The Voice of the Lord

by Neil Anderson
In 1979, five years before his call as a General Authority, Brother Nelson attended a meeting just prior to general conference. “President Spencer W. Kimball challenged all present to lengthen their stride in taking the gospel to the entire world. Among the countries President Kimball specifically mentioned was China, declaring, ‘We should be of service to the Chinese. We should learn their language. We should pray for them and help them.’”
President RussellM. Nelson as a surgeon
At age 54, Brother Nelson had a feeling during the meeting that he should study the Mandarin language. Although a busy heart surgeon, he immediately secured the services of a tutor.
Not long after beginning his studies, Dr. Nelson, attending a convention, unexpectedly found himself sitting next to “a distinguished Chinese surgeon, Dr. Wu Yingkai. … Because [Brother Nelson] had been studying Mandarin, he began [a] conversation [with Dr. Wu].”
Dr. Russell M. Nelson with Dr. Wu Yingkai
Dr. Nelson’s desire to follow the prophet led to Dr. Wu visiting Salt Lake City and Dr. Nelson traveling to China to give lectures and perform surgical operations.
His love for the Chinese people, and their love and respect for him, grew.
In February 1985, ten months after his call to the Quorum of the Twelve, Elder Nelson received a surprise phone call from China pleading for Dr. Nelson to come to Beijing to operate on the failing heart of China’s most famous opera singer. With the encouragement of President Gordon B. Hinckley, Elder Nelson returned to China. The last surgical operation he ever performed was in the People’s Republic of China.
President RussellM. Nelson being honored
Just two years ago, in October 2015, President Russell M. Nelson was once again honored with an official declaration, naming him an “old friend of China.”
Then yesterday we heard the now 93-year-old President Russell M. Nelson speak of President Thomas S. Monson’s plea to “each of us [in last April’s conference] to prayerfully study and ponder the Book of Mormon each day.”
Just like he did as a busy heart surgeon, when he hired a Mandarin tutor, President Nelson immediately took the counsel of President Monson and applied it to his own life. More than just reading, he said that he “made lists of what the Book of Mormon is, what it affirms, what it refutes, what it fulfills,what it clarifies, and what it reveals.”

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sacrament Meeting in a Hogan

By Richard J. Anderson In 1970 I was a young missionary serving in a remote area of the Navajo Nation in the southwestern United States. The past year had been filled with new and exciting gospel experiences. My love of the desert lands and the Navajo people had grown immensely. The beauty of the Southwest quickly touched my soul. I knew that this was where the Lord had called me. One night my companion and I returned home to find a note on our door from the man at the trading post. The note said the mission president had called and had asked us to call him back, so we immediately went over to the trading post and returned his call. The president informed us that we were to open an area that had not had missionaries for over seven years. I asked where we would live. He said we would need to find a place. That posed a challenge. The desert land—dotted with Navajo hogans (circular homes made of rock or timbers and mud) often miles apart—would not easily yield a place for us to ...
Read more

Saga of Sacrifice

By Richard J. Marshall What sacrifices would you be willing to make to go to the temple? Would you sell your car? Jeopardize your home? Give up your job? These thoughts nagged at the mind of young District President Donald W. Cummings of Perth, Australia. The mission president had challenged the Australian Saints to attend the New Zealand Temple dedication, just four months—but 4,000 miles—away. Perth was the farthest district from Church headquarters—so far that if you went any farther you would be heading back to Zion. The mission president’s challenge kept ringing in his ears.  “If you have a righteous goal and pray about it, the Lord will help you achieve it.”  President Cummings reviewed his finances. He was struggling to purchase a home for his burgeoning  family ; he earned only a modest salary; he had no money in the bank; he drove an old car. The price of going to New Zealand was 600 pounds ($1,200 U.S. dollars). He set his jaw and picked up the newspaper...
Read more

Apart, But Still One

by Elder Koch I was only 11, but I remember that 44 years ago, the meetinghouse where my family attended church was to experience major remodeling. Before that undertaking began, there was a meeting in which local leaders and area leaders were discussing how the members would participate with labor in that effort. My father, who had previously presided over that unit for years, expressed his very strong opinion that this work should be done by a contractor and not by amateurs. Not only was his opinion rejected, but we heard that he was severely and publicly rebuked on that occasion. Now, this was a man who was very dedicated to the Church and had been a World War II soldier in Europe, used to resisting and fighting for what he believed in! One wondered what his reaction might be after this incident. Would he persist with his opinion and continue to oppose the decision already made? We had seen families in our ward who had become weaker in the gospel and had stopped attending me...
Read more