Chapter 35
Hand in Hand
In early 2006, Willy Binene was eager to move to Kinshasa, the capital city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to continue his training in electrical engineering. For thirteen years, he’d been working as a farmer in the village of Luputa, some nine hundred miles from the city.
He was now married to a young woman named Lilly, whom he had baptized during his service as a branch missionary. They had two children together, but for the past two years, Lilly and the children had been living in Kinshasa while Willy earned enough money to join them and return to school.
On March 26, mission president William Maycock organized the first district in Luputa and called Willy to serve as its president. Willy felt unsure of himself, but he abandoned his plans to move and accepted the call. A short time later, Lilly and the children returned to Luputa, and Willy began his new responsibilities with them at his side.
He was only one of many Saints accepting calls to lead the Church in Africa. Nearly thirty years after the first full-time missionaries came to Ghana and Nigeria, the Church had swelled to more than two hundred thousand members across the continent. There were now stakes in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, the Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia, Madagascar, Nigeria, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. Strong local leaders, firmly grounded in the teachings of the Savior and His restored Church, were a constant need.
An Ivorian named Norbert Ounleu joined the Church as a university student in 1995. Two years later, he became a bishop when the first stake in Côte d’Ivoire was organized. Three years after that, he became a stake president when his stake was divided. Five years later, he and his wife, Valerie, were called as mission leaders in the newly created Ivory Coast Abidjan Mission.
At this same time, Abigail Ituma, a former broadcast journalist and radio DJ, served as a Relief Society president in her ward in Lagos, Nigeria. Outgoing and funny, Abigail enjoyed bringing smiles to the faces of everyone around her. Many of the women in her ward had stopped coming to church, so she made it her mission to bring them back. She called one of these women to be her second counselor, and before long, they were spending hours together, meeting with sisters and inviting them to church.
Abigail believed in the power of connecting with people. On Sundays, she and her counselors taught lesson after lesson about visiting teaching. At first, no one seemed eager to embrace the program. But Abigail was persistent, and after a while, more and more sisters began ministering to each other. Attendance at Relief Society meetings began to improve.
In Kenya, meanwhile, Joseph and Gladys Sitati were well known for their service in the Church and devotion to Jesus Christ. Before their baptism in March 1986, the Sitatis were not a religious family. They sometimes attended local Christian churches, but they never felt spiritually nourished. Joseph often spent his Sundays working or playing golf.
Embracing the restored gospel changed everything. The Sitatis felt good in the Church, and as it became a central part of their lives, they began spending more time together as a family. Joseph served as branch and district president for many years and helped the Church become officially recognized in Kenya in 1991. When the Nairobi Kenya Stake was organized in 2001, he was called as its president. Three years later, in April 2004, he became an area authority seventy. Gladys, meanwhile, served as a branch Relief Society president as well as a teacher in Sunday School, Primary, Young Women, Relief Society, and seminary.
In 1991, the Sitatis traveled to the Johannesburg South Africa Temple and became the first Kenyan family to be sealed for time and eternity.
“As we reflected upon what we had gone through,” Joseph later recalled, “it was abundantly clear to all of us that one could not start understanding the true meaning of the gospel of Jesus Christ until one had been sealed in the temple.”
Back in Sydney, Australia, eighteen-year-old Blake McKeown was about to graduate from high school—and he needed a plan. If he started university, he wouldn’t be allowed to pause his studies for longer than a year. And since he intended to serve a two-year mission when he turned nineteen, he decided to get a seasonal job after graduation rather than follow many of his peers to university.
Blake had been a lifeguard at a pool near his home, and he liked the work. Recently, Bondi Rescue, a new reality television show about lifeguards at Sydney’s popular Bondi Beach, got him thinking about ocean lifeguarding. Although Bondi Beach was around forty miles from his home, he decided to take part in a one-week “work experience” program there, which introduced him to the day-to-day duties of the job. He also took a fitness test required for anyone who wanted to be a beach lifeguard.
The test was challenging, but Blake was ready for it. As a deacon, he had gotten interested in athletics after going mountain biking with the young men in his stake. Although the Church had adopted Scouting as part of its Young Men program in the early twentieth century, it was seldom used in most countries outside the United States and Canada. In Australia, about a third of local units participated in Scouting. Blake’s stake was not one of them. In such instances, leaders used a special guide prepared by the Church for planning Young Men activities.
The leader who took the young men mountain biking, Matt Green, went on to introduce Blake to the triathlon, a sport that combines swimming, bicycling, and running. Under Matt’s coaching and mentorship, Blake had developed discipline and focus. When he took the fitness test at Bondi Beach, Blake’s years of training and competing paid off. He performed well and was hired as a trainee lifeguard.
