“To Fill the Earth,” Liahona, July 2010, 24–29
To Fill the Earth
President Thomas S. Monson has called upon Latter-day Saints to continue in our faith and prayers that “areas where our influence is limited and where we are not allowed to share the gospel” will be opened (see sidebar on page 25). He was present at the landmark meeting in 1974 when President Spencer W. Kimball (1895–1985) called upon Church leaders to lengthen their strides and enlarge their vision in magnifying the missionary program worldwide and “in finding the keys that have apparently been lost to many nations wherein we can open those worlds.”1
President Monson promises that miracles can occur as we continue in our faith and prayers. He knows from experience that this is true. In the years following President Kimball’s plea, he saw a dramatic increase in the number of missionaries and convert baptisms.2 He witnessed the opening of many areas as Latter-day Saints obeyed President Kimball’s request to pray that the nations of the world would open their doors to the preaching of the gospel. President Monson was instrumental in the construction of the Freiberg Germany Temple. He witnessed the opening of many countries to the gospel after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.3
He and all latter-day prophets since the Restoration of the gospel know that these words written by the Prophet Joseph Smith in March 1842 are true: “The Standard of Truth has been erected; no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing; persecutions may rage, mobs may combine, armies may assemble, calumny may defame, but the truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent, till it has penetrated every continent, visited every clime, swept every country, and sounded in every ear, till the purposes of God shall be accomplished, and the Great Jehovah shall say the work is done.”4
Let us unite our faith and prayers so that areas now closed will open and miracles will occur as we accept the challenge from President Monson.
Below: President Heber J. Grant dedicated the Cardston Alberta Temple on August 26, 1923—the first temple to be dedicated outside the United States.
Right: The silver trowel used by Elder David O. McKay in laying the temple cornerstone in 1915.
Left: Statue of Samuel H. Smith, by D. J. Bawden
Left: Samuel H. Smith, brother of the Prophet Joseph Smith, was among the first missionaries to preach the gospel in the United States.
Above: Early missionaries to England found great success in spreading the gospel, as did missionaries to Scandinavian and other European countries.
Photographs by David Pickup
Left and above: The Gadfield Elm chapel in Malvern, England, is the first and oldest Latter-day Saint chapel. In 1840 Elder Wilford Woodruff converted the 600 members of the United Brethren who met here. They donated their chapel to the Church, and it became the focal point of missionary work in the area. Later they sold it to help pay for local members to gather to Zion.
Right: Embarkation of the Saints at Liverpool, by Ken Baxter
The ship Ellen Maria prepares to sail from Liverpool, England, for America on February 1, 1851. At the time, over 50,000 Latter-day Saints lived in the British Isles. Emigration was possible as the result of the Perpetual Emigrating Fund, which loaned money to impoverished Latter-day Saints on the promise they would repay the loan so others could emigrate. Thousands of converts emigrated to join the Saints in America.
Left: photograph of 1882 meetinghouse courtesy of Church History Museum; above: The Promise, by Al Rounds
Many “isles of the sea” were among places where the gospel began to take root in the 19th century. Far left: The site of this 1882 meetinghouse in Hawaii became the site of the Laie Hawaii Temple, which was finished in 1919 (left).
Below left: Building Now for Eternity, by Sylvia Huege de Serville, Fourth International Art Competition
Below left: After missionaries went to New Zealand in 1854, the gospel blossomed.
Below: Lehi’s Dream, by Araceli Andrade, Seventh International Art Competition
Below: This replica of Stela 5—one of 80 monuments in Izapa, Chiapas, Mexico—is known as the Tree-of-Life Stone. Some have suggested that it might depict Lehi’s dream (see 1 Nephi 8).
Top: photograph of Nigerian baptisms in 1978 by Janath Cannon
Right: In the 1960s many in Nigeria and Ghana gained testimonies by reading Church literature. When missionaries arrived in 1978, hundreds of Africans were ready to be baptized. Within a year, some 1,700 people had been baptized and confirmed.
Above: Ordination in Sierra Leone by Latter-day Saints, by Emile Wilson
Right: Baptism in Sierra Leone, by Emile Wilson
Top left: The Lamanites Blossom Like the Rose in the Desert, by Maria Gladis Barrientos de Monterroso, Third International Art Competition
Left: The colors and textures of this embroidery capture the energy of the tremendous growth of the Church in Mexico, Central America, and South America over the past 50 years. These members love the Book of Mormon and are drawn to the temple, represented here by the Guatemala City Guatemala Temple.
Left: Joseph Smith’s First Vision, by Januza Mostyl, courtesy of Church History Museum
Below: Today more than 1,500 members live in Poland, a country profoundly affected by World War II. Their testimonies are rooted in the same beliefs as are all Latter-day Saints’—such as the First Vision (depicted below by a Polish artist).
Top right: photograph of President Hinckley by Gerry Avant
Top: Asians celebrated the 1996 visit of President Gordon B. Hinckley and his wife, Marjorie.
Top center: Unfading Missionaries, by Jueling Chen, Fourth International Art Competition, may not be copied
Top center: Asian and Latter-day Saint images surround these Taiwanese members, showing how the gospel can work in any culture.
Right: Dedication of Russia, by Emin Zulfugarov
Above: Elder Francis M. Lyman, an Apostle, gathered with other Church leaders in August 1903 in St. Petersburg, Russia, to dedicate Russia for the preaching of the gospel.