Chapter 28
The Lord’s Path
“He’s gone.”
President Gordon B. Hinckley felt numb as he spoke the words into the telephone. On the other end of the line was his wife, Marjorie. He could hear her crying. They had prayed this day would never come.
It was March 3, 1995. Earlier that morning, President Hinckley had learned that President Howard W. Hunter had passed away at home. President Hunter had been receiving treatment for cancer, and his health had been declining rapidly. But President Hinckley was still shocked by the news. He and President Thomas S. Monson had gone at once to the prophet’s apartment and offered comfort and consolation to Sister Inis Hunter. Then they had stepped into another room and begun making the necessary phone calls.
As he finished his call with Marjorie, President Hinckley felt a deep sadness. He had served the Lord alongside President Hunter for more than thirty years, and now he had lost a good, kind, and wise friend. The prophet’s death also made him the senior apostle, which meant the leadership of the Church rested on his shoulders. He felt unexpectedly lonely.
“I can only pray and plead for help,” he thought.
Five days later, President Hinckley presided at President Hunter’s funeral in the Salt Lake Tabernacle. “Mortal life for President Hunter has been more of a mission than a career,” he told mourners. “His has been a leading and powerful voice in declaring the teachings of the gospel of Jesus Christ and in moving forward the work of the Church.”
Even though President Hunter’s nine-month presidency had been the shortest of any Church president’s, he had accomplished much while in office. The First Presidency had sent humanitarian relief to victims of food shortages in Laos in southeast Asia, civil war in Rwanda in east Africa, and flooding and fires in the southern United States. Although his poor health limited his ability to travel, he had dedicated temples in two U.S. cities—Orlando, Florida, and Bountiful, Utah. On December 11, 1994, he traveled to Mexico City to organize the two thousandth stake of the Church.
One of his greatest legacies as an apostle, however, was his love for all people, regardless of religion. He’d had a deep spiritual connection to the Holy Land. Just before his death, he had planned to return to Jerusalem with Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, who was now a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, for one final visit. He was sad when his failing health prevented him from going.
On March 9, the day after President Hunter’s funeral, President Hinckley woke up early and could not fall back asleep. The weight of his new responsibilities—and the decisions he had to make—bore down on him.
He decided to fast and spend some time alone in the Salt Lake Temple. He secured a key to the room on the fourth floor where the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles met every week. There he removed his shoes, put on white temple slippers, and read from the scriptures.
Eventually, his eyes drifted to three pictures of the Savior on the wall. One of them depicted the Crucifixion, and President Hinckley thought deeply about the price the Savior had paid to redeem him. He again thought of his enormous responsibilities as the Lord’s prophet, and he wept as feelings of inadequacy enveloped him.
He turned his attention to a painting of Joseph Smith on the north wall. To his right, along the east wall, were portraits of every Church president from Brigham Young to Howard W. Hunter. President Hinckley looked at each portrait in turn. He had personally known each Church president since Heber J. Grant. They had put immense trust in him, and he loved them. Now, as he looked at the portraits, they seemed almost to come alive. He felt their eyes on him, silently encouraging him and pledging their support. He had no need to fear.
Kneeling, President Hinckley brought questions to the Lord and, by the power of the Spirit, received His word concerning them. President Hinckley’s heart and mind filled with peace and assurance, and he knew he had the will to move forward with the work.
He had already decided to call Thomas S. Monson as his first counselor. Now he felt impressed to call Elder James E. Faust as his second counselor. While still on his knees, he prayed for confirmation of this choice, and a warmth flooded his heart.
Later, as he reflected on his day, President Hinckley felt better about his new calling. “I hope the Lord has trained me to do what He expects of me,” he wrote in his journal. “I will give Him total loyalty, and I will certainly seek His direction.”
Around this same time, Darius Gray and Marie Taylor were regularly visiting the Utah State Prison to meet with the hundreds of inmates who were extracting genealogical information from the Freedman’s Bank records.
The volunteers worked in a family history center adjacent to the prison chapel. To get there, Darius and Marie had to pass through a network of heavy metal gates, locked doors, and guarded hallways. Darius had been a little nervous the first time Marie had brought him, especially in areas where they were surrounded by prisoners. But he now came to the prison every few weeks, and he was used to it.
When the extraction project began, genealogical research was undergoing major changes. Computers were rapidly replacing filing cabinets and printed indexes, making the work of collecting and accessing data more efficient. During the 1970s and ’80s, the Church had begun adapting the new technology to temple and family history work. And by the early 1990s, the Church had developed TempleReady, a computer program that allowed patrons at local family history centers, including the one at the prison, to submit names for temple ordinances more easily.
