Chapter 5
No Power on Earth
Throughout 1960, Henry Burkhardt struggled to keep the Church from unraveling in the German Democratic Republic. The GDR had barred all foreign missionaries from serving within its borders, so the East German Saints had assumed full responsibility for proselytizing in their country. Since missionaries were restricted from going door to door, however, their reach was limited. In October, the government forbade full-time missionaries from serving in cities where the Church did not already have sizable congregations. It also put an end to almost all Relief Society, MIA, and Primary activities, arguing that the government alone was responsible for providing its citizens with recreation.
One official told the Saints that the government didn’t like them for this reason. “You have everything you need in the Church.”
Before long, the Church in the GDR was a shadow of what it once was. Rather than endure under these conditions, many East German Saints fled the country in search of greater religious freedom and economic opportunity in West Germany. And the Saints were not the only ones. Droves of people were leaving the GDR, often crossing at the border between East and West Berlin.
This mass migration was an embarrassment to the East German government and its Soviet allies. Many people, including Henry, believed it was only a matter of time before the government closed all access to West Berlin. With mission headquarters on the west side of the city, Henry feared that such a drastic step would cut the East German Saints off from the rest of the Church.
On December 18, Alvin R. Dyer, the president of the European Mission and an Assistant to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, came to the GDR to speak with Henry and other local Church leaders about the well-being of the Saints under their care.
The East German leaders presented a bleak picture. The government had placed severe restrictions on importing recently published books or other printed materials. These restrictions made it practically impossible for the Saints to receive new Church magazines, lesson manuals, or hymnbooks without smuggling them in from the West. Branch attendance was in decline. Meetinghouses were functional, but some were in disrepair. And now that youth meetings had stopped, state-sponsored programs were steering many young people away from religion. Henry explained that branches sometimes held youth activities in secret, but everyone in the meeting agreed that doing so was dangerous.
The value of East German currency was also dropping, and the government’s welfare programs were woefully inadequate. Many Saints were too poor to afford food and fuel, so they either used funds from the Church’s welfare account to purchase coal and potatoes or simply went without.
After the meeting, President Dyer spoke privately with Henry to express concern about the state of missionary work in the GDR. It wasn’t just that the East German government had greatly restricted where and how missionaries could serve. The government expected all able-bodied men to be gainfully employed, and full-time missionary service could be seen as harmful to the East German economy. The fact that most missionaries depended on financial support from local branches or from Saints in West Germany was also a problem. To President Dyer, it seemed too much like a paid ministry. For these reasons, he asked Henry to release all full-time missionaries serving in the GDR.
At first, Henry was reluctant to comply with this request. The missionaries were no longer sharing the gospel door-to-door, so the Church was not causing any trouble for the government. And some Church branches still depended on missionaries for priesthood leadership. If the missionaries were released, the branches could fall apart. Yet Henry respected President Dyer and followed the counsel, despite his reservations.
A few months later, young West and East German Saints met in West Berlin for an MIA conference. Everyone knew the border could be closed at any time, and there was anxiety in the air. Yet time and time again, the young Saints expressed a common theme as they bore their testimonies: They did not know what the future held, but even if they never had the opportunity to meet together again, they knew the gospel would be true on both sides of the political divide.
And they would remain firm in their faith.
The spread of authoritarian governments throughout central and eastern Europe and in other parts of the world greatly alarmed President McKay. For more than a decade now, he had watched such governments gain power, promote atheism, and undermine religious belief in places like eastern Germany and Czechoslovakia, where the Church had once thrived.
The fervent devotion of the Saints gave him hope, however. The United States and western Europe were experiencing great prosperity, and some people feared that society was becoming more concerned with wealth and status than with God. President McKay did not think this was true of Church members. As he met with Saints around the world, he admired their selflessness. “I doubt that there has ever been a time when the membership of the Church have had greater spirituality—more willingness to give and to serve,” he told a reporter in January 1961.
