Conference Address

When any commandment or call comes to a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, it at once becomes allimportant, vital, and a great opportunity and blessing to him who is called. There is no service or call that may come to us that is mean or trivial or of little importance, because we realize that we serve the Lord Jesus Christ, and all of our activities are intended for the blessing and uplift of our fellowmen. ¶

I have recently returned from a mission amongst the hospitable, kind and God-loving people of the Rocky Mountain western states, those states that lie east of us from almost Canada on the north to Mexico on the south, and far east beyond the Missouri river. A great many of those splendid people are here in this audience today. I have labored with a handful of very faithful young men and women and older men and women who have had that same call as a missionary, and as I return I have had many people, as every active member of the Church has had, ask me this question: "Why is it that the Latter-day Saints will leave their homes, their businesses, their professions, their farms, and go out all over the world without remuneration, without hope of earthly reward, to preach the Gospel, and sustain themselves for one, two or three years as the case might be?" ¶

Well, I would like to answer that question for you as it appears to me today. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is not a creed, is not a sect, is not a branch of any earthly organization, but this is the Church of Jesus Christ, the established kingdom of our Lord in the earth, and there are two great significant blessings in it that are obvious to any of us, in or out of the Church, who investigate this great Gospel of the Lord Jesus. ¶

One of those things that I refer to is the priesthood of Almighty God, and the other is the Holy Spirit. We have felt that Spirit in this Conference, and all of you wherever you have gone in Europe, all over this country, South America and in the Islands of the Sea, wherever the Latter-day Saints have gathered they have felt the Spirit of the Lord. If this organization, no matter how perfect it may be, did not have the Spirit of God within it, it might be like a great tree whose branches reach to heaven and whose branches spread out over the whole earth and whose roots found themselves deep and broad throughout the earth, yet if that tree did not have the sap of life within it, it would be dead. Just so with this Church or any other organization, if it did not have the Spirit of God within it. If the membership of the Church did not have the Gift of the Holy Ghost to direct them, to lead them, and the leadership did not have that Spirit to guide the people of the Church, this Church would be dead as that tree would be dead. ¶

It has been said by our Savior, that the promise was to last forever, that when there was faith in the earth, when the priesthood was on the earth, these great things should follow those who believe. In His name they were to heal the sick. In His name they were to cast out devils. In His name were they to speak in divers tongues and have the interpretation of those tongues. In His name were they to prophesy, and in His holy name would come the testimony that Jesus was the Son of God, the Head of the Church. ¶

I want to testify to you, my brethren and sisters here assembled, and especially to my friends out on the radio air, who are many more thousands than are here, I have witnessed with mine own eyes these very same promises following in this Church to those who believe. I have seen the sick raised by the power of the priesthood as a blessing from God. I have heard young men and women speak in tongues, and I have heard the interpretation. I have a testimony, as you have, and thousands of others, that I shall bear humbly this afternoon. God has made it known in answer to my humble, fervent prayer, that this truly is the kingdom of God on earth, that his holy priesthood has again been restored to the earth, and I know beyond any question of a doubt that these Brethren who sit before us today hold the holy priesthood, as do many of us, and that these blessings that are to follow the faithful, those who believe, are in the Church today. I testify to all of the people who know, our neighbors, and those who do not know, that this is the Truth, that is the kingdom of God. Investigate it. Read the Book of Mormon, and then after you have read it, humbly and sincerely, get down on your knees and ask God, as I have done and as thousands of others have done, whether this be his Church and kingdom. I testify that if you will do that, and really seek the Truth, God will make it known to you, and we will share with you the blessings that have come to us. A great and wonderful blessing will come to those who keep the commandments of God in this earth, while they live in this world. We do not have to wait for the other side to get our blessings. We will find here that peace that passeth all understanding. We will find here the love of the Lord. We will find here satisfaction in keeping the commandments, because we will be blessed of Him. ¶

In closing I wish to bear my testimony to this fact again, that any man or woman who joins this Church, comes in at the gate after repentance, is born again of the water, will come into a newness of life that is far beyond all blessings that he has known before. And I humbly pray that we may all be clay in the Lord's hands, that He may make of us what He will, that we may truly be His servants and His children, and I ask it in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen. ¶