Elder H. Bruce Stucki drew "a great lesson of faith and trust" in the priesthood session Saturday evening from the experience that his daughter, Trinilee, had in finding and caring for a baby sparrow until it was old enough and strong enough to survive outside her care.

"Although it was just a fraction of the size of its human friend and could be in great danger for its life amongst humans, it trusted her and had faith it would not be harmed and would be fed by her," he mused. "And it responded to her beckoning call," said Elder Stucki, giving his first general conference address since being called to the Second Quorum of the Seventy last April.

"Have you ever wondered about our faith, brethren? Do we have that kind of trust and faith in the Lord? Do we respond to His beckoning call to serve and be fed at His hand?"

Regarding the need for such faith and trust, Elder Stucki spoke of missionary work.

"There is an urgent and important work to be done in all nations and amongst all people," he declared. "There are many wonderful young men and women, senior sisters and couples who have been called to serve and who have responded and are faithfully serving a mission for the Lord."

He recalled President Gordon B. Hinckley's statement in a Feb. 21, 1998, satellite broadcast that with concerted effort, recognition of duty and sincere prayer, the Church could double the number of convert baptisms.

"There is not a work of greater importance or of greater joy and reward that we could do at this time," he remarked.

"Brethren, I believe our Heavenly Father and I trust Him, and when He reveals to us, speaking through our living prophet today, that we need to do more, and more of us need to become involved in the work of bringing souls unto Christ, then we need to step forward and say, 'Here am I, send me'!"

After the baptism of converts, "we need to walk the path to exaltation with them, steadying them until they have a solid foundation and testimony to carry them on through time and into life eternal," he said.

"I pray we will all show an equal amount of faith and trust in the Lord that the little sparrow demonstrated in my daughter, and respond to the call of the Lord. I pray that we will indeed all do it together," he concluded.