President Hinckley goes to India

As members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, we believe in prophets on the earth today. The recent passing of Gordon B. Hinckley, our prophet and president of the church prompted me to to write down the thoughts below:

I've been having various conversation lately with fellow expats and missionaries overwhelmed with India and the task of spreading the Gospel in this land. I will admit to feeling overwhelmed many times myself.

We felt like we were barely getting by last summer when news came that our branch was going to be divided. Just a few months later in November 2007, the New Delhi mission was formed, and about 20% of our branch was split off again into a Noida home group on the other side of the river that falls under the branch but meets separately and requires even more leaders.

I have taken comfort and perspective in the example of our late prophet. I'm sure that many countries can say this, but Indians feel in many ways that he is the father of the Church in India.

President Hinckley first came in December of 1964, at a time when there were no members of the Church in the country.

There was a brother named Paul Thiuthuvodoss in south India who had come across some Church literature more than ten years earlier and had been writing the Brethren desiring baptism. President Hinckley, who was an Apostle at the time, went and visited him to see what should be done.

Hinckley's wrote the following about his visit in his personal journal:

I have been so tired because of little sleep and the heat that I have not felt alert. We returned to the hotel and lay down for an hour and went fast asleep. The rest was most refreshing.

After a light dinner, we got in the cars to travel out into a rural section to attend a meeting. Paul and his associates have five meeting places where they hold outdoor meetings among the poor. This has been an unforgettable experience. We drove about ten miles out of Coimbatore into the rural areas where the dust is thick and people are miserably poor. The men are field hands who earn 30 or 40 cents a day working 12 hours. The women get about 20 cents. There are many children – 11,400,000 born in India each year.

As we came into a little opening were there were a few trees, Paul’s associates were playing the organ and singing and beating a drum. It was just like a Salivation Army meeting. The people began to gather. Some two or three hundred gathered and sat on the ground. They had taken two cots and put rough blankets on them, and we sat on these. A hymn was sung which we did not know. It was sung as the Indians sing with their particular type of musical arrangement. President Quealy then offered prayer and Brother Paul interpreted his prayer. I was then called on to speak, and I did so for a few minutes with Paul interpreting.

Paul then spoke to them in the Tamil language. He was followed by Job, who gave a regular Pentecostal sermon which we did not understand. Some of the old men seated on the ground in front nodded their heads in approval. The congregation was very reverent. These were surely the poor of the earth. They appeared to have little or nothing. As we met with them I thought of Jesus speaking to the multitudes. The benediction was offered by Brother Robert Evans with Paul translating.

We then drove to another meeting in the opposite direction. We were more than an hour late in getting there. As we entered a place through dark, narrow, dirty streets, I saw a sight the like of which I have never seen before. A great crowd of people, perhaps 400 of them, were singing in a compound. They had decorated it with paper streamers. A fluorescent light and a gasoline lantern attracted the bugs. Signs reading “welcome” were seen in two or three places. A picture of John F. Kennedy was nailed to a post and another of Nehru.

When we drove up the people came over and gathered about us till we could scarcely get out of the cars. These were dirty, hungry, poor people, but they had an eagerness in their eyes that was wonderful to behold. Perhaps 200 children sat on the ground before us with their elders behind them. I spoke briefly through an interpreter, Paul spoke, and Job spoke. We had been so late coming that it was now 9:00, and with so many children present we felt that we should be brief. When we left to go, the people again gathered about the car and took our hands.

We returned to the English Pub and had something to eat. My thoughts are greatly troubled over what I have seen. I do not know what we should do. These are earnest people, but they have been schooled in the Pentecostal ways, which are not our ways. Furthermore, the task of working among the poor of India is so great that I do not know where we should start. We certainly need the inspiration of the Lord in whatever action we take here. (qtd. in Palmer, Spencer J. The Church Encounters Asia. Salt Lake City, 1970)

Even a great Apostle and Prophet felt overwhelmed when he came here and said, "I do not know where we should start." Certainly those of us who have come to India have felt this way upon arrival, and all of us, whether we are in India or Indiana, at times are totally and completely overwhelmed by that which stands before us.

How President Hinckley handled the situation is a lesson. He chose not to baptize Brother Thiuthuvodoss at that time:

I earnestly sought the inspiration of the Lord as to whether we should baptize these people....

We then returned to the hotel where I talked with him at length. I told him that I felt he was worthy to be baptized. He has read much of our literature and seems to understand the doctrines of the Church thoroughly, but he knows nothing of procedures. I wondered whether we should baptize him and him alone and not the others, this might have the effect of dividing his group. I told him that I felt inclined to go home and recommend to the Brethren that we permit two missionaries to come here for a period of months and work with him and his associates, training them in the procedures of the Church, so that if they left they could go forward as an organized branch. I think he would be worthy to be ordained an elder after a few months.

He seemed disappointed that we were not inclined to baptize him but said that he felt that this was the wise thing to do and that he would readily accept our judgment. For more than ten years he has wanted to be baptized. We talked at length about the doctrines of the Church, and he seemed to understand them. However, after attending the meetings last night, I have been greatly worried lest they slip into some kind of Pentecostal method of conducting meetings. They need help in the procedures of the Church, and we have felt that we might do a great injustice by baptizing them and leaving them to drift.

