My brethren and sisters, I can ask for nothing more than to have that spirit here with me today that I enjoyed as I undertook to fulfil my assignment to visit the missions of South America this past summer.

I had no sooner set foot upon that great continent than I had an opportunity to meet with a group of wonderful elders in the great city of Rio de Janeiro. Conditions that day were not as favorable as they might have been for the making of a good impression. I was inclined to be just a little discouraged. However an impression came over me when I stood up to address those elders that there was a spiritual awakening in process in South America; that the elders who were then working there would, during the short term of their mission, become conscious of this awakening; and that it would bring a great joy and satisfaction into their lives.

As I toured those missions, I became more and more convinced that that awakening had started in large measure through the relatively recent visits of our General Authorities to that great continent. I have in mind the visit there of President David O. McKay and President Stephen L Richards, and of Elder Mark E. Petersen some eighteen months preceding my visit.

I am here to bear witness to you today that those impressions which I received upon that occasion have in part fulfilled themselves already. In that great land of Brazil we are forging ahead with our conversions and our baptisms far more rapidly than we have ever done before in the history of that mission. When I first arrived and made that prediction, President Sorensen and his elders had hopes of three hundred baptisms this year. They have exceeded that mark, and now hope for five hundred.

There has been a change in the feeling, the attitude of the missionaries. They sense, as they have never sensed before, that they are part of a great movement that is marching on to accomplish its great purpose among 54 million people who live in Brazil, and of which some 35 million are of European extraction. These people represent half of the entire population of South America.

From the moment we landed in Brazil until we completed our mission in Brazil, the Argentine, and the Uruguayan missions, there seemed never to be a moment but what that assurance which we received in Rio de Janeiro was present with us. It seemed to radiate from the membership of the Church. They are seeking diligently to lend obedience to the principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The elders are showing a degree of diligence which would commend them to any group of missionaries, I am sure, anywhere in the Church.

We had so many notable incidents and experiences that I shall not endeavor to detail any of them. I have a feeling there is a great mission for us to perform at home, and that thought has never left me. I sensed in the very first meeting the importance of our elders preaching an effective gospel. We have all experienced here today and in the previous sessions of this conference what it means to hear preached an effective gospel. Men have stood here and have borne their testimonies under the power and influence of the Holy Ghost. They have spoken with authority. They have had a keen insight into the principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ and understand their redeeming powers.

And so I say, as we journeyed through those great missions and enjoyed the sweet companionship of the mission presidents and their wives and families, we were impressed constantly with the thought that there was a work for us to do here at home—those of us who are responsible for having sent these young men and women into the mission field. I have come with a plea in my heart that we dedicate ourselves to teach the young and rising generation in our homes, first of all, the principles of the gospel long before they are called upon a mission. Develop within them power to explain principles, and have in their hearts a testimony born of the Spirit that the heavens have once again been opened, that the gospel has once again been brought to the earth, and that it is our mission above all other missions in life to promulgate this gospel among the nations of the earth and to teach the principles of the gospel to these peoples of the earth in their native lands and in their native tongue.

My heart goes out to elders who are sent to missions in foreign-speaking countries. I am sure my feelings are born somewhat of experiences which were mine when I was called to serve in what was then the Swiss-German Mission, under the presidency of Thomas E. McKay. I know what it is to go to a strange country and sense keenly the responsibility that rests upon us as missionaries to preach the gospel to those people in their native tongues. I am sure that the time has long since arrived when every Latter-day Saint family should cultivate within the family circle that tongue which was native to their parents or their grandparents.

We have an example in the life of Lehi and his family. We would not have the Book of Mormon today if it had not been for the fact that Lehi, inspired of our Heavenly Father, sent back for those brass plates of Laban, and thereby insured the perpetuation of the language of their forebears in their posterity.

I have a feeling that an obligation rests upon those of us whose parents came from foreign-speaking countries to show forth our love of the countries out of which we have been called by the priesthood of God to the extent of learning that language.

I have rather a deep-seated desire in my heart, and I always have had since I was a boy, to want to meet my great-grandfather to whom the elders first preached the gospel. Now, in my case, his language is my mother tongue. I am sure that same feeling exists in the hearts of all good Latter-day Saints whose families sprung from foreign-speaking nations. That is the loyalty side of it. I have a feeling in my heart that we can be loyal to the nation of our birth, or of our adoption, and still show forth our love of the country of our parents to the extent of perpetuating its language in our family circles.

I have been reading with a great deal of interest recently a book published by James B. Conant, former president of Harvard University, and now United States Ambassador to Western Germany, in which he says that there are two subjects—he puts them above all other subjects—which he would prescribe for modern day study in our universities and colleges. The first one is foreign language, and the second one is history. Thus we have a second reason for wanting to learn a foreign language. President Conant points out in his book that in countries such as Switzerland and Holland a man is not considered educated if he does not speak at least two foreign languages. He points out that with modern-day transportation, the capitals of the world today have been brought so closely together that we cannot carry on the business of the world without a more intimate knowledge of foreign languages than we now have. Surely that must be the case with the business of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

We have today, for example, five or six Spanish-speaking missions. We have three German-speaking missions. We have three Scandinavian missions, and many other missions in which foreign tongues are spoken; for example, the Brazilian Mission, of which I have spoken, in which the Portuguese tongue is spoken.

