Introduction
To the Rescue
He is more Christlike than the rest of us. He’s known for emphasizing and elevating things that are most important, the ordinary things. He is the one for whom the widow and the orphan are not just statements in a book.
President Boyd K. Packer President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
It was a rainy, lackluster Sunday, December 2, 1979, when a gregarious Apostle of God with his long and purposeful stride entered the dreary Dresden hospital in the German Democratic Republic. The moment was quintessential Thomas S. Monson. Following a prompting, he had flown more than 5,200 miles and crossed behind the Iron Curtain at Checkpoint Charlie for one purpose—to give Inge Burkhardt a blessing.
Inge had been in the hospital nine weeks with complications from gall-bladder surgery that developed into pneumonia and a string of other ailments. The doctors recommended a second surgery—of questionable efficacy—in an operating room that had no heat and archaic equipment. When Elder Monson heard of her plight, he got on a plane. Without any prior planning, yet bidden by the Spirit and by his love for the Burkhardts, he traveled across the globe to minister to a single soul.
“We joined our faith and our prayers in providing her a blessing,” Elder Monson recorded in his journal. The scene as he departed the hospital grounds will always stay with him. “When looking upward we saw Sister Burkhardt from her bedroom window waving farewell to us.”1
Looking upward is what Thomas S. Monson does best. He often quotes the verse:
But chief of all Thy wondrous works,
Supreme of all Thy plan,
Thou hast put an upward reach
Into the heart of man.2
The Burkhardts were trapped, as were thousands of other Latter-day Saints, in a country overrun with guards and guns. The government officials allowed religious worship, but anyone participating was suspect. Henry Burkhardt, president of the Dresden Mission for ten years, was singled out by the Communist government as the Church’s representative in the land. It was hardly an honor. He did not advance at work; his children were denied educational opportunities; he and Inge were watched all the time.
Ask Henry to recall the single most significant experience he had with Elder Monson during the two decades when the bold young Apostle supervised and visited East Germany, and the tears come quickly. Henry will bypass the meeting he attended with the nation’s supreme leader, Erich Honecker, when President Monson asked for and received approval for missionaries to serve in East Germany, then known as the German Democratic Republic—though that day was deserving of front-page news. He will not point to the serene morning on the hill overlooking the Elbe River when Elder Monson blessed the land “for the advancement of the work” of the Lord Jesus Christ and His gospel and made seemingly impossible promises to the Saints held hostage by a totalitarian government. Nor will he describe the many meetings held in rattletrap cars parked on gloomy streets to avoid the ever-present listening devices as a small huddle of men learned from an Apostle how to move the Church forward in a godless land.
No. What stands out in Henry’s mind is that day at the hospital when Elder Monson came just to bless Inge. It was a rescue mission.
While in the country, Elder Monson agreed to an impromptu meeting with the active priesthood leaders in the area; on short notice, thirty-seven of the thirty-nine attended. They met in the Leipzig “chapel,” the men bundled in tattered clothing because the furnace had long since quit working. But there was “no lack of warmth in the hearts of the members,” Elder Monson noted. “They had their scriptures with them, sang with gusto, and reflected a spirit of devotion to the gospel.”3
And then he flew home.
Such is the ministry of the man—Thomas S. Monson, sixteenth President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, prophet, seer, and revelator.
Jesus Christ, in His ministry at the meridian of time, “went about doing good, . . . for God was with him.”4 He blessed the sick, restored sight to the blind, made the deaf to hear, and caused the halt and maimed to walk. He taught forgiveness by forgiving, compassion by being compassionate, devotion by giving of Himself, and love of His Father in Heaven by loving others—one at a time.
In like manner, Thomas S. Monson has spent his life going about doing good. He has lifted, encouraged, listened, counseled, and shared personal experiences, always for one single purpose—to encourage faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ called His disciples to follow Him and become “fishers of men.” His disciples today have the same charge. President Monson’s most productive “fishing hole” can be likened to the pool of Bethesda, where “a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered”in New Testament times went for healing—to be “made whole.”5 He understands from whence such healing comes: “Let us remember that it was not the waters of Bethesda’s pool which healed the impotent man. Rather, his blessing came through the touch of the Master’s hand.”6
For a long time—a lifetime—Thomas S. Monson has gone to those waiting by the “pool,” those draped in despair, disappointment, infirmities, pain, and even sin, and joined his faith with theirs that they might be made whole.
