Elder David B. Haight
Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
"What we need is the faith of Brigham Young and the faith of Gordon
B. Hinckley and the faith of people who are our prophets and leaders."
I hope that you had a little burning in your heart as I did when I raised
my hand in sustaining President Hinckley as President of the Church and as prophet,
seer, and revelator, and the other officers that have been presented to you. What
a wonderful and grand opportunity that is for all of us to be able to sustain
our living prophet upon the earth today—but not just to sit there and raise
your hand in a haphazard way, but to feel it in your heart and soul that you not
only sustain him but you endorse what he has been doing and what he has done for
us in representing us to the world. We are thankful for the marvelous and inspired
way in which he has communicated and spoken to the world, particularly in these
last few days and weeks.
A few years ago, when Arturo Toscanini was musical director of the New York
Philharmonic Orchestra in New York City, he had a Saturday afternoon radio broadcast.
And one day he received in his mail a crumpled little note on some brownish
paper which read:
"Dear Mr. Toscanini, I am a lonely sheepherder in the mountains of Wyoming.
I have two prized possessions: an old violin and a battery radio. And the batteries
are getting weak and beginning to run down on my radio, and my violin is so
out of tune I can't play it anymore. Would you please sound an A next Saturday
on your program?"
The next week on the program, Arturo Toscanini announced: "To a newfound
friend in the mountains of Wyoming, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra is now,
all together and in unison, going to sound a perfect A." And they sounded
the perfect A. Then that lonely little man was able to tune the A string and
then the E string and the D and the G from that perfect A.
Isn't it interesting to reflect in our own lives and in the lives of the many
people who may hear me at this time—those whose violin or lives may be
a little out of tune—that we are able to come to a general conference of
the Church and hear the marvelous messages that are spoken? Those of us who
have the opportunity to speak here pray mightily that we would have the energy
and the strength and the vitality even as I do, as I enter the twilight of my
life, to stand and bear witness of the truthfulness of this work—because
I am a witness of it.
I have had the opportunity—as many of you have and as many of you would
wish to have—of being raised in a Mormon home and to be a product of the
Church, and to have had the opportunity to go out and live in the world and
rub shoulders with people in many places, whether it would be in government
or the corporate world or whatever, but to associate with people and to be able
to share with them the feelings that you have in your heart.
Often President Hinckley has said to us in some of our meetings, and I think
he has said it publicly, that behind his desk he has a picture of Brigham Young.
Sometimes when President Hinckley has had a busy day and a hard day of making
many, many difficult decisions, he turns in his chair and looks up at Brigham's
picture behind him and either asks out loud or in his own mind says, "Brother
Brigham, what would you have done?" or "What advice would you give
to me?"
Think of what has happened in the last few years. You all know so well all
of the inspiration and the direction that has come to President Hinckley in
the expansion of the Church—the building of temples and the remodeling
of the Hotel Utah into that marvelous building, now the Joseph Smith Memorial
Building which bears his name, and for this unusual structure, the Conference
Center, that we're in today—probably nothing like it in the world. And
for us who have for now a number of years worked with and by the side of and
listened to and been associated with President Hinckley, what a marvelous experience
we've had and blessing in our lives as we have seen and felt and been part of
the inspired expansion that has been moving forward.
As we look at Brigham Young and reflect upon the inspiration and direction
that came to that most unusual man, we recall how he was able to fill the tragic
void caused by the death of the Prophet Joseph Smith, how he stepped in and
was able under inspiration and revelation to guide and direct the closing of
Nauvoo and the planning of the trip west. We remember the continued work there
at that time on the Nauvoo Temple and the way that was organized to move forward,
with the wagon trains crossing the West and into the Salt Lake Valley into what
would become the Zion where they could worship and teach and preach and build
the meetinghouses and all that would be needed for this civilization and for
this culture that we have, to expand and grow here.
Think of the inspiration that came to the prophet Brigham Young for those people
not to just build up a big city in Salt Lake, but to move out into these other
settlements. He had the genius to have people go out and look for the valleys
and the areas away from Salt Lake City where the pioneers who would pour into
this valley could go and settle and make their homes and build cities and communities
and build their personalities and their characters and develop the talents that
would be theirs. So rather than having a large city in Salt Lake, under his
leadership some 360 communities were developed out in Wyoming and Nevada and
Arizona and southern Idaho as well as in Utah.
