Conference Address

Brothers and sisters, I am very pleased with this opportunity of attending conference. It is an inspiration to me as it is to all of us to be present in these sessions and to acknowledge the Spirit of our Father in Heaven which attends those who address us, and to listen to the sweet and inspiring music that comes from our choir. ¶

In Europe this summer I was privileged to visit the place where I performed a mission and lived thirty-three years ago. I went to France and Paris and then to Geneva, from there to Berlin, across to London, to Belfast, Ireland and back to the United States. The work in Europe is going forward. The missionaries are there again. They are being well received in most places where they can get government consent to stay. The people are receiving them very well. They are listening to the gospel, and the gospel is performing wonders in the lives of the people. ¶

Generally, the conditions in Europe are very unfavorable.! People are confused. They are confounded. In some of the countries they walk and work and look as if they did not know where they were going nor how to get there. It is a very discouraging spectacle after one has been acquainted with European conditions in times past and seen the intelligent, active, interesting faces of people — the light that has been in them, and then see it almost ¶

go out, as one finds it generally over Europe today. I contrasted that with our meetings in Geneva, Paris, Lausanne, Neu Chatel, London, Berlin and the eastern branch under the Russian regime in Berlin where I visited the services of the Church. Our people have the gospel; and the encouragement, the purpose of life, the objectives in living that it gives to them are shown in their faces, in their activity and in the way they take hold of things to rebuild, to revive, to maintain life, to establish themselves again. I never was more pleased to be a member of the Church or more proud of my membership in the Church than I was this summer. We saw reactions of the members of the Church to these various divers and discouraging conditions under which they live, and they are trying to rebuild a civilization worth having again. The gospel means something to these people. It has helped them to get on their feet. It has helped them to want to live. It has helped them to go about and try to make conditions that are worth living in. It is the seeing of these conditions which we have been taught would be helpful in actual practice and experience that makes one thoroughly proud of his membership in the Church, humble as his position in it may be. The Lord works in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform. We do not know how, where or when our influence may be felt for good. I often think of the little branches from which many of the stalwarts of the Church come and then think of how they have been active in doing most everything in the Church. In Washington, D. C. some of the most active and most useful persons we have in the whole stake of Zion are people who come from the smallest branches of the Church, where they have had to do almost everything in the Church. And it is that doing of everything, that taking on of the several parts, that has made them grow, made them strong, helped them to understand the principles of the Church, and caused the ministrations that are available to us in the Church to become active in their lives. ¶

I want to bear you my testimony while I stand here, brethren and sisters, that this is the work of the Lord. My testimony of it is sincere, and I am glad I have it and thank God for it, for I believe it is a gift of God; that this work is his work; that he still lives; that he still is at the helm, and his purposes in the earth will be achieved as we have been told here this afternoon. And the whole purpose of the Church will be accomplished in the earth. This is my testimony and my prayer, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. ¶