He was particularly moved by the Saints’ generosity in paying tithes and offerings. In past generations, funding the work of the Lord had often been a challenge for the Church. The contributions of the Saints, combined with a reliance on volunteer service and revenue from various business interests, allowed the Church to continue financing its many endeavors, including educational, welfare, missionary, and building programs.
Although the building program was especially costly, President McKay believed the expense was vital to the growing Church. “The purpose of these buildings,” he declared, “is not accomplished when the walls are built, the roof securely placed, the tower completed, and the dedicatory prayer offered. They are built for the edification of the soul.”
New chapels around the world served as important gathering places where Saints could worship God and fellowship one another. In Denton, Texas, a small city in the southern United States, two dozen Church members started meeting in 1959 in the home of John and Margaret Porter. When the group outgrew the Porter home, they met in a vacant two-story building with a leaky roof. By 1961, the group had become a branch with enough active members to apply to the Church Building Committee for permission to construct a meetinghouse.
At the time, Church members living in missions were expected to donate 30 percent of the cost of new meetinghouses. In stakes, the expectation was 50 percent. To encourage the Saints in Denton to contribute to the chapel, stake president Ervin Atkerson matched the first $1,000 donated to the fund with his own money. With approval from the Church, John Porter then personally purchased a three-acre lot, sold one acre to a restaurant, and donated the other two acres for the building.
Congregations that built meetinghouses in the early 1960s had several Church-approved architectural plans to choose from. Some plans allowed for meetinghouses to be built over time, in two or three phases, depending on the size and growth of the ward or branch. The first phase of a building consisted of classrooms and a large multipurpose room that could be used as a chapel. The second phase added a large chapel and Primary room, and the third phase included a cultural hall, kitchen, and more rooms. With their branch growing rapidly, the Saints in Denton opted to build a meetinghouse based on a plan that combined the first two phases. While a Church-employed construction supervisor managed the project, the Denton Saints provided most of the labor.
One branch member, Riley Swanson, was a cabinetmaker who did beautiful woodwork for the chapel. Riley was a local convert who had given up smoking to join the Church. When construction began, he started working nights so he could spend his days working on the chapel as a full-time volunteer.
With meetinghouses going up around the world, the Church also planned to construct a large office building in Salt Lake City to provide work space for general Church leaders and Church employees. And plans were underway for a new visitors’ center on Temple Square, a vault to store genealogical records deep in the mountains near Salt Lake City, and a new temple in Oakland, California.
President McKay also found hope in the youth of the Church and their desire to share the gospel. In 1959, he had invited every Church member to find, teach, and fellowship new members and potential converts. Since then, missionary work had accelerated, especially in Great Britain, where the new temple had indeed brought about a “new era” of the Church. Convert baptisms in the British Mission began to increase dramatically, particularly among young people, leading the Church to create the North British Mission and the Manchester Stake in March 1960. One year later, President McKay returned once more to England to organize the London Stake and dedicate a beautiful new chapel near Hyde Park in the heart of London.
While in Great Britain, President McKay reiterated his invitation for every member to participate in missionary work. “If every member will carry that responsibility,” he reminded missionaries in the North British Mission, “no power on earth can stop this Church from growing.”
A few months after President McKay returned from Great Britain, the First Presidency received a memo from LaMar Williams about the dozens of letters he had received from people in Nigeria. “If the gospel is to be preached to this vast number of people, who are certainly the children of God,” LaMar wrote, “it seems to me that this is an opportune time to investigate a beginning of the work.”
President McKay was already aware of the Nigerians’ interest in the restored gospel. The previous year, he had asked Glen Fisher, a mission president returning from South Africa, to visit Nigeria. Glen had made a favorable report of the country’s readiness for missionary work, giving President McKay much to consider by the time LaMar’s memo arrived.
On July 1, 1961, President McKay addressed the matter at a meeting of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Knowing the Church’s priesthood restriction would present serious challenges for missionary work in Nigeria, he likened the situation to the dilemma facing the ancient apostles when questions arose about extending the gospel to the Gentiles. Those apostles had not acted until after Peter received a revelation from God.
