Chapter 35
We Cannot Fail
As 1950 dawned, the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union was intensifying. Under Soviet influence, new communist governments across central and eastern Europe were closing their borders and changing their social and economic ways of life. At the same time, several western European countries were aligning with the United States and Canada to defend themselves against possible attacks from communist countries. And a race to build and stockpile weapons had begun after the Soviet Union carried out its first successful nuclear weapons test, startling the world with the detonation of a bomb like those the United States had used against Japan in the war.1
In Czechoslovakia, mission leaders Wallace and Martha Toronto prepared for possible expulsion. The country’s communist government, which continued to keep a close eye on them and their missionaries, had recently passed a law restricting religious freedom and forbidding foreigners from serving as religious leaders in the nation. The number of Latter-day Saint missionaries forced out of the country had now grown to twelve, and it was only a matter of time before the regime expelled the rest.
Wallace wrote to the First Presidency about the crisis, and they advised him to send his family and most of the remaining missionaries out of Czechoslovakia. Yet President George Albert Smith and his counselors still hoped that Wallace and one or two elders serving as assistants might get permission to remain.
“You have been loyal and fearless,” the First Presidency told him. “For your divine guidance we shall continue to petition the Lord and rely upon His overruling power to protect and prosper His Church in that choice land.”2
On Monday, January 30, members of the Prostějov Branch informed Wallace that two missionaries serving in their city, Stanley Abbott and Aldon Johnson, had not shown up for Sunday School the previous day. At first the Saints assumed the missionaries had either missed their train or were delayed by heavy snow. But the branch members had since learned that the elders’ apartment had been searched and that the secret police had interrogated a local Latter-day Saint. Now everyone feared the worst.
Wallace contacted the American embassy and immediately left for Prostějov. Through diplomatic channels, he learned that the elders had been imprisoned for trying to visit a Church member in a labor camp.
As days turned to weeks, the Czechoslovak government refused to communicate directly with Wallace. Local police in Prostějov forbade the Saints from holding meetings in town, and some members of the branch were questioned and harassed. By February 20, Wallace had overseen the evacuation of eleven more missionaries, but no one from the mission had been allowed to visit or speak with Elder Abbott or Elder Johnson.
The imprisoned missionaries were kept separate from each other, with Elder Abbott held in solitary confinement. The prison gave the missionaries a chunk of black bread in the morning and a bowl of soup at night. They could not bathe or change their clothes. During interrogations, the secret police threatened to beat them with iron rods and imprison them for years if they did not confess to being spies.3
On February 24, Martha answered a telephone call from the American ambassador. The Czechoslovak government had relocated the imprisoned missionaries to Prague and was willing to release them if they promised to leave the country within two hours. Martha quickly booked two tickets on an airplane bound for Switzerland. She then contacted Wallace, and they agreed to meet at the airport, where the missionaries would be delivered.
At the airport, Wallace only had time to give the missionaries their tickets and some instructions. Martha, meanwhile, stood on an observation deck nearby. When she saw the police escort the two young men to a plane, she waved to them. The elders looked thin and unkempt, and she called out to ask if they were all right.
“Yes,” they replied, waving back. They then boarded the aircraft, and Martha watched as the plane disappeared into the bleak clouds hanging over the city.4
In the days that followed, Martha hurried to prepare for her family’s evacuation. She planned to travel alone with the six children, including an infant son, while Wallace remained in Czechoslovakia as long as the government allowed it.
The day before their departure, the family was eating lunch when men in leather jackets came to the mission home and demanded to speak with Wallace. Right away Martha knew they were the secret police. She was already sick and emotionally exhausted, and their presence only made her feel worse. After what had happened to the missionaries, and to many Czechoslovak citizens, she had no idea what the police might do to her husband.
“Martha, I have to go with these men,” Wallace said. He was sure they wanted to question him about the recently expelled missionaries. “In case I don’t come back,” he said, “take the children as planned tomorrow morning and get them home.”
The hours ticked by with no word from Wallace, and it seemed that Martha would have to leave without knowing what happened to her husband. Then, seven hours after the police had taken him away, Wallace returned home in time to take his family to the train.
