I came across an excerpt of a story from Gordon B. Hinckley's youth the other day while searching "Illustrated History of the Church", I looked up the full talk and decided to share the full story in the latest email I sent to my brother. Who by the way is coming home at the end of the month and will be influencing many to serve. I also shared this story with my other brother who is currently interviewing and preparing his mission papers, he is eager to set out and serve shortly. I included the full talk for you and the story I mentioned is in gray.
PRESIDENT GORDON B. HINCKLEY, First Counselor in the First
Presidency
I have a duty to speak to you. Beyond that, it’s a great
privilege and a tremendous opportunity, and I seek the direction of the Holy
Spirit.
I have been so appreciative of this returned missionary
chorus who has sung to us this night. I have heard them and their kind sing all
across this world. I wish that there were time for them to sing to us “Ye
elders of Israel, come join now with me.” (Hymns, 1985, no. 319.) They could do
it in English English, American English, Australian English, New Zealand
English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Japanese, Korean,
Mandarin, Cantonese, and other languages. Thank you, brethren, for the music
with which you have blessed us.
What Brother Monson said and the presence of this chorus
have set a theme for me.
I spoke with a young man the other evening who is deeply
troubled over the question of whether he should go on a mission. He outlined a
program of education which would be tremendously challenging. He spoke of his
love for a beautiful girl and of the feeling that he could not leave her. He
spoke of financial problems which would entail sacrifice.
I told him that I could understand his feelings. I told him
his concerns were similar to those of many others, including some I had
experienced in my own life. At his age, I was in the university. It was the
time of the worst economic depression in the history of the world. Unemployment
in this area was about 35 percent, and most of the unemployed were husbands and
fathers, since relatively few women worked in the labor force. Very few
missionaries were going into the field at that time. We send out as many in a
week now as then went during the entire year. I received my bachelor’s degree
and planned on somehow attending graduate school. Then the bishop came with
what seemed to me a shocking suggestion. He spoke of a mission. I was called to
go to England which, at that time, was the most expensive mission in the world.
The cost per month was the equivalent of what would be about $500 now.
We discovered that my mother, who had passed away, had
established a small savings account to be available for this purpose. I had a
savings account in a different place, but the bank in which I had mine had
failed. There was then no government insurance program to cover its failure as
there is now. My father, a man of great faith and love, supplied the necessary
means, with all of the family cooperating at a sacrifice. As I look back upon
it, I see all of it as a miracle. Somehow the money was there every month.
The work in the field was not easy. It was difficult and
discouraging. But what a wonderful experience it was. In retrospect, I
recognize that I was probably a selfish young man when I arrived in Britain.
What a blessing it became to set aside my own selfish interests to the greater
interests of the work of the Lord. I had the association of tremendous young
men and women. They have become treasured friends whom I have known and loved
now for more than half a century.
The girl I left came to mean more to me while I was away.
Next spring, we shall commemorate our fiftieth wedding anniversary.
How profoundly grateful I am for the experience of that
mission. I touched the lives of a few who have, over the years, expressed
appreciation. That has been important. But I have never been greatly concerned
over the number of baptisms that I had or that other missionaries had. My
satisfaction has come from the assurance that I did what the Lord wanted me to
do and that I was an instrument in His hands for the accomplishment of His
purposes. In the course of that experience, there became riveted into my very
being a conviction and knowledge that this is in very deed the true and living
work of God, restored through a prophet for the blessing of all who will accept
it and live its principles.
There may be a few young men in this vast audience tonight
who may be wondering, ever so seriously, whether they should go on missions.
There may be a scarcity of money. There may be compelling plans for education.
There may be that wonderful girl you love and feel you cannot leave. You say to
yourself, “The choice is mine.”
That is true. But before you make a decision against a
mission, count your blessings, my dear friend. Think of all the great and
marvelous things you have—your very life, your health, your parents, your home,
the girl you love. Are they not all gifts from a generous Heavenly Father? Did
you really earn them alone, independent of His blessing? No, the lives of all
of us are in His hands. All of the precious things that are ours come from Him
who is the giver of every good gift.
I am not suggesting that He will withdraw His blessings and
leave you bereft if you do not go on a mission. But I am saying that out of a
spirit of appreciation and gratitude, and a sense of duty, you ought to make
whatever adjustment is necessary to give a little of your time—as little as two
years—consecrating your strength, your means, your talents to the work of
sharing with others the gospel, which is the source of so much of the good that
you have.
I promise that if you will do so, you will come to know that
what appears today to be a sacrifice will prove instead to be the greatest
investment that you will ever make.
Let there be no hesitancy in your decision. Live worthy of a
call, and respond without hesitation when that call comes. Go forth with a
spirit of dedication, placing yourself in the hands of the Lord to do His great
work.
To you younger boys, may I encourage you to save money now
for a future mission. Put it in a place where it is safe, not in a speculative
account where it may be endangered. Consecrate it for this great purpose, and
let it not be used for any other. Prepare yourselves. Attend seminary and
institute. Prayerfully read the Book of Mormon.
I hear much these days of costly youth excursions to exotic
places during spring breaks and at other times. Why not stay near home and put
the money in your future missionary accounts? Someday you will be grateful you
did.
The Church needs you. The Lord needs you. The world needs
you—yes, ten thousand more of you. There are many out there who need exactly
what you have to offer. They are not easy to find, but they will not be found
unless there are those who are prepared and willing to seek them out. God bless
you each one, every one of you, that a mission may be a planned and essential
part of the program of your lives.