I go to sleep somewhat troubled in my mind over not performing the ordinance in his behalf, but fully satisfied that good has been accomplished by our coming here and that the end results will be very much worthwhile and in harmony with the Lord’s will. I would hope that a branch might be established here of people of what we might term the middle class and that as they become strong they can bring others into the Church, including the poor. This we have explained to Brother Paul. This marks the end of our visit. (qtd. in Palmer, Spencer J. The Church Encounters Asia. Salt Lake City, 1970)

When faced with such an overwhelming situation, President Hinckley did not panic and run away. Nor did he jump in and try to do everything at once. He took a wise and measured approach.

And he took action. Brother Paul Thiuthuvodoss was baptized less than one month later by President Quealy (the Asia area mission president).

Missionaries traveled from Hong Kong and taught Paul and a group of investigators. The story of the baptism is told by one of President Quealy’s missionaries Steve Iba. On the day of the baptism before boarding the bus to go to the lake, they offered a prayer:

In the prayer, offered by President Quealy, he asked the Lord that there would be sufficient water for the baptism to take place, which was puzzling to him because he knew there was a large lake earlier identified for the baptisms to take place.

When the bus drove over the hill to the valley of the lake, he was astonished that the lake was completely dry. They wondered what to do. A young boy with a cow came out of the brush. President Quealy had Brother Thiuthuvodoss ask the boy if he knew where there was some water. The boy led the group to a mango orchard with a pool of clear water. They then began to baptize when a man started shouting at them from a hill overlooking the orchard.

Brother Thiuthuvodoss went up and spoke with him. He quieted down and then brother Thiuthuvodoss returned to the pool to be baptized. President Quealy asked him what the problem was with the man. Brother Thiuthuvodoss said that they were on the man’s property and should get off. I then explained to him what we were doing and he realized that it was a holy thing and it would be ok.

The man then explained that normally the water would not be there at that time of the day. He explained that he harnesses up his oxen each day at noon and then pulls the dike on the pond releasing the water for his orchard, but that day, as he was yoking up his oxen, at noon time, one of them bolted and he had been chasing the ox ever since. He further said that he had never had an ox bolt. President Quealy said that it was at noon when he prayed for there to be sufficient water for the baptisms to take place. Truly the Lord is watching over his work as it begins in India. (From the journal of Stephen K. Iba, March 1965, qtd. in Palmer, Spencer J. The Church Encounters Asia. Salt Lake City, 1970)

And so, under President Hinckley's direction, the first member of the Church in this era of the Gospel in India was baptized.

The church has grown steadily here ever since. I look in wonder at what has happened even in the two years since we have come. The two branches and about eight young full-time missionaries when we arrived is now three branches, three home groups, and about 30 missionaries. We have our own misson, with a mission presidency that sits right here in Delhi.

Still, just as when President Hinckley first came, the approach is measured. We still only teach and baptize people who speak sufficient English, which excludes the vast majority of people here. It will be an amazing thing when the gates open for the gospel to be taught in the native languages of India, but the foundation must be there first.

The final time that President Hinckley came was in August of 2005. At that time he expressed his great love for the members:

I first came to this nation 41 years ago when there was not a single member of the Church, and I have been back many times . . .

Coimbatore, Madras, Bombay, and New Delhi, and wherever else in this vast and wonderful nation which is making such tremendous progress at the present time. And a part of that progress is because of the growth of the Church here. Because every time there is an added member of the church, there is a better citizen of the nation of India. Because our people become better people. They become people of greater strength and capacity. They appreciate one another more, they serve one another better. And so every time we bring another convert into the church, we strengthen the nation of which it is a part.

I just want to say to this congregation here that I love you very very much. I am not a citizen of India. I am a citizen of the United States, but I think I have a love for the people of this good land and the people of the world. Every man and woman, every boy and girl, is a child of God. And as such is my brother and she is my sister, and I honor and respect him or her.

You and I are brothers and sisters. We come from different lands, different racial strains, but we are all children of our Heavenly Father in Heaven, and must respect and honor and help one another as we travel through this life together.

Now just in conclusion, as I don’t suppose I will ever come to India again. I’m an old man. 95 years of age. Crazy to go around the world when you’re 95. We’ve been in Vladivostok Russia, we’ve been in Korea, we’ve been in Taiwan, we’ve been in Hong Kong, tonight we are in New Delhi. Tomorrow we're in…let’s see…Kenya. Kenya tomorrow. Then we're in Nigeria, where we’ll dedicate a new temple. Then we’ll be in Rome, then we’ll be in Paris, then we’ll be home if we make it.

Well, let me just say again, how much I appreciate you, how much I love you, how much I honor you, how much I pray for you, how much I respect and honor these wonderful missionaries here, these senior couples, and all those who are engaged in the work of the Lord in this great land.

I must not take more time, some of you have a long ways to go to get home.

God bless you. God bless you my beloved brethren and sisters. May heaven smile upon you. May you have food on your tables, and clothing on your backs, and a shelter over your head, and peace and kindness and love and faith in your hearts... (transcribed from the DVD recording of the conference, August 2005)

The members of the Church here love President Hinckley. For the vast majority of members he is the only prophet that they have ever known.

And for those of us who are here from far away, we take lessons from his example. It is natural to feel overwhelmed, but when that happens we go to the Lord. We can, like President Hinckley, be measured and wise, but move forward with conviction. And most of all "love, respect, and honor" the great people of this sacred land.

For those of you who are interested in more details, I've put up citations, the full text from the journal entries and a more complete transcript of his August 2005 address to the saints of India at this link. A short history of the church in India can be found here.