At the station, a crowd of Church members gathered, carrying packages filled with fruit, baked goods, and sandwiches for Martha and the children. Some Saints handed the food through the windows of the train as it began to pull away. Others ran along the platform and threw kisses. Martha watched them, her eyes full of tears, until the train rounded a bend and they were out of sight.5
“President Mauss is coming to Nagoya. Can you go and meet him?”
The missionaries’ question surprised Toshiko Yanagida. She had been waiting to hear from the new president of the Japanese Mission ever since she wrote him about bringing a Japanese-language branch to her hometown of Nagoya. President Mauss had never written back, so she was unsure if he had received the letter.6
Toshiko agreed to go, and she and the missionaries met President Mauss at the railway station a short time later. As soon as he arrived, she asked him if he had read her letter. “I have,” he said. “That is why I came.” He wanted her to help him find a place to hold Church meetings in town. Toshiko was thrilled.7
They began their search at once. There were not many Saints in Nagoya—only the missionaries, Toshiko’s family, and a woman named Yoshie Adachi in a city of six hundred thousand people—so they did not need much space to meet. Yet President Mauss decided to rent a lecture hall in a large school in the city.
The Nagoya Saints held their first Sunday School meeting in January 1950. To attract more people, Toshiko and the missionaries placed flyers in a local newspaper. The next Sunday, 150 people showed up at the lecture hall. Latter-day Saint meetings often drew crowds in postwar Japan as many people sought hope and meaning after the trauma they had experienced.8 But for most, interest in the Church was temporary, especially as the country grew more economically stable. As fewer people felt a need to turn to faith, attendance at the meetings declined.9
For their part, Toshiko and her husband, Tokichi, struggled with aspects of being Latter-day Saints—especially paying tithing. Tokichi did not make much money, and sometimes they wondered if they had enough to pay for their son’s school lunch. They were also hoping to buy a house.
After one Church meeting, Toshiko asked a missionary about tithing. “Japanese people are very poor now after the war,” she said. “Tithing is so hard for us. Must we pay?”10
The elder replied that God commanded everyone to pay tithes, and he spoke of the blessings of obeying the principle. Toshiko was skeptical—and a little angry. “This is American thinking,” she told herself.
Other missionaries encouraged her to have faith. One sister missionary promised Toshiko that paying tithing could help her family reach their goal of owning their own house. Wanting to be obedient, Toshiko and Tokichi decided to pay their tithing and trust that blessings would come.11
Around this time, the sister missionaries began holding informal Relief Society meetings in their apartment for Toshiko and other women in the area. They shared gospel messages, discussed practical ways to care for their homes, and learned to cook inexpensive foods. Like Relief Societies in other parts of the world, they held bazaars, where they sold chocolate and other goods to raise money for their activities. About a year after the Nagoya Saints started holding meetings, a Relief Society was formally organized, with Toshiko as president.12
She and Tokichi also began to see blessings come from paying tithing. They purchased an affordable lot in the city and drew up blueprints for a house. They then applied for a home loan through a new government program, and once they received approval to build, they started work on a foundation.
The process went smoothly until a building inspector noticed that their lot was inaccessible to firefighters. “This land is not land that is suitable for building a house,” he told them. “You cannot proceed any further with the construction.”
Unsure what to do, Toshiko and Tokichi spoke to the missionaries. “The six of us will fast and pray for you,” an elder told them. “You do the same.”
For the next two days, the Yanagidas fasted and prayed with the missionaries. Another inspector then came out to reassess their lot. He had a reputation for being strict, and at first he gave the Yanagidas little hope of passing the inspection. But as he looked over the lot, he noticed a solution. In an emergency, the fire department could get to the property simply by removing a nearby fence. The Yanagidas could build their house after all.
“I guess you two must have done something exceptionally good in the past,” the inspector told them. “In all my years I have never been so accommodating.”
