Deliverance from Danger

A colleague of mine in the Seventy once said that there was probably a whole legion of angels assigned full-time to watch over and protect missionaries. The Doctrine and Covenants doesn’t talk about there being legions, but it does confirm that angels do watch over those in missionary service. The Lord said, “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” (D&C 84:88).

In my service with the Seventy, I learned again and again how true that was. Not all missionaries are protected from all harm. Occasionally, a full-time missionary dies while in service, through accident, sickness, or sometimes violence. Those are heartbreaking losses for the families, for the mission, and for the Church. But thankfully those are rare exceptions. However, the reports of premonitions, warnings, or feelings of uneasiness that protect missionaries and take them away from danger are numerous. I suspect for every one of those that are reported, there are several others where the missionaries weren’t even aware of the Lord’s protecting hand.

During World War II, especially in Nazi Germany, the situation deteriorated so rapidly that many missionaries were caught in the war zone. In this case a more direct and evident intervention was needed.

War Clouds

Adolf Hitler came to power in Nazi Germany in 1933 and immediately began preparing Germany for war. Once the war machine was fully ready, Hitler began his move to dominate Europe. Austria was annexed to Germany in 1938, and in March of 1939, Germany was allowed to take Czechoslovakia as well. Europe held its collective breath and prepared for war.

In April 1939, the First Presidency of the Church assigned Elder Joseph Fielding Smith of the Quorum of the Twelve “to make an inspection tour” of the European missions and hold a mission presidents’ conference with the eight European mission presidents. Accompanied by his wife, Jessie Evans Smith, Elder Smith began touring the missions as the tensions between the countries continued to rise.

By August 24, the Smiths had finished their tour of Scandinavia and reentered Germany. That afternoon, M. Douglas Wood, president of the Swedish and West German Mission, received a telegram from the First Presidency in Salt Lake telling him “to be prepared to move upon immediate notice.” The following day Thomas E. McKay, president of the Swiss and East German Mission, contacted Elder Smith and said that he was moving his missionaries to Denmark immediately.

Recognizing how serious the situation was, the Smiths took a train to the mission headquarters in Frankfurt. Everything there was in near chaos. That afternoon they received another cablegram from the First Presidency stating that all missionaries were to leave Germany immediately and go to either Denmark or Holland and await further orders. The Smiths went straight to the train station and bought tickets for Holland. They arrived in The Hague on Saturday, August 26. Shortly after their arrival at the mission office, they learned through a phone call that they had been the last two members of the Church to get out of Germany. They also learned that a group of elders from Germany were at the border and were not going to be allowed into Holland.¹

What follows are excerpts of the story by John Robert Kest of what happened to those missionaries who were stopped at the border and refused entry into Holland.

There was tension in the air that 26th day of August, 1939. . . . By early evening the telephone was ringing every hour or so. . . .

Sometime after 10:30 p.m., President Murdock received a call from President Wood in Germany informing him that a number of missionaries were arriving in Holland by way of Oldenzaal, a tiny village on the eastern border of Holland, not more than seven kilometers from the German border city of Bentheim. A number of elders from Germany, he said, were to arrive sometime the following day. As a matter of fact, the six elders comprising the group at Bentheim crossed the border into Holland late on the night of the 26th but were hurried back to Germany after having emphatically been refused entry to Holland. This, President Murdock learned as a result of a phone call received much later that same evening.

Because of these phone calls and the help the elders at Bentheim obviously stood in need of, Elder Smith and President Murdock decided I was to go to Oldenzaal with sufficient funds to conduct the brethren from that point to the mission home. It was assumed, of course, that we would have no trouble transporting the elders across the border as we thought they had been refused entry because of lack of funds and not having had through tickets to England in their possession. I would be able to guarantee the government officials their passage to England, and would be carrying enough money to assure these same cautious officers the young men would in no way be a burden to the Dutch government while in Holland. . . .