The family history center where the inmates worked had several microfilm readers along the walls. Marie had worked with the Family History Library to get a copy of the Freedman’s Bank microfilm to keep at the prison. After the volunteers extracted the information onto a form specifically designed for the project, they would bring the form to an adjoining room and enter the information into a computer database. Under Marie’s direction, the volunteers checked each record multiple times. Two volunteers independently extracted the same information, and then a third volunteer compared the extractions with the original document, making sure the information was transcribed correctly.
The man in charge of the prison’s family history center was serving a life sentence. He kept the work moving and well organized. Darius was impressed by the enthusiasm of the volunteers and their attention to detail. Prison officials were delighted to report that the inmates working on the bank records typically caused no problems among the other prisoners.
The project was open to all eligible inmates, regardless of their religious beliefs. As Darius and Marie served with the volunteers, they emphasized the spiritual nature of the project. Prisoners who had been raised in the Church understood the role of genealogy in uniting families for eternity. Some of these men had no chance of getting out of prison themselves, but they found joy in working to free others from spirit prison. Darius and Marie always began their prison meetings with a prayer, and they encouraged the volunteers to pray in their own way as they worked on the project.
Sometimes an inmate would approach Darius and ask for a priesthood blessing. He always agreed. As he ministered to the men, who had committed all manner of crimes and offenses, he was struck by a sure knowledge that they were children of God.
At this time, the Church encouraged its members to submit family names to the temple, yet members could also submit the names of people who were not relatives. The inmates regularly used TempleReady to clear names from the Freedman’s Bank project for temple ordinances. To help in this work, Marie created a temple “family file” named after Elijah Able, one of the earliest Black Latter-day Saints. The file was available to temple patrons in the United States and South Africa. If patrons wanted to perform ordinances for someone from the Freedman’s Bank records, they could simply go to the temple and request a name from the family file.
One evening, Darius and Marie went to the Jordan River Temple in South Jordan, Utah, with several friends to perform sealings for families from the Freedman’s Bank records. Although the group numbered around twenty people, they still needed the help of others in the temple. All evening, they sealed together families that had been cruelly separated in life through enslavement.
Before going to the temple, Darius and Marie had told the inmates about the trip. Darius had chosen the Jordan River Temple because it was the one closest to his home, but it also happened to be the closest to the prison.
That evening, several inmates working on the project gathered at a window in a corner of the prison. The window was narrow, but it offered a view of the Salt Lake Valley—including the Jordan River Temple.
Although the volunteers could not be there in person, they quietly supported Darius and Marie in the sacred work.
During his first year as Church president, Gordon B. Hinckley followed the Church in Asia from afar. Construction on the Hong Kong Temple had begun in January 1994, and President Hinckley received regular updates on its progress. He also counseled with Asia Area leaders to help plan the events surrounding the temple’s dedication.
He was overjoyed with the Church’s progress in the region. Since 1955, the Church in Asia had grown from a thousand members to almost six hundred thousand. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the Philippines were now centers of strength with temples of their own. The Church was starting to grow in places like Thailand, Mongolia, Cambodia, India, and, once again, Vietnam. Across Asia, a rising generation of young, faithful Latter-day Saints was making a difference.
In Taiwan, Kuan-ling “Anne” Liu had recently finished her final year at Taipei First Girls High School, where she was the only Latter-day Saint in a student body of over four thousand. Like many students in Taiwan, Anne kept a demanding schedule. She awoke a little before 6:00 a.m., got on a bus at 6:30, and spent the next nine hours at school. After dinner, she studied in a classroom for a few more hours before catching the bus home at 8:00 in the evening.
Still, every night before going to sleep, Anne set aside time to read her scriptures. More and more Church leaders emphasized daily scripture study as an essential component of Latter-day Saint worship. Anne felt that prayer and scripture study helped her avoid discouragement and learn better at school. On Sundays, when many of her classmates were studying for school, she attended a seminary class before her regular Church meetings in Taipei. She also served as the ward pianist.
“If I go to sacrament meeting and listen to the talks,” she realized, “my life is always more positive and happy.”
In Mongolia, meanwhile, twenty-one-year-old Soyolmaa Urtnasan was teaching the young women in her branch in the capital city of Ulaanbaatar. Of the several hundred branch members, most were in their teens or twenties and had been members for less than a year. Soyolmaa herself had been baptized only a few months earlier, and she was brimming with enthusiasm. When she was a teen, her parents died within a year of each other, leaving Soyolmaa angry with God.
“I was a ‘two-faced’ person,” she recalled, “happy and outgoing on the outside, miserable and shy on the inside.” To dull her pain, she went to parties and resorted to drinking.