I wonder if it would not be becoming of us as Latter-day Saints to revive the language of our forefathers in order that we might better qualify ourselves to carry out the great mission which is ours of preaching the gospel to the nations of the earth.

I was rather interested in the tendency of the South American countries to concentrate upon the legal language, so to speak; in Brazil and in the Argentine many people are of German extraction. One whole state in Brazil is a German state, but during the war it became important that all should speak Portuguese as a security measure. So they had to give up the teaching of German in the schools of that German state of Santa Catarina. Inside of a few years, just half a generation, you now go to young boys and girls whose parents and grandparents spoke German fluently, and speak to them in German, and they answer you in Portuguese. They still understand a little, but they have entirely given up the speaking of that great tongue. The same is true to a large measure with the French. There are many French people there.

Now, it is important, even down there, that these languages should be perpetuated. We have not been able as a Church to send missionaries into Italy, into Portugal, into Spain. Every time we convert a person in South America of European extraction, we are bringing the gospel closer to their families on the continent. Instance after instance was given us of how, when a Portuguese family in Brazil is converted to the Church, they begin immediately sending their tracts and their literature, and above all, the Book of Mormon, into Portugal. Some are able to save enough to go to Portugal. The primary purpose of the visit of these people now to the Old Country, whether they be French or German or Portuguese or Italian, is to preach the gospel to their people, their families.

The result is that we have some instances where they have gone to the Old Country and converted their families, and then their families have had to come to this country in order to be baptized.

In all such instances, you see how essential it is to retain the language of our forebears. I desire to tell you the story of one German lad who was born of very wealthy parents. His father owned a tremendous estate in Germany. He called his son in one day and said, "My boy, all this is yours. I am going to retire."

The boy looked up at his father and said, "I do not know why, but I am not going to accept it. I am going to travel." Then he said, "I was led as it were by a spirit to come here to Brazil, and for eight long years I wondered why I had left home. I never was dissatisfied. I was always happy about it, but I did not know why until finally one day two Mormon elders came to me and preached the gospel. Fortunately these two men who were on a mission struggling to speak the Portuguese language could speak enough German to this young man to teach him the gospel. He said, "They had no more than finished their first conference with me than I knew why I had left my father's home."

His home now has been a gathering place for the elders. He has left his wife and his family of five children and is laboring in a distant city in Brazil as a full-time missionary. He is preaching the gospel to those who speak German in that city.

There is an obligation resting upon us, brethren and sisters, to see to it that the next generation of missionaries that come from our homes come better prepared in two respects to go forth and fulfil their missions, wherever they may be called:

First, to learn those languages which are in a way native to the family. I am sure those who come of German extraction will be able to speak the language with a better accent, with a larger vocabulary, and with a greater natural ease than those who did not have that gift by right of inheritance.

Second, to know the restored gospel and understand the great plan of life and salvation and have a love of the work.

I plead with you, my brethren and sisters, to anticipate; and while we are anticipating a mission for our sons and our daughters, we ought to anticipate for them also a marriage, a military career for our sons so long as we have compulsory military training, and then a life's work. We cannot begin too young. We certainly will increase the percentage of temple marriages if we take it upon ourselves to instruct our young people in these important affairs of life in their early ages; we will make better missionaries of them, make better citizens and better soldiers.

I bring you the greetings of the Saints and of the elders in South America. They are growing not only in numbers; they are also growing in strength, and they have a warmth and a hospitality which is not excelled anywhere in the world. In our very first meetings in the Argentine at La Paz and Buenos Aires we had a total of just under nine hundred people present. There was hardly a soul who left those meetings without coming up and shaking hands with Sister Moyle and me and welcoming us, telling us how grateful they were to the Church for sending first Brother Petersen, and then me, to tour these missions. They had the deep-seated hope in their hearts that they would be continually favored with such visits.

I do not feel that this report would be complete if I did not tell you of a little story that my wife used in practically all of the meetings that we held in these three missions. We were trying to impress upon the people the personality of God, his personal attributes. Sister Moyle generally emphasized that point by telling this little story. There was a boy (I cannot tell it as well as she does, but I will do my best), five years old who was accustomed to kneel down at his bed at night and say his prayers. On this particular night the mother listened at the door to see just what he said. This is what she heard: "God, bless Mama, bless Papa, bless Grandma," and then he usually hopped into bed. But on this occasion he remained on his knees and he said, "And dear God, please take care of yourself, for if anything happened to you we would all be sunk."

Now, I hope and pray, my brethren and sisters, that we may all sense keenly the importance of living closely to our Heavenly Father and having our children live closely to him, that they may appreciate in very deed the personality of God and qualify themselves to go out into the world and preach Jesus Christ and him crucified  1 Cor. 2:2 for I bear witness to you today that he lives, and that he died for the sins of the world, and that he has arisen as our atoning Savior and made possible for us through his redeeming sacrifice the privilege of gaining immortality and eternal life in the kingdom of our Heavenly Father.

This I pray humbly, may be our lot, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.