Chapter 6
Blessings Everywhere
In the spring of 1962, Young Women’s MIA board member Ruth Funk was drowning in work. The MIA’s annual conference was coming up, and she was coproducing a musical play for the event. The conference, which began in the 1890s, drew around twenty-five thousand youth leaders to Salt Lake City to receive counsel and training from general Church leaders. Ruth and the members of her committee wanted to put together a good show for the conference, and they were learning as they went.
As the first performance neared, Ruth was asked to attend a meeting about the focus of the Church. She did not know why she was invited, and she was not keen on going. As it was, she barely had time to see her husband, Marcus, and their four children.
Still, on the appointed night, Ruth hurried over to the meeting. There she found a room full of people, including some general Church leaders, discussing the basic goals of the Church. Reed Bradford, a sociology professor from Brigham Young University, conducted the meeting.
Ruth did not say anything at first. Near the end of the evening, though, Reed said, “Sister Funk, you haven’t expressed yourself.”
“Well, I have very strong feelings,” she replied. Like many people in the United States and elsewhere, Church members were growing more and more worried about divorce, juvenile delinquency, and other social concerns. “I feel that every stop should be pulled to emphasize the strength of the family,” she said.
The meeting ended, and Ruth returned to her other responsibilities. Later, after the MIA conference was over and the musical had a successful run, she received a phone call from apostle Marion G. Romney. “Ruth,” he said, “we are calling you to serve on the Correlation Committee.”
Ruth’s heart sank. “What in the world is correlation?” she asked.
She soon found out at an orientation meeting with Elder Harold B. Lee. The committee was chiefly responsible for aligning all Church curriculum with basic gospel principles. But with the Church spreading rapidly throughout the world, the program would also put new emphasis on priesthood, home, and family as central to the restored gospel of Jesus Christ.
Elder Lee described the committees overseeing the programs for adults, youth, and children. To her surprise, Ruth was called to the adult committee despite her years of experience working with youth. Like her, the other committee members—three women, five men—were juggling careers and family responsibilities. The youngest member was thirty-four-year-old Thomas S. Monson, who had just finished serving as president of the Canadian Mission with his wife, Frances.
As months passed, and the committee began researching the Church’s past lesson plans, everyone was encouraged to express their opinions freely as they discussed the future of Church curriculum. The committee had years of study and work ahead of it, but Ruth was eager to do whatever she could to help the Church move forward.
Elsewhere at Church headquarters, Henry D. Moyle—an apostle, businessman, and former head of the Church Welfare Program—was serving as President McKay’s newly called first counselor.
The prophet had originally called him to serve in the presidency with first counselor J. Reuben Clark after the death of Stephen L Richards in May 1959. Two years later, President Clark’s health began to decline, so President McKay had appointed apostle Hugh B. Brown to join them as a third counselor in the presidency. When President Clark passed away in October 1961, President McKay then designated President Moyle and President Brown to be his first and second counselors.
As first counselor in the First Presidency, President Moyle was involved in all aspects of the Church’s missionary program, a duty he relished. Around the world, many people were taking a great interest in Christianity, and President Moyle was responsible for making sure every mission reached them effectively. Under his supervision, baptisms increased over 300 percent worldwide, and the average missionary labored 221 hours a month—44 percent more than in 1960.
With his background in business, President Moyle could appreciate strong numbers and solid percentages. In missionary work, however, numbers alone meant little if conversions were short-lived. President Moyle wanted to ensure that people made enduring changes in their lives.
Like President McKay, he believed in the “Every Member a Missionary” approach to sharing the gospel. But he was troubled by the many problems arising from young people joining the Church simply to play on missionary baseball teams. And he was dismayed when missions emphasized quotas over genuine conversion. As he met with missionaries, he urged them to teach families and help converts feel welcome at Church. He reiterated that youth needed permission from their parents to be baptized.
Not long after the Correlation Committee was organized, President Moyle attended a meeting at which Elder Harold B. Lee proposed expanding the correlation program to include missionary work. The idea unsettled President Moyle. He had served many years with Elder Lee in the Church Welfare Program and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and he considered him a close friend. Even though he approved of other aspects of correlation, however, he did not agree with him on this point.
For as long as anyone could remember, missionary work had been directed by the First Presidency. They issued mission calls, appointed mission presidents, and corresponded directly with mission offices. Under Elder Lee’s proposal, however, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, rather than a counselor in the First Presidency, would lead the Church’s missionary committee. The presidency would receive written reports from apostles who visited the missions as well as verbal reports from returning mission presidents, but they would be relieved of most of the direct management over the missions.
