2014 Church History Symposium part 1: A Small Leaf in the Forest of God’s Knowledge

Soviet army visor cap
Picture taken by Tom Abbott

I don’t remember much of international relations and politics during the Cold War.  I was too young.  Germans could legally cross the Berlin Wall beginning on my fifteenth birthday, and the USSR collapsed when I was seventeen.  I remember that when the Iron Curtain came down, it happened quickly, stunning the adults I knew.  I remember a teacher in my high school seminary musing that he had thought the Church would never be allowed to enter Eastern Europe while he lived, but now it seemed that it could happen after all.  Looking back, God had been working in Eastern Europe all along, using small means to create a miracle that would confound the wise.

Several of the sessions I attended at the Church History symposium March 6 and 7 addressed this theme, God’s ability to confound the wise people of the world.  President Uchtdorf, in his keynote address March 7, discussed how our wisdom may look like foolishness to God, whose foolishness is wiser than the wisdom of man.  He said God knows what we do not.  God is good and faithful and sometimes performs His work in ways that are incomprehensible to us.  God asks us to have faith.  Those who disregard the powers of Heaven will find themselves on the wrong side of history. 

My Piece of the Berlin Wall
Picture taken by Tom Abbott

As an example, President Uchtdorf retold the story about President Monson promising the Saints of the GDR that if they remained faithful they would enjoy every blessing available to people in in any other country (For this story as told by President Monson, see Thanks be to God, Ensign May 1989).  At the time President Monson gave the promise, President Uchtdorf couldn’t imagine it being fulfilled during President Uchtdorf’s lifetime.  The evidence of the world contradicted the word of an apostle.  Ten years later, when Sister Uchtdorf overheard a rumor that a temple was going to be built in East Germany, both she and President Uchtdorf dismissed it.  A few days afterward, however, the church announced the Freiburg temple. 

The previous day of the symposium, Thursday March 6, I listened to Clint Christensen tell another story about God leading the church and confounding the wise.  His presentation was entitled Ebony Grafted onto the Olive Tree:  The Global Impact of the 1978 Revelation.  During the 1970’s, Brother Christensen said, President Kimball felt it was time to preach the gospel in more countries.  He looked for ways to expand missionary work around the world.  One of the difficulties he encountered concerned how to take the gospel to Africa, the islands of the Caribbean, and Latin America, because so many of the men who live in these parts of the world are of African descent and at this time could not hold the priesthood.  Without local priesthood holders, the Church could not set up wards or stakes, call missionaries or patriarchs, or perform temple ordinances in these areas.  President Kimball prayed for inspiration.  How was he to take the gospel to the world?  The answer eventually came via the 1978 revelation on the priesthood.  Today people of African descent serve as patriarchs, stake presidents, mission presidents, temple presidents, and General Authorities.  During this presentation, I realized that President Kimball had not known how to take the gospel message to Africa, the Caribbean, or Latin America.  But God knew, and opened up a way (To read a version of this story as told by President Hinkley, see Priesthood Restoration, Ensign October 1988).

Accra Ghana temple
Source:  Lds.org

After the 1978 revelation opened doors in Africa, Church membership in Ghana grew rapidly.  This, combined with Cold War anti-American sentiment, led to the 1989 “freeze,” during which time the government of Ghana suspended all activity of the LDS church.  J.B. Haws discussed The Freeze and the Thaw:  Church and State in Ghana in his address which immediately followed Brother Christensen’s.  From his address I learned about yet another time when the wisdom of the world suggested that things were going badly for the Church.  God was working behind the scenes, however, and after eighteen months of the freeze, leaders of other congregations convinced the government of Ghana that Ghana needed freedom of religion.  God even turned the seeming setback into a blessing:  the increased media exposure of the LDS church during the freeze led to a sudden increase in church interest at the beginning of the thaw.

"We have only one leaf from the vast forest of knowledge"
-President Dieter F. Uchtdorf
Picture from Lds.org

President Uchtdorf compared all human knowledge to one leaf in the forest of God’s wisdom.  He counseled:  There are times when things appear to be going badly for the truth of God.  Be patient.  Things will work out.  God will succeed.  The truth will spread throughout the earth.  Stay calm and carry on.  Things which appear impossible now may become commonplace in years to come. 

Or as my husband likes to say, “God is in control of the world.  Satan doesn’t win a round.” 

Note:  President Uchtdorf’s entire keynote address can be viewed on YouTube here.