The next morning, Elder Kest arose at 5:30 and caught a train to Oldenzaal. He continues:

There were innumerable delays. The train trip, which could usually be made in two hours, took well over four, and it was after 11 a.m. when the train finally arrived in Oldenzaal. The station master there, . . . proved very helpful. “Yes,” he said, “a number of young American missionaries were sent back to Germany late last night and have not crossed back into Oldenzaal since.” This was upsetting news, for we had fully expected the brethren to be waiting at Oldenzaal, needing only money and an assurance of transportation to England in order for the Dutch authorities to consent to their passage to The Hague. . . . Already a good twelve hours had elapsed since they had been returned to Germany: something must be very wrong indeed.

Attempting to call Bentheim in order to learn the whereabouts of the elders proved of little value and after three hours I gave up the job as hopeless. Telephone connections with Germany had been cut off. . . .

I phoned President Murdock in The Hague along about 2:30 p.m. and told him that it had not been possible to contact the elders, all attempts at phoning them had proved fruitless; it was impossible to contact Bentheim by phone. The station master told me the young men had been almost without funds and had nothing except cameras to declare at the Dutch border. It was obvious that they had no tickets in their possession and probably scarcely enough money adequately to take care of their needs. Therefore, the fact that they were obliged to return to Bentheim began to assume even more serious proportions. President Murdock had said the elders must be helped at any cost. “Do your best and use your judgment as to what should be done, Brother Kest.” . . .

Elder Kest then explains that because the decision to go to Oldenzaal had been made in such haste, and because they expected to find the missionaries in Holland, a visa had not been acquired for Elder Kest. He could not enter Germany without a visa. For an hour he called various government offices, but he was told it was impossible to get a visa.

After thoroughly discussing the matter with the station master and finding that under no circumstances would they allow the brethren to enter Holland, it became apparent that I must go into Germany, visa or no visa.

President Murdock had given me something over 300 guilders; it was thought this amount would take care of any eventuality which might arise. It took almost this entire amount to purchase tickets from Oldenzaal to Copenhagen, Denmark. . . . It seems ten tickets were purchased, for it was a speculation how many brethren were stranded in Bentheim. The ten tickets used up nearly all the funds and I hoped there would be sufficient transportation to take care of the elders’ needs.

The 2:30 train sped on toward Bentheim. Why the Dutch authorities allowed me to board that train, never asking for a visa, is a mystery; it was most irregular. Sitting tense and excited on the hard seats, the thought reoccurred again and again: “Is this the right thing to do?” Here I was speeding into Germany without a visa, under circumstances that were hardly promising, hoping somehow the brethren might still be there. The train stopped; we had arrived.

A moment later there was a sharp clicking of heels. German Blackshirts stepped quickly through the car, their eyes cold as steel, taking in at a glance the occupants of each car. Handing the leader my passport, the inevitable question was shot at me: “Why is no visa stamped on the proper page?” This thought suddenly flashed through my mind: “Brother Kest, you have always enjoyed acting. If you have ever acted a part well, do it now!” I explained in exasperatingly slow and deliberately incoherent English that at present I was living in Holland, had heard that some of my friends were in Bentheim and knowing that railroad and train transportation was being curtailed, wanted to visit them while possible. Suspicion shone from the cold eyes of the officers. I rambled on, deliberately, on utterly pointless tangents, hoping all the while they would have great difficulty understanding me; which they did. . . .

It was fortunate that the German officer in charge spoke rather poor English. As I went on, talking disjointedly, tossing in a Dutch or German phrase here and there, the effect I wished to produce took hold of the men. They must have concluded that here was a simple, foolish American trying to see some friends for no good reason.

Inside the little cubicle in the station where they had taken me for questioning, they searched me thoroughly. What would they do to the precious tickets which I had in my suit coat pocket? This thought was paramount. In my possession was a folder in which were M.I.A. lessons written in English which we were translating into Dutch to be used the coming winter season. These they read over thoroughly, finally deciding they were harmless. They confiscated binder, papers, passport, all the money on my person and started going through each pocket in both coat and vest. I took the ten tickets out of my pocket and placed them on the table before me. No one seemed to see the tickets. The officer in charge gave me a receipt for the money, binder, papers and all my personal effects, and said, “You have forty minutes to catch the return train to Holland. After that time we cannot guarantee your safety.”