On September 18, President Moyle discussed Elder Lee’s expanded correlation plan with President McKay. The present system was working well, he reasoned. “If this new plan is adopted,” he said, “it takes missionary work out of the hands of the First Presidency entirely.”
“It has been in our hands since the organization of the Church,” President McKay acknowledged. But with the Church growing so rapidly, the First Presidency would soon have to delegate more of its responsibilities. There were sixty-four missions and over ten thousand missionaries to care for—and these numbers would only grow. Already President Moyle and two assistants were spending many hours a week just on mission calls. They were also handling the seemingly endless correspondence with mission presidents over administrative matters like buying land for meetinghouses.
President McKay wanted the First Presidency to continue calling new mission presidents, just as they had always done. But he was open to the changes in Elder Lee’s proposal. He wanted to hear more about them.
A few months later, on January 11, 1963, the Deseret News ran an unexpected headline: “Church to Open Missionary Work in Nigeria.”
The announcement came just days after apostle N. Eldon Tanner and his wife, Sara, returned from West Africa. During the two-week trip, Elder Tanner had spoken with several Nigerian officials, met with hundreds of prospective Saints, and dedicated the land for the preaching of the restored gospel. Upon the Tanners’ return to Utah, President McKay called LaMar Williams and a few others to serve as missionaries in Nigeria as soon as they obtained travel visas.
Charles Agu, the leader of a group of prospective Saints in Aba, Nigeria, rejoiced at the news. His congregation had more than 150 people, and it was growing fast. When LaMar visited the country in 1961, Charles had befriended him and joined him on parts of his tour. He and his congregation understood the gospel well and had an abiding faith in the Restoration. Before LaMar returned to the United States, Charles had recorded a message for President McKay. “We believe that this Church has all the revelation and prophecy required by God to guide His people aright,” he testified. “We therefore will not refuse this Church because the priesthood is denied us.”
Since then, Charles and LaMar had exchanged many letters, and Charles could hardly wait for LaMar to return and officially establish the Church in West Africa. “To all of us here, this is a moment of great expectation,” he wrote LaMar in February 1963.
Because he could not hold the priesthood, Charles understood that he would not be able to serve as a branch president once the Church was established in Nigeria. During Elder Tanner’s visit, however, the apostle had explained that Charles and other Nigerian leaders would continue to guide their congregations as unordained district or group leaders. Nigerian Saints would also fill all callings that did not require priesthood ordination.
With each passing week, Charles expected to hear that LaMar was on his way to Nigeria. But in nearly every letter he sent, LaMar reported that he was waiting for the Nigerian government to approve his travel visa. No one could explain the delay.
Then, in March, Charles came across an article about the Church in a newspaper called the Nigerian Outlook. It told of a Nigerian college student who had visited a Latter-day Saint meeting in California. At the meeting, the man had been shocked to learn about the priesthood restriction and the justifications used to explain it.
“I do not believe in a God whose adherents preach the superiority of one race over the other,” the man wrote in his article. He believed it would damage the reputation of Nigeria to let the Church be established in the country.
Only a few years had passed since Nigeria gained its independence from Great Britain, and the article reflected widespread suspicion of outside influences on the country. Believing the article had something to do with the delayed visa, Charles sent it to LaMar. He thought the presence of an official representative from Church headquarters might help counteract the damage done by the article.
LaMar disagreed. Church leaders had proposed a mission in Nigeria because thousands of Nigerians had patiently and persistently sought out the restored gospel. If anyone was going to speak in defense of the Church in Nigeria, LaMar believed, it should be a Nigerian believer. “I am sure that through your prayers and inspiration you will do and say those things that will convince the government leaders of our sincerity,” he wrote.
Charles met with Dick Obot, another prospective Nigerian Saint, and together they placed an advertisement about the Church in the Nigerian Outlook. In it, they testified of the Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ through the prophet Joseph Smith, the role of modern-day revelation in establishing doctrine, and the Church’s concern for the spiritual and temporal well-being of all people.
Charles hoped the advertisement would help change minds and hearts about the Saints. Before he found the Church, he had smoked, drunk alcohol, and lived an undisciplined life. Now he was different.
“I have found joy in my life, progress in my occupation, and blessings everywhere,” he told LaMar.
