Chapter 27
The Hand of Friendship
After President Hinckley left Hong Kong without selecting a temple site, the Asia Area presidency had assigned Tak Chung “Stanley” Wan, the Church’s manager of temporal affairs in Asia, to create a new list of potential sites for the building. Stanley and his team soon began their search, and when President Hinckley returned to Hong Kong in late July 1992, they were confident that the location for a house of the Lord was somewhere on their list.
Stanley loved the temple and yearned to have one close to home. His parents were refugees from mainland China. His father had joined the Church soon after missionaries returned to Hong Kong in 1955. His mother, a Buddhist, was baptized a few years later. Although they could not afford the trip to the nearest temple, Stanley was able to receive his endowment at the Hawaii Temple in 1975, just prior to his full-time mission. Five years later, he took his parents to Hawaii for their own temple blessings. The trip exhausted his savings, but he believed it was worth the sacrifice.
Six months after taking his parents to the house of the Lord, Stanley had married Ka Wah “Kathleen” Ng, another Hong Kong Saint. In Chinese culture, couples held a nine-course wedding feast for family and friends. Stanley and Kathleen, however, had decided to forgo the custom and spent all their money on a temple trip. They were sealed for time and eternity in the Salt Lake Temple. And since then, the couple had made it a goal to go to the temple at least once a year, despite the high cost.
For Stanley, knowing the Church now wanted to build a temple in Hong Kong was a dream come true. Local Saints would no longer need to travel long distances or empty their savings to take part in the sacred ordinances. First, however, the Church needed a suitable tract of land.
On July 26, 1992, Stanley spent the morning driving President Hinckley to potential sites, but each one was too expensive, too small, or too remote. Stanley and the area presidency were sure the next site—located at Tseung Kwan O—was perfect. It was away from the bustle of the big city and surrounded by beautiful landscape. The Hong Kong government would even sell the site to the Church at a reduced price. Surely President Hinckley would approve of it.
It was sunny when the group arrived at Tseung Kwan O. The driver offered to hold an umbrella for President Hinckley to shield him from the sun as he inspected the site. President Hinckley declined. “I want to pray by myself,” he said.
Stanley and the others waited beside their cars as President Hinckley walked to the site, looked over the land, and prayed about it. He then returned to the group. “This is not the place,” he said.
“If this is not the place,” Stanley wondered, “then where?” He felt all their work had been in vain—that a house of the Lord in Hong Kong would continue to be a dream.
Later that morning, Kathleen Wan was at home when the telephone rang. It was Stanley. He was still traveling around Hong Kong with President Hinckley. But he asked Kathleen to meet him at the apartment of Monte J. Brough, the president of the Asia Area. President Hinckley had invited her to join them there for lunch that afternoon.
When Kathleen arrived at the Broughs’ apartment, Stanley and the other guests were on their way, so she helped Lanette, Elder Brough’s wife, set out a meal of cold cuts, bread, cheese, salad, fruit, ice cream, pumpkin bread, and coconut biscuits. Everything looked delicious.
Before long, Stanley came through the door with President Hinckley, Elder Brough, and a few others. As they took seats at the dining table, President Hinckley sat across from Kathleen. She had seen him several times at public meetings, and she admired his sense of humor and the way he made people feel comfortable, including her. But until now, she had never spoken to him personally. He asked about her three children, and she told him how they were doing.
The temple site, however, was still on everyone’s mind. Their search had not gone well, but President Hinckley was not concerned. As they ate, he told them about a sacred experience he’d had around four o’clock that morning.
He had just woken up from a deep sleep, and he found his mind troubled by thoughts of the temple site. He knew he had traveled a long way at great expense to select the site, and he did not have much time—a little more than a day—to make a decision. As he mulled over the problem, he had begun to worry.
But then the voice of the Spirit had spoken to him. “Why are you worried about this?” it had said. “You have a wonderful piece of property where the mission home and the small chapel stand.”
Kathleen and Stanley knew the property well. The Church had owned it for nearly forty years. But Stanley had never seriously considered it as a potential site for the house of the Lord. The lot was too small, and besides, it was in a part of town that had become dangerous and disreputable over time.
Yet President Hinckley clearly believed the Church could build a temple there. He said the Spirit had described it to him.
