My Brethren And Sisters President Name Translated...

My brethren and sisters, President McKay was not too far wrong when he said that Anthony W. Ivins [his father] was going to talk to you. My name translated means Anthony. It is a French translation. ¶

I am happy to be with you today, my brethren and sisters, and I am thankful for the many, many blessings which my wife and I enjoy, especially that she has the measure of health and strength that enables her to be in the meeting today and to be my constant companion in the work that is assigned to me. ¶

It is thirty years, my brethren and sisters, since I first faced this congregation, that is, it will be in the October conference. ¶

Those thirty years have been filled with many fine experiences as I have worked among the members of the Church. I trust that the remaining time that may be allotted to me may be as pleasurable and as beneficial to me as the past has been. ¶

I am especially grateful today for the opportunity that I have had at this conference of saluting my friends from the newly created stake in Mexico. ¶

Brother Juarez who was with them when I was assigned to the presidency of the Mexican Mission was the elder in charge of all the work in Mexico. He has gone through the intervening years in faith and in service, and I congratulate him on being appointed now a bishop in that new stake. ¶

I pray that they will carry back to the people of Mexico my good wishes and my faith in them and in their ability to realize the purpose for which this new stake was created. ¶

I have lived quite a bit more than half of the life of the Church, and I go back in my memory to the difficulties with which the brethren carried on the work of the Church when I was a lad. I remember the opposition that was created in many sections of the country to the work of the Church, and then when one sees the success that we are having and the growth that we are realizing today, one marvels and realizes that it really is the work of the Lord. ¶

Our problem, brethren and sisters, is to move it forward, and you brethren who are in the audience today, most of you, are responsible officers in the priesthood which you have received, and in that sense you have a very distinct obligation to your congregations. ¶

I have been reading in the New Testament recently, re-reading, and I find it extremely interesting. I would like to recommend it as a following course for the reading of the Book of Mormon which was our assignment recently. I read as you have all read, that statement about having faith like a mustard seed. One wonders why the mustard seed was chosen — some think because it is small, that may have been the case — but it is an interesting thing to study a mustard seed. It is endowed by God with the power to grow and increase in size, in stature, and then reproduce itself. In other words, that mustard seed carries the perfect power to realize the purpose for which it was created by God. But we must understand, also, that if it does realize that purpose, conditions must be satisfactory. ¶

Its ability may be destroyed by frost or drought or heat, but if it falls into the proper environment, it grows and realizes its full purpose. I believe that in the heart of every normal child that is born into this world is that same God-given power, and I believe, also, that the realization of that power depends, for years at least, upon external conditions for which the fathers and the mothers and the neighbors are responsible very largely, until people get to a maturity where they determine their own course of thinking and living. ¶

I am not so much worried about what other people do not do, as I am about what we do not do. We have the power as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to influence young people. Many of us do not appreciate and perhaps do not understand this, and we lose, for one reason or another, the service of many wonderful young men and young women in the Church. We have now a large group of men in the Melchizedek Priesthood who do not appear to appreciate their opportunities and their responsibilities. ¶

I have developed in my ministry with you a love for people who are in a sense indifferent because of these conditions over which they had little control earlier in life, and I have come to realize that once they can be touched by the spirit of God into faith and activity, they become wonderful servants. I want them to understand that we love them. ¶

When one is militantly opposed to the work of the Church, we have nothing but sympathy for him. So when we realize the great number of people that have not sensed their opportunities to become active and go through the Aaronic Priesthood into the Melchizedek Priesthood, then when we realize the number of men who are in the Melchizedek Priesthood who are not active in it, we cannot help realizing the tremendous responsibility that rests upon us and how far we come from making the perfect effort in the rearing of young people and placing them on a firm foundation of faith, faith like the mustard seed. Now, if we could properly cultivate those people in their growing years, they would realize I think rather fully the purposes for which we are here — God-given purposes and Godgiven powers that we have which we fail to use. ¶

I think that perhaps we are justified in judging one's faith by his activity, because faith is what prompts activity, and if we do judge them by that standard, we find that there are times when many of them are reported as having little faith because they are reported as inactive in the Church. Why cannot we reach them, brethren and sisters? We cannot drive them into it, of course; we have to love them into it and give them opportunity to help, because when people serve us, they realize that they have an interest in us. I read as a boy Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography in which he said that he early learned that when he wanted particular people to have a particular interest in him, he had to give those particular people an opportunity to do something for him, and perhaps that would be one of our approaches to these people, to find something that they can do that will divert their interest and develop their faith and their testimony. The testimony is the thing that has the greatest power of all in our lives, I believe. ¶

When we realize through receiving a testimony, which comes from the Spirit of God, our relationship to God, our obligation to God our Father and our obligation to each other in the Church organization, then we devote ourselves to that service. Without a testimony we do little. ¶

So our problem, brethren and sisters, with our young people is to develop in their hearts the testimony which can carry them over those adolescent years that are so fraught with danger into mature manhood with a testimony that will impel them to observe the commandments of God, that when they enter into the marriage relationship, as has been suggested, they do it for time and for all eternity, so that then they can carry on — and only then can they carry on and realize the full purpose for which men and women come into this world. ¶

Brethren and sisters, let us not worry too much about other people but worry about ourselves. Brother Lee last night said that the only comparisons that he thinks are of value are the comparisons of a person with his past, of a ward with its past, of a stake with its past. ¶

Then if we look at ourselves, we begin, if we have the courage to do it, to revamp our lives. ¶

I remember making a talk in Idaho one time on repentance. Repentance is fundamental to us, as you all know, hut after I got through, a fine old brother walked up to me and he said, "Brother Ivins, that was wonderful. You hit my neighbor right square on top of the head." And a young man followed him up and he said, "Brother Ivins, it was good, and you were talking to me all the time." That is our problem, brethren and sisters, to take to heart the instructions we get through the scriptures we read and from the brethren who stand to teach us. ¶

May we have the strength and the power to face ourselves squarely and then take advantage of the opportunities presented in order to acquit ourselves creditably of our responsibility to each other and to God our Heavenly Father, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. ¶

Amen. ¶