In March 1963, four months after her baptism, thirteen-year-old Delia Rochon wanted to pay tithing. She was a member of a branch of about twenty people in Colonia Suiza, a city in southern Uruguay. She knew tithing was a commandment, and she was willing to do everything the Lord asked of her. Her only problem was that she had no income.
She went to her mother, who was not a member of the Church, for advice. Her mother suggested she find a way to make money.
An elderly neighbor agreed to pay Delia to bring him fresh water. Each day, Delia would take a glass container to a well near her house, fill it with about a gallon of water, and carry it to his house. After a few weeks of saving her earnings, she took a peso to Victor Solari, her branch president, for tithing.
“How much money did you make?” the president asked.
“Three pesos,” Delia replied.
“Well,” said President Solari, “tithing is 10 percent.” One peso—a third of what she made—was too much.
“But I want to give the money,” Delia said.
President Solari considered this. “Well,” he said, “do a fast offering.” He explained what fast offerings were and helped Delia fill out her first donation slip.
A short time later, President Solari asked to meet with Delia. She had never been called into his office before, so she was nervous. It was a small room with a metal desk and a few bookshelves lined with Church manuals. When she took a seat in a chair by the desk, her feet did not quite touch the floor.
President Solari got right to the point. The branch’s Primary president had just moved away for a teaching job in another area, and he wanted Delia to take her place.
In times past, missionaries had often led out in branch leadership. But Thomas Fyans, the president of the Uruguayan Mission, was a firm believer in releasing North American missionaries from leadership positions and calling local Saints instead. Doing so had become a priority for South American missions since Elder Kimball’s tour of the continent in 1959. Giving more local opportunities to local Saints—even Saints who were only thirteen years old—was seen as a vital step toward establishing stakes in South America.
Delia had never been to Primary as a child. She did not really know what a Primary president did. Still, she accepted the calling, and it felt good.
But she worried about how her parents would react to the news. They were divorced, and neither of them was a member of the Church. Her father’s family were devout Protestants and disapproved of her membership in the Church. Her Catholic mother was more accepting of her beliefs, but she would be concerned about the calling interfering with her responsibilities at home and school.
“I will talk with your mother,” President Solari said.
It took some convincing, but the branch president and Delia reached an agreement with her mother: Delia would do her chores early on Saturday, the day Primary was held in her branch, and then be allowed to do whatever she needed to fulfill her Church duties.
After being set apart, Delia got to work in her new calling. Since her branch was so small, she alone was responsible for leading and teaching the Primary children. For training, President Solari gave her a thick Primary manual and two typed sheets of instructions.
“If you have questions,” he said, “pray!”
Before preparing her first lesson, Delia read the instructions. She then opened the Primary manual, rested her hands on the pages, and bowed her head.
“Heavenly Father,” she said, “I need to teach this lesson to the children, and I do not know how. Please, help me.”
Around this same time, eighteen-year-old Suzie Towse boarded a train bound for London. It had been almost two years since her baptism in the Beverley Branch, and now she was on her way to serve a mission as a secretary in the Church Building Department’s office in the United Kingdom.
Her parents were not pleased that she was leaving home. In fact, her mother, who had joined the Church not long after Suzie, had hard feelings against the Church after a missionary offended her. But that did not deter Suzie. Serving a mission had been her goal since joining the Church.
Geoff Dunning, a young man from her branch, saw her off at the station. He had joined the Church about a year earlier, and they had become friends while serving together on the branch’s fellowshipping committee. Geoff’s strong testimony and work ethic had caught the attention of local Church leaders, and he had already served in a variety of callings.
As she traveled south, Suzie looked forward to serving in the Building Department. The Church had begun its labor missionary program in Europe in July 1960. Mission presidents soon began calling hundreds of local Saints, including some young men who had remained active after joining the Church through mission baseball teams, to serve as “building missionaries.” Now the British Saints could look forward to meeting in roomy new chapels instead of cramped rented halls. In fact, Suzie and Geoff had already spent many evenings and Saturdays helping the building missionaries work on a chapel in Beverley.
Suzie received her call to serve from Grant Thorn, the president of the newly organized Northeast British Mission. The minimum age for young women called on proselytizing missions was twenty-one, but building missionaries could be called at a younger age. Since Suzie had worked as a secretary at an accounting firm, she knew how to complete a variety of office tasks. When the Building Department interviewed her about her secretarial work experience, she passed with “flying colours.”
In London, Suzie moved into an apartment with two other sister missionaries. They began each morning in the office with a prayer, a hymn, and a scripture. The rest of their time was spent typing letters, taking minutes at meetings, transcribing shorthand notes, and attending and keeping records of chapel dedications.