The man healed by Jesus Christ at the pool of Bethesda was seemingly obscure. No one reverenced his presence or found greater stature being by his side. But the Savior went right to him.7 So it is with President Monson. He too goes to the weary and often forsaken, lays hands on their heads, and, in his singularly recognizable voice, provides inspired counsel. “I firmly believe,” he has said many times, “that the sweetest experience in mortality is to know that our Heavenly Father has worked through us to accomplish an objective in the life of another person”—to help make someone whole.8
“Reach out to rescue . . . the aged, the widowed, the sick, the handicapped, the less active,” he has said, and then he has led the charge. “Extend to them the hand that helps and the heart that knows compassion.”9
When he went to East Germany, he was connecting Inge Burkhardt to the “whole” church and the faith and prayers of its people.
When he chaired the Scriptures Publication Committee, he spent ten years helping put in place greater access to the Lord’s words with new study aids that would make members more “whole” in their understanding of the Lord Jesus Christ.
When he sat by his wife’s bed in the hospital for seventeen days as she lay in a coma, he beseeched the Lord to intervene. The doctors tried to prepare him for the possibility that she would never wake up. He simply waited on the Lord, knowing his prayer of faith would be answered. She awoke; she had been healed.
When he appears at the funeral of one of his scores of friends and associates—such as Robert H. Hodgen, the carpenter who built his chicken coop and remodeled the family cabin at Vivian Park—he is showing gratitude for service that is known to only a few but is nonetheless a valued contribution.
When he is asked how he finds time to do such things, given the burdens of his ministry, he responds, “I am a very simple man. I just do what the Lord tells me to do.”10
Following his sustaining at the solemn assembly during the 178th Annual General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, President Monson stood before the membership of the Church, thirteen million strong, and encouraged the “less active, the offended, the critical, the transgressor” to come back. He pleaded, “To those who are wounded in spirit or who are struggling and fearful, we say, Let us lift you and cheer you and calm your fears.”11 Come, and be made whole.
For President Monson, being made “whole” does not mean being fixed, repaired, or made good as new. Wholeness is much more than that; it is a description of a life on earth filled with the Spirit of God and one in the eternities in the presence of the Father. He wants nothing less for all of God’s children: “I plead with you to turn to our Heavenly Father in faith. He will lift you and guide you. He will not always take your afflictions from you, but He will comfort and lead you with love through whatever storm you face.”12
His self-proclaimed optimism is clearly evident to everyone who knows him or even makes his acquaintance. He starts his first meeting of the day with “Top of the morning,” he whistles in the middle of the afternoon, and he advocates with true sincerity finding “joy in the journey” at every turn. Earlier in his ministry he could attend personally to those in need; the pressures and demands of his prophetic office now require that he enlist the help of many others.
For President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, Second Counselor in the First Presidency of the Church, “It is a marvelous thing to be close to the prophet on a daily basis, to sit with him every day and feel of his closeness to the Lord. Always there is something going on and always a need for the First Presidency to act upon things, both spiritual and temporal, as the prophet leads the way.”13
“Bethesda” in the Bible Dictionary is described as “house of mercy or house of grace.” There could be no better description of President Monson’s presence—wherever he is. Some of those to whom he ministers look put together on the outside but cry out for help from within their very souls. He hears them. He has continually offered the promise of peace, hope, and comfort in spite of challenges and grief, some seemingly insurmountable. He quotes often the promise of Jesus Christ: “I will go before your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you, to bear you up.”14 He loves that verse, for it speaks of how, through the power of the Atonement, we are made whole.
Like the Israelites’ tabernacle of old, his “pool” of healing and love is portable. President Monson takes it with him wherever he goes: to Inge in East Germany, to a troop of scrappy Scouts camping out in a muddy field, to a small village in Tonga or Peru, to the bedside of the sick or dying, and to the marriage of loved ones in the holy temples of God. Indeed, his ministry is best expressed by his attention to the healing of souls.
