Third Day Morning Meeting Conference Reconvened Sunday...

THIRD DAY MORNING MEETING Conference reconvened , at 10:00 a.m. ¶

President David O. McKay was present and presided. President N. ¶

Eldon Tanner, Second Counselor in the First Presidency conducted the service at President McKay's request. ¶

The Salt Lake Tabernacle Choir, under the direction of Elder Richard P. Condie, furnished the choral music for this session. Elder Alexander Schreiner was at the organ console. ¶

President N. Eldon Tanner: ¶

We are blessed this morning having President David O. McKay here with us on the stand. He has asked me to conduct this session. It is a great pleasure indeed for us to welcome all present this beautiful Easter morning in the historic tabernacle and in the Assembly Hall on Temple Square, together with the vast television and radio audience in this the sixth session of the 136th Annual General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. ¶

The Tabernacle Choir, under the direction of Richard P. Condie, with Alexander Schreiner at the organ, will open these services by rendering "Galilean Easter Carol." Following the singing the invocation will be offered by Elder Keith W. Wilcox, president of the Weber Heights Stake. ¶

Singing by the Choir: Galilean Easter Carol." ¶

Invocation, Elder Keith W. Wilcox, president of Weber Heights Stake. ¶

President N. Eldon Tanner: ¶

The Tabernacle Choir will now sing "Hosanna to God," following which Elder LeGrand Richards of the Council of the Twelve will speak to us. ¶

Singing by the Choir, "Hosanna to God." ¶

President N. Eldon Tanner: ¶

Our first speaker this morning is Elder LeGrand Richards of the Council of the Twelve. ¶

Elder Richards. ¶

I rejoice with you, my brothers and sisters, in the presence of our prophet this morning and in being able this Easter morning to commemorate the resurrection of the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. In my heart I thank him for having restored his kingdom to the earth in our day, and that those of us who are assembled here today have a witness through the Holy Spirit that the Lord has established his Church in the earth. ¶

Faithfulness of Latter-day Saints It is my privilege as one of the General Authorities to travel to the various stakes of Zion and to some of the missions, and I always return with gratitude in my heart for the faith and faithfulness of the Latter-day Saints evidenced in so many ways to prove their love of the Lord and their desire to help build his kingdom and to bring honor and credit to his holy name and blessing to his children. ¶

The apostle James said: ". . . shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works." ¶

(Jas. 2:18.) I want to tell you that I am proud of the way the Latter-day Saints are showing their faith in God and their love for him by the works that they perform. ¶

The gift of the Holy Ghost Now, I thought in the few moments that I have to address you this morning that I would like to use for a text what the Prophet Joseph Smith said in an interview with the President of the United States when the President asked the Prophet wherein we differ in our religion from the other religions of the day. ¶

The Prophet's answer was: ". . . we differed in mode of baptism, and the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands. We considered that all other considerations were contained in the gift of the Holy Ghost " (Documentary History of the Church, Vol. ¶

4, p. 42.) I thank the Lord that in the restoration of the gospel this promise has been given to all who enter into the waters of baptism by the mode that he has specified and that at the hands of those who have the authority to administer the same and by the laying on of hands, they become recipients of the Holy Ghost. I would rather have my children and my children's children enjoy the companionship of the Holy Ghost than any other companionship in this world because if they will heed the promptings of that Spirit, he will lead them into all truth and see them safely back into the presence of their Father in heaven. This statement by the Prophet is simply repeating again, in a sense, what the Savior said to Nicodemus. Remember when he said, "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God" (John 3:5.) and hence the importance that we have in this Church the same foundation and the same power to guide and direct us. ¶

"Another Comforter" ¶

The promise of the Savior to his apostles prior to his crucifixion was that he would send another Comforter. ¶

There isn't time to go into the details of all that he promised that Comforter would do: but he was to lead them into all truth; he was to make known unto them things present, things past, things which are to come; he was to take from the Father and from the Son and reveal it unto them. And so the Savior said: ¶

"And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; The Spirit of Truth "Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you." (John 14:16-17.) I think one of the most positive and powerful demonstrations of what this Holy Spirit, the Comforter, can do for a man, as we find recorded in Holy Writ, is the experience of the great apostle Peter. You remember just prior to the Savior's crucifixion Peter said, "Though all the world forsake thee, I will not forsake thee." (See Matt. 26: ¶

33.) And you recall the Savior said that before the cock would crow that he would deny him thrice. But after he had tarried at Jerusalem, according to the command of the Savior, and he had received the Holy Ghost, we have a different Peter. When he was commanded that he should no more preach Christ and him crucified in the streets of Jerusalem, his answer was, "We ought to obey God rather than men." ¶

(Acts 5:29.) If the Lord had not placed in his Church of today his Holy Spirit, we would not be the Church that we are; we could not have accomplished what we have accomplished; the Saints could not have endured all the privations, hardships, and persecutions through which they have passed; neither could we carry on the great missionary program of the Church as we are doing, because the Lord has breathed into his work the breath of life, and our people are willing to make every sacrifice at the call of the Church in order to prove their love of the Lord and their desire to build his kingdom and to share the truth with their fellowmen. ¶