President McKay had sought guidance from the Lord on the priesthood restriction, but he had received no clear answer. For now, he did not intend to open a mission in Nigeria until he too knew the will of the Lord.
Still, he believed LaMar was right. The Church needed more information, and he proposed sending Church representatives to Nigeria to observe the faith of the Nigerians. After discussing the matter, the apostles gave their support to the prophet’s proposal.
Around this time, sixteen-year-old Suzie Towse had a routine. Every day, when she finished her after-school newspaper route, she would go home and ask her father for permission to join The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She had been interested in the Church for about a year. A friend had invited her to a youth activity at the local branch in Beverley, England, and Suzie soon came to love the restored gospel. But her Catholic and Methodist parents thought her desire to join the Church was only a phase, and they refused to consent to her baptism.
Still, Suzie was determined to be a Latter-day Saint. She was among the thousands of people in the British Isles who were drawn to the Church at that time. Like Suzie, many of them had learned about the Church through a new mission referral program, which encouraged the Saints to invite friends and family to Church meetings and place them in contact with missionaries. In fact, at the time Suzie’s friend introduced her to the Church, more than 85 percent of recent baptisms in the British Mission had come from referrals.
Since learning about the Church, Suzie had faced significant opposition. After receiving a copy of the Book of Mormon, she had taken it to her Catholic priest to get his permission to read it. He was normally a kindly man, but when she showed him the book, his whole demeanor had changed. He said the Book of Mormon was of the devil and accused her of contaminating his house with heresy. He then snatched the book out of her hand and pitched it at the fireplace. The book missed the flames, and Suzie managed to retrieve it before the priest forced her out the front door.
“Well, there is no turning back now,” she had said afterward.
She soon became a regular presence at Beverley Branch meetings. After worshipping for years in an ornate Catholic chapel, Suzie found it odd at first to worship with a handful of people in a hotel room with bare floorboards and hard, wooden chairs. But after attending her first sacrament meeting, she had felt a warm confirmation that the words she heard there were true. The Spirit bore profound witness to her that she must return.
She felt a similar spirit at MIA meetings, which were far more crowded. Some of the youth, like Suzie, had been referred to the Church by friends. Others were young men who had found the Church by playing baseball with the missionaries. For decades, missionaries had used sports to meet young people and introduce them and their parents to the Church. Lately, baseball had become especially popular in the British missions, and many young men had joined the Church so they could play on missionary-run teams. Since mission leaders at the time often recognized and rewarded missionaries who baptized more than others, some missionaries focused their efforts on young people, who were usually much more willing to be baptized than adults.
Although these young converts generally received some gospel lessons before their baptisms, they were often more interested in being part of a sports team than in attending Church. In most cases, their baptisms had not led to other family members joining the Church, so the Beverley Branch and most other branches in the British Isles had dozens of youth who were Church members in name only.
Week after week, though, Suzie attended Church meetings and talked to her parents about baptism. One day, after arriving home from her newspaper route, she found her father with his feet sticking out from underneath a car he was repairing. “Dad,” she said, “can I be baptized?”
“Yes, you can, lass,” he said, still under the car. “If it means that much to you, you can.”
Suzie was stunned. “Did you really mean that, Dad?” she asked. “Do you want to say that again?”
Yes, he repeated. If she wanted to, she could get baptized.
“Thank you,” she cried. “Thank you.” She immediately rode her bicycle to the missionaries’ apartment and gave them the good news. Neither of them was shocked that her father changed his mind.
“Why aren’t you surprised?” she asked. “I was.”
“We knew he would,” they explained. “We have been fasting for you.”