To him, needs are both programmatic (that’s where the welfare plan steps in) and personal (that’s where he steps in). Many have described him as “the bishop” of the Church. He has been and always will be a champion of the Church’s remarkable welfare program, which has addressed people’s needs for more than half a century. But beyond relying upon programs, he steps in personally to assist those who struggle with testimony, suffer illness, grieve the loss of someone close, or make up “the long line of the lonely.”15 The list is endless but ever present on his mind and in his heart. When he is prompted, he goes—to the rescue.
His life is a witness of the importance of following personal inspiration: “When you honor a prompting and then stand back a pace, you realize that the Lord gave you the prompting. It makes me feel good that the Lord even knows who I am and knows me well enough to know that if He has an errand to be run and prompts me to run the errand, the errand will get done.”16 Put simply, he does not gauge where or what or how. “I’ll go where you want me to go, dear Lord” is what President Monson is always about.17 He always has been.
And his wife, Frances, has always been right at his side. Her commitment to his calling has equaled his. She is reserved in her manner, knowing that what she says, does, and puts her hand to will reflect on the calling that her husband bears. Her way of honoring the responsibility to them both is to be his support, any way she can, and to bear testimony of the divinity of Jesus Christ to Saints in many nations.
In tribute to her, he has said, “I could not have asked for a more loyal, loving, and understanding companion.”18
When President Monson has spoken of “the miraculous strength” and “mighty power”19 of wives and mothers in the home, he has had his sweet companion as his model. She has traveled with him when she could while caring for their young family, been ever ready to go at a moment’s notice when he had people to visit across town, waited good-naturedly while he gave one blessing after another until the quick stop at the hospital turned to hours, and she has never complained. They have seldom sat together during a Church service; she has packed his bag for every trip he’s taken; she has fixed his breakfast every day, even if it meant being up at 4:30 A.M. so he could be off for a “fishing” trip.
Called as an Apostle in 1963 by President David O. McKay when the Church was emerging as a worldwide denomination, Elder Monson traveled to every continent while balancing a load of significant committee assignments; he chaired them all. There were weekly stake conferences while he was a member of the Quorum of the Twelve and, later, when he joined the First Presidency, regional conferences. He has attended innumerable groundbreakings and temple dedications, and conducted countless mission tours.
The sheer logistics have not been easy. He has weathered lightning storms encircling his aircraft, delays on the ground and in the air, flight cancellations, lost baggage, eight-hour bus rides in the jungle to make it to meetings, and yet he has arrived—with the Spirit—ready to teach and preach to the members.
A fellow Apostle, Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin, described his longtime friend as “a mighty man of Israel who was foreordained to preside over this Church.” In tribute he continued, “While it is a compliment to him that many of the great and mighty of this world know and honor him, perhaps it is an even greater tribute that many of the lowly call him friend.”20
One of his good friends was Everett Bird. They had chickens in common: Rhode Island Reds, to be exact. Everett kept Elder Monson’s chickens in his coop and was proud to show them off because of their owner. Elder Monson said of his chicken keeper: “I am daily impressed that the majority of the good people in the world do not receive any accolades or any publicity but live good lives within a small circle and one day will merit eternal reward.”21
President Monson truly loves people. He is profoundly loyal to friends and associates. He relates to everyone—everywhere— and many through the years have been surprised and pleased to find that he still remembered them. One particular Sunday, when giving a blessing to his friend Don Balmforth from the old Sixth-Seventh Ward, he encouraged him, “Remember, Don, your influence has been felt on me. Wherever I go, you go. Wherever I speak, you speak. Wherever I serve, you serve.” That same Sunday Elder Monson traveled across town to give a blessing to Louis McDonald in a nursing home, and he went later to his own brother Bob’s home to give another. His summation: “All in all, a busy day.”22
That’s why his challenge—“to the rescue”—has such resonance and integrity. He has been there.