Among the chapels under construction was a meetinghouse in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, the birthplace of President McKay’s mother. Its groundbreaking happened in March 1961, and the project gained momentum in January 1963, when the prophet decided to dedicate the building personally. Over the next eight months, missionaries and Saints consecrated more than thirty thousand hours to build the chapel, completing it on August 23.
Two days later, Suzie and thirteen hundred other people came to the new meetinghouse for the dedication. As soon as she saw President McKay, a feeling of peace and love filled her soul. She knew at once that she was in the presence of God’s prophet.
A few months after the dedication, Suzie received an emotional letter from her mother. “If you do not come home now,” her mother wrote, “you need never return.”
Suzie did not want to upset her parents, but she also did not want to leave her mission. “Sometimes it is hard to know what to do when your parents advise you one thing and the Church teaches another,” she confided in a letter to Geoff. “I feel so mixed up and worried.”
Before long, she told President Thorn about her dilemma. “Stay and finish your mission,” he advised. “The Lord will prepare a way.”
Suzie took his counsel to heart. “My parents will understand someday,” she told Geoff. “I know I wouldn’t be away from home if it was not the Lord’s work.”
When Elder Harold B. Lee and his committee presented their final plan for priesthood correlation to the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in early 1963, President McKay readily approved it. “The whole thing is glorious,” he said.
The plan encompassed the entire Church program, a significant expansion of the committee’s original mandate to correlate curriculum. Church organizations would no longer be publishing lessons or issuing policies without guidance from general authorities. The new system divided Church governance into four areas—welfare, genealogy and temple, home teaching, and missionary. Each of these areas was to be overseen by a committee of about twenty-five members, led by either an apostle or the presiding bishop.
When Elder Lee had spoken about the correlation program at general conference in April, he explained that the home was the foundation of a righteous life and that the organizations of the Church existed under the authority of the priesthood to aid and support it. “It is upon these fundamentals,” he said, “that we have been guided in our correlation studies of the curricula and activities of all the priesthood and the auxiliary organizations.”
President Moyle and President Brown had faith in President McKay’s calling as God’s prophet. Yet, despite his approval of the program, they had reservations about some of its features. After counseling with Elder Lee, President Brown dropped his concerns, and President Moyle accepted most of the plan. But he continued to question whether they should shift oversight of the missions from the First Presidency to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.
Elder Lee and President Moyle had been close associates for years. When President Moyle had been called into the First Presidency, Elder Lee could hardly contain his joy. “It seemed to me almost too good to be true,” he had written in his journal. Later, when Elder Lee’s wife, Fern, died, President Moyle had comforted him and spoken at her funeral. Now, Elder Lee longed to have his friend’s wholehearted support for correlation.
As the Church prepared to roll out the new program, Elder Lee began courting Joan Jensen, a schoolteacher who was around his age and had never been married. After deciding to marry, they asked President McKay if he would perform the ceremony, and the prophet gladly consented.
The day before the wedding, Elder Lee asked Marion G. Romney, who was also close friends with President Moyle, to serve as one of the witnesses. As the two men visited, President Moyle walked up and asked if he could attend the ceremony as well. In a moment, the distance between the two men slipped away, and their differences over correlation no longer mattered.
“Would you like to be a witness?” Elder Lee asked.
President Moyle became emotional. “Would you permit me to?”
“If President McKay would perform our marriage and you two would be witnesses,” Elder Lee said, “it would be perfect.”
The next morning, President McKay sealed Harold and Joan as husband and wife in the Salt Lake Temple. Elder Romney and President Moyle served as witnesses to the sacred ordinance.
A few months later, in September, President Moyle flew to Florida, in the southeastern United States, to inspect a 300,000-acre cattle ranch the Church owned and operated to help fund its program to care for the poor.
Elder Lee, meanwhile, was in Hawaii presiding at a stake conference. Early one morning, a telephone call from Utah jarred him awake. It was President Brown calling to inform him that President Moyle had passed away in his sleep at the Florida ranch. Shocked, Elder Lee boarded a flight home later that morning.
Three days later, at President Moyle’s funeral, Elder Lee stood at the pulpit of the Salt Lake Tabernacle and spoke about the friendship he and Marion G. Romney shared with Henry D. Moyle.
“We were strong-willed, stubborn men, the three of us,” he said. “But I think no three men ever had greater respect for each other than we had each for the other.”