The efforts of the Veterans Association for Service Activities Abroad to help people in Vietnam and elsewhere reunite with their families is consonant with the directive of the Savior to help "one of the least of these my brethren," said Elder Marion D. Hanks.
Elder Hanks, a member of Presidency of the Seventy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, was the keynote speaker during the opening session Friday of the 10th anniversary activities of the veterans association. A non-profit organization, it was organized in March 1982 by a group of LDS veterans to locate members of an LDS congregation in Saigon, formerly the capital of South Vietnam. The city fell to communist forces in 1975 during the Vietnam War and was renamed Ho Chi Minh City.The veterans association was chartered in September 1983 and since has become an international organization including members of many faiths. It is not an LDS Church-affiliated organization.
Its representatives have helped many opeople to leave their countries through legal programs and means and become reunited with their families in other countries, association president Virgil N. Kovalenko said.
Kovalenko explained that although the majority of people who have received help have been from Vietnam, many have come from such places as Hungary, Iraq, Iran, Ethiopia, Romania, Burma, Cambodia and Laos.
A veteran of World War II who as a General Authnority has visited Vietnam many times, Elder Hanks told about 50 people gathered in an LDS chapel that he acquainted the work of the veterans association with "the commitment of the Lord Jesus Christ himself" to lift the burdens of others.
Although many people today didn't help crete the "cosmic problems facing the world, they still need to help stand up for their convictions and help eliminate the suffering caused by those problems.
"I have been preaching one message my whole life--that Jesus Christ is our Savior, the motivating power and force and the beauty and the life. But there's more to it," he continued.
Elder Hanks then quoted President J. Reuben Clark, a former member of the First Presidency of the LDS Church as saying the Savior "left as a heritage to those who should come after him in his church the carrying on of...two great things--work for the relief of the ills and suffering of humanity and the teaching of the spiritual truths which whould bring us back into the presence of our Heavenly Father."
People everywhere should help the hungry, the sick, the thirsty and those in prison, Elder Hanks admonished.
"Who are those who we serve?" he asked. "Those who were are blessed to serve are God's children."
Elder Hanks was presented during the evening with a plaque expressing appreciation for his support of the veterans association.
Association members from throughout the world are gathering for the three-day anniversary celebration, which lasts through Sunday.