As a Scotland Yard detective, Gerald William Smith was trained to search out the truth, following whatever clues and leads might be required.
He had learned how to observe people and events. He discovered that every piece of information might have some significance, and that information was to be weighed carefully and, when appropriate, put to the test.With that kind of training, he was sent to the United States for a few weeks in 1972 to learn more about the investigation of company fraud, or white collar crime.
In 1975, when he returned to the United States for more study and observation, he was assigned to work with two FBI agents in Salt Lake City.
"I went in search of information on crime, but came away with enlightenment on eternal life," said Smith, who was baptized June 4, 1975, just a week after he returned to London from his Salt Lake City assignment.
"My purpose for going to Utah was to meet various people who had been defrauded," he said of his assignment in Salt Lake City.
"The FBI agents I was assigned to work with, Lynn Twede and Clair Empey, were LDS but they didn't talk about the Church as we worked together."
But the Scotland Yard detective was doing what had become second nature to him - he was observing them. Their actions spoke volumes about the Church.
"At the end of our week together, as I was preparing to return to London, they asked if I wanted to visit any particular place or see any certain sights around Salt Lake City," Smith recalled.
"I told them I didn't have any particular preferences, but would be glad to go wherever they would like to take me.
"They took me to Temple Square. The tour guide who took us through the North Visitors Center was Calvin Cook, who suggested I give prayerful consideration to what I had seen and heard.
"He gave me a copy of A Marvelous Work and a Wonder. Before I left Temple Square, I had already received a spiritual witness that I had been told the truth."
On the day he returned home, he telephoned the England London Mission office and requested baptism.
"At that time, I had not had any formal discussions of the gospel. I just had a testimony of its truthfulness," he said. Missionaries were sent and he was baptized a week later."
"After I joined the Church, I found I was much better at my job," he said, "and understood people better. I had more empathy and a greater desire to treat everyone as if he or she were my brother or sister.
"On my annual report, my seniors comented on the difference in my job performance, on how much better I was than before I joined the Church. I found them most cooperative in working with me on assignments that would allow me to attend my meetings."
Three years later, on March 25, 1978, he married Pauline Dogett, a convert and former missionary, in the London Temple.
"She and I had had very similar experiences in being introduced to the Church while in Salt Lake City," he said.
She was younger than her school classmates and had finished her graduation requirements a year early. She recalled: "I had planned to enroll at the university, but I was still too young. I decided to become an exchange student instead."
In 1961, she arrived in Salt Lake City, assigned to live with the Wayne L. Sandberg family. "Host families had been instructed not to proselyte exchange students, so the Sandbergs took great caution to not involve me in any Church activities.
"I immediately felt something special about the Sandbergs, but they almost put me off," she said. "They seemed a little distant toward me regarding something that was apparently very important in their lives."
The Sandbergs arranged for her to attend a church of her own faith, but she preferred to go to the LDS Church with her host family. She participated with them in all apsects of family life, from taking her turn cleaning the house and washing dishes to participating in family home evening activities and family prayers.
Pauline wanted to enroll in seminary along with the Sandbergs' eldest daughter, Sondra, but Sondra's father discouraged her from doing so. He told her to wait until the next semester and if she still wanted to enroll, they would talk about it. He didn't want to appear to be trying to make an influence upon her religious beliefs.
"It was Janaury before I enrolled in seminary, so the class was well into the study of the Book of Mormon," she said. "I concentrated on my own study of the book. By the time I had read about half of it, I knew it was true."
Late one night, as her host mother Phyllis Sandberg was sewing, Pauline went to her and excitedly declared, "It all fits. The Book of Mormon is true."
She told her host parents she wanted to be baptized, but Sandberg advised her not to pursue baptism until after she returned home to England.
Although she was 18 by the time she returned home and could have been baptized on her own, she wanted her parents' blessing. She discussed the matter with them and was baptized a few weeks later.
She said 9 1/2 years later, while serving as a stake missionary, she taught her brother the gospel, and he was baptized. "He married my stake missionary companion, and they went to the temple a year later," she said.
Later, she served as a missionary in the Italy Rome Mission from 1974-76.
Gerald Smith and Pauline Doggett met at a dance sponsored by an LDS institute of religion in early 1978.
"I met her by inspiration," Smith said. "My stake patriarch had told me I would meet a good LDS young woman whom I would marry. I prayed a long time about the matter.
"I don't recall having ever met Pauline, but her name came to my mind. I called the institute director and asked if he knew her. He did, and he agreed to introduce me to her, which he did at the dance. We began dating and became engaged a short time later."
They are now the parents of two daughters and a son.
Since 1985, he has been a patriarch in the London England Wandsworth Stake, and she is the stake Relief Society president.