|
This address was delivered to the Priesthood Session of the General Conference in which President Moyle was called as First Counselor in the First Presidency.
My dear brethren, I am sure that one of the purposes for which this great correlation program is organized and one of the great results which will be accomplished by it, will be the elimination, so far as that is possible, of sin and transgression within the Church.
This week many of us read headlines in the Deseret News which disclosed that all was not well. The article revealed more of the details of the offenses of sex deviates among teenagers than prudence might dictate, but be that as it may, the news is shocking and alarming. We might not have paid as much attention to this news as we did, were it not for the fact that from other sources transgressions within the Church are brought to our attention. We ask ourselves constantly the question, where have we failed? We have had these young people from the time of their birth until the time of their transgression. Or, if we lost them somewhere along the way, then we have to ask ourselves the question, why did we lose them?
Our programs in our auxiliary organizations and in our priesthood quorums, we look upon as excellent. Good as they are, when this correlation program gets into full swing, we will &d a tremendous improvement. The principle of improvement seems to be one of the cardinal principles of the gospel.
There are two things that I should like to discuss in this connection: first is the question of interviews. It is interesting because there are nearly 10,000 missionaries in the world today and every one of them, I hope we have not a single exception, have been interviewed by their bishop, their stake president, a General Authority, and also their mission president. But it is these initial interviews that concern us most.
Do young men come to their bishops, preparatory to going on a mission, for an interview without having been previously interviewed upon many occasions by their bishops? Every young man who comes to a stake president to be interviewed for his worthiness to receive the Melchizedek Priesthood and be ordained to the office of an elder should know exactly what is expected of him and what he may expect by way of interrogatories which he will be expected to answer. If this is not the case, then we have failed somewhere along the line. I have a feeling that some of our failure can be attributed to the fact that these young men and young women have not been interviewed as frequently or as thoroughly as they should be in their various wards.
You have received word from the brethren as they have visited your stakes, that it is not only proper but it is essential that candidates for baptism at the age of eight should be interviewed. It is inconceivable that a bishop would present a boy's name at the age of twelve to be ordained a deacon, without having given that boy sufficient of his personal time and attention to know the state of mind of the boy as well as his past record, to know what the likelihood is of his carrying on in righteousness to manhood.
Then when he is to be ordained a teacher and a priest, there should be other interviews, each one a little more intimate, each one a little more embracing, and then we come to this all-important interview to ascertain whether or not he has conducted himself as a holder of the Aaronic Priesthood to be worthy now to receive the Higher Priesthood, to go to the house of the Lord to receive his endowments, to go on a mission, to be married, whatever the reason may be. The bishop should never let that opportunity pass without informing himself as thoroughly as it is possible for him to do of the condition, spiritually, temporally, morally, of this young man.
In all of these interviews and many others, because we are always calling young men and young women to assume responsibilities in the Church, young men to become presidents of their deacons quorum or members of presidencies of the teachers quorum, or the bishop calls in young men to assist in the work of the priests quorum, we ought to be looking for opportunities to interview, rather than to minimize the number. In each instance we ought to say to ourselves, this interview is not being conducted to inform me as to the worthiness of this young man to do this, that, or the other, alone, but it is vitally important that in this interview I should come away knowing this young man is fully aware of his position and what is expected of him.
There have been bishops in the Church who have succeeded over the years in never missing a young man, having practically a hundred percent record of his young men in his ward going into the mission field when they reach the appropriate age. That means that all bishops could approximate that, and that in place of having one out of three or one out of four go on a mission, we would have at least fifty percent; we feel that ought to be the minimum, and the other fifty percent we would like to have marry in the temple.
Now, if perchance, such a result can be accomplished by interviews, by the bishop giving to these young people of himself, his time, knowing them intimately and letting them in a sense feel an intimacy towards the bishop, then certainly it becomes rather a simple process, if we but devote ourselves thereto, and if perchance we do not get all the boys, it certainly would be an improvement on the present. I just take these two categories of activity going on a mission and getting married in the temple. I just have a feeling that that responsibility rests peculiarly between the bishop and his young people.
By that I do not mean that the entire responsibility rests upon the bishop. It is the bishop's duty to see to it, first and foremost, that the home in which that young man lives is an environment in which he can grow and develop spiritually, and that brings me to the second phase of the work, and that is our ward teaching.
I have known ward teachers who have felt pretty sorry about the fact that having failed to visit a home rather regularly--I mean they have been regular in failing to visit the home -- they suddenly find that out of that home has come a boy who has seriously transgressed. We cannot help saying to ourselves I wonder if I had gone to that home more often, if I had known a little more about the family, about what the boy was thinking, I would have been better prepared as a ward teacher, in turn to report to the bishop the status, the condition, the spirituality, the weakness, if you please, of that family in order that the bishop might know which of the families in his ward would justify the greatest effort upon his part.
This is a glorious organization we have in the Church. I know from past experience that no matter how busy you may be as a bishop or as a stake president, that it is possible for you to accomplish all that you should accomplish, if you but organize so to do, and with the help and the tools that this coordinating committee is now going to furnish us, I am sure it is going to be made clearer to us just how an organization can function more effectively.
Let me say that I had one experience -- if you will forgive me for mentioning it, personally -- but my stake was out in the country. President Faust who gave the opening prayer this evening is president of the Cottonwood Stake over which I once presided. And my work was in the city. My predecessor lived in the county. had plenty of time, and I doubt very much that he ever missed a funeral. He realized that it was an opportune time, when there is grief in the family, to show the interest of the Church in that hour of their bereavement, so he was very diligent, and I said to myself, "What in the world can I do? Here I am in court nearly every day."
Well, I had a stake clerk who lived there in the center of the city of Murray; he had a business; he knew everybody in the stake and had intimate contact with most of them in his store, so I said to him, "Will you please keep track of every funeral, every death in the stake?" And I was rather fortunate because I had 400 high priests -- it was one of the old stakes. I think there are thirteen or fourteen stakes now covering the same territory as the one did in the twenties.
And do you know that we would call upon one of those high priests to attend every funeral, to contact the family, to tell them they came as a representative of the stake presidency and the high council and brought their greetings and their sympathy? They would attend the funeral and in most cases speak, and it was not uncommon for families in the stake to tell me that they were so happy that brother so-and-so had come representing us, that they were sure they got as much from him as they would have if the stake president had come himself.
But the important thing was that the work was done, and there was not a high priest who received that kind of call but what felt proud that his stake president would remember him and would call upon him to represent him.
That is true of ward teaching. Every ward teacher is a representative of the bishop. Think what a bishop can do if he puts all of his resources to work.
You know, in the early days of the welfare program, we had a picture of the bishop and his two counselors with their arms outstretched trying to hold up the meetinghouse or move it, and it presented an impossible situation. And the next film showed the entire priesthood of the ward under that meetinghouse, and they walked along with it and bounced it as they went, a relatively easy job.
Well, now, brethren, let us go forward in this priesthood work in the wards and in the stakes and see if we cannot touch every one of the lives that come under our presidency and touch them for good.
That the Lord will help us so to do I pray humbly, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
|
