Source: Institute manual "Presidents of the Church" p. 212-213
Elder Spencer W. Kimball explained: "I do not know when I started to love Lehi.Puede's children have been when I was born, because before and after the birth, my father served several missions including in Indian country. He was chairman of the mission.
That love may be born in those early years of my childhood, when my father used to sing the songs of the Indians and show memorabilia and photographs of his Indian friends. It may have been when I received my patriarchal blessing from the hands of Patriarch Samuel Claridge , when he was nine years old. In one part of the blessing says
"Preaching the Gospel to many people, but especially to the Lamanites because the Lord will bless you with the gift of tongues and the power to teach the Gospel to the people with great simplicity. You see them organized and ready to be a bulwark "between the people" '...
"... We have about half a million children of Lehi on the islands of the sea, and about sixty million in North and South America being perhaps a third of them full-blooded, and the other two thirds are blends, but have the blood of Jacob in his veins. "Someone said:
" 'If my pen had the gift of tears, and wrote a book called "The Indian" and make everyone cry. "
" 'If my pen had the gift of tears, and wrote a book called "The Indian" and make everyone cry. "
The children of Lehi. Can anyone hold back tears when contemplating the fall of this town has been reduced from their level of culture and achievements to illiteracy and degradation, of kings and emperors, to slavery, of owning the land of great continents to be homeless apprentices and laborers governments; as children of God with divine knowledge, a wild, victims of superstition, and builders of temples to dwell in houses of clay ...?
"How I wish they could accompany me and especially Native American reservations to the land of the Navajo tribe and see the poverty, the need and the miserable conditions they suffer, and understand again that these people are sons and daughters of God, that his wretched condition is the result, not only centuries of wars, and of sin and separation from God , but is also attributable to us, their conquerors, who put them on reservations with limited resources and to die of starvation and malnutrition or unhealthy conditions, while we thrive on the property that had been snatched.
Think on these things, my people, and then cry for the Indians, and with your tears, pray and then work for him.
Only through us, their 'attendants and nurses', may eventually enjoy the fulfillment of many promises made to them. Assuming that we comply with the duty we owe to them, Indians and other sons of Lehi still rise to power and strength. The Lord will remember the covenant made with them, His Church will be established between them, the Bible and other Scriptures available to them will enter the holy temples to receive their endowments and make the proxy work come to the knowledge of their parents and will perfect understanding of their Redeemer Jesus Christ will prosper in the land and with our help, will build a holy city even a New Jerusalem, for God "(in Conference Report, April 1947, pp. 144-145, 151-152).
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