After his high school graduation, Blake began working every weekday at the beach. The job did not guarantee him time on Bondi Rescue, but the show’s producers soon had camera crews recording him as he learned how to use lifeguard equipment, help beachgoers, and enforce beach rules. They also caught the moment when he rescued a person from the ocean for the first time.
Blake enjoyed the work. As the only Church member on staff, he felt a little intimidated by the other lifeguards, whose lives and values were very different from his own. But he never felt pressured to drop his standards around them.
In early 2007, Blake and other lifeguards responded when a man was spotted struggling in a treacherous part of the water. They searched for forty-five minutes, but there was no sign of a drowned or struggling swimmer, and none of the twenty-five thousand beachgoers had reported a missing friend or family member. Ultimately, the lifeguards gave up the search, hoping whoever they saw had found his way back to shore.
Two hours later, a young man approached Blake at the lifeguard tower. He said he couldn’t find his father. “Just stay there for a second,” Blake told the young man. He then went and informed the other lifeguards.
The crew rushed back into the water on boards and a Jet Ski. They also called in a police helicopter to patrol the ocean from above. Blake, meanwhile, stayed with the young man and his mother, asking questions about the missing man. But even as Blake calmly spoke to them, he worried that their husband and father was dead.
With daylight fading, one of the rescuers spotted someone under the waves. A lifeguard dove in and carried the man back to shore. They tried to resuscitate him, but it was too late.
Blake reeled at the news. How had he and the other lifeguards lost track of the man, especially when the beach had been so well patrolled? Blake had never thought much about death, and no one close to him had ever died. Now death felt very real to him.
It was late when Blake finished work that night. As he thought about the senselessness of the tragedy he’d just witnessed, he reflected on the plan of salvation. All his life, he had been taught that death was not the end of existence, that Jesus Christ had made it possible for everyone to rise in the Resurrection.
In the weeks that followed, faith in these principles gave him comfort.
On March 31, 2007, the Saints sustained Julie B. Beck, Silvia H. Allred, and Barbara Thompson as the new Relief Society general presidency. At the time, Silvia was serving alongside her husband, Jeff, the president of the Missionary Training Center in the Dominican Republic. Although she had enjoyed being among the missionaries in the Caribbean, she looked forward to working with the women of the Church. This new call made her the first Latin American to serve in the Relief Society general presidency.
A short time later, Boyd K. Packer, the acting president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, invited the new presidency to meet with him in his office. When they arrived, he showed them a row of binders on a shelf. “I’ve had these for about fifteen years,” he explained.
Inside the binders were more than a thousand pages of Relief Society history. Decades earlier, as a young apostle, he had been a general authority adviser to the Relief Society and had gained an immense admiration for the organization and its then-president, Belle Spafford. Later, he’d asked writers Lucile Tate and Elaine Harris to compile a history of the Relief Society for his own use. Their work was contained in the binders.
“These are my personal copies,” he now told the new presidency. “I’m giving them to you.”
Under President Bonnie D. Parkin, the Relief Society general board had studied Women of Covenant: The Story of Relief Society, a lengthy history published for the organization’s sesquicentennial in 1992. Now President Beck and her counselors felt impressed to read the history in the binders, so they divided them up and studied each volume in turn. As they read, they gained a clear sense of the vision and purpose of their organization.
Relief Society, they understood, was originally established by priesthood authority. Its activities and endeavors had changed over the years, with some presidencies establishing hospitals or focusing on social work, literacy, or some other kind of service. Yet giving women opportunities to expound the gospel of Jesus Christ and provide relief to those in need had always been central to the organization’s work.
Still, the presidency worried that Relief Society had become just another class to attend on Sunday. Weekday Relief Society meetings and activities, especially where the Church and its members were well established, were often social events that had little to do with giving service or teaching the gospel. Many members did not know the organization’s inspired beginnings or its rich history. Younger women especially showed little enthusiasm for it. The presidency believed the women in the Church needed to find strength and value in their identity as Relief Society sisters.
As the presidency discussed the past and present Relief Society, they thought about the organization’s core message and purpose for the Church’s global sisterhood. Each member of the presidency had lived outside the United States, and each knew they needed to craft a clear, simple message that could unite and inspire Relief Society members despite differences in language, culture, and experience.
Together, the presidency identified three purposes of Relief Society: first, increase personal righteousness and faith; second, strengthen families and homes; and third, search out and provide relief for those who are in need. Moving forward, they decided to promote “faith, family, and relief” at every opportunity.