Toshiko and Tokichi were overjoyed. They had fasted and prayed and paid their tithing. And just as the sister missionary had promised, they would have a home of their own.13
In early 1951, David O. McKay was grappling with challenges facing the Church’s missionary program. During the past six months, he had watched from afar as another worldwide conflict erupted, this time in eastern Asia. Backed by China and the Soviet Union, communist North Korea was at war with South Korea. Fearing the spread of communism, the United States and other allies had sent troops to support the South Koreans in their fight.14
At the time, the Church had about five thousand full-time missionaries, nearly all of whom came from the United States, and hundreds of new missionaries were being called every month.15 But the war in Korea had created a new demand for soldiers, and the U.S. government was once again drafting young men nineteen to twenty-six years old—the very age group from which the Church drew most of its missionaries. After careful consideration, the First Presidency temporarily lowered the missionary age from twenty to nineteen, giving young men a chance to serve a mission before they faced the temptations found in military life, should they be drafted.16
As the counselor in the First Presidency who oversaw missionary work, President McKay soon faced pressure from many sides. He sometimes received letters from Saints who accused leaders of showing favoritism by recommending some young men for missions, thus allowing them to defer military service, while leaving others to be drafted. Local citizens and draft boards, meanwhile, accused the Church of neglecting its patriotic duty by continuing to call young men as missionaries.17
Church leaders did not see it that way. They had long encouraged Saints to answer the call of their country whenever it came.18 Still, after consulting with draft officials in Utah, the First Presidency made further changes to the existing policy. For the duration of the war, they decided, young men eligible for military service would no longer be called on full-time missions. Calls would be limited to unmarried women and older men, married couples, veterans, and young men ineligible for military service. The Church also called more senior couples to serve missions.19
That winter, while President McKay negotiated with draft board officials, President George Albert Smith’s health began to fail. President McKay visited the prophet on his birthday, April 4, and found him near death, surrounded by family. Full of emotion, President McKay blessed the prophet only hours before he passed away.20
Two days later, President McKay opened the first session of April 1951 general conference. Standing at the Tabernacle podium, he spoke of President Smith’s exemplary life. “His was a noble soul,” he told the congregation, “happiest when he could make others happy.”
Later in the conference, the Saints sustained David O. McKay as the president of the Church, with Stephen L Richards and J. Reuben Clark as his counselors. “No one can preside over this Church without first being in tune with the head of the Church, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ,” President McKay told the Saints as he closed the conference. “Without His divine guidance and constant inspiration, we cannot succeed. With His guidance, with His inspiration, we cannot fail.”21
As the new prophet looked to the future, he had decades of experience to guide him. Many people believed his tall, dignified bearing, piercing eyes, and white hair helped him look like a prophet. His sense of humor, love of people, and closeness to the Spirit also endeared him to men and women in and out of the Church. His years as a teacher and school principal were still evident in his personality. He was calm and decisive under pressure and an engaging speaker who often quoted poetry in his sermons. When he was not on Church assignments, he was usually working on his family farm in Huntsville, Utah.
Many matters weighed on President McKay’s mind as his presidency began. During his apostolic ministry, he had often spoken about the sacredness of marriage, family, and education, and his ongoing attention to these priorities helped him guide the Church down the right path. The end of the Second World War had brought about a “baby boom” in the United States as soldiers returned home, married, and settled into domestic life. With the help of government aid, many of these men had enrolled in universities to gain an education and receive vital career training. President McKay was eager to offer them support.22
He was also concerned about the horrors of the Korean War and the spread of communism in certain parts of the world. At the time, many government and religious leaders were speaking out against communism. Like them, President McKay believed communist regimes suppressed religion and curtailed liberty.
