I have just been handed a paper giving the general priesthood conference count, April 8, 1961. These reports have come in early. Attendance in the Salt Lake Tabernacle, 8,097. In the Assembly Hall, Barratt Hall, and grounds, 2,688. A total attendance on these two blocks, 10,785. Attendance in other places is to be reported by mail later. For comparison, in April 1960, we had 10,432 on the grounds; in October, 1960, 9,911; so we have 10,785 tonight, the largest we have ever had.

We have had a remarkable meeting. We shall report to you tomorrow how many are in the other chapels listening in to this inspirational missionary meeting. In the congregations there are thousands, tens of thousands of young men of the Lesser Priesthood—our future missionaries. I shall just ask the bishops to call their attention to the following.

To render service for two or three years in the mission field is a blessing to anyone. It is recognized as such by thousands of parents throughout the Church who appreciate the value of such labor to their sons and daughters, in whom this experience awakens an appreciation of home and of the gospel. Parents know also that missionary activity brings into the plane of consciousness a knowledge of the truth of the gospel, which the young men have perhaps felt but not expressed.

Bishops, it is well for us to have in mind not so much the benefit to those representatives as their preparation and fitness to carry on the responsibilities entailed in a missionary call. In choosing a missionary it is well to keep in mind questions as follows:

Is he worthy to represent the Church?

Has he sufficient will power to resist temptation?

Has he kept himself clean while he has been home and by that standard proved himself capable of resisting possible temptation in the field?

Has he taken active part in Church organizations at home?

Does he at least glimpse what the Church has to offer the world?

Has he glimpsed that the Church is the greatest thing in the world, and the only authorized group to represent the Lord Jesus Christ in the salvation of mankind? I use the word glimpsed because many of our young men hesitate to bear their testimonies. They say they don't know—they believe. But if they will just stop to analyze what this Church does to the individual, first in keeping himself clean and unspotted  James 1:27 second, in keeping the Word of Wisdom  D&C 89:1-21 third, in keeping chaste and pure; if he just studies and realizes and even just glimpses what it does for the home—no drunken father, if he is a member of the Church; no disloyal husband; no mother who makes home unhappy by her infidelity—a home keeping the standards of the Church, is a happy home; an unbroken home—a home where boys and girls take turns in offering prayer, in courtesy and mutual helpfulness. That is what we mean by "glimpsing."

Has he taken active part in Church organizations? I do not have time to elaborate upon that.

Has he, through prayer, or experience, felt God's nearness to him, so that he can approach the Lord as he would his earthly father?

Young men, please keep those questions in mind as you take part in your deacons' quorums, teachers' quorums, priests' quorums, elders' quorums; and as you prepare in activity at home, in personal life, and in your schoolwork to qualify yourselves to go out as representatives. May you be among those who can be trusted—a representative of the Lord Jesus Christ, I humbly pray in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.