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Cover photograph by Scot Facer Proctor
Insiders
at the Church say that as the new leader of 13 million members,
President Monson will hit the ground running. The man who can quote
a scripture on any topic, pull out an applicable poem or remember
details and names from his personal history, while ours has blurred
away, uses that same intellect and incisive memory to accomplish
a mountain of work every day and still leave, according to Elder
Jeffrey R. Holland, “an astonishingly clean desk.”
He’s
comfortable with anyone conversing on any subject, and his leadership
was recognized while he was still, like Nephi, exceedingly young.
He was called as a bishop at 22 in a ward that had the largest welfare
load in the Church, including 85 widows. He was called as a counselor
in a stake presidency at 27, a mission president at 31, an apostle
at 36, and a member of the First Presidency at 58 (the youngest
in this century).
Yet,
for all this remarkable capacity, the hallmark of President Monson
is his pure love of Christ, and his uncanny ability to hear the
voice of the Spirit and respond instantly. He said, “In my patriarchal
blessing as a boy, I was promised that I would have the gift of
discernment. I have to acknowledge that such a declaration has been
abundantly fulfilled in my life.”
His
has been a ministry to the lost battalions of the faltering, the
lonely, the sick, the struggling, the forgotten, the widow, the
uncared for, those who fall by the wayside. His has been a call
captured in this scripture: “Wherefore, be faithful; stand in the
office which I have appointed unto you; succor the weak, lift up
the hands which hang down, and strengthen the feeble knees.” (D&C
81:5).
In
Monday’s press conference, President Dieter F. Uchtdorf noted, “President
Monson has such a feeling for the needs of individuals and the needs
of all the world.” In this article we want to give you a story
representing both — one when President Monson reached out to a single
heart as he has so many thousands of times (this one a member of
our own family) — and one when he opened the door to a nation.
Touching One Heart
We
had an uncle, Keith Facer, who was easy to love. Gentle and unassuming,
stalwart and true, he would be anyone’s dream uncle, his face lighting
up with delight when he saw us like he’d just been waiting for this
moment to fold us in his arms and give us hugs.
His
smile was infectious. He was always a student of the gospel, coming
in his 80’s to our adult Institute classes, even when he had been
diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease and his legs began to quake
beneath him. The diagnosis turned out to be false, and he took
the year of trauma granted him by the doctor’s inaccuracy like the
good sport he always was.
His
daughter, Laraine, died in her mid-fifties of Alzheimer’s disease,
a condition that ravaged her mind and memory, and stole her away
too early. Keith watched helplessly as the young grandmother forgot
her family members’ names, forgot who she was.
At
her funeral, Scot sat down by Keith. They had pulled a little away
from the crowd and were sitting on a couch alone, facing the casket.
Scot asked, “Keith, you’re sitting alone. You are looking at your
precious daughter in the casket. You’re away from your family.
How do you really feel about this loss?”
Keith
said, “Scot, I have trusted the Lord all my life, and I feel to
trust him now.”
With
moments like these stored in our soul, it was wrenching to hear
that Keith had developed a particularly rare and vicious kind of
cancer — Merkel-cell carcinoma. This was one where the tumor grew
not inside his body, but on the exterior — from a nasty red lump
first appearing on the left side of his face, on his cheek, then
around to his ear and his neck to grow into a hideous, enormous,
almost reptilian-like growth that crawled across his face, first
closing off an ear and then an eye, and then finally his ability
to breathe or eat at all. The face we had loved was distorted,
unrecognizable, and his suffering nearly incomprehensible.
The
bright red of the now-enormous tumor, which seemed to grow daily,
looked angry, burning. His torso was covered with dime and nickel-sized
sores. Radiation treatments were attempted but only burned his
body, making the pain even more intense.
We
could not have recognized Keith as anyone familiar except for the
affectionate tone in his voice, while he could still mumble out
a few sentences.
Keith
did not live far from President Monson. In fact, at one time they
had been in the same ward, before boundaries had been redrawn.
President Monson got word about Keith’s illness and called immediately,
wondering if he could come by that very early evening to cheer him
and give him a blessing on his way home from work.
I
don’t know what else might have been on President Monson’s schedule
that day — surely many pressing things, a desk full of urgencies.
