Chapter 36
Press Forward
President Gordon B. Hinckley passed peacefully away on the evening of January 27, 2008. During the prophet’s brief final illness, family and friends sat at his bedside in Salt Lake City. President Thomas S. Monson, who had served with him in the First Presidency for over two decades, visited him a few hours before his death and gave him a blessing.
Six days later, sixteen thousand mourners gathered in the Conference Center for the prophet’s funeral. Countless others watched the proceedings on BYU TV, on the Church’s website, and in meetinghouses across the world.
During the service, President Monson spoke of how he and President Hinckley had shared much happiness, laughter, and sorrow over the years. “He was an island of calm in a sea of storm,” President Monson recalled. “He comforted and calmed us when conditions in the world were frightening. He guided us undeviatingly on the path which will lead us back to our Heavenly Father.”
The Saints remembered President Hinckley as a world-traveling and temple-building prophet. He had journeyed over a million miles to visit the Saints around the world—more than any Church president. He had also expanded the use of satellite and digital technologies to reach the Saints wherever they lived. The Church now broadcast general conference in eighty languages. In 2003, he had initiated worldwide leadership broadcasts, allowing Church leaders to train many Saints from a single location. The same technology had since made large regional and national conferences possible, some involving over eighty stakes at a time.
During his presidency, the number of operating temples had more than doubled, from 47 to 124. Among the temples he had dedicated was a reconstruction of the Nauvoo Temple, which had been destroyed a few years after its dedication in 1846.
These new temples brought sacred ordinances and covenants closer to more people than ever before. In August 2005, for instance, forty-two Saints from the central African nation of Cameroon had traveled five hundred miles to attend a newly dedicated temple in Aba, Nigeria. Recent rains had turned the unpaved roads to mud, but the Saints kept going, even when they had to push their rented passenger vans through the deep mire. While the slow journey was often difficult, it was shorter and more affordable than a trip to the temples in Ghana and South Africa. And the Cameroonian Saints rejoiced as they received their endowment and sealing blessings.
President Hinckley had been grateful to play a part in spreading the blessings of the house of the Lord to so many people. He believed temples served a unique purpose. “At their altars we kneel before God our Creator and are given promise of His everlasting blessings,” he taught. “We commune with Him and reflect on His Son, our Savior and Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ, who served as proxy for each of us in a vicarious sacrifice in our behalf.”
Since his mission to England in the 1930s, President Hinckley had enjoyed a great love for the European Saints. And it had pained him in recent decades to see Europeans drift away from churchgoing. To provide support, he encouraged the creation of “outreach centers” where young single adults could come together to socialize and share their faith in Jesus Christ. Between 2003 and 2007, over seventy such centers were opened across Europe, resulting in many new converts, reactivations, and temple marriages.
President Hinckley had transformed Church public relations as well. Under his watch, the Church started its own website, filled it with Christ-centered messages and training materials, and provided an online newsroom where reporters and others could go for accurate information about the faith.
He had also made himself a visible presence in the wider media, accepting televised interviews with prominent journalists and writing books for major publishing houses. In 2001, he launched the Joseph Smith Papers Project, which aimed to publish all of the prophet’s papers online and in scholarly volumes that could be found in libraries around the world.
Of all President Hinckley’s many innovations, President Monson felt the Perpetual Education Fund would bless more lives than any other. Already it had benefited nearly thirty thousand students in forty countries.
“What a miracle this is in lifting young people from poverty and helping them enter the workforce,” President Monson reflected in his journal. “It is successful beyond our fondest dreams and is a very worthy contribution source for those who wish to advance education in many parts of the world where education does not come to the poor.”
The day after the funeral, Boyd K. Packer, the next most senior apostle, ordained and set apart President Monson as the new Church president. President Monson called Henry B. Eyring, previously a second counselor under President Hinckley, to serve as his first counselor, and Dieter F. Uchtdorf, an apostle from Germany, to serve as his second counselor.
The new presidency took over the construction projects still ongoing at the time of President Hinckley’s death, including a dozen temples and about three hundred meetinghouses. The Church was also developing housing for temple missionaries in Nauvoo, constructing a new Church History Library and a large building to help manage philanthropic donations, and building up residential and commercial properties across the street from Temple Square.
But as President Monson began his administration, serious troubles arose. Many homeowners in the United States had begun to default on their mortgages, and the banks holding the unpaid mortgages buckled under the heavy debt. Before long, the United States lapsed into the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, triggering financial panic and rising unemployment around the world.
