An extraordinary conference of the church

From "Episode 36—The Mission of the Twelve to England"

An extraordinary conference of the church. 16 Aug 1841. Willard Richards noted in his diary, "Business of the church given to the Twelve"

"It was a constitutional change to bring the twelve into responsibility jurisdictional assignments within the organized stakes of Zion.
(Video mark 25:23)

Nine members of the quorum of the twelve that went on the mission to England are the nine who stuck with it. (26:58)

"the twelve should be authorized <​wh​> to assist in managing the affairs of th[e] kingdom in this place. which he said was their duties of their office"
https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/minutes-16august-1841/2

Perfection in our Church Leaders

Do we expect too much perfection in our leaders?

One of my church leaders, one I trust and love, made a technical error about the scriptures. He talked about how Nephi went and got ore and melted it to make a new, metal bow to get food for his family. In reality, Nephi made a bow out of wood (1 Ne 16:23). Yet this man went on to teach a great lesson about having earnest prayer and not letting ourselves say unmeaningful, repeated prayers.

So what is the greater truth?  A detail about Nephi's bow and arrow story or persuading each other to have meaningful communication with God?

Another leader of mine made a scriptural mistake. He said that Mosiah was 13 years old when he began to reign as king. Mosiah 6:4 says he began to reign in his "thirtieth" year. He was making the point that the Lord does not regard age when calling his servants. He sometimes calls them when they are very young. What he was teaching is correct, look at Samuel, David, Mormon or Joseph Smith.

These two experiences have caused me to think about the nature of our church leaders. We do not have our  leaders professionally trained to be our leaders. They come from all walks of life. What is more important, a leader that will not make technical mistakes about the scriptures? Or leaders that will not make mistakes about the central, spiritual principles of the doctrine of Christ and its main offshoots?

I will go with the latter. Mormons are about changing the heart and soul and hands and mind of humankind.  Leaders that are imperfect perhaps are more approachable. Perhaps their weaknesses are stumbling blocks to the learned.  I will stand with the good leaders of my church any day. I love them. They have my heart, my mind and my shoulders.

Succession in the Presidency

I friend of mine who is a member of the LDS church asked me who was going to be the next President of the church. It will be Thomas Monson. He is the most senior apostle. The best and most current description of this process is at the LDS Newsroom, Succession in the Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. More quotes below.

Brent L. Top and Lawrence R. Flake, "'The Kingdom of God Will Roll On': Succession in the Presidency," Ensign, Aug. 1996, 22

Bruce McConkie said,

He is always the senior Apostle, the presiding Apostle, the presiding high priest, the presiding elder. He alone can give direction to all others, direction from which none is exempt.

Thus, the keys, though vested in all of the Twelve, are used by any one of them to a limited degree only, unless and until one of them attains that seniority which makes him the Lord’s anointed on earth.

Bruce R. McConkie, "The Keys of the Kingdom" Ensign, May 1983, 21

Gordon B. Hinckley, "The Joseph Smith III Document and the Keys of the Kingdom," Ensign, May 1981, 20

Here are the prophets of God and they're disagreeing!

Here is a video from the news conference between the Saturday session of General Conference introducing Henry B Eyring as the new 2nd counselor in the First Presidency of the church.

Carrie Moore of the Deseret Morning News asked, "How [do] you see your particular professional background helping you in your calling?"

President Eyring answered:

The way to look at Harvard and its effect, at least personally, is with this story:

When I first came as the president of Ricks college, I attended my first meeting that I'd ever been in watching the General Authorities of the church, the First Presidency and others, running a meeting. I had been studying for the ten years I was a professor at Standford how you make decisions in meetings,in groups so I got a chance, here's my chance to see the way the Lord's servants do it (of which I now am one).

I looked at it with my Harvard, Standford eyes and I thought. This is the strangest conversation I've - I mean. Here are the prophets of God and they're disagreeing in an openness that I had never seen in business. In business you're careful when you're with the bosses, you know.

Here they were just - and I watched this process of them disagreeing and I thought Good Heavens, I thought revelation would come to them all and they'd all see things the same way, in some sort of, you know. It was more open than anything I had ever seen in all the groups I had ever studied in business. I was just dumbfounded.

But then after a while the conversation cycled around. And they began to agree and I saw the most incredible thing. Here are these very strong, very bright people all with different opinions. Suddenly the opinions began to just line up and I thought. I've seen a miracle, I've seen unity come out of this wonderful open kind of exchange that I'd never seen in all my studies of government or business or anywhere else. And so I thought, oh, what a miracle!

It was President Harold B. Lee who was chairing the meeting. It was a board of education meeting. I thought, now he's going to announce the decision, because I've seen this miracle, and he said, "Wait a minute, I think we'll bring this matter up again some other time. I sense there is someone in the room who is not yet settled." And they went on the the next item. And I thought: that is strange. And then I watched somebody, one of the bretheren I think one of the twelve, walk past the President Lee and say, "Thank you, there's something I didn't have a chance to say"

So I want you to know. The main thing you do about Harvard and Standford. Though I love - I hope this doesn't offend my wonderful friends. Forget it. We're in another kind of thing here. This is what it claims to be. This is the true Church of Jesus Christ. Revelation is real, even in what you call the business kinds of settings.

A great man whom I love and will always love, President Harold B. Lee, taught me a great lesson that says. Now, we can be open. We can be direct. We can talk about differences in a way that you can't anywhere else because we're all just looking for the truth. We're not trying to win. We're not trying to make our argument dominate. We just want to find what's right.

And then a man sensitive enough to sense without anybody saying anything, that somebody in the room was not settled. -laughs- and uh. Again, there's a kind of process of openness and yet coming together and having confidence that you know what the Lord wants, not what we want that is uh...

I loved Harvard. I loved Stanford. I had a great time there. My wife is -We spent the first ten years of our married life - I was a professor at Standford. Thought I'd stay there forever; I had tenure. How happy we were. Then went Rexburg, Idaho from there.

And then came down here and found out that there was a kind of making decisions and working together in groups that I had never seen anywhere else in the world except here.