President Gordon B. Hinckley met with some 9,000 members of the Church from six stakes in the western part of North Carolina on Saturday, Feb. 24, and Sunday, Feb. 25.
Accompanying President Hinckley were his wife, Marjorie, and Elder Russell M. Nelson of the Quorum of the Twelve and his wife, Dantzel; and Elder F. Burton Howard of the Seventy and his wife, Caroline.On Saturday, President Hinckley met with presidents of the Ashville, Charlotte Central, Charlotte South, Greensboro, Hickory and Winston-Salem North Carolina stakes, and with the president of the North Carolina Charlotte Mission and president of the Atlanta Georgia Temple, which serves members in the region.
Also on Saturday, he addressed 790 members at a priesthood leadership meeting, and met with 185 missionaries in a meeting of the North Carolina Charlotte Mission. An avid reader of histories, President Hinckley gave missionaries a glimpse of hardship and challenges faced by some of their predecessors. He related one story of missionaries in 1897 on Harker's Island who were pushed by a mob to the water's edge and had to be rescued by members in a boat.
The general meeting Sunday was held in the Charlotte Coliseum, where members and friends responded warmly to one of his opening comments: "Nothing could be finer than to be in Carolina this morning!" He spoke of the state's beauty, of "this place of dogwoods and mockingbirds and the Hornets." The last reference was to Charlotte's professional basketball team.
"We are now in over 150 nations, speaking a great variety of languages," President Hinckley noted in speaking of the growth of the Church. "But the message is always the same: God has spoken from the earth. This is the dispensation of the fulness of times. This is the day that Daniel foresaw in his great vision when a little stone was cut out of the mountain without hands which should roll forth and fill the entire earth. . . . This is the day of restitution of which Paul the Apostle wrote. This is the day of prophecy fulfilled, my brethren and sisters, and each of us is a part of that fulfilled prophecy."
He spoke of some of the meetings he had addressed in the preceding weeks, including 14,000 members in Hawaii on the previous weekend, and married students at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, a few weeks earlier. "I could go back. There are great congregations of people of this kind wherever we go. Men and women of faith, men and women of conviction, men and women who carry in their hearts a testimony of the divinity of this work and who can stand and say without hesitation or equivocation, `I know that God our Eternal Father lives. I know that Jesus is the Christ, the Redeemer of the world.'
"My beloved brethren and sisters, thank you for your faith. Thank you for the goodness of your lives. Thank you for doing the best you can to try to live the gospel. You pray night and morning. You pray with your families. That is an unusual thing today in this world in which we live. You are a peculiar people, a royal priesthood who show forth the wonders of Him who has led us out of darkness into His glorious light. Thank you for your faithful devotion. You go to the temple, travel all the way down to Atlanta to do the most unselfish work in this world, to act in behalf of those beyond the veil of death who cannot act in their own behalf. You do it without any expectation of gratitude or thanks or appreciation. You do it because of your love of the gospel and your love of the Lord, who gave His life for the blessing of all mankind. The work you do in serving as proxies in behalf of those who have passed on more nearly approaches the vicarious work of the Master Himself than any other work of which I know. Thank you for your faith and devotion."
President Hinckley encouraged the members to read the Bible, and to continue reading the Book of Mormon. He spoke of having met a convert to the Church at a stake conference a few years ago who had learned about the Church when a colleague at work gave her a copy of the Book of Mormon. She read it and gained a testimony of its truthfulness and, in the process, quit smoking.
"I hope we are reading it," President Hinckley said. "This year we are studying the Book of Mormon in the Sunday School. My brethren and sisters, it is time to read it again. Not just a verse here and a verse there, but from cover to cover. I hope you will do it."
President Hinckley counseled, "Develop a love for the Lord. Read the scriptures, pray and live the gospel and there will come into your hearts the conviction that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, the Savior and Redeemer of the world, the only perfect man who ever walked the earth and who gave His life on Calvary's hill for you and for me."