“The financial markets are in jeopardy,” President Monson reflected in his journal. “Our people, along with others in our nation and in the world, are extended in their debt.”
As the crisis worsened, the First Presidency had to consider suspending the Church’s various building projects. Having lived through the Great Depression, President Monson understood the dangers of exceeding one’s limits. But he also saw that if construction were suspended, it meant unemployment for hundreds of workers such as carpenters and electricians. The construction industry was grinding to a halt, and jobs were hard to come by.
The Presiding Bishopric, who had stewardship over the Church’s building and humanitarian efforts, met with the First Presidency every Friday to review the status of projects. One Friday in early 2008, the bishopric asked President Monson what should be done.
“We’ve got all these construction projects going, in one state or another,” the bishopric said. “What is your desire?”
President Monson was firm. “Press forward,” he said.
Around this time, Blake McKeown was back on Sydney’s Bondi Beach for another summer of lifeguard training in front of the TV camera. His appearance on the second season of Bondi Rescue had made him a local celebrity in Australia. Every now and then, while shopping in his hometown or riding a train to work, he’d notice people glancing his way and discreetly pointing. The attention was a little annoying, but he couldn’t complain. He liked getting paid to hang out on the beach day after day with his friends. “How could life get any better?” he wondered.
His parents were concerned, though. Had the fame of being on television changed his priorities? Blake had gotten the lifeguarding job a year earlier to make money while waiting to serve a full-time mission. Now his nineteenth birthday had long since come and gone.
“What do I do?” his mother asked their bishop one day. “How’s this going to turn out?”
“I don’t know,” the bishop replied, also concerned. “He was doing so well.”
Blake tried to reassure his parents. He told them that he was praying to know the right time to serve. He just didn’t feel like the time had come yet. “It’s important that I go, not when I go,” he told them, echoing something his father had always told him.
Then his brother Wade returned from his mission to Japan. Wade saw his parents’ concern and talked to Blake. Blake took Wade’s words to heart and began thinking more seriously about leaving on a mission. “If the Church is true,” he told himself, “then I have to go on a mission.”
He thought about his testimony and the Church. Growing up, he had attended TFY, the multiday youth conference in Australia, which had spread to countries in South America and Europe in 2006 under the Especially for Youth name. He had also faithfully attended early-morning seminary and other Church activities. He may not have always been excited to go, but he had tried to keep the commandments and do what was right. And he had faith in Jesus Christ and in the truth of the restored gospel. That was reason enough to serve.
Blake soon submitted his missionary application. It was a moment of unprecedented opportunities for missionary work. In recent years, Church leaders had “raised the bar” for missionary service, emphasizing the need for committed elders and sisters with high moral standards who knew how to hear and respond to the Holy Spirit. The Church had also introduced service missions for young people with certain health conditions or for whom traditional proselytizing missions weren’t a good fit.
When Blake’s call came, he received an assignment to serve a full-time proselytizing mission in the Philippines Baguio Mission, one of fifteen missions in the country. All he had left to do was tell his fellow lifeguards.
A short time later, during a filming of Bondi Rescue, Blake spoke to the cameras about his faith. “Growing up, I’ve always been a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” he said. “I go to church every Sunday. I guess I have a bit stricter standards that I live by, but other than that, I’m just a normal person.”
After Blake’s shift ended, the show’s producers had him put on a suit and tie. He then walked to the main lifeguard tower and knocked on the door. “I guess my hands are gonna have to get used to that,” he said, looking at the camera.
The lifeguards greeted him with good-natured laughs. “Do you like it?” he asked, showing them his suit. “It’s me for the next two years.”
“Where are you going?” one of the lifeguards asked.
“To the Philippines,” Blake said. “I’m serving my mission, for my church.”
“You’re Mormon?” said another lifeguard.
“Yeah,” Blake said. “I think I’ve got the best thing in my life, so why shouldn’t I share it with other people?”
Blake explained that he would soon be leaving for the United States to receive missionary training and learn Tagalog. He would then go to his assigned field of service. “We’ll be actively knocking on doors,” he said, “and just trying to teach people about Jesus Christ.”
“Well, man, all the best,” a lifeguard said, shaking Blake’s hand and pulling him into a warm embrace. Blake was sad to leave the beach, and he knew he was going to miss his friends. But he was eager to begin his mission and do good in the world.