Things began to change when a friend who was investigating the Church invited her to a sacrament meeting. That first Sunday, Soyolmaa felt peace and belonging she had never experienced before. She soon learned that she could become a new person through Jesus Christ. When she heard the plan of salvation, she melted into tears.
“I knew that I was in the right place,” she recalled. Before long, she became one of the first missionaries from Mongolia.
Meanwhile, in Thailand, the Saints understood the importance of temples and made sacrifices to get there. In 1990, about two hundred Thai Saints flew to the Philippines to attend the house of the Lord in Manila. The trip was expensive, so many Saints saved for more than a year to have enough money for airfare.
As president of the Khon Kaen District in central Thailand, Kriangkrai Phithakphong saw such everyday sacrifices firsthand. Many members of the district were poor. Some without steady work or a regular income had barely enough money to survive. Yet they served actively in the Church, attending their meetings even when they had to travel long distances on foot or by bicycle or bus.
“When we flew to Manila, it was a milestone in the history of the Church in Thailand,” Kriangkrai remembered. “Everyone worked hard to raise the money to go.” Even his ten-year-old daughter sold cooking charcoal to help the family pay for the trip. In the end, Kriangkrai, his wife, Mukdahan, and their children made it to the temple—and their experience there made the struggle and sacrifice all worth it.
“Being sealed together in the temple brought a special spirit into our family,” Kriangkrai testified. “Now, not only does our sixteen-year-old son want to go on a mission, but his two younger sisters want to go too.”
On the evening of August 9, 1995, fifty-nine-year-old Celia Ayala de Cruz decided to walk to her Relief Society activity. She liked to be on time for meetings, and the person who had promised to give her a ride to the church had not shown up. Fortunately, the meetinghouse was only an eight-minute walk from her home. If she left right away, she could arrive at the church with a few minutes to spare. The activity was a quilting class, and she was teaching it.
Celia lived in Ponce, a city on the southern coast of Puerto Rico, in the Caribbean Sea. Missionaries had been serving in the Caribbean since the 1960s, especially in Puerto Rico and later in the Dominican Republic, both of which now had tens of thousands of Saints. The restored gospel had also taken root in other island nations and territories, reaching people of diverse cultures, religions, languages, and ethnicities. Saints could now be found in cities, towns, and villages across the Caribbean.
As she set out for her meeting, Celia carried a handbag containing a five-dollar bill and a gift-wrapped copy of the Book of Mormon. Ever since President Ezra Taft Benson had challenged the Saints to renew their focus on the Book of Mormon, she and other Church members had looked for opportunities to share the book with others. The Church’s Family-to-Family Book of Mormon Program had encouraged Saints to write their testimonies on the inside of the book before giving it away. At first, Latter-day Saints had to buy their own copies of the Book of Mormon, but in 1990, the Church set up a donation fund to provide the book free of charge to anyone in the world.
Since joining the Church sixteen years earlier, Celia herself had read the Book of Mormon multiple times. Now, a coworker was having a difficult time in her marriage, and Celia believed the book could help her. She had placed a copy in a gift box, wrapped it up in nice paper, and tied a ribbon around it. In the box, she had also included a postcard with her address and her written testimony of the Book of Mormon. She was bringing the book to church that evening to show her Relief Society sisters how they could share the Book of Mormon with others.
When she neared the meetinghouse, Celia decided to take a shortcut behind a park. As she was passing through a gate, a tall young man with a knife jumped out at her. He shoved her, and she fell backward onto a patch of damp weeds.
“You are assaulting a servant of the Lord,” Celia told him.
The young man said nothing. At first, Celia thought he was going to kill her. But then he snatched her bag and rummaged through it until he found the five-dollar bill and gift-wrapped Book of Mormon. A calm feeling rested over her. She knew the young man was not going to hurt her.
“Lord,” she silently prayed, “if that’s the way you have chosen for that boy to convert to the gospel, he’s not going to kill me.”
Clutching his knife, the young man took the money and Book of Mormon and ran off into the night.
Across the Atlantic Ocean, meanwhile, Willy Binene was still living with his family in Luputa, Zaire. It wasn’t the life he’d imagined as an electrical engineering student in Lubumbashi. Luputa was a farming community, and as long as ethnic strife remained near their home in Kolwezi, he and his family would stay in Luputa and work the land.
Fortunately, Willy’s father had taught him how to farm when he was a boy, so he already knew the basics of raising beans, corn, cassava, and peanuts. Until the first bean crop came in, however, the family had very little food to eat. They farmed for sustenance, and what little they could spare from their crops they sold to purchase salt, oil, soap, and some meat.
