Declaring that a "great miracle is taking place right before our eyes," President Gordon B. Hinckley addressed the Sunday morning session of general conference.

Photo by John L. Hart

Members stream toward Conference Center Sunday morning. President Gordon B. Hinckley addressed session.

As the Church president began his remarks, he quipped: "A soloist sings the same song again and again. An orchestra repeats the same music. But a speaker is expected to come up with something new every time he speaks."

To the laughter from the congregation, he added that he has spoken "some 200 times in general conference" over the years, and this time he was going to break with tradition and "repeat in a measure what I have said on another occasion...."

He declared, "A marvelous and wonderful thing is coming to pass. The Lord is fulfilling His promise that His gospel shall be as the stone cut out of the mountain without hands which would roll forth and fill the whole earth, as Daniel saw in vision" (see Doctrine and Covenants 65:2).

President Hinckley said: "I take you back 184 years to the year 1823. The month was September, the night of September 21-22, to be exact. The boy Joseph Smith had prayed that night before going to sleep. He asked the Lord for forgiveness of his light mindedness. A miraculous thing then happened."

A personage appeared by his bedside, President Hinckley said and then quoted Joseph Smith: "He called me by name, and said unto me that he was a messenger sent from the presence of God..., and that his name was Moroni; that God had a work for me to do; and that my name should be had for good and evil among all nations, kindreds, and tongues, or that it should be both good and evil spoken of among all people" (Joseph Smith History 1:30, 33).

"The boy must have been stunned by what he heard," President Hinckley said. "In the eyes of those who knew him, he was simply a poor, unlearned farm boy. He had no wealth. His neighbors were in the same condition. His parents were struggling farmers. The area where they lived was rural and largely unknown. They were simply ordinary people trying to survive through hard work."

Looking back 177 years, President Hinckley spoke of the organization of the Church in 1830 with only six members. "Today, we have become the fourth or fifth largest Church in North America, with congregations in every city of any consequence. Stakes of Zion today flourish in every state of the United States, in every province of Canada, in every state of Mexico, in every nation of Central America and throughout South America."

Congregations are found throughout the British Isles and Europe and other parts of the world, including the Islands of the Pacific, Australia, and New Zealand, as well as in many nations of Africa and Asia. "Our general conferences are carried by satellite and other means in 92 different languages.

"And this is only the beginning. This work will continue to grow and prosper and move across the earth. It must do so if Moroni's promise to Joseph is to be fulfilled. This work is unique and wonderful. It is fundamentally different from every other body of religious doctrine of which I know."

Speaking of the first vision, President Hinckley said, "At no other time of which we have any record have God our Eternal Father and His Beloved Son, the Risen Lord, appeared on earth together.... How truly remarkable was that vision in the year 1820 when Joseph prayed in the woods and there appeared before him both the Father and the Son.... I think it was because they were ushering in the dispensation of the fulness of times, the last and final dispensation of the gospel, when there would be gathered together in one the elements of all previous dispensations.

"This was to be the final chapter in the long chronicle of God's dealing with men and women upon the earth," President Hinckley added.

Continuing, he spoke of the Nicene Creed of A.D. 325, a compromise reached by the learned clerics of the day concerning the nature of God, and subsequent creeds. "I have read them all a number of times. I cannot understand them. I think others cannot understand them. I am sure that the Lord also knew that many would not understand them. And so, in 1820, in that incomparable vision, the Father and the Son appeared before the boy Joseph.... And out of that experience has come our unique and true understanding of the nature of Deity."

Through the years, there followed a veritable "cloud of witnesses," as Paul described in Hebrews 12:1, President Hinckley related, including the translation of the Book of Mormon. "What a singular and remarkable thing this was...."

"The Bible had stood alone for centuries. It is a precious and wonderful book. Now, there was a second witness declaring the divinity of Christ. The Book of Mormon is the only book ever published, of which I know, that carries in it a promise that one who reads it prayerfully and asks concerning it in prayer will have revealed to him by the power of the Holy Ghost a knowledge that it is true."

He said that there have been more than 133 million copies of the Book of Mormon published, it has been translated into 105 languages and not long ago was named one of the 20 most influential books ever published in North America.

"Recently a first edition sold for $105,000. But the cheapest paperback edition is as valuable to the reader who loves its language and message."

Critics have tried to explain it, have spoken against it and ridiculed it, President Hinckley said. "But it has outlived them all, and its influence today is greater than at any time in its history."

The restoration of the priesthood took place in 1829 when Joseph Smith was just 23, then the organization of the Church on April 6, 1830, when the Prophet was not yet 25. "Again, the organization is unique and different from that of traditional Christianity. It is largely operated by a lay ministry. Voluntary service is its genius."

Affirming his witness of the calling and works of the Prophet Joseph Smith, President Hinckley declared: "You and I are faced with the stark question of accepting the truth of the First Vision, and that which followed it. On the question of its reality, lies the very validity of this Church. If it is the truth, and I testify that it is, then the work in which we are engaged is the most important work on the earth."