Back home, Blake told Wade about the experience. “My challenge as a missionary was to speak to ten people a day in Japan,” Wade said. “You’ve just done that to ten million people in one go.”
In June 2008, Willy and Lilly Binene caught a bus with their three children to the airport in Mbuji-Mayi, about a hundred miles north of their home in Luputa, Democratic Republic of the Congo. From there, they flew to Kinshasa, spent the night in the city, and then boarded a flight to South Africa. The trip was long, but the children were happy, enjoying their travels. The family was heading to the Johannesburg Temple to be sealed together for eternity.
Two years had passed since Willy’s call as president of the Luputa District had reunited them as a family. After moving back to Luputa, Lilly had opened a nursery school. It was an immediate success, and before long, she expanded it to a primary school. Willy had set aside his dream of becoming an electrical engineer to begin training as a nurse at the local hospital. He balanced this work with the demands of his calling, and he relied on the support of his counselors in the district presidency as they learned their new responsibilities, trained local leaders, and visited the Saints.
Recently, the presidency had taken on additional duties to help with a three-year, Church-funded project to pipe clean water into Luputa. The residents of the city had long depended on various pools, springs, and drainage ditches for water. Twice a day, women and children would walk a mile or more to one of these spots, collect water in whatever container they had on hand, and then carry it home. These water sources were teeming with dangerous parasites, and nearly everyone knew someone—often a small child—who had died from the contaminated water. And sometimes women were assaulted as they walked to and from the water source.
For many years, ADIR, a humanitarian organization in the DRC, had wanted to bring clean water to the 260,000 people in and around Luputa. But the best source for the water was a group of hillside springs twenty-one miles away, and ADIR did not have $2.6 million to build the pipeline. Then the organization’s managing director heard about Latter-day Saint Charities and contacted local humanitarian missionaries about collaborating on the project.
Created in 1996 under the direction of the First Presidency, Latter-day Saint Charities supported hundreds of Church humanitarian projects across the globe every year. Although its services varied according to need, its recent core initiatives were immunization, wheelchairs, vision care, infant care, and clean water. When word came about the need for a water pipeline to Luputa, Latter-day Saint Charities donated the necessary funds, and volunteers from Luputa and other nearby communities agreed to help provide the labor.
As a district presidency, Willy and his counselors worked with ADIR and Daniel Kazadi, a local Latter-day Saint hired as the site monitor. They also volunteered as laborers themselves.
Now, as the Binenes landed in Johannesburg, they could set aside their busy lives and focus on the house of the Lord. At the airport, they were greeted by a family and driven to the temple’s onsite patron housing. Later, Willy and Lilly entered the temple, dropped their children off at the Church-sponsored day care, and changed into white clothes.
Before leaving Luputa, the Binenes had studied the Church’s temple preparation manual, Endowed from on High, and read apostle James E. Talmage’s The House of the Lord. Still, when they got to the temple, they were a little disoriented because everything was new and no one spoke French. But by using gestures, they figured out where to go and what to do.
Later, in the sealing room, they were overjoyed to reunite with their three children. Dressed in white, they looked like angels as they came into the room. Willy felt goosebumps on his arms. He and his family no longer seemed to be on the earth. It was like they were in God’s presence.
“Wow,” he said.
Lilly too felt like they were in heaven. Knowing they were bound together for eternity seemed to multiply the family’s love for one another. They were inseparable now. Not even death could part them.
In early 2009, Angela Peterson was living in Utah with her husband, John Fallentine. She and John had met in a single adult ward in Salt Lake City shortly after Angela had left her demanding job in Washington, DC. John was from the western United States, and he had also lived and worked for a time in Washington. He was older than Angela and a little shy, but they had quickly become the best of friends. In November 2007, they were sealed in the Bountiful Utah Temple.
Now the Fallentines were ready for a new adventure. After John received permission from his employer to work remotely, the couple packed up their belongings and moved to New Zealand’s North Island. They had both been there before, and they thought it was the most beautiful place on earth.
The New Zealand Saints had recently celebrated the 150th anniversary of the arrival of the Church in their country, and fifty years had passed since the dedication of the New Zealand Temple. At that time, the Church had about seventeen thousand members in the country and no wards or stakes. Now, there were nearly one hundred thousand Saints spread throughout 25 stakes, 150 wards, and 54 branches.
