My Dear Brethren and Sisters, I Didn't...

My dear brethren and sisters, I didn't know a healthy man's legs could wobble so much in such a short distance. I am humble as I have never been humble before. I love this great Church, and I love these great men that preside over it — these men we know as the General Authorities of the Church. ¶

I have had a great experience, and I thank them for it, in working in the organizations of the Church. I have had the privilege of being a bishop, of being a stake president, of being the chairman of a region in this great welfare program of ours, and until a few minutes ago I was a member of the general welfare committee of the Church. ¶

I can promise this to Bishop Wirthlin and to Bishop Isaacson, that I will do everything that they ask me to do as long as I have strength to do it. I would drop in my tracks working for this great Church. I know of nothing that I love more; I know of no work that I would rather do than serve in this Church. ¶

After all, I am only a humble elder in the Church; my father and mother were converted by two Mormon elders in the old country, and when they came to this country in 1900, they brought with them two little children, and I was one of those children. Elder Thomas E. McKay, brother of our great President, said that he held me in his arms in the old country, and that my father and mother were the first ones to give him dinner when he came to that section of the country as a missionary about 1898. And if there is one thing that I will always remember about my good parents, it is that they remembered the Presiding Bishopric all their lives why they came to Salt Lake City. They were faithful members of this great Church. We were taught as youngsters how we should live, and if we haven't followed in their footsteps and if we haven't amounted to anything as sons and daughters of those fine parents, it is certainly not their fault. ¶

We didn't have to be asked to go to Church; we always went with them. I remember that as a little boy it was my responsibility every Saturday to shine the shoes of my father and all my brothers — and I had a lot of brothers. ¶

We didn't do that on Sunday morning; it was all done on Saturday; and Sunday morning the shined shoes were all put on, and we all went to Church. ¶

I'll appreciate always that I learned to work. I was the eldest of the family, and as our family grew, my . parents had quite a struggle in their early days in making a livelihood. As we became old enough, we had to learn how to do something ourselves. As I grew old enough to go to high school, I loved athletics as much as I did anything else, and I finally had the privilege of playing football and basketball and baseball and other things, but I think as a freshman at high school I was the first man who left the football practice field and hurriedly took a shower and ran to my home so that I could be working in our back yard when my father came home from work. It was only a few years after, that my father accompanied me to many games and watched some of my younger brothers. ¶

Well, it has been a great experience. ¶

I love these men, and I will do all I can in my humble and weak way to assist them in every way I can. If I have any disappointment, I think it would be in Brother Romney, that he let me leave the welfare committee just at the time when I thought I could help him a little. They trained me for a little over a year and had just given me a new position wherein I thought I might be helpful, and here today that work has been terminated, and I have a new position in the Church. ¶

I love the youth of the Church, and I love you folk. I hope and pray that together we will move as a mighty army, and that this great Church will grow and prosper. My testimony is this, that as we work in this Church, so will our testimony increase, and so will the Lord love us and his blessings be with us. ¶

May it be so, I pray humbly in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. ¶