Taking the tickets from the table I stuffed them in my pocket. Not an eye flickered. I had the strong impression that the action had been entirely unobserved. Hurriedly I left the station, my knees weak, my palms sweating. Few people on the street seemed to know where any American boys were staying, but finally someone directed me to the Hotel Kaiserhoff. There the elders were, trying to determine what course they should follow, as they were almost out of money and could no longer afford a hotel bill.

After quiet introductions and firm handshaking, my message was quickly delivered. Giving the tickets to Brother Ellis Rasmussen, who seemed to be in charge of the group, I told them quickly that these tickets from Holland might, with luck, insure their passage to Copenhagen. “You must leave immediately, brethren, and try to make connections into Denmark, as all railroad transportation is being cut off at an alarming rate!” The elders needed no urging, and in less than five minutes were ready, having very little luggage with them.

Quickly kneeling down, we held a prayer circle and asked our Father that we might be safely conducted to our respective destinations. As the seven of us knelt in fervent prayer, we all felt a closeness and unity experienced very infrequently in life. We were truly united and prayed with power and faith, believing our request would be granted, for we realized the desperate nature of our situation.

After prayer we rushed to the station where Elder Rasmussen and his group finally managed to catch a train . . . to Copenhagen—one of the last out of Germany carrying civilians.

After the brethren had left, and we waved each other good-bye, I hurried back to the office of the Blackshirts only a few yards away, where my passport and effects were being held. The station master gave me my money and papers immediately, but a Blackshirt guard stuck my passport in his wide cuff and marched insolently before me as the passengers boarded the train for Holland. The whistle of the train was blowing, and I noted the clock indicated only three minutes until departure time. What was going to happen? Finally the Blackshirt strutted over and with a sneer handed me my passport, muttering some deprecatory remark under his breath. He pushed me to the ticket window where I was obliged to buy a German ticket to Oldenzaal even though my Dutch ticket assured passage to Bentheim and return. It was necessary to run in order to catch the train—the wheels had just begun to turn. I sank into the seat, grateful for the brethren’s escape and my own now certain and safe return. . . .

The following Friday, September 1, war was declared.²

Chile Santiago West Mission

Not all of the dangers that missionaries face are caused by man. Protection is also needed from the forces of nature. Here are two more stories of how the Lord watches over His missionaries, even in times of great natural disaster.

Chile, February 27, 2010

At 3:34 a.m., local time, an earthquake measuring an 8.8 magnitude on the Richter scale, one of the strongest earthquakes in recorded history, struck the nation of Chile. It triggered tsunami warnings in fifty-three countries and did damage as far away as the east coast of Japan. The final official death toll was 521. Chile is in an earthquake zone and has strict building codes or the loss would have been much higher.

The earthquake was so strong that it moved the entire city of Concepcion ten feet to the west, according to global positioning satellites. Scientists also estimate it moved the earth’s axis by 8 centimeters (3.15 inches), and shortened the length of our day by 1.26 microseconds.³

Chile has more than half a million members of the Church and several missions in the country. Concern for the members and the missionaries immediately surfaced as the world woke up to the news of what had just happened in Chile. The capital of Santiago was hit pretty hard and sustained some damage, but the hardest hit was Concepción, about 270 miles south of the capital.

My wife and I have a grandson, Elder Nathan Stoddard, who was serving in the Chile Santiago West Mission when the earthquake struck. In our home, as in many others that day, we spent long hours huddled in front of the television as we tried to learn what was going on. Later in the day, the Missionary Department called our daughter and son-in-law to say that all the missionaries in Chile were safe. The day after the quake, the mission president asked missionaries to stay in their apartments or nearby and authorized them to e-mail their families. Here are excerpts from Nathan’s e-mail dated March 1, 2010.

Like an 80-MPH Trailer Ride on Washboardy Road!

