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President
Thomas S. Monson — On the Lord’s Errand
On any given day at a handful of nursing homes
in Salt Lake City, a buoyant yet distinguished gentleman can be
seen talking, laughing and listening to the residents. Despite his
heavy load of religious assignments, Thomas S. Monson, the president
of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is the self-appointed
chaplain for these facilities.
Fellow Church leader President Boyd K. Packer
said, “He visits them anytime his busy schedule permits, and
sometimes even when it doesn’t permit.”
President Monson’s love for the elderly
can be traced to his earliest positions in the Church. He was assigned
to be a bishop in Salt Lake City when he was just 22 years old.
His lay ministry included responsibilities for over 1,000 members
— 85 of them widows — and the largest welfare load in
the Church.
President Thomas S. Monson and his wife, Frances,
in front of the Salt Lake Temple.
© 2007 Intellectual Reserve, Inc. All rights reserved.
President Monson remembers one particular year
when a drought caused a severe shortage of food for the needy, especially
fresh fruit. He offered a sacred prayer one night late at the meetinghouse
asking the Lord for help. “I pleaded that these widows were
the finest women I knew, that their needs were simple and conservative
and that they had no resources on which they might rely.”
The next morning, President Monson said, he
received a call from a man in the congregation who owned a large
wholesale produce company. “Bishop,” he said, “I’d
like to send a semi-trailer filled with oranges, grapefruits and
bananas to the Church for those who would otherwise go without.
Could you make arrangements?”
President Monson not only provided physically
for the needy in his congregation, but he also forged lasting friendships.
He took a week of his personal vacation time each Christmas season
to visit every single one of the widows in his congregation. For
the first several years he took them a dressed chicken from his
own poultry coops as a gift.
These visits continued decades after President
Monson was given other Church assignments for as long as each of
the 85 widows lived. Fellow Church leader Elder Jeffrey R. Holland
said, “Perhaps no one in the present leadership of the Church
has spoken at so many funerals — he once had three in one
day — and always very personal remarks are given for the sometimes
ordinary and otherwise unknown souls that he has met and loved during
his ministry.”
President Monson also
has a gift for reaching out to the youth in the Church and has served
for nearly three decades on the National Executive Board of the
Boy Scouts of America. Former Chief Scout Executive Jere Ratcliffe
said, “I don’t know any person about whom I could say
more good things than I can say about Tom Monson. For me Tom personifies
‘enthusiasm’ in its original meaning, ‘God within’
or literally ‘inspired,’ He lights up every meeting
he is in. The LDS Church is blessed to have such a leader of youth.”
Perhaps President Monson’s example of how to minister to others
came from his childhood. He was born on 21 August 1927 in Salt Lake
City to G. Spencer and Gladys Condie Monson, who were of hardy Swedish,
English and Scottish ancestry.
President Thomas S. Monson as a child. © 2007
Intellectual Reserve, Inc. All rights reserved.
He describes his childhood as idyllic
with hours spent fishing and exploring the surrounding valleys.
“Ours was a close-knit family,” President Monson said.
“We gained a sense of appreciation and love for our relatives,
because all of us lived together on one corner on Salt Lake’s
west side.”
President Monson vividly recalls riding in his
family’s 1928 Oldsmobile many Sundays with his father to the
home of his father’s Uncle Elias.“ I would wait in the
car while Dad went inside. Soon he would emerge from the house,
carrying his crippled uncle in his arms like a china doll. I would
open the door and watch how tenderly my father would place Uncle
Elias in the front seat and wrap a blanket around his legs. Then
we would take him for a ride around the city. Dad never wanted any
thanks for this service, but his lesson was not lost on me.”
In fact, this was a lesson that was soon replicated.
During the Depression years, the Monson family lived frugally with
few if any luxuries. When young Tom learned a family of one of his
friends planned to eat cereal moistened with hot water for Christmas
dinner, he invited his friend to his backyard. He then took his
two pet rabbits out of their hutch and gave them to his friend for
Christmas dinner for his family.
After graduating from high school, President
Monson enrolled as a freshman at the University of Utah but soon
shipped out for basic training in San Diego as a member of the United
States Navy Reserve. When the war ended in 1946, he returned home,
graduating two years later with honors from the University of Utah
with a degree in business.
It was at a university dance that he first saw
the young lady who would later become his wife — Frances Johnson.
At the end of their courtship, President Monson said he had planned
a special evening to propose to Frances, but his youngest brother,
Scott, spoiled the surprise by blurting out, “Tommy has a
ring for you, Frances!” the moment she entered the door. Despite
the unusual proposal, Tom and Frances were married in the Salt Lake
Temple on 7 October 1948.
“From the first day of our marriage, Tom
has served in leadership positions. Some have asked how a new bride
adjusts to that, but it has never been a sacrifice to see my husband
doing the Lord’s work,” Frances said. “It has
blessed me, and it has blessed our children. He always knew that
if it was for the Church, I expected him to do what he had to do.”
Her shared commitment to serving in the Church
is something President Monson values. “In 59 years of marriage
I have never known Frances to complain once of my Church responsibilities.
In those 59 years I have been gone many days and many nights, and
I have rarely been able to sit with her in the congregation. But
there is no one like her — absolutely no one. She is in every
way supportive and is a woman of quiet and profoundly powerful faith.”
This mutual commitment to Church service was
tested again and again as President Monson was called to numerous
lay leadership positions and asked to take a leave of absence from
his executive position at the Deseret News to move his family to
Toronto, Canada, where he served as the president of the Canadian
Mission for three years.
Upon returning home, President Monson participated
in a variety of Church committees but was unprepared when Church
President David O. McKay asked him to be one of 12 modern-day apostles
who help govern The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
After sharing the news with Frances,
President Monson recalls, “that night neither of us slept
very well. My feet were like ice.” In what he would later
describe as one of the most dramatic days of his life, President
Monson was ordained an apostle on 4 October 1963. He was 36 years
old.
Twenty-two years later he would find himself serving in the First
Presidency, the highest governing body of the Church. He served
in the First Presidency for more than two decades as a counselor
to three Church presidents.
Although President Monson had heavy responsibilities
and demands on his time, Frances said he considered his highest
priority to be that of husband and father. In fact, he often shared
his spiritual experiences with his children. Daughter Ann said some
of her fondest memories came from “hearing him tell of the
special inspiration he had in calling a patriarch or of the faith-promoting
experiences he had interviewing missionaries.”
His son Thomas said, “Every night before
I went to bed, I would go upstairs to his office, and whatever he
was doing, he would put aside, and he would play me a game of checkers.
That is one of the sweetest memories I have of my father.”
Clark Monson also recalls teaching moments with
his father. “Dad and I were out fishing on a boat, and he
asked me to reel in my line for a moment. When our lines were in
and the rods set aside, Dad said, ‘In about five minutes your
brother Tom will be sitting down to take the bar exam. He’s
worked hard through three years of law school for this and he’s
probably a little apprehensive. Let’s just kneel here in the
boat. I’ll offer a prayer for him, and then you offer one.’
That was one of the greatest experiences of my life.”
In the midst of visits with widows, playing
checkers with his son or attending to worldwide needs of members
of the Church, President Monson has always been “on the Lord’s
errand” (Doctrine and Covenants 64:29).
This article was produced by the LDS Newsroom at lds.org.
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