Conference Address

I must confess, my dear brothers, that I am more than overwhelmed as I stand here in the most important gathering of men in the world today, in this gathering of the priesthood of our Father in heaven. ¶

Before I start, I would like to make this one comment that henceforth and hereafter, I shall try a little harder to be a law abiding citizen. Henceforth when I come to conference I will make a little more effort to find a seat. ¶

Five years ago, at the October conference, I had the privilege of attending these meetings, and not long after that I departed for the islands of the sea, and it was necessary, unfortunately, that my family should remain behind for a period. For nine long months I waited in Tahiti for the war to end, for transportation to be made available, that my dear wife and children might join me there. ¶

I would like to thank my Father in heaven and to bear witness before you, the priesthood of this Church, of the gratefulness of my heart for the privilege that our Father in heaven and the leaders which he has called to preside over this Church, gave me and my family when we were called to the Tahitian Mission. ¶

I labored there some three years and seven months, from 1930 to 1934, and I left there a portion of my heart with those fine people of the Pacific Islands, those fine Polynesian people, and of course we were happy to return. For eighteen long months we labored in the mission without the benefit of the help of the elders of Zion, and then, as the war was finished and transportation became available, we had the privilege of greeting, in our mission, the first four missionaries to return after the war had ended. ¶

I would like to pay a tribute also to those fine brethren who labored in the Tahitian Mission with us. If we did have any success as we labored there, that success was due to the fine support and to the marvelous missionary boys that labored with us. I think I am safe in saying that no finer boys ever went out into the mission field than those elders who labored with us. I know that the Lord will bless them richly and abundantly for their fine efforts, for the great work that they did there. ¶

For many years the Church had not been permitted to labor in some of the islands of the Society group, and we were fortunate and blessed by the Lord in being able to reopen that portion of the mission, Tubuai the first place where the gospel was preached in the Pacific Islands by Addison Pratt and others who were sent out by Joseph Smith. We were able to reopen that portion of the mission after nine long years, and it was most gratifying to go back there and find that our people had remained, for the most part, true to the faith, and that they had throughout those long years maintained their activities in the Church, and they had maintained a prayer in their hearts that some day the Lord, in his goodness, would return the missionaries from Zion to them. ¶

We were also very fortunate in being able to obtain property on which could be erected a fine new chapel and other facilities for the use of the Tahitian people. For many long years that need had existed. The Lord blessed us and we were able to purchase property on which to build a fine new building. That building is almost completed now, and it will be the best missionary that the Tahitian Mission ever had. ¶

I remember one time going over to the Island of Bora Bora by plane to meet with some of our Saints over there and to discuss with members of one of the other religious groups there the possibility of sending missionaries to that island, and though those people had never seen me before, when I stepped from the plane, the first thing they said was: "Good morning, President Mitchell, how is the building program coming? How soon will our new building be completed?" ¶

Those people were not members of the Church, but they looked to the Church with a great deal of anticipation, and the Church in the Tahitian Mission is before the eyes of all the people. We were fortunate also in having the good will of the government there. We had the cooperation and the respect and the good will of several of the governors who were there during our time, and most particularly did we find the blessing of friendship with the governor who is there at the present time. He very kindly extended us an invitation to return to Tahiti to stay as long as we wanted. And he came down to the wharf when we left, and he placed a garland of flowers on my neck and asked that sometime I might come back. ¶

Well, now, that is the work of the Lord, brothers. It was not anything that we did of ourselves. The Lord blessed us, and I want to bear that testimony to you. ¶

We were fortunate in being able to commence the work among the Chinese of Tahiti, of which there are 18,000 living there, and since last October there have been some forty-five full-blooded Chinese people join the Church in Tahiti, the first in Tahiti in any large numbers, and they are the finest young people that we have in the Tahitian Mission. They are sincere, they are honest, they are clean, and the Church means everything in the world to them. ¶

I see my time is up, but I cannot sit down without bearing my testimony to you, that I know that this is the true and the living gospel, and that I know that these leaders who sit here are inspired men of God. I know, brethren, through the experience that the Lord has blessed me with, that great joy and satisfaction can come into our lives through service, and I ask humbly that my Father in heaven might yet see fit to use me in the service of his children here upon the earth. ¶

It is a glorious thing to labor in the mission field, and I shall ever be grateful for it. I bear my testimony to you, in the name of our Lord and Master. Amen. ¶