In the early morning hours of August 13, 1961, the German Democratic Republic set up barricades around the perimeter of West Berlin. Tanks lumbered into position at border crossings, and soldiers installed machine guns in the windows of nearby buildings. At the Brandenburg Gate, a historic monument in the center of the city, large crowds gathered in anger and confusion. The following day, workers jackhammered the streets in front of the monument and began constructing a long makeshift wall of concrete blocks and barbed wire behind a line of armed guards.
After months of rumors, the East German government had finally closed the border between East and West Berlin.
The rapid rise of the wall unsettled Henry Burkhardt. As he feared, the closed borders cut off communication with the West. He could not make a telephone call, send a telegram, or mail a letter to the mission office. If he tried to cross the border, as he had been free to do the day before, guards would stop him—maybe even kill him.
“How can the work continue?” he wondered. Although the districts and branches in the GDR already functioned under local leaders, and member missionaries had largely taken the place of full-time missionaries, Henry had always depended on at least some contact with the Berlin Mission headquarters in West Berlin. What would happen now that the wall created a very real barrier between them?
Henry had his answer at the end of August. While the GDR had prohibited its citizens from traveling outside the country, it allowed West German residents with special permits to travel within its borders. On August 27, Berlin Mission president Percy K. Fetzer and one of his counselors, David Owens, met with Henry and other Saints in East Berlin. Before entering the country, the two men emptied their car and pockets of any unnecessary items. They found a line of police and soldiers at the checkpoint, holding back a mass of thousands of people. Once the soldiers parted the crowd, President Fetzer inched forward, driving through a maze of obstructions until he reached the entrance to the city.
Henry and the Saints were overjoyed to see the mission president. The visit was brief, but President Fetzer and other Church leaders made similar visits in the months that followed. They acted cautiously, aware that their presence in East Berlin could put them and the Saints in danger. Fortunately, the new restrictions did not seem to shake the resolve of the East German Saints. Attendance at sacrament meeting increased, and many people bore firm testimony that the gospel was true.
At a conference of local leaders, Henry acknowledged that the circumstances were not ideal for Saints in the GDR. “The work of the Lord must not suffer as a result of conditions imposed by man,” he reminded the leaders. “It will more or less depend on us, and how we carry out our callings, whether the work of God will continue to go forward with success in this country.”
A few weeks before the October 1961 general conference, President David O. McKay invited Elder Harold B. Lee into his office in Salt Lake City. The prophet had awakened at six thirty that morning with a clear impression that the upcoming priesthood session should introduce a new program designed to unify Church curriculum.
Since the late nineteenth century, each of the Church organizations—Sunday School, Primary, Young Men’s and Young Women’s MIA, Relief Society, and priesthood quorums—had written its own weekly lessons, independent of one another. Beginning in the early 1900s, Church leaders had sought ways to correlate the weekly lessons and activities of the organizations and quorums of the Church by emphasizing essential doctrine and doing away with any repetitious or overlapping lessons. But these efforts had been sporadic and short-lived.
President McKay, who had taken part in some of the early correlation efforts, believed it was time to try again. More than a third of the Church had become members in the past ten years, and the current curriculum did not always meet the needs of the new Saints. The prophet was especially concerned about lessons that presented incorrect ideas or strayed too far from basic gospel teachings. He wanted a uniform curriculum grounded in the fundamental principles of the gospel.
“The only program which is valid in our thinking,” he declared, “is that which is intended to save souls.”
Elder Lee had been studying the matter with a small committee for more than a year. He too wanted teaching in the Church to place more emphasis on saving doctrine. And lately he had been troubled to learn that Church-published training materials had gone out to local congregations before the apostles had seen them. He wanted the new program to ensure that lessons and handbooks received adequate review before they reached the Saints. Better coordination among Church organizations, he believed, would eliminate confusion.
Working together, the committee had proposed to have Church curriculum written under a new organizing principle. Instead of each general organization writing its own lesson material independently, curriculum would be supervised by three committees: one for children, another for youth, and another for adults.
Representatives of the various organizations of the Church, both women and men, would help develop a curriculum focused on a few core, saving principles. The Quorum of the Twelve Apostles would supervise their work, and an All-Church Coordinating Council led by four apostles would oversee the activities of the three committees.