As people moved out and set up in these little communities, they developed
their talents and abilities by serving on school boards and on town councils
or became leading people in a little town. They became citizens of that area,
and they started building schools and expanding those communities. We see what
has happened in these areas that Brigham Young envisioned and which he helped
set in motion. Just think of how that has developed—of the developing of
a settlement, for example, in Las Vegas, Nevada, so that people could go down
to San Bernardino, California. The people could come by ship into San Pedro,
California, go to San Bernardino to be outfitted and helped with the equipment
necessary to come into this valley, and then into the outlying communities,
down into Sanpete County or up into Idaho or elsewhere.
I have become a product of that, because when my mother's family arrived here
in Salt Lake City, they were sent out to Tooele to settle. Then later they were
sent up into Idaho, where a sawmill and a gristmill were needing to be built.
My father's family had settled in Farmington, Utah, part of this colonization
that I'm referring to—the colonization that made people stronger and gave
them opportunities. Rather than being lost in a big city, they were asked to
move to a smaller community where they could develop their ability and where
there would be more schools and a need for more schoolteachers and where people
with talent would develop their ability. Out of all of this, my family were
asked to leave Farmington and Tooele, to sell their green acres, and go out
into southern Idaho, where there was nothing at that time but sagebrush.
In a little settlement of that kind, my mother and father fell in love. By
the time they were 20 years old and ready to be married, where would they be
married? In the Logan Utah Temple. How would they get there? By buggy. How long
would it take? Well, five or six or seven days. Highways and good roads? Of
course not. They went by roads made by wagons going over the sagebrush and through
the bushes and over the rocks. Where would they be married? Where would they
be sealed? Only one place—the temple. They went by buggy.
That became part of my heritage. And so people grew up in these little towns.
Then the Church decided to open some academies, and they opened some 30 of them
out in these areas far away. One of those little academies was opened in our
town, and it became an area where many from neighboring areas would move into
that little town to get a higher education. Of course, the higher education
was only a high school, but it was referred to as an academy.
I'm referring to the inspiration that came to the prophet Brigham Young years
ago in the settlement, in the development of this intermountain area now surrounding
Salt Lake City. And think of who we are today and how this has grown and the
blessing that has come into our lives to have President Hinckley as our prophet,
seer, and revelator and leader and to envision what is happening and what will
be happening ahead of us if we just have the faith to be able to continue to
do what has been started. Think of what is on the way and being done.
President Hinckley often speaks to us about developing more faith with our
people. That faith is a result of our living the principles of the gospel, living
the way we should and raising our children as we should, and seeing them grow
and develop their character and personality in a way that they become an example
of what we believe in and what we have a hope to do and accomplish.
You'll all remember the man who had a son that was a lunatic. And he approached
the Savior and asked if the Savior would bless the boy to drive that evil spirit
from his son. And the man told the Savior, "I've asked your disciples to
do this, but they haven't been able to do it." The Savior blessed that
little boy. The evil spirit immediately departed, and the Savior's disciples
came to him and said, "Why couldn't we do it? Why weren't we able to?"
(See Matt.
17:14–21). The Savior also had said, "O ye of little faith"
(Matt.
16:8).
If ye had but the faith of a tiny—I'm trying to think of the name of that
little tree. [President Hinckley says, "Mustard."] Mustard! Thank
you, President. (I keep the President around to help me.) If you had but the
faith of a mustard seed. Perhaps not many of you have seen a mustard seed. A
few years ago in Jerusalem we were in a car with a driver, and he said, "Oh,
there's a mustard tree." And I said, "Let's see it." We got out
to look at that mustard tree, and it had a little pod on it, and I was able
to open the pod, which was like those on a locust tree, and see those tiny little
seeds, not much larger than a grain of pepper.
Just imagine the analogy that the Savior was teaching the people. If you only
had as much faith as that little tiny mustard seed—and I held it in my
hand, and I could hardly see it—if you had that much faith you would say
to the mountain, "Move hence," and it would move, if you had that
much faith (see Matt.
17:20). "O ye of little faith," he told us.
So what we need is the faith of Brigham Young and the faith of Gordon B. Hinckley
and the faith of people who are our prophets and leaders.
God lives. I know He's real, that He is our Father, and I know that He loves
us. I know that. And I know that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. I have
felt of that influence. I'm a witness to it. I know that the Prophet Joseph
Smith and all of the historical accounts we have of what he did as the instrument
of the Restoration are true and that the prophets down through the years and
including President Hinckley are called of God. The work is true. I leave you
my love, my witness, and my testimony that burns in my heart. All the days of
my life I hope to be able to tell somebody and help somebody understand that
this work is true, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
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