Conference Address

I should have had sufficient time to get my composure. This is a great day for me. I have been coming for many years now, sitting at the fountain of inspiration and counsel, but little did I ever think that I would occupy this position. ¶

I think in the few moments that I speak I shall tell you something of a personal nature which has been a testimony to me in guiding my spiritual activities in life. I filled a mission a number of years ago in the California Mission, returned home, was fortunate enough to meet a lovely girl, we were married, parents of four lovely children, worked in the Mutual, the Sunday School, thought we were getting along fine and doing a good job. One day the president of the stake came to me and said, "Brother Killpack, the High Council and the Stake Presidency have been considering you and your name has been sent by us to the First Presidency. We want you to serve as the bishop of a ward. "Well," I said, "President," and this fine man is in this audience today, "I will go on a mission, and I will go anywhere you want me to go," (I think I said I would go to China, China, of course, wasn't open then) "but for heaven's sake, don't ask me to be a bishop." That good man said, "You think it over for a day or two and I will come back for your answer," and of course I thought it over very seriously. I had been taught as you have been taught never to turn down a position in the Church, and I accepted it, and I want to tell you that those seven years that I served as a bishop were some of the happiest years of my life. I had heard great criticism about our bishops, as we hear them today, and I felt that I could not take it but when I got into the spirit of it and got to working with the people that I thought would probably give me some trouble they were the finest people that I had ever met and it was really a joy and a pleasure. ¶

We left that stake and went into another stake and had been there only a short while and that good president said the same thing to me in that stake: "We want you to serve as a bishop." Having had one experience that was enjoyable I couldn't very well refuse another one and I consented, and I served in that capacity until I was called as President of the North Central States Mission. ¶

I mention this to show you brethren that so far as I am concerned the greatest happiness and the greatest joy that has come into my life has been as the result of Church service. All of these other things are lovely and fine, but they do not give you the satisfaction that serving in the Church gives. ¶

As we come back from the North Central States Mission after spending five years in one of the greatest and most enjoyable services of the Church, we bring greetings from those fine young men and young women to the First Presidency and to the General ¶

Authorities and to the parents, and we wish to tell you that those boys and girls are magnifying their callings and they are representing the Church and their families in an admirable way. We have served with approximately four hundred young men and women. Each of them has come to the mission office, the mission home, and incidentally I would like to say that my good wife has been overzealous in carrying the work in cooperation with me and in extending a welcome hand to those missionaries, trying to make them feel that the mission home was their home. When we have knelt with them in prayer and associated with them in our class work and in our council meetings and visited with them in their district meetings and testimony, report and missionary meetings from time to time, I want to tell you it has been a glorious experience. We are proud of them. They are wonderful missionaries and they certainly are doing a splendid work. ¶

We were privileged last summer to have a visit of a few days from President Smith in the city of Minneapolis. The people were overwhelmed when they were given this great blessing. President Smith was very busy attending a convention and couldn't stay at the mission home. He stayed at one of the hotels. We had him there for a meal or two and I had the opportunity to associate with him in his convention, and I want to tell you, brothers and sisters, that President Smith is the greatest missionary we have in the Church. It wasn't uncommon to see twenty and thirty men around him most of the time and he was telling them about the Book of Mormon and about the Church, and in many instances he had his secretary send the Improvement Era and the Book of Mormon to these men in the various places where they live. He did us a great amount of good in the city of Minneapolis. ¶

Things are opening up in that mission. In the past five years I have seen considerable progress and advancement in the matter of teaching the gospel, which I would like to mention. The radio is one means. It was very difficult a number of years ago to get an opportunity to present the message over the radio. "Yes, we can give you the time if you will pay the regular price that is required, you can have all the time you like." Of course we are counseled not to spend money for radio programs. I advised the missionaries to go back and explain the gospel plan to these people and to tell the men who operated the various broadcasting stations that they were working in the missionary field devoting their time and their talents for the spreading of the gospel. It was not long before these stations began to give them the use of their facilities and at the present time we have fifteen or twenty stations that give us liberal time and in many instances the missionaries tell me they receive fan mail from all over the country complimenting them upon the splendid programs that they are giving. ¶

In the city of Minneapolis and in St. Paul it isn't uncommon to have a request for missionaries to come to the great University of ¶

Minnesota to speak to the various classes of students regarding the Church. We have gone into several churches in a few cities by request to speak to their congregations and we have had congregations headed by their ministers come to the branches in the twin cities to visit our Church. So, brothers and sisters, it is a great privilege and a great opportunity that is coming to us in that great country. ¶

In conclusion, I would like to say I feel that there is a great undercurrent in the mission field, I can feel it to some extent there and I have felt it considerably since coming home, in the matter of criticism of some of the plans that the General Authorities have instituted, notably the welfare plan, and of the General Authorities themselves, and I would like to comment for just a second on that. I would like to read a scripture from Second Nephi. ¶

"Yea, and there shall also be many which shall say: Eat, drink, and be merry; nevertheless, fear God — he will justify in committing a little sin; yea, lie a little, take the advantage of one because of his words, dig a pit for thy neighbor; there is no harm in this; and do all these things, for tomorrow we die; and if it so be that we are guilty, God will beat us with a few stripes, and at last we shall be saved in the kingdom of God." ¶

And then further: "And others will he pacify and lull them away into carnal security, that they will say: All is well in Zion; yea, Zion prospereth, all is well — and thus the devil cheateth their souls, and leadeth them away carefully down to hell." ¶

I think that is the condition that is coming over many of our people in the Church today. Very often people from the mission field come to Salt Lake City and these other western cities, and they rime in contact with members of the Church who have been born in the Church, they see things that are not very complimentary to the Church, and they come back into the mission field very much disheartened. And occasionally our Elders in various sections of the field have much difficulty in preaching the gospel because of the actions of some member of the Church who is living in that community who isn't living as he should live. So, brothers and sisters, if I say nothing else today, let me emphasize and warn you and myself that we should live exemplary lives if we do nothing else. We can preach the gospel if we will just live as we should live and be what we are supposed to be. If you want to help spread the word of the Lord in the mission field you live as you should live if you happen to go out into those sections, and that applies to us at home. ¶

The things that have been said here this morning and throughout this conference I certainly am in accord with and I want to thank the Presidency of the Church, the General Authorities — we have had the opportunity of visiting with five of them and their wives as they have come to the mission, and I have had the opportunity of meeting with the General Authorities in the Mission President's meeting, and it has been a glorious experience. I thank the Lord for it. And now this new call and responsibility that has come to me, ¶

I certainly pray, and I want an interest in your faith and prayers, that we will be able to measure up to this great responsibility. I thank the Lord for the testimony that I have and the spirit that has come to me and I do it humbly in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. ¶