The Fallentines settled in Thames, a coastal town on the Coromandel Peninsula, and soon began serving in their small branch. Most of the members of their branch and stake were Māori, and Angela loved getting to know them. She served in Young Women while John, a Sunday School teacher, volunteered to help the branch president with the young men. Angela and John also served as branch missionaries and ordinance workers in the temple in Hamilton, an almost two-hour drive away.
At home, however, the couple was growing concerned. All her life, Angela had wanted to be a mother. But so far, she and John had not been able to have children. They consulted a doctor in Auckland and underwent various tests to see what, if anything, could be done. When the results came back, both Angela and John learned that they had significant fertility issues. Even with the help of doctors and specialists, Angela’s chances of becoming pregnant were slim.
The news was devastating. Every day, Angela walked past a framed copy of the family proclamation in their home. Its message raised a troubling question in her mind. If the family was ordained of God, why couldn’t she and John have children?
She felt confused and adrift—yet still hopeful that God would answer her and John’s prayers.
On August 9, 2009, President Thomas S. Monson met with Roman Catholic friends at the Cathedral of the Madeleine in Salt Lake City. The magnificent house of worship was one hundred years old, and President Monson had come with other religious and civic officials to celebrate.
President Monson took the occasion to speak about how Catholics and Latter-day Saints had set aside their religious differences to care for people in need. The cathedral’s “Good Samaritan” program provided a daily lunch to the hungry, with bread and other food supplied by Church Welfare Services. Similarly, the Catholics operated a local substance abuse facility, which the Church stocked with food. The two churches had also partnered to help refugees arriving in Salt Lake City get adequate hygiene supplies and home furnishings.
This partnership extended far beyond Salt Lake City. In recent years, Catholic charitable agencies had helped the Church distribute over $11 million in humanitarian aid across the world, ensuring that aid was given to those who needed it the most.
“When we have eyes that see, ears that hear, and hearts that know and feel,” President Monson told his audience, “we will recognize current needs of our fellow beings among us who cry out for help.”
During the past year and a half, President Monson had paid close attention to the Church’s many building and humanitarian projects. Even as the United States economy remained stagnant and unemployment high, he had seen unexpected benefits to pressing forward with these efforts. Demand for construction work was down, yet the Church was able to provide jobs for plenty of skilled laborers on its projects.
President Monson had also urged local leaders to cut costs where possible. He asked mission leaders to teach missionaries to be thrifty. He endorsed a plan recently proposed by the Presiding Bishopric to reduce the size of new stake centers by a fourth. Instead of constructing larger, more expensive buildings that accommodated all stake members, stakes could meet in multiple ward buildings and connect to stake conferences through broadcast technology. This allowed Saints to cut down on travel expenses as well.
During the recession, President Monson was mindful of people in need—especially widows. Fast offering requests had increased, and he wanted no one to be forgotten. As a young man, President Monson had served as bishop of a Salt Lake City ward with more than a thousand people. Eighty-five of them were widows. Long after his five years as bishop were over, President Monson had continued to visit these widows, bearing gifts and bringing cheer. As Church president, he regularly visited the lonely and forgotten.
“That service to which all of us have been called is the service of the Lord Jesus Christ,” he taught the Saints. “As He enlists us to His cause, He invites us to draw close to Him. He speaks to you and to me.”
In 2003, the Church had launched a new website, www.providentliving.org, which taught basic welfare principles. Prior to the recession, the site was receiving over a million page views every month. Now, to help reemphasize these time-honored truths, the Presiding Bishopric prepared a new pamphlet and DVD, Basic Principles of Welfare and Self-Reliance. The Saints were urged to pay their tithes and offerings, live within a budget, avoid debt, eat out less often, and keep a reserve of food on hand.
“I declare that the welfare plan of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is inspired of Almighty God,” President Monson testified. “Indeed, the Lord Jesus Christ is its architect.”
For decades, Church leaders had defined the mission of the Church as including three elements: perfecting the Saints, proclaiming the gospel, and redeeming the dead. Now President Monson felt that welfare should be the “fourth leg of the stool.” In September 2009, he approved editing the Church Handbook of Instructions to include “caring for the poor and needy” as part of the Church’s mission.
“We are surrounded by those in need of our attention, our encouragement, our support, our comfort, our kindness,” he said a few weeks later at general conference. “We are the Lord’s hands here upon the earth, with the mandate to serve and to lift His children. He is dependent upon each of us.”