By organizing the curriculum according to age group, the committees could avoid unnecessary duplication in lessons. And developing the lessons with general authorities allowed the curriculum to benefit from their experience visiting members in congregations around the world.
Once the committee drew up its proposal, the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve reviewed and approved it, just in time for Elder Lee to introduce the new program to the Saints at the priesthood session of the October general conference.
“In the adoption of such a program,” Elder Lee declared, “we may possibly and hopefully look forward to the consolidation and simplification of Church curricula, Church publications, Church buildings, Church meetings, and many other important aspects of the Lord’s work.”
Elder Lee was certain that President McKay’s move to begin correlating the Church’s curriculum was inspired. “If we will just keep our eye on the president of this Church,” he testified, “we will see him moving to do the thing that will be for the salvation of the children of men in the most effective way possible.”
Shortly after general conference, LaMar Williams boarded a flight for Nigeria. In his luggage, LaMar had packed a camera and tape recorder so he could later share with the First Presidency the faces and voices of the people he met. His companion for the trip was a twenty-year-old missionary named Marvin Jones, who was on his way to the South African Mission.
Their destination was Port Harcourt, a city on the Nigerian coast, where a crowd—nearly all of the people who had exchanged letters with LaMar—awaited them. Missing from the crowd, though, was Honesty John Ekong, whose letters had first turned LaMar’s attention to Africa.
As he greeted his friends, LaMar was surprised to learn that they did not all know each other. He thought they had been working together. Among the group was a man named Matthew Udo-Ete, who had written the most letters to LaMar. He took LaMar and Marvin to his small home, where a crowd of people had gathered to hear them speak. The air was hotter and more humid than anything LaMar was used to, but for the next two hours he taught the people and answered their questions about the Church.
On his first Sunday in Nigeria, LaMar addressed another large crowd in Matthew’s chapel. People had come many miles to hear him speak. He taught them about the Godhead, the Apostasy, and the Restoration of the gospel through Joseph Smith. He explained the priesthood restriction and said that he had come to Nigeria to find out if his friends would still be interested in the Church even if they could not hold the priesthood.
When he finished speaking, he turned the time back to Matthew to close the meeting. Suddenly, people in the congregation began speaking in a language LaMar couldn’t understand. LaMar looked to Matthew for a translation.
“We have people here who want to bear their testimony,” Matthew said.
LaMar was surprised. He expected the people to be tired and perhaps hungry. Instead, for the next three hours people shared their testimonies.
Among them was an old man with graying hair, a white shirt, and rose-colored fabric wrapped around his legs. His feet were bare. “I am sixty-five years of age,” he said, “and I am sick. I’ve walked sixteen miles to be here this morning.”
“I haven’t seen President McKay, and I haven’t seen God,” he continued. “But I have seen you, and I’m going to hold you personally accountable to go back to President McKay and tell him that we are sincere.”
One woman in the congregation simply asked LaMar, “Will you allow this love we have for the Church to be in vain?”
A little over a week later, in the town of Uyo, LaMar finally met Honesty John Ekong. He learned that his friend had traveled more than one hundred miles to meet him at the airport but had somehow missed him. Honesty John showed LaMar the walls of his home. They were decorated with articles and photographs of general authorities from Church magazines.
Again and again, LaMar was impressed with the faith of the Nigerians. He learned that around five thousand people in nearly one hundred congregations wanted to join the Church. Yet he could see no way forward in Nigeria as long as the priesthood and temple restrictions were in place. He wanted to give his new friends assurances about the future of missionary work in their country, but he knew he was not authorized to do so.
“They insist that if I do my part when I report to the First Presidency, the Church will come to Nigeria,” he wrote in his journal. “They do not realize how insignificant I am in the final analysis of such a decision.”
But he had hope. “Thank goodness all things are possible with the Lord’s help,” he wrote.