Yet, nothing is so urgent for President Monson as the soul of the
distressed. It calls to his sympathies; it stirs his love.
We
had been visiting Keith that day before President Monson arrived.
He was surrounded by his wife, a son and daughters who loved him,
but the situation was so grim, it was hard to be anything but teary.
Life just seemed too hard if someone like Keith could be so afflicted
and we struggled to say anything besides a pitiful, “I’m so sorry,
so sorry.” We felt heavy, grayed over with the burden.
Then,
at the appointed moment, President Monson arrived, and it was like
the sun came up on a new day. It was not only that the Spirit was
with him, which we all felt immediately; it was that his very presence
was buoyant. A tangible sense of joy and assurance had entered
the room.
Here
was someone seasoned in the sickroom and knew what we didn’t. He
didn’t look surprised or shocked to see Keith’s condition. He didn’t
put on a long face in sympathy. He smiled that large, warming smile
and with enthusiasm said, “Keith it is good to see you.”
President
Monson then began to give Keith what he needed most. It was the
same thing any very sick person needs, whose once energetic and
perfect body has been ravaged by an illness until he can’t recognize
himself anymore. President Monson gave him back his identity, and
a sense of himself.
“Keith,”
he said, “Do you remember when you were in the bishopric and I had
just moved into the ward and you assigned me to head up the committee
to build a new meetinghouse? I told you that I didn’t know anyone
in the ward, and you said, ‘That’s OK. Just call them Gunderson
and you’ll be right 40% of the time.”
At
that Keith laughed out of the corner of his mouth not yet smothered
by cancer. We all laughed, our laughter cascading through the sick
room like a blessed relief. President Monson continued the banter
about everything he knew about Keith, a heartening conversation
about how dedicated and committed Keith had always been. We were
swept away by a series of delightful memories. Each one drove the
gray and gloom further and further from our hearts.
Then
President Monson did a remarkable thing. He changed the subject
to something even lighter. (How completely delightful for a sick
person to finally get to hear something besides how sorry all the
rest of us are and how sick they are.)
He
started to tell us the story about when he recently went to lunch
with the chairman of the board of Parker Brothers who said that
Monopoly was still their best-selling game, and he had asked, jokingly,
if President Monson could remember the names of any of the properties
of the game. He told him that he could indeed remember them — all
of them — IN ORDER. We were all laughing then, and President Monson,
with his perfect memory, named them all — right there beside the
sick bed — Mediterranean, Baltic, Reading Railroad and continuing
all the way around, he ended with Park Place and Boardwalk.
With
all of us now is a happy mood, he said gently, “Now, Keith, let’s
give you a blessing. Scot, will you anoint?” The Spirit continued
to illuminate our hearts.
Then
he laid hands upon Keith’s head and gave him a blessing of power
and comfort, promising him in a powerful voice that, “This is only
temporary.” (And it would be. Keith died ten days later.)
The
joy that filled the room, the Spirit comforting every wounded heart,
was tangible.
Some
of us went in the living room with him, thinking he would quickly
be on his busy way. But before he left, he also gave us the complete
lineup with their positions of the 1948 Salt Lake Bees (a minor
league baseball team). I’m sure he must have been in a hurry, but
he didn’t seem like it. For those moments together, we were his
entire focus.
This
grim sickroom had been transformed by a priesthood blessing and
by a spiritual emissary who knew just how to minister with love.
That bright moment stayed with our family for the days and weeks
ahead and will never be forgotten.
Many
thousands have known just such bright moments in their grim times
from President Thomas S. Monson.
Reaching a Nation
President
Monson’s love for the one also expands to fill a nation. For years
during the Communist era, Latter-day Saints in East Germany kept
the Church alive and vibrant with no temples, no patriarchal blessings,
no print literature and manuals, no visits from Church headquarters,
no missionaries, no mission calls — and yet their activity level
had been the highest in the Church.
Frank
Apel, who had been the first stake president in East Germany, said
their longing was so great for the temple blessings that they used
to let their imaginations run wild with the possibilities. “I used
to wonder if there could be a ship on the Baltic where a room could
be set aside for us to receive our temple blessings.”
