NEW YORK CITY — A parade of international diplomats, religious leaders, charity executives and human rights officials met Saturday with President M. Russell Ballard to ask for the help of the acting president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and to sustain their relationship with the church.
The requests and discussions centered on issues ranging from national security to poverty to charitable delivery systems. The meetings illuminated specific efforts the church has made to build relationships at the United Nations and what the 91-year-old church leader said is increased global influence for the church.
“I think it’s a wonderful thing to see how the church has been recognized, particularly in the past few years, as an organization that is worldwide, that is becoming very important,” President Ballard said. “When people seek to get something done that they’re concerned about, it was interesting how today they seek us out, where I would say 20 years ago in my ministry, you would have to knock on their door to see whether or not you can get an opportunity to visit with them.”
Mexico’s ambassador to the United States, Martha Bárcena, said the church cooperates with Mexican leaders in Washington, D.C, and New York City and is active at the United Nations addressing the issues she talked about with President Ballard over breakfast.
“We discussed humanitarian issues,” she said. “We discussed the presence of the … church in Central America. We discussed how Mexico’s working with Central America to address the root causes of migration, and we also exchanged points of view on the need to give hope to young people so that they do not go into gangs or into crime but that they have hope in family, that they have hope for jobs in our future and how we can work together on those matters.”
President Ballard told Bárcena and Jorge Islas Lopez, Mexico’s consul general in New York, that the church loves Mexico, home to nearly 1.5 million Latter-day Saints.
“They are respected because they also respect the laws of Mexico,” Bárcena said, “and they contribute to hardworking, stable communities that really are based on values.”
The meeting with the Mexican delegation, as well as meetings with two African nations, high-ranking U.N. officials, executives from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and others, were organized in part by the church’s Public and International Affairs Office in New York.
“Our goal is to build and maintain relationships with people who can help or hinder the work of the church,” said the office’s director Ryan John Koch. “Because you have diplomats from 193 different countries here in New York, church leaders saw fit, a couple of decades ago now, to have a full-time presence in New York in order to reach out to the diplomatic corps, both at the U.N. and with the consulates here in the city, as a way of establishing some of those connections to government officials.”
Koch and a team of two senior missionary couples and two office interns create a constant stream of individual outreach to the international diplomatic corps.
“Many people discount the U.N. because they think it’s all just talk,” Koch said, “but that talk really does lead to policy and action. Getting involved in the discussion is part of what we try to do right. We don’t propose specific wording. We don’t propose specific resolutions or anything like that.”
Instead, Koch said the team emphasizes principles such as strengthening families and supporting human rights. It also represents Latter-day Saints Charities to diplomats, who respect the organization’s targeted efforts to improve lives.
“Relatively speaking for our size, we punch well above our weight due to the work Latter-day Saint Charities does around the world,” Koch said.
Relationships with government and religious leaders and others help the church increase understanding about the church, its beliefs and what it has to offer, said Elder Jack N. Gerard, executive director of Church Communications and a General Authority Seventy.
“In a world that tends to be quite polarized, I believe under the leadership of prophets, seers and revelators, we can be part of the solution to help bring people together from all walks of life, from different ethnicities, different regions of the world,” he said. “Through our relationships in organizations like the United Nations, we’re able to facilitate that, and we come to be recognized as true peacemakers, as individuals who see each other for who we truly are as children of God, and therefore we should treat each other accordingly.”
Elder Gerard said the team had to manage President Ballard’s schedule well due to the number of people who wanted time with him while he was in New York.
The leader of one faith-based charity that is a prominent partner of Latter-day Saint Charities sought President Ballard’s counsel on delivery systems and helping people transition out of reliance on charity.
“They started to talk about challenges, and he sought out counsel and direction from President Ballard,” Elder Gerard said. “It was fascinating to me the very questions that he asked were questions that we have dealt with for many years and we understand well. Simple things like distribution, how you manage and help people move to self reliance.”
Saturday’s meetings followed a Friday night event at which the church hosted a dinner and entertainment for two dozen ambassadors assigned to the United Nations from all over the world, from Europe and Asia to Africa and South America.
“Thank you for your leadership and your kindness,” President Ballard told the diplomats. “Thank you for all you do and your willingness to let us draw close to you and work with you in your countries. May God bless you.”
Rodrigo Alberto Carazo Zeledón, Costa Rica’s ambassador to the U.N., said Latter-day Saints actively help in his country.
“We appreciate that,” he said. “The country has a great relationship with them. They provide basic needs like water systems and water purification in specific places.”
Niger’s ambassador to the United Nations, Abdou Abarry, said he spoke with President Ballard about border disputes, drought, poverty and the balance between stimulating development and fighting terrorism. Abarry will take a seat on the U.N. Security Council on Jan. 1.
“It is not possible to fight against terrorism unless you put development in place,” Abarry said, because development provides hope and trust so citizens can denounce terrorists.
Abarry was joined in the meeting by Koné Tanou, permanent observer to the U.N. for the Economic Community of Western African States, a region that is home to 60% of the church’s more than 500,000 members on the African continent.
The two ambassadors said the church leaders were “eager” to assist them on poverty relief. President Ballard said he did not weigh in on border disputes and security issues.
“We listened. We told them that God loves them,” he said. “And we counseled them to pray and ask Heavenly Father to help them with whatever their problems might be that not only they would get the inspiration and revelation to know what to do and what to say, but also that the power of heaven would touch the hearts of others.”
The African ambassadors thanked President Ballard and Elder Gerard for that advice and for President Ballard’s recent emphasis on prayer.
“I reminded them of my own faith,” Abarry said. “I am a Muslim. ... We have to pray, whether we are Christians or Muslims or Jews. We have to put our trust and confidence in God. ... Every society that does not believe in God is jeopardizing its future.”
Karen Boykin-Towns, vice chair of the NAACP national board of directors, and Theresa Dear, vice chair of its religious affairs committee, said they were happy to see President Ballard again and looked forward to upcoming visits with church leaders in Salt Lake City. They also said the church and the NAACP have agreed to expand their joint self-reliance projects in 2020.
In an interview, President Ballard said he used every opportunity, even his interviews on Friday with reporters at the Associated Press and The New York Times, to explain the church’s position that it is the restored church of Jesus Christ.
“We witnessed and testified to our very best ability, I think, that we are representing him and his restored church on the earth,” he said. He added that, “We cannot get drawn into the political issues, because that’s not our mission. Our mission is a spiritual mission, a-commitment-to-the-things-of-God mission. And I think we’re pretty good at it.”
He said that is part of his message in several of his meetings.
“If we had softer and kinder hearts everywhere, we wouldn’t have some of the kinds of problems that we have dealt with this last two days,” he said.
President Ballard spoke Saturday night to a large standing-room-only group of single adults ages 18-45 and young married couples. He encouraged them to persist in faith and trust in God, and to remember their relationship to him.
“My message is we are sons and daughters of God,” he said. “We are precious to him.”