Conference Address

My brethren and sisters, this makes me very humble to stand before such a large audience, realizing my poor English and feeling how difficult it is to express my thoughts and feelings in the language which I have at my command. ¶

I want to take this opportunity, first of all, to bring you the greetings and love of the eight thousand saints of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the West German Mission, and more especially to bring their thankfulness and to express my own appreciation of the wonderful help you have rendered to these poor saints over there through the Church Welfare plan. ¶

As you all know, these saints have been faithful during the war. There may have been a few exceptions, but they only confirm the rule. A vast majority have been very faithful and true to the Church. They have suffered much. When I think of the change within a week or so to me, it is like being in another world. After having traveled about eighteen months through about a hundred destroyed cities, and then coming to this beautiful city of Salt Lake, entirely untouched by the war, with happy people all over, people who are abundantly blessed by our Heavenly Father, it is truly like being in another world. ¶

The Latter-day Saints in the West German Mission, over which it was my privilege to preside about a year, even though in many cases they have been stripped almost of every earthly possession and in many cases they have lost loved ones, they were happy because they had one thing in their possession which means more to them than anything else, — their testimony of the divinity of this great work, their positive knowledge that the heavens have been opened to the Prophet Joseph Smith, that he was a chosen servant of the Lord to restore the true gospel of Jesus Christ and that this work is to prepare for the second coming of Christ. This testimony was more to our saints in Germany than anything else, and those who lost almost everything held that they still were not poor for they have the knowledge of the gospel. They realize that. ¶

So far as temporal conditions are concerned, they have suffered a great deal but now since shipments of Church Welfare have arrived there, the Church has contributed very liberally, and I may say in regard to the food situation, our saints in Germany are well taken care of. So far as clothing and shoes, underwear and other things are concerned, as Brother Stover has mentioned in his letter, they are still suffering, but I am happy to know that even such things are on the way and in a short time they can be distributed among our saints. ¶

I only wish, brethren and sisters, you had had opportunity to be in our fast meetings, for instance, after these shipments arrived and were distributed, and to see the happy faces, to feel the spirit of thankfulness and appreciation of those who have been benefitted by your liberal contributions through the Church Welfare plan. I never realized so much that we had one great brotherhood as I did when these shipments came in. We always knew that we are all brethren and sisters, all children of our Heavenly Father, but now we have experienced that we have been blessed with the manifestation of this spirit of brotherhood and even among our friends who are non-members of the Church, I think this has been the most impressive thought during the last year, that the Mormons are really one great family, that when they say Brother and Sister to one another, they mean what they say. It is not a common thing with them; it is practical Christianity. Many times in the mission field we have discussed this question as to whether or not Christianity has failed, especially during the past ten years. How happy we are to be in a position to give our testimony from our own experience that the true Church really practices Christianity as this Church has done. I am very thankful, more than I can express, for this manifestation of brotherhood in this great Church. ¶

I am grateful also for the blessing of association with men like the General Authorities of the Church. I was in London a week ago and had the privilege of meeting President Alma Sonne. I have known President Benson, I have traveled with him, I have been with him in high places, in his interviews with General McNarney in Frankfurt, and with General Clay in Berlin. I listened to the conversations he had with these men and I never had the impression that he was inferior to them, but he had some influence with him which was above the spirit and influence of these men. I know that the Lord has been with him; otherwise he could not have done what he has done in the re-opening of the European Mission, overcoming so many obstacles and handicaps and putting us on our feet again in these missions in Europe. ¶

I know without doubt that this is the Church of Jesus Christ, that the men at the head of this Church are really what we believe they are, brothers and apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ, in a real sense of the word, which we know from the New Testament and from the revelations of God. I know that this gospel of Jesus Christ makes men and women happy if they obey the commandments of the Lord. I know that one of the best things we can do in this Church is to cultivate the spirit and the attitude of brotherhood, that we may continue to be a great Church of brothers and sisters, realizing that we are all children of our Heavenly Father, trying to help each other and in this way trying to come nearer to our Heavenly Father. ¶

That this may be the case more in the future even than in the past is my humble prayer in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. ¶