When the apostles asked the Savior for the signs of his second coming and ¶

the end of the world, after declaring to them what would happen — that there would be wars and rumors of wars, that nation should rise against nation and people against people, and that his gospel should be preached in all the world for a witness to all nations (and that is what we are doing as a people today) — the Savior said: ¶

"Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake." (Matt. 24:9.) History has recorded how literally that prediction of the Savior has been fulfilled through the restoration of the gospel in our day. The Prophet Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum, the patriarch, were put to death by their enemies and along with them hundreds of Latterday Saints. My grandfather's brother was shot down in cold blood at the Haun's Mill Massacre, and our people were driven from pillar to post until they came here to these valleys of the mountains. But the Lord didn't intend that they would always suffer persecution. He told the Prophet Joseph and his companions that he would give them power to lay the foundation of his Church and that he would bring forth out of darkness and obscurity the only true and living Church upon the face of the whole earth, "with which I, the Lord, am well pleased, speaking unto the church collectively and not individually." ¶

(D&C 1:30.) I was very much intrigued with and interested in the experience that Brother Marion D. Hanks of the First Council of the Seventy had a few years ago when President Eisenhower called a youth conference in Washington to which over 7,000 delegates came to discuss what could be done to help the young people, the youth of this great land of America. Brother Hanks was asked to give the keynote address — not just to give a talk but to lay the foundation for the discussion at that great convention. When Brother Hanks sat down, the man conducting the convention made this statement: ¶

"As I sat here, I reflected that Mr. ¶

Hanks comes from people that were driven from our region of the country because of the things they believed, that suffered bitter persecution for their ideals, that went finally to the far reaches of the country where they thought themselves away from all of this. ¶

"Now we have invited a leader of that people to come here to talk to us of the same ideals and principles for which we drove them away." ¶

Truth travels long It takes truth a long time to travel. ¶

They crucified our Lord, but think of what the world is doing today in recognition of his ministry. And so this work that God the Eternal Father has established in the earth in our day has been proclaimed by the prophets that it shall never be thrown down or given to another people, but it shall roll forth until it shall become as a great mountain and fill the whole earth. ¶

The spirit of sacrifice This spirit of sacrifice is in the Church. Notwithstanding the persecutions heaped upon our people, they continued to send their representatives, mostly married men, into the mission field in the early days. We are told that after President Brigham Young accepted the gospel, for the next ten years he spent almost his entire time in the mission field, and when he went on his first mission, he didn't even have an overcoat. He took a quilt from the trundle bed, and his wife made him a cap out of a pair of old pantaloons. At the end of the ten years he said all he had ever had as a reward for his service was the half of a small pig that the Prophet Joseph divided with him and that had been given to him by one of the brethren. What besides the testimony of the Holy Ghost could have led a great leader like Brigham Young to spend ten years without any remuneration in order to share with the world the wonderful truths of the gospel? My grandfather, of the first 14 years of his married life, spent ten of them in the mission field away from his family. In this Church today there are many, many families in which there isn't a male member old enough to go on a mission who hasn't filled a mission. My grandfather, my father, my brothers, my sons, my wife's father, her brothers — why! we are a missionary people. Today we have over 12,000 in the mission field at their own expense just to share the truths of the gospel with those who know not what the Lord has done in the restoration of his Church to the earth in our day. Among those there are many families that have two and three missionaries in the field at the same time. That spirit of sacrifice is still in the Church. Men give up their businesses. I had a friend of mine come in my office; he had been on two missions. A married man, he said, "Brother Richards, if I sell my home and my automobile I can go on another mission." He was willing to go for a third time and then come back and start all over again. ¶

Missionary service After our Saints had been driven from the East into these valleys of the mountains, five years after their arrival here, a convention was held in the old tabernacle on this block for the elders of Israel at which 98 of them were called to go on missions. They were all married men. In those days they didn't ask them if they wanted to go. ¶

They were told in that meeting that their missions would not be very long — that they would be separated from their families only from three to seven years. Many of them were sent so far away that they couldn't even hear from their families in less than six months time. And then the brother in charge, Heber C. Kimball, said, "If any of you men refuse to go, there isn't a wife that will remain with you, because there isn't a Mormon woman who would live with a man a year, or a day, if he refused to go on a mission." ¶

Now that same spirit carries through to this very day. ¶

Here just a few years ago, when we were still letting young married men go on missions, I interviewed a young man for his mission; and when I saw the recommend from his bishop, I noted that he was a married man. ¶

I said, "Does your wife want you to go on this mission?" ¶

He said, "She certainly does." ¶

I said, "Why didn't you bring her so I could ask her?" ¶

He said, "I couldn't; she's in the hospital. She gave birth to our first child this morning." ¶

I said, "Then let's go to the hos- • pital." We went to the hospital, and there was that young wife with her little babe in her arms. I said, "Do you want this husband of yours to go on a mission?" ¶

She said, "I certainly do. When we married we decided that our marriage would not stand in the way of his mission. My parents are able to take care of me and our baby and are willing to, and I want him to go." ¶