“Build a building of seven to ten stories on this property,” the Spirit had said. “It can include a chapel and classrooms on the first two floors and a temple on the top two or three floors, with offices and apartments on the in-between floors.” The top floor could be the celestial room, and an angel Moroni could adorn the top of the building.
The design was similar to the inspired thought he’d had a year earlier to place the temple in a high-rise building.
Kathleen was astonished by President Hinckley’s idea. As he spoke, he showed her and the other guests a rough sketch of the temple’s floor plan, which he had drawn during the night. Kathleen had never thought of placing a temple on top of a building, but she had faith in the Lord’s plan. While Kowloon Tong was not the nicest part of Hong Kong, it was convenient to public transportation stops, and the area would continue to develop over time.
When he finished sharing his experience, President Hinckley said, “Will you support this decision?”
“Of course we will!” everyone replied. Their prayers for a house of the Lord in Hong Kong were finally being answered.
In August 1992, twenty-three-year-old Willy Sabwe Binene aspired to a career in electrical engineering. His training at the Institut Supérieur Technique et Commerciale in Lubumbashi, a city in the central African nation of Zaire, was going well. He had just finished his first year at the school and was already looking forward to continuing his formal education.
During the break between terms, Willy returned to his hometown, Kolwezi, some two hundred miles northwest of Lubumbashi. He and other members of his family belonged to the Kolwezi Branch of the Church. After the priesthood revelation of 1978, the restored gospel had spread beyond Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa, and Zimbabwe to more than a dozen other countries in Africa: Liberia, Sierra Leone, Côte d’Ivoire, Cameroon, the Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Kenya, Namibia, Botswana, Swaziland, Lesotho, Madagascar, and Mauritius. The first Latter-day Saint missionaries in Zaire arrived in 1986, and there were now about four thousand Saints in the country.
Shortly after Willy arrived in Kolwezi, his branch president called him in for an interview. “We need to prepare you to go on a full-time mission,” he said.
“I should continue with my studies,” Willy said, taken aback. He explained that he had three more years in his electrical engineering program.
“You should go on a mission first,” the branch president said. He pointed out that Willy was the first young man from the branch to be eligible for a full-time mission.
“No,” Willy said, “it won’t work. I’m going to finish up first.”
Willy’s parents were not happy when they found out he had turned down the branch president’s invitation. His mother, who was reserved by nature, asked him directly, “Why are you delaying?”
One day, the Spirit prompted Willy to visit his uncle Simon Mukadi. As he walked into his uncle’s living room, he noticed a book on a table. Something about it seemed to call to him. He moved closer and read the title: Le miracle du pardon, the French translation of Spencer W. Kimball’s The Miracle of Forgiveness. Intrigued, Willy picked the book up, let its pages fall open, and started to read.
The passage was about idolatry, and Willy quickly became engrossed. Elder Kimball wrote that people not only bowed down to gods of wood and stone and clay but also worshipped their own possessions. And some idols had no tangible form.
The words made Willy tremble like a leaf. He felt that the Lord was speaking directly to him. In an instant, all desire to finish school before his mission left him. He sought out his branch president and told him that he’d changed his mind.
“What kind of a fly bit you?” his branch president asked.
After Willy told him the story, the branch president took out a missionary application. “OK,” he said. “We start here, at the beginning.”
As Willy prepared for his mission, violence erupted in the region where he lived. Zaire was in Africa’s Congo River Basin, where various ethnic and regional groups had struggled against each other for generations. Recently, in Willy’s province, the governor had urged the Katangan majority to oust the minority Kasaians.
In March 1993, the violence spread to Kolwezi. Katangan militants prowled the streets, brandishing machetes, sticks, whips, and other weapons. They terrorized Kasaian families and burned their homes, caring little what people or goods were inside. Fearing for their lives, many Kasaians hid from the marauders or fled the city.
As a Kasaian, Willy knew it was only a matter of time before the militants hunted down his family. To avoid harm, he set aside his mission preparation to help his family flee to Luputa, a Kasaian town some 350 miles away, where some of his relatives lived.
