This week in Church history
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50 years ago
A sizable group of Latter-day Saint sailors aboard the battleship USS Indiana weekly conducted what they estimated to be the "Sunday School nearest Tokyo," according to the April 21, 1945, issue of the Church News.
The group's meeting place aboard the ship, stationed in "the waters just off Tokyo," was a dining area, reported one of the LDS Naval officers on board.
"Of course, there isn't any pulpit, carpeted floors, oak benches, drapes, blinds or air conditioning; but still it's our `chapel' each Sabbath day.
"Nor is our meeting place everything that one could desire. On the contrary, it has little if any resemblance to the houses of worship that we frequented at home. Often our Sunday School is only a shade less noisy than a street meeting in the mission field. While we are conducting services, the public address system occasionally blats out with announcements and bugle calls, some non-members dash into the compartment to open their lockers, or a sailor strolls aimlessly through the door - `just looking around.' But we don't mind! At least it gives us an opportunity to worship our Heavenly Father in the manner we wish. . . .
"The important part is that somehow the Lord always provides a way for us, and we haven't missed holding services a single week since we commenced last autumn. We have been richly blessed by our Father in Heaven, and He has crowned our efforts with success."
Quote from the past
"We are here, as Jesus was, not to do our own will, but the will of Him who sent us; and, as He was, so we are expected to do and perform such things as may be required of us by the Almighty." - President John Taylor, in an address given Nov. 14, 1877, in the Salt Lake 14th Ward.