One of their first assignments was to revise the Relief Society section of the Church Handbook of Instructions. As the previous Relief Society general presidency had known, the complex language of the handbook could be hard for some members to read and understand. President Beck’s presidency thought that some of its guidelines were better suited for Church members in Utah than for Saints worldwide. Like other Church leaders at the time, they wanted an easier-to-read handbook that gave Church members the flexibility to adapt to local needs and circumstances.
The current handbook devoted more than twenty pages to the Relief Society. President Beck hoped to produce something much shorter and simpler. Using faith, family, and relief as their foundation, the presidency drafted a four-page document and submitted it to Elder Dallin H. Oaks, the apostle supervising the revision. Although he liked what they did, he recommended adding more instructions. They expanded it to twelve pages, and it was approved.
The handbook was only one of the Relief Society’s many projects. While helping with the revision, Silvia worked on committees devoted to training, visiting teaching, and integrating new sisters into Relief Society. She also traveled to many countries around the world to meet with Relief Society sisters and tend to their needs.
She and the other members of the presidency were determined to help everyone catch the vision of Relief Society.
In May 2007, Silvina Mouhsen, a Latter-day Saint living in Buenos Aires, Argentina, was troubled. For the last couple of years, she had been supporting her sister, who had been diagnosed with depression and severe psychosis. During that time, Silvina had also experienced the death of a close relative, given birth to her third child, and served as a ward Relief Society president. Her husband, David, meanwhile, was seeking a promotion at work, furthering his education, and serving in the Church. Because of their conflicting schedules, she hardly saw him during the week.
Now, Silvina struggled to get out of bed in the morning, and she found herself making disconcerting mistakes. First, she had been driving to the supermarket and suddenly couldn’t remember where she was. On another day, she had gone to pick up her son, Nicolás, from school and accidentally grabbed another child’s hand. More recently, she had dropped her daughter off at a party on the wrong day.
When Silvina spoke to her doctor about these incidents, he told her that she was experiencing symptoms of depression. He recommended that she go to therapy, take a leave of absence from her teaching job, and get medication.
Silvina had a hard time accepting this advice. She knew from caring for her sister that mental illnesses were complex, sometimes stemming from genetic factors that were beyond anyone’s control. Yet she had always considered herself a strong person—someone who took care of others during hardships, not one who experienced hardships herself. For a while, she told few people about her diagnosis.
As Silvina thought more about mental health—her sister’s and her own—she noticed others who struggled with similar symptoms. Yet no one talked about them. One woman at church had mental health problems that prevented her from attending Church meetings. Whenever she asked her local leaders for help, they usually suggested that she draw closer to God and trust in Him to solve her problems.
From her own experience, Silvina knew that this was only a partial solution to the woman’s problems, and she encouraged her to seek professional help. Months later, Silvina learned that the woman had taken her advice and was improving.
The Church had been talking more openly about mental illness in recent years, urging the Saints to respond compassionately to those who struggled. It also provided various mental health resources. The Relief Society Social Services Department, now called LDS Family Services, had long offered counseling and other mental health assistance to Saints. Although Family Services only operated agencies in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Great Britain, and Japan, it was in the process of expanding into still more countries, including Argentina. Some Welfare Services Centers in South America, such as those in Chile, offered counseling with trained therapists. The Church also provided mental health support during natural disasters. After the tsunami in the Indian Ocean, for instance, LDS Family Services had conducted training in the affected region to help people cope with loss and trauma.
As Silvina followed her doctor’s advice, her health improved. In addition to therapy, rest, and medication, she found comfort in exercise and music. She also looked for ways to find balance in her life. At home, she and David spent more time with each other. Sometimes they met at the temple after work so they could do an endowment session. Other times, they simply went to the grocery store together.
Silvina found additional strength in the family proclamation. It taught that spirit daughters and sons of God had accepted His plan in the premortal life, making it possible for them to progress toward a divine destiny as “heirs of eternal life.” Knowing this truth gave her purpose, direction, and perspective as she faced her challenges.
At church, she relied more on her counselors in the Relief Society presidency to help fulfill her duties. She leaned on the Savior, and her faith in Him began to have new meaning to her. She listened more to the sacrament prayers each Sunday, which became an opportunity to reflect more deeply on the ordinance. One evening, David gave her a priesthood blessing, promising that her mind would function in the way she needed. Her friends also prayed for her, and her brother put her name on the temple’s prayer roll.
Through these experiences, Silvina grew in spirit. She realized the Savior knew her hardships perfectly. She did not have to deal with her struggles alone.