Now, I wish to say a word to all who are here. It is simply
a reminder of the obligation, the duty, each has to share with others the
precious gospel of Jesus Christ.
I was going to tell you the story of a friend who recently
joined the Church. Rather than do that, I am going to ask him to tell it
himself.
May I introduce Brother William Sheffield, who was baptized
last November. Brother Sheffield, come and tell us of your experience.
William Sheffield: My dear brothers, following law school at
Berkeley, I developed a successful private practice, particularly with
international clients, including Indira Ghandi, former prime minister of India.
For years as a lawyer I had sought a judicial appointment.
The day the governor of California called to say I had been appointed to the
Superior Court was exhilarating and filled with visions of perhaps, someday,
even the Supreme Court. But then, after less than two years as a judge and
after just purchasing a new home, we decided to leave this nearly idyllic life.
I had heard the Lord call me to the seminary. In response, my wife and I agreed
that from then on we would always trust in the Lord, agreeing to be as leaves
in a stream—two leaves in His stream, obeying His call, wanting more than
anything else to follow Him.
But I had not always followed Christ. For many years, I was
uncertain who He was or how I could get close to Him. Almost daily I silently
asked myself: Is there a purpose to life? Why am I here? Where am I going? Is
the meaning of life found in chasing after the most pleasurable way to get
through it—or is there something more? My Christian friends told me all I had
to do was “knock and the door will be opened unto you, seek and ye shall find.”
(See Matt. 7:7.)
I began knocking. And as I knocked, the Lord answered. Like
a seed growing within me, the gospel began taking over my life. I felt the
Spirit calling me. I applied at the Yale Divinity School and was accepted. I
resigned my judgeship, we rented out our home in southern California, and
headed to New Haven, Connecticut. I was in the divinity school though not yet a
member of any church.
Arriving in New Haven, we began searching for a home near
the campus. However, the Lord had other ideas. Try as we did, we could not find
the house we wanted near Yale. Looking back, I now know why. The Lord wanted us
in a very special ward about forty miles south of Yale, the New Canaan First
Ward.
Many miracles later we found ourselves attending our first
Sunday sacrament meeting in this ward. We were received as though we were
expected. We had not been inside the building longer than about five minutes
when we were introduced to the bishop and his counselors and invited to a
dinner party that week. But my attention was first captured by the radiant
spirituality of particularly the male members. I wondered: How could they live
their professional lives in the fastest fast lane of them all, New York City,
yet continue to radiate such a deep spirituality? What was it that caused the
tears to well up in their eyes as they testified that Christ lives and the
Church is true? I needed to find out.
But I didn’t particularly want to be a Mormon, I told my
friends. Since I was in the divinity school, I presumed the Lord wanted me in
the ministry. What would I do after graduating with an advanced degree in
religion if I became a Mormon? Yet I wanted to be the leaf in a stream that I
had promised the Lord I would be when we left California.
During the entire time that I was working through,
struggling with, and fighting the Joseph Smith story, my friends in the ward
were patient, loving, and gentle. Every time I would tell the bishop that
Joseph Smith’s story was more Disney than Disney, he would tell me, “Maybe
so—but it’s all true.” Every time I would tell the bishop’s counselor,
“Joseph’s story can’t be true,” he would say to me, “Yes, it is.” They genuinely
loved me, and I them.
For months I examined, cross-examined, reflected, pondered,
and prayed about the Joseph Smith story and the Book of Mormon. I found the
book complex, sophisticated, doctrinally profound, and beautiful. The more I
studied the text, the more profound and beautiful it became.
Much happened over the months. I told my friends and my
wife, who was an inactive Mormon and who was beginning to feel some interest in
the faith of her forebears, that I would not join the Church to please them, as
much as I loved them. I would join only when I had a testimony—when I could
say, as a direct witness, that I know Joseph Smith was a prophet, that the Book
of Mormon is gospel, and the Latter-day Saint church is His church.
In September of last year, the Lord blessed me with that
testimony. I now know, without any doubt or uncertainty, without even the
ability to conjure up an imaginary doubt, that in the premortal life the Lord
selected Joseph Smith as His prophet in the latter days, that the Book of
Mormon was preserved by Christ Himself and delivered to Joseph Smith for
translation, and that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is His
church.
I owe a great debt to the New Canaan First Ward and to my
dear wife. Their patience, their steadfast loyalty to the restored gospel, and
their love for me all combined together to affect me eternally.
I still am uncertain as to what the Lord has in mind for me
when I graduate from the Yale Divinity School, but I know this: my wife and I
will always continue to serve God, in His church, as leaves in a stream.
I say this in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Thank you, Brother Sheffield. I am convinced that there are
many, many thousands of men such as this good man who, with warmth and welcome,
can be led to the eternal truths of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. They
are looking for something better than they have. They must be friendshipped.
They must be fellowshipped. They must be made to feel comfortable and at home,
so they can observe in the lives of the members of the Church those virtues they
wish for themselves. God bless us, my beloved brethren, to become examples such
as influenced Brother Sheffield.
The world is our responsibility. We cannot evade it. I think
of the words of Jacob in the Book of Mormon, who with his brother Joseph had
been consecrated a priest and teacher unto the people:
“And we did magnify our office unto the Lord, taking upon us
the responsibility, answering the sins of the people upon our own heads if we
did not teach them the word of God with all diligence.” (Jacob 1:19.)
God bless you, my beloved brethren, young and old, to be
faithful to the great responsibility placed upon us to share with others this
most precious of all things, I humbly ask, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