Saturday morning at 3:34 am, we woke up to find our whole world dancing. It was pretty insane. I can still remember very vividly the sound and the feeling. The closest I can come to describing it would be riding in the trailer on a very washboardy (bumpy) road at like 80 miles an hour. When things start shaking, it starts out really slowly, and there is like a deep low rumbling sound. Then—at least in the bigger ones—the whole world starts dancing. In the first big one, I was on the top bunk of our highly sturdy beds (they are metal so they won’t fall, they just shake a ton). When it started shaking everything just became instinctive and I did everything on instinct. It was almost as if someone else was moving me, and I was just a robot. I jumped down from my bed and went to my desk to find my keys to the door. When I found them somehow, they flew out of my hand. (I found them later next to the trash can.) I quickly realized that I wasn’t going to find them, so the window was our next option. Almost all the windows in Chile are barred, but ours is one of the very few that is unbarred because we live behind another house.

Fortunately [!!!], like a month and a half ago Elder Ikeda had dreamed that there was going to be an earthquake, so I had put my headlamp and flashlight in a very easy place to get to, just in case. So we left out the window with the lights. Once outside, it kept shaking for a little bit more (it lasted almost 3 minutes in total). Our neighbors have a swimming pool, and in the swimming pool it was a tsunami. The waves were huge, that just showed us how strong it really was. In Concepción it was 8.8 on the Richter scale, and it was between 7 and 8 where we are. . . .

After things stopped shaking, the missionaries went around to their neighbors to see if anyone was hurt. There was some minor damage, but nothing serious. The people, of course, were all frightened and greatly upset. As word came in from the south, the nation began to grasp just how great a disaster this had been. Aftershocks were also frequent and hard. Later that day, as things settled down somewhat, Nathan and his companion decided to visit members and investigators to see how they were doing.

Nathan then continues:

It has been a terrible thing in the south, but it has been good for missionaries. For example, last night we went to visit a contact we had, and she came out of her house crying. She didn’t know anything about her family in the south, and they live really close to the epicenter. So we entered into her house, started to talk to her, and asked if she would like us to pray. As we got down on our knees to say a prayer with her, her phone rang. It was her niece from the south calling to say that they were all alive, even though they were without water, food, shelter, etc. So our contact felt very comforted to know that they were all okay. Then we said a prayer, and it was totally awesome! We then gave her a Book of Mormon and explained about the earthquake that had happened after Jesus’ death. Then we left her with 3 Nephi 11 to read, and she was so grateful. As we were leaving, her husband and son showed up and she explained to them everything that had happened and kept saying how we had come, and that it couldn’t have been in a more precise moment. So that was just one of the many miracles that has happened as a result of this.

Chile Santiago East Mission

The hardest hit areas of Chile were south of Santiago, and most of that area is in the boundaries of the Santiago East Mission, presided over by President Larry Laycock and his wife, Lisa. Here is their story, taken from an e-mail sent by Sister Laycock to friends and family and published in the LDS Church News a day or two after the earthquake.

Promptings in the Night

When we were set apart for this calling, Elder [Richard G.] Scott of the [Council] of the Twelve Apostles taught us many important lessons. He spoke from personal experience when he was a mission president in Argentina. One message that he shared with us is this: “At times, during your mission, you will be awakened in the middle of the night or the early morning hours with thoughts of specific things you should do for certain missionaries. Do not ignore these thoughts. They are promptings from the Holy Ghost who will communicate with you in the stillness of the night or the peace of the early morning hours. He will speak to you then because that is when you are still enough to hear.” Elder Scott further instructed us to keep a notebook beside our bed so that we could record these precious promptings. He said that by the next morning, we would be likely to forget the promptings if we didn’t write them down.

Sister Laycock told how they had followed that counsel many times and received precious promptings. Then she said:

Nearly two and one half weeks [before the earthquake], I was awakened at around 4 a.m. by just such a prompting. I did not hear a voice, but the thought was as clear as if it had been in the form of spoken words: “There is going to be an earthquake. Prepare your missionaries.” I sat up in bed and immediately remembered Elder Scott’s counsel. That morning I told Larry what had happened. He immediately set to work organizing our missionaries to prepare for an earthquake.

