LDS General Conference begins
Time has come to get our houses in order, Pres. Hinckley tells Saints
By Steve Fidel
Deseret News staff writer
Members of the LDS Church are enjoying a season of tremendous growth but were warned by President Gordon B. Hinckley to build a hedge against financial uncertainty in the world by avoiding debt.
 LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley, above, shakes hands with members of the Quorum of the Twelve while leaving the Salt Lake Tabernacle. Chuck Wing, Deseret News |
If construction proceeds on schedule, the church will hold only two more of the biannual conferences in the historic Tabernacle on Temple Square before moving conference proceedings north across the street to a 21,000-seat assembly hall now under construction.
"I am deeply grateful that we are moving forward with the construction of a great new facility adjoining Temple Square," President Hinckley said in his opening address Saturday morning. "Six hundred people are at work on the project now, and this number will grow.
Construction of new temples has also dramatically accelerated since President Hinckley announced a new program one year ago to build smaller temples.
"As you know, President Hinckley's stated goal is to have at least 100 temples in operation by the end of this century. Knowing the president as I do, I am sure that goal will be met if not exceeded," said Elder M. Russell Ballard of the Quorum of the Twelve.
President Hinckley's counsel regarding personal finances came at the conclusion of the Saturday evening priesthood session of the conference.
"So many of our people are living on the very edge of their incomes. In fact, some are living on borrowings," President Hinckley said.
"We have witnessed in recent weeks wide and fearsome swings in the markets of the world. The economy is a fragile thing. A stumble in the economy in Jakarta or Moscow can immediately effect the entire world," he said. "There is a portent of stormy weather ahead to which we had better give heed.
Borrowing may be necessary to buy a home. "But let us buy a home that we can afford and thus ease the payments which will constantly hang over our heads without mercy or respite for as much as 30 years."
The church, in all its operations, functions without borrowed money. "If we cannot get along, we will curtail our programs. We will shrink expenditures to fit within the income. We will not borrow."
President Hinckley said his counsel was not to be taken as prophecy or a prediction of impending famine. "But I am suggesting that the time has come to get our houses in order."
Other speakers during Saturday's sessions focused on the importance of family responsibilities, missionary work, fellowshiping, gratitude, adversity, personal worthiness and priesthood responsibilities.
Ailing church leaders are often remembered from the pulpit during conference sessions.
Saturday morning, President Hinckley said all of the church's general authorities were in attendance at the conference except Elder Andrew W. Petersen of the Quorums of the Seventy. Elder Petersen was seriously injured one year ago in an accident near a family cabin in Parleys Canyon. Elder Petersen attended a later session.
Elder Neal A. Maxwell of the Quorum of the Twelve has also been treated for leukemia and recently underwent a second regimen of chemotherapy. When an initial chemotherapy regimen resulted in the loss of his hair, Elder Maxwell said at the beginning of a conference address in April 1997 that he brought to the pulpit "some different illumination."
Elder David B. Haight of the Quorum of the Twelve is the only current church authority to regularly speak at conference without prepared notes, because his deteriorating eyesight makes it difficult to read from a text.
"I'm doing quite well," Elder Haight quipped, telling of the assistance he receives from a pacemaker, replaced knee and other aids. "My hearing aid and glasses are quite a find; but O, how I miss my mind."
