Gospel urgently needed
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The word of the Lord is urgently needed throughout the earth, and now is an amazing time to be part of it, in whatever capacity one has been called, Elder Russell M. Nelson said Jan. 13 to a group of couples bound for missionary assignments in various locales.
Speaking in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building in Salt Lake City, Elder Nelson of the Quorum of the Twelve gave the closing address for the three-day Seminar for New Missionary Training Center Presidents and Visitors Center Directors held in Provo and Salt Lake City.
Elder Nelson began by emphasizing that, in addition to what is contained in the scriptures, revelation continues to flow from heaven to prophets and apostles.
"Every Thursday is revelatory for us," Elder Nelson said, referring to the weekly meeting held in the Salt Lake Temple by the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve.
Such meetings give the Brethren "a renewal of purpose, urgency, of the work that we've all been called to do to promulgate the gospel, because the word of the Lord is urgently needed throughout the world," Elder Nelson said. "You who will be training our missionaries, and you who will be greeting members and non-members in the visitors centers, have a crucial role to reveal the light and the knowledge that the Lord has restored in these latter days to bless His children."
Elder Nelson spoke of changes he has witnessed as a Church leader in the past quarter-century. Just after the call of President Ezra Taft Benson as Church president in 1985, Elder Nelson was assigned responsibility for Church work in Europe "and especially to open the doors to nations then under the yoke of communism."
The assignment startled him. He said he felt as inadequate as Moses did when called to lead the children of Israel from bondage.
In June 1987, with Elder Hans B. Ringger of the Seventy, Elder Nelson met with a Russian leader and asked what needed to be done to have the Church established in that nation. The response was the Church needed to have 20 Russian citizens sign a paper saying they belonged to the Church, and all 20 had to be in a single district. Only then could the Church apply.
Elder Nelson then asked if the Church could establish a library or reading station where people could come and hear the Church's message, the answer was no, that could not be done without the Church being registered. When Elder Nelson said that the requirement presented a "chicken-and-egg problem," that the registration could not be accomplished without the 20 members, the Russian leader responded, "That, sir, is your problem. Good day."
"So that was our first foray," Elder Nelson recounted. He said he and Elder Ringger went to a park bench. "We pondered, and we prayed mightily. We conversed. ... We had all sorts of the best thinking we could come up with, all of which was worth nothing. So we came home empty-handed. After we had done all we could do, the Lord went to work."
He said a young woman in Leningrad wanted a Bible in Russian, but none were available in that city. On a visit to Helsinki, Finland, not too far away, she went walking in a park. There, she stumbled upon an object covered with autumn leaves. It was a Bible printed in Russian.
In her joy, she told of her find to a woman in the park who happened to be the wife of the LDS district president in Helsinki and who responded, "Would you like to have another book about Jesus Christ written in the Russian language?" The encounter led to the woman from Leningrad being taught in her home city by missionaries who came as tourists.
Meanwhile, a couple from Leningrad were vacationing in Budapest, Hungary, where LDS missionaries introduced them to the gospel. They returned to Leningrad as members of the Church.
"These two families had relatives and friends," Elder Nelson noted. "So erelong, we had our 20 members in one political district in the city of Leningrad."
The application for recognition of the Church was filed in April 1990. In June 1991, at a reception just after a concert by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in the Bolshoi Theater in downtown Moscow, the vice president of the Republic of Russia read a document stating the Church was now recognized in the entire Republic of Russia.
"That was in exactly four years, from June of '87 to June of '91, that we had recognition of the Church in Russia," Elder Nelson said. "These are some of the things that come to mind as I think of how crucial it is that each one of us, in whatever position we're called to, will just be there, and be good examples and do our duty, and then not figure we've got to do all the work ourselves, because the Lord will pitch in and make up the difference."
Held Jan. 11-13, the seminar was for seven new presidents and their wives going to Missionary Training Centers around the world and 10 couples going to Church visitors centers and/or historic sites. Coverage of some of the other proceedings of the seminar was published in the Jan. 15 Church News.
