PROVO, Utah — During his service as a General Authority Seventy, Elder Brent H. Nielson of the Presidency of the Seventy and his wife, Sister Marcia Nielson, “have been blessed to associate with some of the finest members of the Church on earth” — missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
“The success of our missionaries, like the army of Helaman spoken of in the Book of Mormon, is the result of wonderful, covenant-keeping parents, leaders and mentors,” Elder Nielson said Friday, May 3, during the concluding keynote session of the three-day BYU Women’s Conference. The theme of the conference was “O Lord, I have trusted in thee, and I will trust in thee forever” (2 Nephi 4:34).
“I have seen miracles in the lives of our missionaries as they come from families, wards and stakes led by parents and mentors who have set aside the distractions of the world — as the parents of the army of Helaman did,” he said.
His assignments have included serving as the executive director of the Missionary Department and in the Church’s Philippines Area presidency, and he shared examples of how he saw the faith and strength of missionaries who were influenced by covenant-keeping parents, leaders and mentors.
A typhoon in the Philippines
While Elder Nielson was serving as the Philippines Area president, Typhoon Haiyan, a powerful storm with 25-foot waves, hit Tacloban in 2013 — where 204 missionaries were in the path of danger, along with the mission leaders and their children.
Due to the damage in the area, communications were cut off, and it took days to get reports of the status of missionaries and members. After five days, the area leaders had accounted for all of the missionaries but two, Elder Nielson said.
When a local Church employee checked on their home, he found it blown away by the storm.
“After watching their house disintegrate, these two elders somehow survived and turned their attention to serving others,” Elder Nielson said.
The Church provided food, water and clothing for the members and opened meetinghouses as shelters and also worked to get the missionaries out of the disaster zone, which proved to be a challenge.
As the missionaries arrived at the Manila Missionary Training Center, they wanted to contact their families — even before receiving food, showers or clean clothes.
“They had witnessed the hand of God protecting them, and they wanted to connect with those who had taught them to trust in Him,” Elder Nielson said. “Their faith had been strengthened by their trust in God and what they had been taught by covenant-keeping loved ones.”
Elder Nielson said that from speaking to the missionaries, “we learned that their faith came from covenant-keeping parents, leaders and mentors. They had watched their examples of service, teaching and keeping sacred temple covenants, and they had watched them turn their hearts to God.”
Missionaries and the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic
When U.S. leaders were closing the country’s borders during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, 31,000 missionaries were serving outside their home countries, said Elder Nielson, who was then executive director of the Missionary Department.
“Under the direction of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and as a result of miracles, we were able to move our missionaries to their home countries.”
The missionaries could either continue serving in a mission in their home country or wait a year and start serving again in 12 months. “Both faithful choices,” he said.
“To our surprise, almost 90% wanted to go back out on their missions immediately,” he said.
And then there were more miracles, Elder Nielson said.
“These young women and young men stepped up and did something no one had anticipated. With the entire world locked down and these missionaries working only from their apartments, they baptized 125,000 people during that COVID year,” he said.
The missionaries didn’t meet the people they were teaching in person until they attended their baptisms, Elder Nielson added.
“These modern stripling warriors, this modern army of Helaman, despite a worldwide pandemic, moved forward with faith in Jesus Christ. Their covenant-keeping parents, leaders and mentors had taught them about faith and trust,” he said.
Covenant-keeping women
Elder Nielson quoted President Russell M. Nelson’s 2015 talk “A Plea to Sisters”: “We need women who are devoted to shepherding God’s children along the covenant path toward exaltation; women who know how to receive personal revelation, who understand the power and peace of the temple endowment; women who know how to call upon the powers of heaven to protect and strengthen children and families; women who teach fearlessly.”
He told the women in the audience: “You are those women whom President Nelson described. … You have trusted in the Lord, and that faith is now evident in our rising generation.”