In this world where a wall barred them
from the rest of the world, very few were allowed to leave to go
to the temple in Switzerland, and then, suspicious that they might
not return, the government rarely let a married couple go. The government
learned over time that the Saints were obedient citizens and could
be counted on to return, but for decades that didn’t help most of
them who lived without the fullness of the blessings they so deeply
desired.
Elder
Monson was assigned to shepherd the East German Saints, and made
a visit to meet with them in 1968. At his first meeting in Dresden,
the German Saints sang this beautiful song:
If the way be full of trial; Weary not!
If it's one of sore denial, Weary not!
If it now be one of weeping,
There will come a joyous greeting,
When the harvest we are reaping — Weary not!
He said, “I was touched by the sincerity
of these wonderful Saints. I was humbled by their poverty. They
have so little. My heart filled with sorrow because they have no
patriarch, they have no wards or stakes — just branches, they have
few teaching materials. They cannot receive temple blessings, neither
endowments nor sealings. They are forbidden to leave their country.
Yet they trust in the Lord with all their hearts and lean not unto
their own understanding.
Elder Monson said, “I stood at the
pulpit with tear-filled eyes and a voice choked with emotion and
made a promise to the people: ‘If you will remain true and faithful
to the commandments of God, every blessing any member of the Church
enjoys in any other country will be yours.’”
He continued, “When I got back to the
old hotel that night — it was really dreary — I knew I had promised
what I could not deliver. I got upon my knees, and I prayed to our
Heavenly Father: 'Here I am. Thou knowest what I said. Wilt thou
honor the promise?' I remembered the revelation where the Lord said,
'Whether by my own voice or the voice of my servants, it is the
same.'”
During the next years, Elder Monson
made many trips to the Saints in East Germany (the Democratic German
Republic), giving them love and encouragement and growing in heartfelt
attachment to the people.
“I never go to the Dresden mission but that I am uplifted,” he wrote.
He felt compassion for their plight. Werner Adler had been a district
president for 19 years, and he and his wife had been invited to
General Conference — a remarkable opportunity that could include
their chance to go to the temple and be sealed. However, they had
no children, and the government was worried that they would not
return. Sister Adler was not granted permission.
During
that meeting Elder Monson “noticed that Brother Adler's clothing,
though well kept, was rather old. I struck upon the idea that perhaps
my suit would fit him. I tried upon him the suit jacket. He was
so pleased and said that it fit just fine. I then put on a pair
of slacks and a jacket and left my suit with Brother Adler. I also
left several ties and a shirt. He was overjoyed. I then turned to
Brother Lehmann, the patriarch, and placed my shoe along one of
his and said, ‘Would these shoes fit you?’ He looked and then said
sadly, ‘No, they're a little large.’ Then his eyes brightened, and
he said in English, ‘They will fit my son!’ I then gave him the
shoes for his son.”
The promise Elder Monson had given
the Saints in Goerlitz would gradually and steadily be fulfilled.
Elder Monson (there with other local Church leaders) wrote, “On
Sunday morning, April 27, 1975, I stood on an outcropping of rock
situated between the cities of Dresden and Meissen, high above the
Elbe River, in the German Democratic Republic. I responded to the
promptings of the Holy Spirit and offered a prayer of dedication
on that land and its people. That prayer noted the faith of the
members. It emphasized the tender feelings of many hearts filled
with an overwhelming desire to obtain temple blessings. A plea for
peace was expressed. Divine help was requested. I voiced the words:
‘Dear Father, let this be the beginning of a new day for the members
of Thy church in this land.’”
Officials of the Democratic German
Republic came to know the Latter-day Saints. Partly, it was because
Church members were always asking to go to the temple in Switzerland,
and were usually denied. Yet mostly, it was the honesty and integrity
of the Saints who kept their word about returning to East Germany
when they left, that impressed the Germans.
Elder Monson and other leaders worked
closely with the government of the country, understanding that the
goal of building the Church couldn’t be done without the acceptance
of the government.
On April 23, 1983, miraculously, Elder
Thomas S. Monson broke ground for the Freiberg Temple — behind the
Iron Curtain. His prophecy in 1968, combined with steady years
of patience and love, had paid off.
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