The Gathering of the House of Israel

From the time the Gospel of Jesus Christ was restored to the earth and the Gathering of Israel began it took 117 years to go from six members of the Church in 1830 to one million members when I was a freshman in high school in 1947.

By the time I had my third child (the year President Kennedy was assassinated, 1963) we had gone to two million. 

By 1971 when I started working in the Stake Primary in San Diego we were up to three million--just eight years for that next million.  Presently there are about one million more members added every three years until now we have over 14 million members the world over.  So that is in 48 years we went from two million to 14 million!

When I was in high school and felt like a very small minority I would never have dreamed such a prospect could happen even though it had been prophesied from Old Testament times.

Today there are 15 Missionary Training Centers in the world and over 52,483 missionaries.  There were a little over 17,000 missionaries when I was in high school.  There are 166 Temples, 134 in operation, 13 under construction and 18 announced to be built.  There are 28,660 congregations around the world.  

L. Whitney Clayton in General Conference last Sunday  said this: " These prophecies that:

• the kingdom of God like a stone cut out of a mountain would fill the earth;
• the name of Joseph Smith would be known throughout the world; and
• the Church would fill the Americas and fill the world

might have seemed laughable 170 years ago.  The little band of believers, eking out a living on the American frontier and moving to escape persecution didn't look like the foundation of a faith that would cross international borders and penetrate hearts everywhere.

But that is just what has happened.  Let me give an example.

On Christmas Day 1925 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Elder Melvin J. Ballard dedicated the entire continent of South America for the preaching of the gospel.  By August 1926 a handful of converts had been baptized.  They were the first members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints baptized in all of South America.  That was 85 years ago, within the life span of many who are listening to conference today.

There are 23 stakes of Zion in Buenos Aires today, with dozens of stakes and ten of thousands of Church members in cities and towns across Argentina.  Now there are well over 600 stakes and several million Church members throughout South America.  While we watch, the kingdom of  God is filling the continent, and the name of Joseph Smith is being published by us and by his detractors in countries he may never even have heard of during his lifetime.

These prophecies about filling the world and being known world over: Preposterous? Perhaps. Unlikely? Undoubtedly. Impossible? Emphatically no, it is happening before our eyes...

The work of the Lord is indeed great and marvelous, but it moves forward essentially unnoticed by many of mankind's political, cultural, and academic leaders.  It progresses one heart and one family at a time, silently and unobtrusively, its sacred message blessing people everywhere...I stand in awe as this work moves forward miraculously, marvelously, and irresistibly." 

As Russell M. Nelson also expressed: "This is the time of the promised gathering of Israel.  And we get to participate!  Isn't that exciting?"

I think so!