'Gathering spirit' still continues'
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President Boyd K. Packer's remarks concluded the 2006 New Mission Presidents Seminar. Speaking to an audience of 112 mission presidents and their wives in the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah, his address was broadcast to mission presidents worldwide. Reports on seminar addresses by President Gordon B. Hinckley, President Thomas S. Monson and President James E. Faust were in the Church News issue of July 1.
PROVO, Utah — Endeavoring to "give you a vision of your part in the on-rolling work of the Lord, our Master," President Boyd K. Packer addressed newly called mission presidents and their wives during the New Mission Presidents Seminar.
Speaking June 29 at the Provo Missionary Training Center, President Packer, Acting President of the Quorum of the Twelve, said: "You are on a mission. Except for your being parents, you now stand under the grandest call that has yet come to you in mortality. Like parenthood, you are called as husband and wife together."
Continuing, President Packer explained that from the Old Testament to the modern revelations, "the scriptures are laced with references to the words gather and gathering."
The first gathering in this dispensation, he said, was to Kirtland, Ohio, where the saints built a temple. "There Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdrey 'saw the Lord standing upon the breastwork of the pulpit' (Doctrine and Covenants 110:2), and He prophesied to them that the work would go forth until it filled the whole earth, and 'the fame of this house shall spread to foreign lands' " (v. 10).
In addition, Moses, Elias and Elijah appeared and committed the keys of gathering which "remain in the Church today."
The saints, President Packer said, were driven from Kirtland to Independence, Mo., and from there to Far West, where they were commanded to build a temple. "But they were not to see it built. The mobs drove them away. The Twelve went back at night to set the cornerstones. Wilford Woodruff was ordained an apostle sitting on one of those cornerstones."
From Far West, the saints were driven to Nauvoo, Ill., where they built a city and a temple. The call went out to gather to Nauvoo.
"The first time the restored gospel was preached on the islands of the sea was on the Fox Islands off the coast of Maine, now called Vinalhaven. Wilford Woodruff walked 10 miles to Portland, Maine, then boarded a sloop which took him over to the island."
Elder Woodruff recorded that the first two baptized were a sea captain, Justin Eames, and his wife. "These were the first baptisms performed by proper authority upon any of the islands of the sea . . . in this dispensation," Elder Woodruff wrote.
About that time, a letter arrived from President Thomas B. Marsh of the Quorum of the Twelve, now recorded in Doctrine and Covenants 118, calling John Taylor, John E. Page, Wilford Woodruff and Willard Richards to the Quorum of the Twelve. Elder Woodruff continued his mission, and spoke of the work of two other missionaries, Elder Hyde and Elder Herritt, the latter of whom died of typhus fever.
"Then came the call for the saints on the Fox Islands to gather to Nauvoo," President Packer related. "They left Maine on October 4, 1838, crossing part of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and part of New York. They traveled with horses and wagons. . . . (They) finally arrived at Quincy, Ill., on April 18, 1839, after six months of intense trials and suffering — one of the great epochs of Church history."
Again, the saints left their homes and gathered "in a land no one had seen except in vision."
"The spirit of gathering rested upon them," President Packer continued. "And they came, first as a trickle, and then as a stream. The Zion to which they came was again under terrible persecution. It was greatly strengthened by their very numbers. They came across the ocean and prairies and across wilderness. They climbed over and through the mighty, towering Rocky Mountains. They came by wagon with ox teams. Most all who came walked 2,000 miles. Three thousand of them pushed handcarts. The spirit of gathering was in their hearts. The Perpetual Emigration Fund was established to help the poor gather from Europe."
In August 1972, a historic change was announced, "a redirection from the Lord. Gathering was not to continue as it had for nearly 150 years. . . . Henceforth, they were to be gathered out of the world into the Church in their own lands into the stakes of Zion. A stake is a refuge from the world," President Packer explained.
At the next general conference, President Harold B. Lee officially announced that the pioneering phase of gathering was over. President Packer said that President Lee quoted the words of Elder Bruce R. McConkie of the Council of the Twelve at a Mexico City Area Conference the previous August, in which the apostle said, "(This) certainly emphasizes the great need for the teaching and training of local leadership in order to build up the Church within their own native countries."
"A new direction had now been given to the spirit of gathering," President Packer said. "The gathering no longer was to be to the tops of the mountains. Under the direction of the apostles and prophets, the gathering was to be out of the world into the Church in every nation. Every nation was to be the gathering place for its own people. They would gather to build temples.
"It is clear then that the stakes are to be the gathering place and the place for refuge for the members of the Church.
"The Prophet Joseph Smith said, 'What was the object of gathering . . . the people of God in any age of the world? . . . The main object was to build unto the Lord a house whereby He would reveal unto His people the ordinances of His house and the glories of His kingdom, and teach the people the way of salvation.' "
Speaking of temple work and families, President Packer added, "The ultimate end of all we do in the Church is to see that parents and children are happy at home and sealed together in the temple."
Today, he continued, after quoting Doctrine and Covenants 90:11, "The gospel is being taught 'in his own tongue, and in his own language.' Every week one of the Twelve, and sometimes one of the Presidency, speaks to multiple stakes across the earth and speaks in every language through the instrument of those faithful and inspired interpreters."
President Packer declared: "The Church has grown now to cover the whole world. This gathering shall continue until the righteous are assembled in the congregations of the saints in all nations of the world."
