Prophets, Seers, and Revelators
What a blessing it is to live in a time when apostles and prophets are on the earth.
In 1947, my maternal grandparents, Sione Tufui and Salote Tongi Wolfgramm, were serving a full-time mission in Niuatoputapu, a small, isolated volcanic island in the Kingdom of Tonga in the South Pacific. My grandparents were poor farmers with no formal education. Grampa was 28, Gramma was 25, and with them were their three children: my mother, Potenitila (Ruby), age 4; Makeleta (Maggie), age 3; and 9-month-old Vilimanulea, at the time their only son.
With limited visas for Americans, Tongan couples like the Wolfgramms were routinely called to serve on neighboring islands or in villages as “senior” couple missionaries.
In June of that same year, Apostle Matthew Cowley, who was over the Pacific, was coming to Tonga. Only twice before had an Apostle visited our island kingdom: David O. McKay in 1921, followed by George Albert Smith in 1938.
For Saints scattered across the Pacific, having an Apostle of the Lord among them was the chance of a lifetime. Reaching the Apostle meant a long voyage for my grandparents across the largest body of water on the planet to the main island of Tongatapu, but first stopping midway on their home island of Vava‘u. The Pacific is known for its fickle weather patterns, and the week of their trip was no different.
The Wolfgramms sailed into a storm; a journey that should have taken 16 hours to Vava‘u stretched into two and a half brutal days at sea. From my Gramma’s journal, she wrote: “We were completely soaked, … battered, and sick, … too weak to eat. … I held Vilimanulea to my chest until finally arriving to Vava‘u.”
Yet their trial was not over. The storm left the baby severely dehydrated. With no medicine, the Wolfgramms’ precious son died of exposure. Within two days, they buried their baby in Vava‘u and continued their voyage.
For the Wolfgramms, burying their infant child was akin to the pioneers who buried their children on the trail to Zion. Like the early pioneers, they yearned to hear and be in the presence of an Apostle.
Grieving with empty arms, my grandparents got back on the boat, their mission not yet complete.
They were sailing toward an Apostle, who held priesthood keys, held the authority for the ordinances that would later seal them as an eternal family. They sailed to sit at the feet of an Apostle, who would teach them their duty so they could bless others on their island with the message of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ.
You see, my grandparents understood that the gospel restored by Joseph Smith revealed truths previously withheld from them. Joseph helped restore the Savior’s Church with prophets, seers, and revelators who held priesthood keys that would one day bind them together as a family forever.
My grandparents girded up their loins, fresh courage took (see “Come, Come, Ye Saints,” Hymns, no. 30), and sailed to be with Elder Matthew Cowley.
For centuries after the deaths of the ancient apostles and prophets until the boy Joseph knelt in the grove of trees near Palmyra, New York, there was no revelation to prophets. An Old Testament prophet called it a famine:
“Behold, the days come … that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord:
“And [people] shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it” (Amos 8:11–12).
That same Old Testament prophet, Amos, also declared, “Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets” (Amos 3:7).
The Savior foretold of false prophets who would decimate His ancient Church (see Matthew 7:15–23). The Apostle Paul also taught, “For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock” (Acts 20:29).
Reformers in the Middle Ages sought and yearned for prophetic voices but could not find them.
Even in modern times, there are people who thirst to hear prophetic direction and guidance.
The Lord gave Joseph Smith this counsel: “And all they who receive the oracles of God, let them beware how they hold them lest they are accounted as a light thing” (Doctrine and Covenants 90:5).
I suspect the Lord knew that even when we would have these devices (cell phones) to easily see and hear His anointed servants, many of us would still take them for granted.
In a general conference address over 20 years ago, President Jeffrey R. Holland asked: “Are the heavens open? Does God reveal His will to prophets and apostles as in days of old? That they are and that He does is the unflinching declaration of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to all the world. And in that declaration lies the significance of Joseph Smith, the Prophet, for nearly 200 years now” (“Prophets, Seers, and Revelators,” Liahona, Nov. 2004, 8).
Joseph described the moment the heavens opened this way: “When the light rested upon me I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other—This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!” (Joseph Smith—History 1:17).
With that clear, simple, and understated introduction, the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, would begin the work of restoring the Savior’s ancient Church through a then-teenage boy in upstate New York.
In the years that followed this momentous event, greater truths, priesthood authority, sacred ordinances, additional scriptures, and knowledge of God’s plan of salvation would all be restored or rediscovered through the Prophet Joseph Smith.
Perhaps you can appreciate why my beloved grandparents were so eager to be in the presence of one of the Lord’s anointed. Even in their despair and while mourning the tragic loss of their only son—their handsome, cheerful little boy—they solemnly buried him and made the Herculean effort to sail just to listen to an Apostle of the Lord.
What a blessing it is to live in a time when apostles and prophets are on the earth. As we begin this opening session of the 196th Semiannual General Conference of the Church, let us not be guilty of holding “the oracles of God … as a light thing” (Doctrine and Covenants 90:5).
It is interesting to note that when the Church was only about one and a half years old, some early Church leaders opposed the idea of publishing the Lord’s revelations through the Prophet Joseph that would eventually become the Doctrine and Covenants. Some of them were embarrassed by the young prophet’s poor writing skills.
Maybe that’s why the Savior declared, “What I the Lord have spoken, I have spoken, and I excuse not myself; and though the heavens and the earth pass away, my word shall not pass away, but shall all be fulfilled, whether by mine own voice or by the voice of my servants, it is the same” (Doctrine and Covenants 1:38; emphasis added).
How grateful I am for noble progenitors who left me and my posterity a legacy of faith and courage in the face of difficulties and obstacles.
I witness of the truths of the restored gospel and of living prophets, seers, and revelators in the sacred name of Jesus Christ, amen.