Conference Address

This is an inspiring sight, my brothers and sisters. I believe I feel very much like Brother Zimmer and Brother West felt this morning. This too, is my first General Conference in the Church. The past fourteen months in Europe have been a great experience and a very sobering one. I don't wish to take much of your time today by way of report, but I do wish to leave with you the assurance that this is the work of God. So many things have happened this past year to convince me of that. Ways were opened which seemed to be impossible for the accomplishment of the work that had to be done. ¶

I know of no man in the Church better prepared and more richly endowed and blessed than was Elder Benson in the work which he had to undertake in Europe. In a matter of six months the work in Europe was firmly reestablished. Relief and welfare supplies were reaching our Saints. The necessary contacts had been made to permit missionaries to come back in numbers. ¶

Today, in Europe, the people are distressed. It is such a joy and a happiness to see the Latter-day Saints, to look into their faces and see that something greater and deeper is burning within their bosoms than that which exists in the lives of those around them. Europe today stands almost on the threshold of another war. There is fear in the hearts of the people, there are rumors of war, rumors of impending disaster. One of the great agricultural leaders of Great Britain just recently made a pronouncement that Great Britain would probably have to face a dreadful year of famine this year. As I left Britain by plane, as far as the eye could see Britain was under water. It seems that even the elements have conspired against the people, and yet today Europe as a whole is spiritually sick. How they cry out to know that God lives! What they would give if their hearts could have the answer that is in the hearts of the Latter-day Saints. ¶

President Sonne wished me to extend his love and greetings to you whom he cannot see today, and the Saints of Europe join in extending their love and their confidence to the General Authorities of the Church, and almost as one body they wish to sustain the servants of God. ¶

One thing has developed from this mission for which I am deeply grateful, and that is a knowledge which has not come from men that this is the work of God; that God lives; that he speaks to his servants and that his servants go in humility before him to learn his mind and will concerning his children. ¶

I have a testimony of the divinity of this gospel. There is no greater opportunity that can come to men and women in the Church than that of service to their God. This is the true way of life. This is the message that God wants all of his children in all parts of the world to hear, and we as Latter-day Saints have the responsibility of letting people hear it. It is not given to another people to give that message, and "Oh ye that embark in the service of God, see that you serve him with all of your might, mind and strength." I wish that you could realize some of the sufferings of the Saints in Europe; that you could see their devastated lives, their homes in shambles. Nearly ninety percent of our saints have lost their homes. Many of them have lost all of their possessions. Some have lost all of their loved ones. I recall in February, in Berlin, the arrival of a group of Germans from Poland, over five hundred of them were frozen to death and were unloaded from the cars by the side of the tracks, lifeless. They had been traveling in open cattle cars during that subzero weather. Conditions are horrible, and today people's hearts are failing them. They don't know where to turn. I think it is safe to say that our Saints in Europe, nearly thirty thousand strong, would arise as one man to come out of the world and to join with the Saints here if such were possible; yet they realize that under existing conditions it is not possible. They have striven with their might and with their strength to serve the God of this world who is Jesus Christ, and by serving him, to have his spirit with them, that they may stand in holy places in the days of his judgments, and have the assurance that even as they were preserved by his almighty hand during this past catastrophe, that they shall have the strength, perhaps, not to live through a new catastrophe but to return to God with clean hands and pure hearts and with thanksgiving in their souls for the gospel of Jesus Christ. For when men and women have everything taken away from, them, nothing remaining but a testimony of the gospel, and yet they can arise with tears in their eyes and thank Almighty God for his blessings unto them, such people can see the beauties of the gospel of Jesus Christ in the lives of men and women. ¶

God grant that we may have the strength to serve him with all of our heart, might, mind and strength, that we may give unselfishly of our time and our talents, that we may be true Latter-day Saints, true sons and daughters of God, for such we have been called who have entered into the waters of baptism and become a part of the kingdom of God on earth. ¶

I testify that this the work of God. I am grateful for that testimony and thank the Lord for the privilege of bearing it to you, my brethren and sisters, in all humility and in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. ¶