For those who die in Christ - just as Elder Gale Stanley Critchfield did - death has no bitterness, but is sweet to them, said the first counselor in the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
"For him there has been no bitterness. I know that is so," President Gordon B. Hinckley said at the funeral for Critchfield, an LDS missionary who died May 27. Critchfield was stabbed while returning to his apartment in Clondalkin, a suburb of Dublin, Ireland."This is a day of mourning, a day of sadness, a day of wondering," President Hinckley said at Saturday's memorial service. "We wonder why, when a young man is called to serve the Lord, he isn't watched over and protected to the degree that his life is preserved.
"We don't know the purposes of the Lord. We don't know why some things happen. All we know for certain is that death is not the end, but life continues."
President Hinckley, presiding at the services, said the violence in Ireland is only in a small part of the country. "Ireland is a beautiful land, a place of great beauty, green hills and good people.
"I'm sure if your son were to speak today, he would bear testimony of the kindness and goodness of the people of Ireland," he said to the elder's parents, Gale and Carol Critchfield. "I grieve for him, but I also grieve for the young man who took his life. What a terrible thing. How sweet the assurance that Stanley is all right, but how dark and bleak the future of the young man by whom the offense came."
Elder Neal A. Maxwell, a member of the Council of the Twelve, said, "Elder Critchfield answered the call to serve on the Emerald Isle and what he went to do was make it more green in the greening of the restored gospel. He did his work well. One of the ways for us to honor him is to honor the people he served and whom he surely loves. They loved him."
Tributes written about Critchfield spoke of his friendliness and cheerfulness, especially toward children and youth. He had a gift for making others feel loved and cared for, Elder Maxwell said.
"Every quality he had was apparently highly developed for a young man. All has gone with him through the veil and is part of his luggage. Love, empathy, tenderness, patience, submissiveness will all be further developed and rise with him in the resurrection.
"He will be no stranger in paradise. The release of a righteous individual by death is simply a call to serve in the spirit world."
Elder Maxwell commended the Critchfield family for partaking of the bitter cup, but doing so without becoming bitter. "The strength of the church is bound up in people like you."
Critchfield's father said his son's funeral was not the homecoming that he and his wife had looked forward to and hoped for, but he was not surprised to hear the news of his son's death.
Before his son left on his mission, he felt that something might happen, but did not know what. "We were scared, but the Lord called him to serve, regardless," he said. "Although it is difficult, and although many tears have been shed, and although many more tears will come, I would not roll back the clock and take away from my son the blessings that he has received."
President Hinckley said: "We know this is a traumatic, terrible thing for you. We know it is for the entire church. When missionaries die in the field, there is an outpouring that comes from families all over the world in whose heart is a special interest of concern for missionaries."
President Gerald Finch, the Critchfield family's stake president in the Payson West Stake, said: "He was taken where those who are valiant go as they leave mortality. It is our responsibility now to live the kind of life that would make it so we could be with him throughout the eternities."
Critchfield, 20, graduated from Payson High School in 1988 and began his missionary service on March 1, 1989. He is the first LDS missionary to die violently since terrorists shot two Utah missionaries serving in the La Paz, Bolivia mission on May 25, 1989.
More than 40,000 elders and sisters are serving full-time missions for the church throughout the world.