“The Church of Christ stands for the influence of love,” he declared shortly after general conference, “which is eventually the only power that will bring to mankind redemption and peace.”23
That spring, in Salt Lake City, Primary general president Adele Cannon Howells knew her health was giving out. She was only sixty-five years old, but a bout with rheumatic fever as a child had damaged her heart. Despite her condition, she refused to stop working.24
Her plan to commission a series of Book of Mormon paintings for the fiftieth anniversary of the Children’s Friend was finally moving forward. While not everyone thought hiring a professionally trained artist like Arnold Friberg was the best use of time or money, Adele believed the paintings would spark children’s interest in the Book of Mormon and be well worth the expense.25
Over the last two years, she had gained support from the Sunday School and convinced members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles that the paintings would be worthwhile. Adele and Sunday School officials put together a committee to oversee the project and forwarded some of Arnold’s sketches to President McKay and his counselors.26
In January 1951, Adele and a representative from the Sunday School met with the First Presidency to discuss the proposal.27 Both she and Arnold wanted to depict Book of Mormon stories that were full of spiritual power and compelling action, such as Helaman’s stripling warriors marching off to battle and Samuel the Lamanite prophesying of the Savior’s birth. Arnold did not want the paintings done in a childish style. He believed children needed to see the word of God as powerful and majestic. He wanted the Book of Mormon heroes to appear physically powerful, almost larger than life. “The muscularity in my paintings is only an expression of the spirit within,” he later explained.28
The First Presidency agreed with Adele that Arnold was the right artist for the job.29 The Sunday School and the Church-owned Deseret Book Company committed to pay two-thirds of the initial cost, and Adele covered the other third out of her own pocket.30 In the months that followed, she and Arnold made plans for the paintings as her health continued to deteriorate. Before long, she was confined to a bed.31
On the night of April 13, Adele arranged to sell some of her property to pay for the paintings.32 She also called Marion G. Romney, an assistant to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, to discuss the Book of Mormon and the children of the Church. She spoke about the paintings and her desire to have them finished in the coming year. She said she hoped all the children in the Church would begin reading the Book of Mormon early in life.
The following afternoon, Adele passed away. At her funeral, Elder Romney paid tribute to the creative and energetic woman who had given so freely to the Primary organization. “She greatly loved the Primary work,” he said. “Every person she touched felt the depth of her love for them individually.”33
A short time later, Arnold Friberg began his first Book of Mormon painting: The Brother of Jared Sees the Finger of the Lord.34
Near the city of Valence in southeast France, Jeanne Charrier went on a walk with her cousin. Nestled alongside the Rhône River, Valence was a beautiful place with a centuries-old Roman Catholic cathedral. While many of the people in the city were Catholic, Jeanne’s family members were among the few Protestants. Going back generations, they had risked their reputations and even their lives for their beliefs.35
Jeanne had grown up a devoted Christian, but more recently, during her university studies in mathematics and philosophy, she encountered ideas that led her to doubt her faith. She pondered the famous words of French philosopher René Descartes—“I think, therefore I am.” The insight only brought more questions. She thought, “I am where, how, and why?”
Some time before Jeanne’s hillside walk, her questions had led her to kneel and seek the Lord. “God,” she prayed, “if you exist, I’m waiting for an answer.”36
Jeanne and her cousin had not brought anything to drink on their walk and soon became thirsty. They saw a small group of people and decided to ask for some water. An older man and woman were glad to help, and they introduced themselves as Léon and Claire Fargier. They were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the two young men with them were missionaries. The group offered Jeanne and her cousin a pamphlet about the Church, and Léon invited them to an upcoming mission conference and a concert by a string quartet from Brigham Young University.37
Jeanne was curious and decided to attend. At the conference, someone gave her a Book of Mormon. Once she returned home and started reading it, she could not stop. “This is really something,” she thought.38
After that, Jeanne began to spend more time with the Fargiers. Léon and Claire had been married for thirteen years when they were baptized into the Church in 1932. Before the Second World War, Léon had served as a missionary and led Sunday meetings for the tiny group of Saints from Valence and Grenoble, a town over forty miles away.39 Once the war began and the American missionaries evacuated, Léon had overseen a much larger area. He traveled all over France, blessing the sick and administering the sacrament. Some days he managed to catch a train between towns, but most often he walked or rode his bicycle, sometimes for hours a day.40
When they met Jeanne, Léon and Claire were local missionaries in the Valence Branch. Struggling to rebuild after the war’s devastation, the small congregation met in a boardinghouse. Despite the humble circumstances, Jeanne was drawn to the meetings and eager to learn more about the gospel. She asked for more books and was given a copy of the Doctrine and Covenants. As she read the book, she could not deny the power of its words.
