“With Real Intent,” Saints: The Story of the Church of Jesus Christ in the Latter Days, Volume 3, Boldly, Nobly, and Independent, 1893–1955 (2022)
Chapter 37: “With Real Intent”
Chapter 37
With Real Intent
In March 1953, twenty-one-year-old Inge Lehmann stepped out the door of her home into the chilly air in Bernburg, GDR. She knew her parents did not approve of where she was going. Joining a new church was bad enough. But going into the icy waters of the Saale River? Inge was still weak from a bout of tuberculosis, and her parents feared for her health.
She could not be dissuaded, though. She had been meeting with the Latter-day Saints of the Bernburg Branch for years. It was finally time to be baptized.
Dusk was fading into night as Inge gathered with the small group preparing for the baptismal service. She recognized one of them—Henry Burkhardt, a missionary who had served in the Bernburg Branch a couple of years earlier. He made an impression on almost everyone he met, but Inge had not yet gotten to know him.1
Since receiving his new calling in the mission presidency, Henry had become a person of interest for the Stasi, the GDR’s secret police. Although the East German government had officially recognized the Church, officials insisted that Henry stop using the name “East German Mission” and cease all proselytizing activities. Henry agreed to these demands, but because he frequently traveled back and forth between East and West Germany to communicate with Church leaders, the government still kept a close eye on him. Already the Stasi suspected him of spying and had labeled him an “enemy of the state.”2
One of Inge’s friends, a young woman named Erika Just, was also being baptized that night. Inge and Erika were neighbors. In the difficult years after the Second World War, several people in their neighborhood had shown interest in the Church. But as time passed and people were no longer in urgent need of the food and supplies the Church provided, many of them stopped attending. Inge and Erika were among a small group of young people who remained, growing closer at MIA activities during the week and sacrament meetings on Sunday evenings.
The fading sunlight disappeared completely when the group arrived at the banks of the Saale. Clouds obscured the moon, and here and there clumps of ice broke the river’s dark surface. A German missionary, Wolfgang Süss, waded into the water. As the first of the five candidates for baptism entered after him, the moon emerged from behind the clouds. Its reflection shimmered on the river’s surface as if to signal God’s approval. On the riverbank, a few people waited, ready to wrap each new member in a blanket.3
Soon Inge stepped into the river. When Elder Süss brought her up out of the water, she was a new person.
After the baptisms, the small group returned to the branch meetinghouse, a hat shop that had been remodeled to hold sacrament meetings and Sunday School classes. When Inge’s turn came to be confirmed a member of the Church and receive the Holy Ghost, Henry Burkhardt placed his hands on her head and spoke the words of the blessing.
Henry had not taken special notice of Inge during the time he served in her branch. But a few days later, he made a note about her in his journal.
He recounted that five people had made covenants with their Father in Heaven that night. “I knew them all to some degree from my work in Bernburg,” he wrote. “I have particular confidence in Inge Lehmann.”4
Later that year, in the fall of 1953, thirty-six-year-old Nan Hunter started every weekday the same way. At six o’clock each morning she was at her ward meetinghouse in San Diego, California, teaching seminary to about twenty-five teenagers. On the outside, Nan was talkative and self-assured. Inside she felt unsteady. She was teaching a course on the Book of Mormon and wasn’t certain if the book was true.5
Nan, a mother with children in high school, was thrilled when the early-morning seminary program was launched for the first time. The Church in the western United States had been blossoming since the end of the war. The conflict had given Americans a new perspective on the value of family and faith, and Saints in California, many of whom had come from Utah, wanted their children to benefit from all the programs of the Church. In April 1950, ten stakes in Southern California had asked the Church Board of Education to help them start a seminary program for high school students in their area. Ray Jones, a seminary teacher in Logan, Utah, agreed to move to Los Angeles and get the program started.
Ray’s students in Utah had attended seminary during the day in a building near their school. In California, where there were fewer Saints living near each other, such an arrangement was impractical. After surveying parents and Church leaders, Ray found that the only time seminary could be held was before school. Local Saints would have to teach most classes since the Church could not employ many full-time seminary teachers in California.
“It will never work!” some parents predicted, certain their children would not wake up before sunrise to attend a religion class at their church building. But early-morning seminary thrived in Southern California. After just three years, over fifteen hundred students were enrolled in fifty-seven classes.6
As enthusiastic as Nan was about the early-morning seminary program, she was not pleased when David Milne, a counselor in the bishopric, invited her to teach the class.
“I can’t possibly do it,” she replied. She had enjoyed seminary as a young woman growing up in central Utah, but she had no formal training and no college education.7
David asked her to talk to Ray Jones, who recommended that she speak with William Berrett, vice president in the Church Department of Education. William reassured her that she was indeed dedicated and qualified—just the person they were looking for to teach the Book of Mormon.
