Spanish-American Mission Report

My brethren and sisters : I am happy with you in this conference session and to receive the inspiration that has come to us. I am thankful above all else for the leadership of this Church, for the knowledge we have that the Priesthood of God — which is the power to officiate in the name of the Lord upon the earth — is directing this Church work and all the movements of it. ¶

I bring to you greetings from the missionaries and Saints in the Spanish-American Mission. The missionaries — your sons and daughters — are well, and they are happy in the great missionary work that they are performing. I was made glad with the words of Brother Ballard, wherein he said that the day of the other branches of the House of Israel was about to dawn. We feel that the work is opening up among the sons and daughters of Father Lehi faster than we can take care of it. ¶

There seems to be a new spirit among the people, and the missionaries catch the spirit of it also, and we are laboring diligently, day after day, to preach the Gospel to them to their understanding, and to bring to those who are already members of the Church a deeper knowledge of its principles and a keener appreciation of the heritage that is theirs. We pray continually that the Lord will hasten the day of their redemption, when they will be brought into full knowledge and light of the Gospel, and that they may feel a closer contact with the body of the Church. ¶

We of the Spanish-American Mission, like others who are laboring among those who speak Spanish, have a love that is deep for those people, and we feel that regardless of the color of their skin they are of the house of Israel, beloved of our Father in heaven, and are one with us. ¶

I have been moved many times by the testimonies that I have heard as to the truthfulness of the Gospel, but few have moved me more deeply than one recently on a conference tour of Texas, when in a little town down on the Rio Grande we were holding conference and I called on one good brother to speak who had come across the line from his home in Old Mexico. As he stood before me bearing his testimony that he knew that God lived, that Jesus was the Christ, and that Joseph Smith was a prophet of the living God, I was moved deeply by his words and the spirit of them. I saw that good brother not as he stood before me, bent by age and the privations he had endured throughout his life in a struggle for existence, not with a dark skin, but as one of the sons of God, measured by the intent of his heart, by his humility, and as he will appear in the day when they will be a white and delightsome people. ¶

I am thankful to my Heavenly Father for the opportunity that is mine to labor with that humble, good people, because they are indeed choice, and you need not be concerned because your sons and daughters are called to labor among them. They are loved by that people, they are well received, and they have within their hearts a love that is deep for the people who are the sons and daughters of Father Lehi. ¶

I do not wish to take more of your time, but to leave with you my testimony that I know that we are engaged in the Lord's work, and that we are being led by inspiration and revelation through the leadership that is ours in this Church, and if I would leave any admonition it would be that we as a people strive to grow more humble day by day, and that we follow more closely the leadership of the Church. I leave this with you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. ¶