PROVO, Utah — "We know that the Church is going to grow. It will grow rapidly," said Elder David B. Haight of the Quorum of the Twelve, addressing seven new missionary training center presidents. "We have the challenge of organizing the Church; to see that it carries on with the spiritual direction received by our prophets."

Fifteen missionary training center facilities, including the Provo site, have been established around the world to instruct missionaries on how to teach the gospel, as well as prepare them with a knowledge of customs and languages. Each year, eight new presidents are called to serve for two years.

As the concluding speaker of a weeklong seminar for new missionary training center presidents held in the Provo Missionary Training Center facility Jan. 10-14, Elder Haight offered a panoramic view of the Church's growth from its humble beginnings in 1830 to the prospects and opportunities of a new millennium.

"I'm just reminding you of what you know so well," Elder Haight said in recounting the circumstances of the organization of the Church.

"Just think of what has taken place. I've been in the reconstructed Peter Whitmer farm house in Fayette, N.Y. A little building. There were two bedrooms upstairs. They gave one room to Joseph Smith; then Oliver Cowdery comes on the scene. Here the work of the translation is carried on, part of it in that room at the Peter Whitmer farmhouse.

"Sacred events took place there and the Church was organized with the required six members necessary under the laws of the state.

"By the 1900s, the Church had about 283,000 members," he continued." One hundred years later, on Jan. 1 of this year 2000, we're pushing 11 million. It's a great story, of course, of how it all took place. And so here we are now. We have 15 missionary training centers out in the world, and you're going to preside over one of them, in Tokyo or Santiago or Buenos Aires or elsewhere.

"See what is happening with the Church," he said.

Explaining the role of a missionary training center president in the missionary work of the Church, Elder Haight said, "It is your great responsibility to see that those missionaries who go through your hands have a spiritual experience. They will look at you and see how you conduct yourself and how you treat others.

"You will become the Church in their eyes. They will watch you. They will listen very carefully as you teach, testify and train them. They will learn how to act as missionaries from your example."

Elder Haight opened his comments by sharing an incident that occurred, in part, while he served in Edinburgh, Scotland, as mission president. Setting the stage for the experience, Elder Haight referred to a general conference address in which President David O. McKay told how he and his companion, a sheepherder from Idaho, had not had much success in their missionary labors.

"They were tracting one day and saw workmen building a building," said Elder Haight. "They stopped to watch as these men were placing a stone in the corner of the second floor. They first noticed geometric designs on the stone, then noticed an engraving.

" 'What ere thou art, act well thy part,' it stated," continued Elder Haight. "President McKay, who was an English major [in college], said he hadn't read the words in his study of literature or scripture, but the words had special meaning to him. They stood and read it over and over again.

"President McKay said he felt they had been exposed to those words as a message that they were not working as hard or as diligently as they should have been. They went back to their lodging and got down on their knees. They made a commitment to the Lord in fervent prayer that they would work with all their heart, might, mind and strength. They soon began seeing more success," he said.

Years later, when Elder Haight was called to serve as mission president in Scotland, he received a telephone call from one of his missionaries notifying him that the building with the stone was being demolished. The missionary was instructed to purchase the stone, even if it required 10-20 times more than the 10 shilling asking price.

The missionaries purchased the stone and loaded it into a truck and took it to the mission home where it was on display for many years before being crated and shipped to the Church Historical Department in Salt Lake City.

"It was touching to me how President McKay felt that it was no accident that he and his companion stood in front of the building to read those words, words which would influence his life," Elder Haight said.

The original stone, noted Elder Haight, is now in the Museum of Church History and Art, while a replica is at the Provo missionary training center.

"You are to go out to testify and teach and train and impress young people of who they are. The great miracle in this work is the change in people. Each comes out of the waters of baptism a new person," he said in conclusion.