In talking with our office missionaries to arrange for them to put together a list of everything we would need to prepare . . . in both Spanish and English . . . we discovered that the Lord had also let two of our office missionaries know of the possibility of an earthquake (in the form of dreams) and the need to prepare our mission. We set a goal and arranged our schedule so that we could visit every apartment in the mission to check for safety and to review with our missionaries what to do in case of an earthquake. What a wonderful experience we have had as we have met with them and shared scriptures with them about being spiritually and physically prepared. “. . . If ye are prepared ye shall not fear” (D&C 38:30). We instructed every missionary to have a “go-bag” (36-hour kit). We reviewed our emergency action plan with them of where to go and what to do if they had phone service and in case they did not. We gave everyone a paper with all instructions in English and Spanish, and we reminded them that “this life is the time . . . to prepare to meet God” (Alma 34:32). We shared with them our thoughts and feelings about the need for spiritual and physical safety. Some of them became frightened and asked us if we knew something they didn’t know. We smiled and repeated, “ . . . If ye are prepared ye shall not fear.” We didn’t want to unduly alarm them, but we did want to impress upon them the need to be prepared. . . . Then we knelt with them in their apartment and dedicated each apartment, asking for a blessing of safety and security to be upon every apartment.

She doesn’t say how many missionaries they had in the mission, but if the promptings came only two and half weeks before the quake struck, it was good that they did not delay starting the preparations.

As the earthquake became more violent, the mission home groaned and wailed. The power died, so the whole city was black. The windows made a hideous screeching sound, and flying objects banged against swaying walls. The printer/fax machine, books, bookends, and [a] fifty-pound television burst from the entertainment center and crashed to the floor. Cabinets emptied, drawers flew open, the refrigerator moved, water sloshed out of the toilets, the floor jolted up and down as we ran across it trying to hold onto the walls to keep from falling down, and the piano toppled over like a small toy. As we made our way to the backyard, I remember thinking, “God is all-powerful. He is our only refuge from this horrible mess.” I prayed and prayed for Him to still the earth. When we reached the backyard, we watched in terror. By the light of the moon we could see the swimming pool water form giant waves and crash out onto the rocks. House and car alarms screamed into the night . . . some from being crushed by falling debris and others I guess from the bizarre movement of the earth. I am not sure if the intense rumbling sounds came from the earth itself or from everything else that was shaking so violently. Finally, it stopped. When the calm came, we had to sit down because our legs were weak and unstable. My legs stayed wobbly all day and night yesterday.

Here is a wonderful example of how a strong testimony and deep faith in God can see us through even the most horrible circumstances. Note how as the Laycocks ran into their backyard, Sister Laycock’s thoughts turned to God’s attributes: “God is all-powerful. He is our only refuge from this horrible mess.”

Elder Kest expressed a similar confidence that God would be with him in this task of finding the missionaries. In a closing paragraph, Sister Laycock bore her testimony to those who were reading her e-mail. Her words are a wonderful example of someone whose testimony of God included a knowledge of His attributes and perfections. This was the bedrock she turned to when caught in one of the strongest earthquakes in recorded history:

When the earthquake came, we were prepared. . . . We were blessed with peace in the midst of chaos. We learned an important lesson: our preparation helped us to avoid panic and fear, but the Lord, in His wisdom, allowed us to experience enough discomfort to know that He has all power. He is in charge. We are nothing without Him. We are dependent upon Him for every breath we take. Only He can save us from death and destruction. He is the way, the truth, and the life. He is our perfect example. If we follow Him, we will be saved through obedience to the laws and ordinances of His Gospel.⁴

Once again we are reminded of the words of Helaman:

And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall (Helaman 5:12).

Notes

^1. See Joseph Fielding Smith, Jr., and John J. Stewart, The Life of Joseph Fielding Smith (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1972), 269–77.

^2. John Robert Kest, “Border Incident: Inside Holland,” Improvement Era (December 1943): 793–97; emphasis in original.

^3. See Wikipedia.com, s.v. “2010 Chile Earthquake,” accessed July 21, 2010.

^4. Lisa Laycock, in Church News, 3 March 2010. See www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/58894/Report-on-earthquake-from-Chile-Santiago-East-Mission.html.