Go Forward with Faith by Sheri Dew

Author:Sheri Dew [Dew, Sheri L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography, Gordon B. Hinckley
Publisher: Deseret Book Company
Published: 1996-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

The Constancy of Change

Elder and Sister Hinckley were finding an old adage to be true—there was nothing so constant as change. Early 1973 brought news of a significant and long-awaited international development: On January 23, U.S. President Richard M. Nixon announced that a cease-fire agreement ending hostilities between the United States and Vietnam had been reached and that U.S. troops would begin to return home. “Surely we have cause to rejoice over this turn of events,” Elder Hinckley noted in his journal, at the same time thinking of the thousands of LDS soldiers he had met through the years—those who would be coming home and those whose families would never see them again. He only hoped that the seeds of missionary work planted during the long years of conflict would eventually bear fruit.

Other trends exposed a society whose ethical moorings were shifting. When the Supreme Court ruled liberally in Roe v. Wade, allowing for a woman’s right to abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy, President Lee called Elders Benson, Hinckley, and Monson to his office to confer with the First Presidency on how or if the Church should respond. After they discussed the possibility of issuing a statement that would in effect take exception with the Court’s action, Elder Hinckley suggested an alternative course of action: Rather than appear to censure the judiciary, the Church could simply restate its position. Such action would reaffirm to Church members that doctrine had not changed without reprimanding the nation’s highest tribunal. Elder Hinckley feared he had overstepped his bounds by making such a strong appeal to the First Presidency, and he was relieved when President Lee concurred with his recommendation and expressed appreciation for it.1

It was not unusual for President Lee to involve Elder Hinckley in various deliberations. One issue about which they conferred regularly was temple work. Elder Hinckley now served as chairman of the Temple Committee, a time-consuming and taxing responsibility. Even with his previous heavy involvement in this area, he had had “no idea there were so many things requiring attention” in the temples.2 Among other concerns, he was preoccupied with a worry that had dogged him for years— that thousands of members lived beyond reasonable distance from a temple.

Too many times he had organized stakes in various areas of the world in which few of the brethren interviewed for leadership positions had been to the temple. He found himself wondering if there weren’t a way to build smaller, less expensive temples and to build more of them throughout the world. He even discussed his concerns and ideas with President Lee. “Are not the saints in South America . . . as worthy of the blessings of the temple as the people in Washington?” Elder Hinckley mused in one journal entry.3 He later noted: “The Church could build [many smaller] temples for the cost of the Washington Temple [then under construction]. It would take the temples to the people instead of having the people travel great distances to get to them.

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