The Best Time to Be Alive

Tonight at the MTC, Elder Robert S. Wood told us that right now is the best time to be alive in the history of the world because we live when the fulness of the gospel is on the earth. He told of reading a book some time ago, titled The Birth of Plenty, written by a non-LDS author. This person was interested in determining when things really started to improve for people in the world, because economic and technological advancement had been so slow for a such a long period of time. The author discovered that around 1820 the pace of economic advancement picked up and there was an explosion of technology. Elder Wood thought this to be very interesting since it coincides with the year of the First Vision and the subsequent restoration of the Gospel. Before 1820 there was only miniscule progress while after 1820 the world became a more prosperous place. He had a graph that showed how most of the people who have every lived upon the earth have been born since 1820, in the dispensation of the fulness of times. He told the missionaries, "You have been held in reserve to help bring about the purpose of this whole period of time." When we met with the missionaries in the departing districts A and B (those who hadn't left yet), they seemed quite impressed to think they were living in such a great time in the history of the world and to be part of the missionary force taking the gospel to the world. Elder Wood had another graphic showing how the stakes of the Church have grown from the time of the organization of the Church until now. It was quite dramatic to see how the stakes of the Church are flooding the earth. When I did the Priesthood Leadership filmstrip back in 1972, there were about 550 stakes in the Church. I remember because the Church made a copy of the filmstrip for every stake. At the time, I thought that sounded like quite a few stakes. Now there are 2,790 stakes, as reported in this last conference. Dad and I commented how much of the growth of the Church has taken place just in the time that we've been married and in the lifetimes of our children. It's really quite amazing to be part of it and eyewitnesses to the great growth and expansion of the Church upon the earth.

We saw Cousin Jacob Rawle before the devotional this evening. He seems to be doing well. Steven and I wondered why we hadn't been seeing him at the MTC since he came in, but tonight he chased us down. We heard some missionaries running, and there was Jacob. Earlier tonight in the cafeteria we saw Jacob's cousin, Jared Rawle. His parents are Mike (Jim's brother) and Michelle Rawle. I had talked to them at Pat and Jim's when we were having lunch there after Jacob's farewell. They told me that their son, Jared, had gone into the MTC bound for Taiwan. I told them I'd keep my eyes open for him; and, sure enough, there he was in the cafeteria. We were sitting with a lot of missionaries going to Taiwan, so I wondered if he might be among them. We also saw the Romneys and Andy, who is going to Mongolia. He had just found out that he'll be leaving for Mongolia on April 23, which is earlier than he had been expecting.