“His personality is this buoyant, outgoing, hail-fellow-well-met,” explains Elder Jeffrey R. Holland. “He’s larger than life. He fills that entire six-foot-three frame with enthusiasm. Nevertheless, when recalling an incident in his life or referring to the illness of a General Authority or remembering the passing of a grandchild of one of his schoolmates, he will weep on the spot—instantly. His eyes betray him. He will get red rims around his eyes the minute he talks about something spiritual and something personal.”23
As an administrator, “he’s not fast to judgment, not quick to fire out of the starting blocks,” explains Elder Robert D. Hales. “He wants dialogue. He wants it from his counselors and from members of the Quorum. It’s quite remarkable. He takes it all in and then he’ll pray about it. Don’t expect him to give an opinion and have it immediately adopted. He likes to say that he measures twice before he cuts once, but he measures five or six times before he cuts.”24
Elder Ronald Rasband, Senior President of the Seventy, recalls the friendly hour-long exchange he had with President Monson on the plane returning from the temple dedication in Sacramento. “He is so conversant in regular affairs of life from basketball to Scouting to baseball to fishing to what’s happening in town and the barbershop. He has knowledge of the life of the regular person. He loves to talk about it and he makes you feel totally comfortable in any of those settings.”25
President Monson was not born to worldly wealth, but in his home the spirit of love abounded. There is no question that he was prepared in his youth for service that may have belied his age but never his ability. He has always been a leader, from his first assignment as secretary in the deacons quorum to the prophetic mantle he carries today. Those who were in his teachers quorum when he was the president can attest that he has never given up on them and did finally get them to the temple. Experience has taught him: “The mantle of leadership is not the cloak of comfort but rather the robe of responsibility.”26
This is a man who has never left his moorings. His childhood memories reveal much more than simply his growing up. They speak of the security of grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins; of the examples of righteous, hardworking parents; and of a Church environment that fostered faith and testimony. Born and bred in a neighborhood with the train whistles blaring and transients knocking at the door, he learned and exercised love for the Lord, concern for the elderly, compassion for the needy, loyalty, hard work, and a profound commitment to duty.
Though he has kept a daily journal since his call to the Twelve in October 1963, he is not linear; date, time, and place are simply the backdrop for him to see the manifestation of the hand of God. On those voluminous pages are recorded his priorities. He writes little about meetings and much about people. He is as comfortable with those who clean the building as he is with ambassadors of nations. Each has equal importance to him. When he speaks of his experiences, he is prompting the listeners to look at their own lives, to look for the Lord sending rescuers in the little things: the visit of a friend, the note, the much-needed affectionate handshake.
A day in March 1995 is a good example. Elder Russell M. Nelson brought Bruce D. Porter, a BYU professor, and his wife, Susan, to President Monson’s office for an informal visit. (Just weeks later Brother Porter was called as a member of the Second Quorum of the Seventy.) However, that story began not in the office at 47 East South Temple but in Germany in 1972, when young Elder Porter, a mission secretary, was assigned to help Elder Monson, who was organizing the Düsseldorf Stake from the Ruhr District in the Germany Central Mission. Elder Porter spent three priceless days in the company of Elder Monson as driver, translator, organizer of schedules, recorder, and general ombudsman. Elder Porter did not expect President Monson to remember him—twenty-three years later. But, before Elder Porter could extend his hand in greeting, President Monson bounded across his office with open arms and said, “Düsseldorf!”27
President Monson was called as a bishop at just twenty-two years of age in the ward where he grew up. In fact, he and Frances have been members of that same ward and only one other their whole married life. He presided over the Sixth-Seventh Ward of the Temple View Stake, a ward with more than 1,080 members, 85 of them widows. There is no question that those years significantly shaped his perspective and prowess in Church leadership. He had in his care the needy, aged, ill, fatherless, and forgotten who were waiting at the “pool.” He found them everywhere he visited. In his five years as bishop he learned his lessons well: listen to the Spirit, act on promptings, and do what the Lord would have you do.
“You develop an appreciation that Heavenly Father knows who you are and He says, ‘Here, go do this for me,’” he has explained. “I always thank Him. My only regret is that I don’t have more time to do the many things we are called upon to do. I work hard. I work long. I hope I work effectively, but I never feel I have exhausted what I should be doing.”28
At age twenty-seven he was called into the stake presidency; at thirty-one, as a mission president in Canada; and at thirty-six, as an Apostle called of God. “The Lord selected him by His hand to be the prophet,” states Elder L. Tom Perry, who has worked with him in the Twelve since 1974, “and he was well prepared for it and well trained for the time that he was needed there to build our Father in Heaven’s kingdom.”29
His inimitable speaking style has endeared him to millions as he has opened the doctrines and principles of the gospel through personal experiences. Embedded in each one are lessons of life and measures of virtue and character. He draws in his listeners with accounts from his own life or the experiences of people close to him and then leaves application of the principle to them.
