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Reflections of a Son

The Lord placed him as an Apostle for a purpose. He has taken him for a reason.

-President Gordon B. Hinckley

T he life of Bruce McConkie ended, as it had begun, with a miracle. All that took place in between clearly evidenced the hand of the Lord. At age nineteen he was told that the time would come when all who knew him would look to him "for counsel and for the witness of the truth" and that he would become "a chosen vessel," "exalted among [his] brethren in the holy order of the priesthood of our God." By divine design, as a young missionary he was sent to the Eastern States Mission, where he spent thirteen months of his mission laboring in the immediate proximity of the Sacred Grove and the Hill Cumorah. There the spirit of the Restoration and the testimony of Joseph Smith sank deeply into his soul.

From the time he was ordained a missionary, he hungered to preach the gospel with power. At the end of his mission, an inspired mission president asked him to extend his mission for six weeks and go on a speaking tour of the mission.

Bruce McConkie had as mentors two lions of the Lord. The first was his father, Oscar W. McConkie, a man who could move mountains with his faith, preach with the voice of thunder, raise the dead, and heal the sick. He was a man who dreamed dreams and saw visions. The second was his father-in-law, Joseph Fielding Smith, destined to stand at the head of the Church as its prophet, as his own father had done before him, and destined to defend the teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, according to the words of a patriarch, in its highest councils. President Heber J. Grant called him the "best posted" man in the Church on the scriptures. Such was President Smith's integrity that my uncle Oscar, a law partner in the firm that handled many legal matters for the Church, told me once, "Joseph Fielding Smith is so honest that if the Church wasn't true, he would call a press conference and announce it." Both men, one in high position, the other not, loved the Church, the gospel, and the Savior more than life itself. Both would rather have talked scripture than eat. Both were guileless, and as preachers neither knew any gospel other than the gospel of plainness nor cared a fig for public favor. In Bruce McConkie one could plainly see the likeness of his mentors.

Called to the First Council of the Seventy at age thirty-one, Bruce never had the opportunity to serve as a bishop, high councilor, or member of a stake presidency. He had not held any position of leadership outside his mission experience and his service as a seventy. As a general authority, he was sent out to train men, many of whom had served in leadership positions longer than he had been alive. Knowing he could not teach what he did not know, he taught what he did know: the gospel. He taught principles, he quoted scripture, and in the process honed the ability to rely on the Spirit and teach as holy men had taught in days long past. The more he did it, the more confident he became that there was power in the message and that only in the message could one find "the power of God unto salvation." "Principles are eternal," he said. "Procedures are man-made."