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Faith Rewarded (T. Monson)

Thomas S. Monson

© 1996 Thomas S. Monson

About This Book

WEDNESDAY, JULY 31, 1968

This is my first visit to the German Democratic Republic, or East Germany. Prior to my coming, my wife, Frances, and I had been reading about Americans being arrested in East Germany and held as spies. Frances said to me, "Are you really going to go there?"

I answered, "Yes, I am going. Would you like to go with me?"

She replied, "Tom, we have children to raise. You go, and I will stay here and watch the children. Then if you don't come back, they will have one of us to give them guidance!"

I said, "All right; pray for me."

Thus wrote Elder Thomas S. Monson when he was first assigned to supervise the work of the Church in East Germany, then under oppressive Communist rule. From that time forward, frequent trips brought him ever closer to the stalwart East German Saints, who opened their hearts to the visiting apostle. In his journal he described the faithfulness of these Church members who could not receive patriarchal blessings, use Church lesson manuals, attend a temple, or send their children on missions. "Yet they trust in the Lord with all their hearts," he wrote.