Since trains out of Katanga were infrequent, hundreds of Kasaian refugees had set up a sprawling camp outside Kolwezi’s railway station. When Willy and his family arrived at the camp, they had no choice but to bed down beneath the stars until they could find shelter. The Church, the Red Cross, and other humanitarian organizations were at the camp to provide food, tents, and medical care for the refugees. Still, without proper sanitation, the camp reeked of human waste and burning garbage.
After a few weeks in the camp, the Binenes received word that a train could transport some of the camp’s women and children out of the area. Willy’s mother and four sisters decided to leave on the train with other family members. Willy, meanwhile, helped his father and older brother fix up a broken-down open freight car. When it was ready to travel, they hitched it to an outbound train and left the camp.
When he arrived at Luputa several weeks later, Willy could not help but contrast it to Kolwezi. The town was small and had no electricity, which meant he could not use his electrical engineering training for employment. And there was no branch of the Church.
“What are we going to do here?” he asked himself.
Around this time, Silvia and Jeff Allred often drove along bumpy roads somewhere in the Chaco, a sparsely settled region in western Paraguay. Thirteen years had passed since the Allreds lived in Guatemala, and it had been an eventful time for their family. After they moved to Costa Rica, Jeff’s Church employment had transferred him to South America, so they moved again, first to Chile and then to Argentina. The Allreds were now serving as mission leaders in Paraguay and had been in the country for about a year.
In the Chaco was a small community of Saints from the Indigenous Nivaclé people. They lived in two villages, Mistolar and Abundancia, some distance from the main road. Silvia and Jeff were on their way to Mistolar, the more remote village, to deliver some provisions. The route to the village was notoriously rough, with thorns so large they could pierce a vehicle’s tires. As a precaution, the Allreds always traveled there with an additional vehicle loaded with extra tires to replace flats.
The road to Mistolar was only one of many challenges the Allreds faced in Paraguay. When they arrived in Asunción, they knew from Jeff’s work in temporal affairs that the Church was growing at a slower rate there than in other South American countries. But why?
As they began meeting with the missionaries, they noticed that the elders and sisters were focusing much of their work on distributing Spanish copies of the Book of Mormon. Yet many Paraguayans, especially in more rural communities, were more comfortable using Guarani, a language with Indigenous roots.
Wherever possible, the Church’s missionaries tried to teach people in their preferred tongue. By 1993, complete translations of the Book of Mormon were available in thirty-eight languages. Selected portions of the book had been translated into another forty-six languages, including Guarani.
After recognizing the local Saints’ preference for Guarani, the Allreds had felt prompted to direct missionaries to use the language in their work, when appropriate. They also encouraged the elders and sisters to teach people more about the Book of Mormon before challenging them to read it. And they emphasized the importance of teaching the basic principles of the restored gospel, setting realistic goals, and having faith to invite people to follow the teachings of the Savior.
Ministering to the Nivaclé required additional adaptations. Several hundred Nivaclé had been baptized in the early 1980s after Walter Flores, a Nivaclé Latter-day Saint who had joined the Church in Asunción, introduced the missionaries to his people. Living largely in isolation, the Nivaclé had their own language and way of life. They grew squash, corn, and beans and raised goats for milk. The women wove baskets and the men carved wooden figurines to sell to tourists.
In recent years, the tithes of faithful Saints around the world had allowed the Church to cover the entire cost of building and maintaining its meetinghouses. Ward and branch budgets, dispensed from headquarters in Salt Lake City, also paid for Church programs and activities. As an isolated community, the Nivaclé rarely needed money for the kinds of activities taking place in typical wards and branches. Instead, their budget money often went toward rice, beans, flour, oil, batteries, and other provisions. The Church also provided the two communities with clothing and other resources, much as it did for other rural Indigenous peoples in Central and South America.
The deeply rooted faith of the Nivaclé could be seen in the branch president in Mistolar, Julio Yegros, and his wife, Margarita. In 1989, they had been sealed together with their two young children in the Buenos Aires Temple. During the long journey home, their children had become sick and died. To endure the tragedy, the Yegroses had relied on their faith in God’s eternal plan and their temple covenants.
“Our children were sealed to us in the house of the Lord,” they once told the Allreds. “We know we will have them back with us for all eternity. This knowledge has given us peace and comfort.”