“This is true,” she concluded. “It is not possible otherwise.”41
Before long, Jeanne wanted to be baptized, but she worried about how her family would react. They were bitterly opposed to the Church, and she knew they would never support her choice. For a time, she felt torn between her faith and her family, and she put off committing to baptism. Then she remembered what Peter and the other New Testament apostles had said on the day of Pentecost: “We ought to obey God rather than men.”
Their words rang in her head, and she knew what she had to do. On a beautiful day in May 1951, she waded into a hot spring in the Cévennes mountains and was baptized by Léon Fargier. She wanted her parents to be there with her, but their hostility to the restored gospel was too strong, and she decided to keep the baptism a secret.42
Her family soon found out, however, and wanted nothing more to do with her. Jeanne took their rejection hard. She was young—only twenty-five years old—and she wondered if she might be better off moving to the United States and joining the Saints there.43 But the Fargiers implored her to stay. There were only nine hundred Saints in all of France, Belgium, and French-speaking Switzerland, and they needed her help to build up the Church in Valence.44
Eight hundred and fifty miles away, in Brno, Czechoslovakia, Terezie Vojkůvková opened a package from her friend Martha Toronto, who had arrived safely home in the United States. Inside, Terezie found clothes for her family, and she was immensely grateful. Her family was barely getting by ever since her husband, Otakar Vojkůvka, had lost his bookbinding business two years earlier. Communist officials had seized the company and arrested Otakar, who was a successful businessman and the president of the Brno Branch. After enduring six months in a labor camp, he now earned a pitiful wage as a factory worker.
Terezie wrote Martha to thank her for the package. “Rent is high, and the upkeep of our place costs a great deal,” she told her friend. “Sickness has taken its share of the income, and so there has been little left with which to clothe the family.”45
In the same letter, Terezie mentioned the new restrictions she and other Czechoslovak Saints endured under the communist government. A few weeks after Martha fled the country, her husband, Wallace, had been forced to follow her. Soon after that, the communist government ordered the acting mission president, a Czechoslovak Saint named Rudolf Kubiska, to dissolve the mission. Saints across the country were also ordered to stop holding public meetings.
Unsure how to respond to the government’s actions, some Saints wondered if they should allow the government to appoint Church leaders so they could continue holding meetings, as was happening in other denominations. The mission presidency, however, felt that such an arrangement was out of the question.
Terezie missed attending weekly Church meetings. “The Sundays are long and without spirit when we cannot share our feelings and testimonies with others,” she wrote Martha.
Still, she did not feel forsaken. As a member of the Communist Party, President Kubiska had political connections, which shielded the Czechoslovak Saints from the extreme harassment and persecution some other religious groups suffered. With some final instructions from President Toronto, he and his counselors had also quietly carried out a simple plan to continue worship services.46
They instructed the Saints how to worship at home. Every individual and family was to pray, study the scriptures, set aside tithes and offerings, and learn the gospel from whatever Church materials they had available, including recent issues of the Improvement Era that the Torontos had carefully censored to remove any criticism of communism. Once a month, small groups of Saints could gather at someone’s home to take the sacrament. When possible, priesthood quorums were to meet privately, and branch and mission leaders would try to visit the Saints.
As a precaution, the mission presidency did not write these instructions down but instead spread them by word of mouth. Going without public meetings helped many of the Czechoslovak Saints realize how precious their Church membership was. They grew spiritually, and, despite the risk, a few of them continued to share the gospel with their friends. Some people were even baptized amid the oppression.47
With the help of Saints in the United States, Terezie arranged for her parents’ temple work to be done. She wished that she and her family could go to the temple themselves and be sealed together. “The members of the Church in Zion, I dare venture to say, do not appreciate the great privilege they have to live so close to the temple of the Lord,” she wrote to Martha.
“Will there ever be the much-desired peace among men on the face of the earth?” she further reflected in the letter. “If we could only love one another—all of us—and if only war and hate could cease!”48