Of the Saints who fled Kolwezi for safety, around fifty of them had settled in Luputa. There was no branch in the village, but they met together every week in a large house to worship. Although several men in the group held the priesthood, including the former Kolwezi District president, they did not feel authorized to hold sacrament meeting. Instead, they held a Sunday School class, with each elder taking a turn leading the meeting.
During this time, Willy and his fellow Saints made several efforts to contact the mission headquarters in Kinshasa, but without success. Still, whenever the Saints earned money, they set aside their tithing, waiting for a time when they could deliver it to an authorized Church leader.
One day in 1995, Willy’s family decided to send him back to Kolwezi to try to sell their old house. Knowing he would see the district president there, the Saints in Luputa saw this as their best chance to pay tithing. They placed their money in envelopes, gave them to Willy and another Church member traveling with him, and sent them on their way.
Throughout the four-day train ride to Kolwezi, Willy hid the bag with the tithing envelopes under his clothing. He and his traveling companion were nervous and afraid during the journey. They slept on the train and only disembarked at stations to buy fufu and other food. They also worried about traveling into Kolwezi, which was still hostile to Kasaians. But they took comfort in the story of Nephi retrieving the plates of brass. They trusted that the Lord would protect them and their tithing.
When they finally arrived in Kolwezi, they found the home of the district president, and he invited them to stay with him. Several days later, the new leaders of the Zaire Kinshasa Mission, Roberto and Jeanine Tavella, came to the city, and the district president introduced them to Willy and his traveling companion.
“They were members in the Kolwezi Branch,” the district president explained. “Because of what happened, they moved to Luputa. And now they’ve come. They wanted to meet you.”
“Tell me more,” President Tavella said. “You’re from Luputa?”
Willy told the president about their journey and how far they’d traveled. He then took out the tithing envelopes. “This is the tithing of the members in Luputa,” he said. “They set aside their tithing because they did not know where to take it.”
Without saying a word, President and Sister Tavella began to weep. “What faith you have,” the mission president finally said, his voice trembling.
Joy and peace flooded Willy. He believed that God would bless the Saints in Luputa for paying tithing. President Tavella counseled them to be patient. “When you get back, tell everyone in Luputa that I love them,” he said. “They are blessed by the Eternal Father, because I’ve never seen such faith.”
He promised to send one of his counselors to Luputa as soon as possible. “I don’t know how long it will take,” he said, “but the counselor will come.”
Not long after being robbed, Celia Ayala de Cruz checked her mailbox. Inside she found a one-page letter with no name attached. “Forgive me, forgive me,” it read. “You will never know how sorry I am for attacking you.”
Celia kept reading. The young man described how the Book of Mormon he stole had changed his life. When he first saw the gift-wrapped book, he thought it was something he could sell. But then he opened it and read the testimony Celia had written for her coworker. “The message you wrote in that book brought tears to my eyes,” he told Celia. “Since Wednesday night, I have not been able to stop reading it.”
The young man had been particularly moved by the story of Lehi. “The dream of that man of God has shaken me,” he wrote, “and I thank God that I found you.” He did not know if God would forgive him for stealing, but he hoped Celia could. “I am returning your five dollars,” he added, “for I can’t spend them.” The money was with his letter.
He also wrote of his desire to learn more about the Church. “I want you to know that you will see me again, but when you do, you won’t recognize me, for I will be your brother,” he wrote. “I am not from your city, but here where I live, I have to find the Lord and go to the church you belong to.”
Celia sat down. Ever since the attack, she had been praying for the young man. “If God is willing,” she said, “may that boy be converted.”
A few months later, the new year started. Sunday Schools throughout the Church began a yearlong study of the Book of Mormon. To assist the Saints in their studies, the Church News devoted its first issue of the year to the book. The issue included an overview of the Book of Mormon’s teachings about Jesus Christ, various charts and articles to help readers better understand its peoples and events, and information about a new videocassette containing nine short Book of Mormon films to supplement Sunday School lessons. With Celia’s permission, the final page of the newspaper featured a short account of her experience with the young man, including the full text of his letter.
In February 1996, Celia received another letter from the young man. He was still too embarrassed about the robbery to tell Celia his name, but he had seen the story in the Church News, and he wanted her to know that he was doing well and trying to change his life. He thought often about her and the Book of Mormon. “I know that it is true,” he wrote. In fact, he had recently joined the Church and received the priesthood. “I am working for the Lord,” he told her.
He let her know that he now lived near a temple, which he had recently visited. Although he did not go inside the building, he had felt the Spirit powerfully there, and he knew it was the Lord’s house.
The young man signed the letter as Celia’s “brother of faith.” He expressed his love for her and her family. He knew the Lord had a purpose for him.
“I don’t want to leave the Lord’s path,” he told her. “I feel very happy.”