On May 30, 1994, President Ezra Taft Benson passed away at home in Salt Lake City. As the Saints reflected on his life and ministry, they remembered him for bringing the Book of Mormon and its Christ-centered message to the attention of the Church—and the world—as never before. They also remembered his counsel about avoiding the dangers of pride and selfishness of any kind, including contention, anger, and unrighteous dominion.
During his presidency, the Church sought new ways to ease the suffering of people across the globe. In 1988, the First Presidency had issued a statement on the AIDS epidemic, expressing and urging love and sympathy for those suffering from the effects of the disease. Under President Benson’s leadership, the Church had also dramatically expanded humanitarian aid, and missionaries now spent more time providing service in the communities where they labored.
During this same time, the Church had grown by over 40 percent, to nine million members. Missionary work had expanded in many areas of the globe, especially in Africa. And, after the recent collapse of the Soviet Union and other political changes in Europe, the Church was officially established in over a dozen countries in central and eastern Europe.
Unfortunately, old age and illness had kept President Benson from speaking in public for almost five years. During that time, he had been unable to say more than a few words at a time. His counselors, Gordon B. Hinckley and Thomas S. Monson, along with the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, had prayerfully directed the day-to-day business of the Church. When possible, President Benson had given them his support for decisions with a simple “yes” or an approving smile.
The senior apostle at the time of President Benson’s death was Howard W. Hunter. At eighty-six years old, he himself was not in good health. He used a wheelchair or walker to get around, and his voice often sounded strained and weary. Yet during his service as an apostle, the Saints had come to admire his humility, compassion, gentleness, and immense courage.
Shortly after his ordination as Church president on June 5, 1994, President Hunter held a press conference and announced Gordon B. Hinckley and Thomas S. Monson as his counselors in the First Presidency. He then invited all Church members to follow the Savior’s example of love, hope, and compassion. He urged Saints who were struggling or who had left the fold to return. “Let us stand with you and dry your tears,” he said. “Come back. Stand with us. Carry on. Be believing.”
“In that same spirit,” he continued, “I also invite the members of the Church to establish the temple of the Lord as the great symbol of their membership and the supernal setting for their most sacred covenants.” He urged the Saints to carry current temple recommends and be a “temple-attending and a temple-loving people.”
“Let us hasten to the temple as frequently as time and means and personal circumstances allow,” he said.
Later that month, President Hunter sat beneath a canopy in front of a large audience at the former site of the temple in Nauvoo, Illinois. The sky was clear and bright, offering an expansive view of the Mississippi River and the Church’s historic sites in the area. The humid air was heavy, but everyone seemed eager to hear President Hunter speak. He had come to Nauvoo with President Hinckley and Elder M. Russell Ballard to mark the 150th anniversary of the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum Smith.
President Hunter was reflective as he sat at the old temple site. Aside from some gray foundation stones, little evidence remained that a magnificent house of the Lord had once stood on the grassy plot. He thought of the prophet Joseph Smith and felt responsible to do all he could for the Lord’s work in the time he had left on earth.
Taking his place at the pulpit, President Hunter again encouraged the Saints to make the temple part of their lives. “As in Joseph’s day, having worthy and endowed members is the key to building the kingdom in all the world,” he told the Saints. “Temple worthiness ensures that our lives are in harmony with the will of the Lord, and we are attuned to receive His guidance in our lives.”
After the service, President Hinckley and Elder Ballard spoke to reporters at the Carthage jail, where the prophet Joseph had been killed. One reporter asked them to contrast the Church in 1844 with the modern Church.
“Their problem 150 years ago was a mob with painted faces,” President Hinckley replied. “Our problem is accommodating growth of this Church.” He spoke of the challenge of providing meetinghouses and leadership for so many people. The Church continued to spread rapidly in many parts of the world. In Africa, for example, the Church had recently extended into Tanzania, Ethiopia, Malawi, and the Central African Republic.
“What a wonderful, wonderful problem it is,” he said.
At the jail, President Hunter spoke again. “The world needs the gospel of Jesus Christ as restored through the prophet Joseph Smith,” he told an audience of three thousand people. “We need to be slower to anger and more prompt to help. We need to extend the hand of friendship and resist the hand of retribution.”
When the service ended, evening was settling over Carthage. As President Hunter left the grounds of the jail, a large crowd of Saints greeted him enthusiastically. He was tired, but he stopped and shook their hands, each in turn.