Friends, family, and the Lord were there to support her as she healed.
In June 2007, Hector David Hernandez returned home from school exhausted. Shadows hung beneath his eyes as he sat down with his wife, Emma, and told her he had fallen asleep in class.
A year and a half had passed since Emma and Hector David were sealed in the Guatemala City Temple. Now they were both taking classes at a public university near their home in Honduras. And along with balancing work, school, and marriage, they were caring for their infant son, Oscar David.
The university they attended offered a limited course selection each semester, which meant it would take longer for Emma and Hector David to graduate. And being new parents came with a lot of sleepless nights, causing their schoolwork to suffer.
As they sat together, Hector David also told Emma that he had just received his grades.
“I didn’t do very well,” he said, frustrated.
Emma realized that something needed to change. As they discussed their options, she thought about the Perpetual Education Fund. The Church’s loan program had remained on her mind over the years, but she and Hector David had wanted to be self-sufficient. Now they felt prompted to change their plans.
“What if you go to a private university and we use the Perpetual Education Fund?” Emma suggested.
Hector David had dreamed of graduating from the accounting program at the university they attended. But the private university Emma mentioned offered a similar finance major. It also had three terms a year, meaning he could take more classes and graduate sooner. The Perpetual Education Fund, meanwhile, could help pay the high cost of the university.
“OK,” Hector David agreed. But he wanted Emma to use the PEF to reach her academic goals as well. “We’re going to study,” he said. “I’m going to study. You’re going to study.”
“OK,” Emma said, excited by the plan.
From there, they jointly applied for a PEF loan and enrolled in the private university. Emma took a leap of faith and quit her bank job, giving her more time to spend at home with Oscar David.
People who used the Perpetual Education Fund were required to take a course to prepare them for future employment. The class offered resources to help participants discover their ideal career and how to prepare for it.
One of Emma’s assignments was to write down her talents and interests. She noted that she was creative and that she was interested in the advertising aspect of business. She then spoke to people who worked in marketing and graphic design. After those interviews, Emma decided to change her major from business administration to marketing and advertising.
She did not know much about these subjects, but when she sat down in her first marketing class at the private university, she realized she was in the right place.
“This is what I was born to do,” she thought.
Even with financial help from the PEF, being a student and parent was not easy. She and Hector David continued to face sleepless nights and difficulty juggling their responsibilities. Some days, Emma wondered if she should set school aside and finish her education later.
But during hard moments she and Hector David repeated a motto to each other: “This is the time.”
On January 12, 2008, President Gordon B. Hinckley stood at the grave of his wife, Marjorie, in the Salt Lake City Cemetery. It had been nearly four years since her death. She had taken ill on the flight home from the Accra Ghana Temple dedication and passed away a few months later, on April 6, 2004.
Together, President and Sister Hinckley had crisscrossed the globe, ministering to the Saints and enjoying one another’s companionship. He missed her immensely. Only his Church service and family kept him from being overcome with loneliness.
President Hinckley tried to visit her grave every week to leave her flowers and meditate on their sixty-six years of marriage. He worried that some people might think he visited the grave too often. But he went anyway.
“She was my everything, the one whom I held most dear,” he’d once reflected. “The least I can do is to leave an expression of beauty each week.”
On this visit, there were still wreaths on the grave from previous weeks, and President Hinckley decided to leave them there a little while longer.
A short time later, the prophet sat down to dictate his wishes for his funeral. At ninety-seven, he was the oldest living Church president in history. He had survived a cancer operation a few years before, but now the cancer had spread. He knew his time on earth was ending.
“I desire that I be buried in a cherrywood casket, the same as my wife,” he dictated. He hoped his funeral would be held in the Conference Center, even if it meant that there would be empty seats in the massive auditorium.
“I broke ground for it, dedicated it,” he explained, “and think it appropriate that my funeral service be held there.”
President Hinckley did not want a long funeral. It should be no more than ninety minutes, he said, just as the Church Handbook of Instructions advised. He asked that his longtime first counselor, President Thomas S. Monson, conduct. He also requested that the Tabernacle Choir sing “My Redeemer Lives,” a hymn he had written years before:
I know that my Redeemer lives,
Triumphant Savior, Son of God,
Victorious over pain and death,
My King, my Leader, and my Lord.
At the end of his funeral dictation, the prophet mentioned Sister Hinckley. He had every assurance that their marriage covenants would endure in the life to come. It was his final wish to be buried next to her.
“I thus place myself in the hands of the Lord,” he concluded, “and join my beloved eternal companion to walk hand in hand on the road of immortality and eternal life.”