon Elders who called at her home. ¶

We received a letter from a minister in Ohio telling us that the people in his city were not willing to receive the full gospel, and the churches were not willing to have the full gospel preached from their pulpits, and he said he had been given to understand that the Mormons possessed the full gospel, and he would like to receive a little additional information about it. ¶

I close by leaving with you my testimony that this Gospel is in the earth to exalt men and women, not only after they die but while they are here, to lift them up from the common ways of life. It makes our farmers so that they do not just go out and farm, and return, and go back and farm again, and sit around on the porch as they do in some places where I have been, with no aim and no objective. But these men are interested in the things of God, they are interested in their Father's work, they are interested in the salvation of youth, they have something to guide the destinies of their lives, and such is true of every man or woman who understands the beauty and the philosophy of this great Church. ¶

I thank God, my brethren and sisters, as testimony has been borne here today, for the privilege of representing you in the mission field. I am grateful for this work, and I am grateful for what it is doing for those who receive and embrace it and I am grateful for prophets to lead the way. May the Lord bless you, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. ¶