He filled an honorable mission. ¶

We go through the missions, and we meet for hours with these missionaries in their missionary meetings with not a dry eye there. They bear their testimonies and say that before they came on their missions they heard missionaries say that their mission was the happiest time of their lives. "We didn't believe a word of it. Now we know what they were talking about." ¶

I met a man up in the Northwest who was a convert to the Church, and he had just returned from his mission. ¶

He said, "I wouldn't take a check for a million dollars for the experience of my mission." ¶

I interviewed another young man there who had served several years in the armed forces. He said, "There isn't a company in this world that could offer me a large enough salary to get me to leave my mission." ¶

Can anybody in the world plant such feelings in the hearts of people except through the testimony of the Holy Ghost? No wonder the Prophet indicated that of all considerations the gift of the Holy Ghost was the most important one. ¶

We see that in everything about us. ¶

Take the Choir here — all these years — we don't have to pay them. They can't do that in other churches. And not only that, there are so many other things. ¶

Tithing Take, for instance, the law of tithing, which Bishop Simpson talked about the other day. While I was serving in the Southern States Mission, an itinerant preacher came to the South telling the churches how they could get out of debt. I went to listen to him. He told them that if they would pay their tithing for ten months, they could get their churches out of debt. Then he quoted the words of Malachi indicating that it was the Lord's law of blessing his people. I went to him after the meeting and was introduced to him, and I said, "Reverend, I would like to bear you my testimony that you are getting near the truth. I am a Mormon elder. We have been paying our tithing all our lives. One thing I can't understand— you say it is the Lord's law of blessing of his children. If it is, why don't you ask them to pay tithing all their lives? If it would be good to be blessed for ten months, wouldn't it be better to be blessed all their lives?" ¶

He said, "Oh, Mr. Richards, we can't go that far. If we can get them to pay for ten months, we will do pretty well." ¶

What sustains colonizing? ¶

Speaking now of the gift of the Holy Ghost, I want to tell you another experience. Brother [Melvin J.] Ballard was up in the Northwest as president of the mission. In those days that country was not as well settled as it is now. A colonizer up there had heard about how the Mormons were colonizers, how they had settled these towns all up and down through these valleys of the mountains. He came down and wrote a brief on the program of the Mormon Church. Then he went back, but he couldn't make it work, so he brought his brief to Brother Ballard and asked him if he would read it and tell him what was the matter with it. ¶

Brother Ballard read it, and he said, "You have here a perfect corpse; if somebody would just breathe into it the breath of life, then it would work for you." I thank the Lord that he has breathed into this Church the breath of life. ¶

Church service? ¶

We had a convention here not long ago — a ministerial convention. On Sunday they took the ministers to our various wards to attend the Sunday School. Out here in a certain ward where they have about twenty departments, they took a particular minister right through every department. On the way back to the general assembly, the minister said, "It must cost you a lot of money to run an institution like this." ¶

The brother showing him around called the caretaker over and said, "Tell this man how many are on the payroll." ¶

He said, "I am the only one. I keep the buildings clean." Well, they just can't do it, and I have had experiences with them to know. ¶

Speaking of the law of tithing being a law of blessing of the people, the Lord said, ". . . and prove me now herewith ... if I will not open you the windows of heaven. . . ." (Mai. ¶

3:10.) I think I have time to tell you one experience of when I was on a mission back in the Eastern States. One of our branch presidents was a large tithe payer — paid every month as regular as the clock ticked — and I said to him, "You must have a wonderful testimony of the law of tithing." ¶

He said, "I have." ¶

I said, "Would you tell me what it is?" ¶

He told me that his wife and children joined the Church over in England a few years before that; and when he told me who the missionary was, I learned it was an old MIA teacher of mine from out in Tooele. ¶

Then he said, "I didn't join the Church, because I didn't have the faith to pay my tithing. Then one day a young missionary who was being released came to me and said, 'Brother , I want to baptize you before I go home!' I told him, 'You can't.' "Why can't I?" ¶

"Because I haven't the faith to pay my tithing." ¶

And then that missionary said, "If you will let me baptize you before I go home, I promise you that within a year from now you will be in America with your family, earning three times what you are earning now." ¶

He said, "That's a good enough promise for me." And he was baptized. ¶

He said that he didn't see how it could happen — he was under contract with his company to work for three years, and he knew he wouldn't break his contract. But he was able to have his contract bought off, and the company released him. Within one year he was in America with his family, earning four times as much as he was when that Mormon missionary promised him three times as much. I told that story a few years ago from this pulpit. At the close of the meeting one of the mission presidents sitting right down in front came up to me and said, "Brother Richards, I was the young man who made the promise." ¶

Brothers and sisters, I say to you that if you will love the Lord and serve him and keep his commandments, you never can get out of the red — you will always be owing the Lord something. ¶

He has a way of paying and compensating that is worth more than all the wealth of this world. And this is my testimony to you. I know this is the work of God, the Eternal Father. I know that God lives, that Jesus is the Christ. I am so proud to be one of his witnesses. I leave you my witness in the name of the Lord, Jesus Christ. ¶

Amen. ¶