To President Monson, “pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.”30 He speaks it; he lives it. He expects others to do the same. “Our happiness is completely and utterly intertwined with other people: family, friends, neighbors, and the woman who you hardly notice who cleans your office.”31
Like the Savior, he champions the widows. The 85 in the Sixth-Seventh Ward were not a number to him. They were noble souls whose station in life was easily transcended by their place in God’s eyes. This is a man who sits down in nursing homes and explains the game of football to the women staring at the screen. In the process, he may have missed a meeting, but he “harvested a memory.” When he talks with those who seem unresponsive, he enjoys the one-sided conversation, feeling that indeed he has “communed with God.”32
“He truly is devoted to the rescue of others,” President Henry B. Eyring, First Counselor in the First Presidency, has observed. “I thought I knew how he remembers everybody and how he reaches out to the most obscure person. But, it’s more than I ever dreamed. I am a better person every day I work with him. I care about others and think about others more than I ever did before. He has had that amazing effect on me.”33
“The prayers of people,” President Monson has taught, “are almost always answered by the actions of others.”34 That’s why his visit to Dresden was much more than a quick flight to see a dear friend. It was a reiteration that the Lord God will visit His people “in their affliction.” In this case he took the “pool” behind the Iron Curtain.
For nearly five decades he has offered “living water” to those so desperately in need. Church members from Tahiti to Germany have watched him, followed him, and been taught by him with words that speak spirit-to-spirit:
“All can walk where Jesus walked when, with His words on our lips, His spirit in our hearts, and His teachings in our lives, we journey through mortality. I would hope that we would walk as he walked with confidence in the future, with an abiding faith in His Father, and with a genuine love for others.”35
Thomas S. Monson Family
Notes - Introduction: To the Rescue
Epigraph. Interview with Boyd K. Packer, 19 August 2009.
^1. Thomas S. Monson (hereinafter referred to as TSM in interviews, letters, and journal entries) Journal, 2 December 1979.
^2. As quoted by Thomas S. Monson in “The Upward Reach,” Ensign, November 1993, 50.
^3. TSM Journal, 2 December 1979.
^6. Thomas S. Monson, “Christ at Bethesda’s Pool,” Ensign, November 1996, 18.
^8. Interview with TSM, 8 December 2008.
^9. Thomas S. Monson, Salt Lake City South Stake Conference Broadcast, 18 October 2009.
^10. Interview with TSM, 15 April 2009.
^11. Thomas S. Monson, “Looking Back and Moving Forward,” Ensign, May 2008, 89–90.
^12. Monson, “Looking Back and Moving Forward,” 90.
^13. Interview with Dieter F. Uchtdorf, 2 September 2009.
^14. Doctrine and Covenants 84:88.
^15. Thomas S. Monson, “The Long Line of the Lonely,” Ensign, February 1992, 2.
^16. Ann Monson Dibb, “My Father Is a Prophet,” BYU–Idaho Devotional, 19 February 2008, 10.
^17. “I’ll Go Where You Want Me to Go,” Hymns (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1985), no. 270.
^18. Interview with TSM, 18 June 2009.
^19. Thomas S. Monson, “‘Behold Thy Mother,’” Ensign, April 1998, 6.
^20. Joseph B. Wirthlin, “Concern for the One,” Ensign, May 2008, 17.
^21. TSM Journal, 13 February 1981.
^22. TSM Journal, 25 March 1983.
^23. Interview with Jeffrey R. Holland, 22 September 2009.
^24. Interview with Robert D. Hales, 8 April 2009.
^25. Interview with Ronald Rasband, 12 November 2008.
^26. Thomas S. Monson, “Sugar Beets and the Worth of a Soul,” Ensign, July 2009, 7.
^27. Interview with Bruce D. Porter, 16 December 2009; Interview with TSM, 17 December 2009.
^28. Gerry Avant, “On Lord’s errand since his boyhood,” Church News, 9 February 2008.
^29. Interview with L. Tom Perry, 22 August 2008.
^31. Interview with TSM, 15 April 2009.
^32. Monson, “Long Line of the Lonely,” 4–5.
^33. Interview with Henry B. Eyring, 26 August 2009.
^34. Thomas S. Monson, “‘Be Thou an Example,’” Ensign, November 1996, 45.