“That boring thing?” Nan said, surprised. “No way could I teach that. I haven’t even finished reading it because I always get stuck in Isaiah.”
William looked her in the eye. “Sister Hunter, I’d like to make you a promise. If you will read that book with real intent and if you’ll pray about it as you read it, then I guarantee that you’ll gain a testimony of that book.” He assured her it would become her favorite work of scripture to teach, and Nan finally agreed to try.8
Nan held class in the Relief Society room, where she had access to a piano and a blackboard. Soon the youth started bringing their friends who were not members of the Church. She loved the enthusiasm and testimony of her students, but she felt the burden of not knowing for sure if the Book of Mormon was scripture. How could she testify of truths she did not know herself?
Every night she would pray about the book, just as William Berrett had suggested, but no answer came. Then one night she decided she could not go on as she had before. She had to know. She skipped ahead to read 3 Nephi and afterward knelt at her bed. “Is this book really true, Father?” she asked. “Do you really want me to teach these kids?”
A glorious, heavenly feeling came over her, as though someone was embracing her. “Yes, it’s true,” a still, small voice whispered.
Nan was a different person after that. At the beginning of the school year, she had taken a test on the Book of Mormon and scored just 25 percent. At the end of the year, she took another test and scored 98 percent. By then, six nonmembers who had been attending her class had joined the Church.9
Meanwhile, in Salt Lake City, forty-three-year-old Gordon B. Hinckley rarely had a moment to rest. He had spent most of his working life as a Church employee, having begun his career as executive secretary of the Church’s Radio, Publicity, and Mission Literature Committee. For the past two years, he had served as executive secretary of the Church’s Missionary Committee. He was now involved in almost every aspect of the Church’s efforts to spread the gospel, from missionary training to public relations—and he had a hard time leaving his work at the office.10
Gordon’s wife, Marjorie, was expecting their fifth child, but when Gordon came home to his family, he scarcely had a chance to see them before the phone started ringing. Sometimes the call was about a homesick missionary halfway around the world. Other times it would be someone upset about the Church’s policy on mission calls and the military draft.11
Although an armistice had recently halted the war between North and South Korea, the United States continued to draft young men of missionary age. The Church adapted its wartime policy so that some young men could receive draft deferments and serve missions. The opportunity was not guaranteed, however, creating some disappointment and hurt. Still, for young men who were drafted, there were often opportunities to share the gospel in the nations where they were stationed. In Seoul, South Korea, for instance, Latter-day Saint soldiers regularly met with a small group of Korean Saints, many of them refugees who had learned about the restored gospel from American servicemen after the war.12
In October 1953, President David O. McKay arranged to speak with Gordon about taking on another responsibility. “As you know, we are going to construct a temple in Switzerland,” he said. “I want you to find a way to present the temple instruction in the various languages of Europe while using a minimum number of temple workers.”13
The temples in Europe would be unlike any others. In each of the Church’s eight operating temples, several trained ordinance workers guided patrons through a series of rooms decorated with murals representing stages of the plan of salvation. But ordinance workers would be hard to find with European Saints spread so thin across the continent, so the First Presidency wanted to use modern technologies to reduce the number of ordinance workers and the space needed for the endowment.14
“You’ve had vast experience in preparation of films and materials of that kind,” President McKay said to Gordon. “I’m putting on your shoulders the responsibility of finding a way to do this.” And Gordon would have to start right away. The Swiss Temple would be finished in less than two years.
“Well, President,” Gordon said, “we’ll do what we can.”15
Early the next year, President McKay again left the United States with Emma Ray to visit Saints in Europe, South Africa, and South America. His first tour of the Church’s worldwide missions, taken in 1920–21 with Hugh Cannon, had opened his eyes to the needs and concerns of Saints across the globe. Now, as he set out on this new tour, he was especially concerned about the South African Mission. Although the Church had been in the country for more than a hundred years, it was facing a shortage of leadership there because of the restriction keeping people of Black African descent from holding the priesthood or receiving temple ordinances.
The restrictions had always presented particular challenges in South Africa, where missionaries often encountered men who were unsure or unaware if they had mixed African and European ancestry, raising questions about their eligibility for priesthood ordination. Ultimately, the First Presidency requested that all prospective priesthood holders in the country confirm their eligibility by proving that their earliest South African ancestors had migrated to Africa rather than originated there.16
This process was time-consuming and often frustrating. Some potential branch or district leaders belonged to families that had been in South Africa since before good genealogical records were kept. Others spent considerable money researching their family lines only to become stuck in their search. As a result, mission president Leroy Duncan had decided to call missionaries to lead congregations where worthy men could not prove their ancestries.
“There have been only five men ordained to the Melchizedek Priesthood in the past five years,” Leroy informed the First Presidency. “The work would progress more rapidly if more of our good, faithful brethren could hold the priesthood.”17
President McKay hoped to address the problem directly when he arrived in South Africa. But he was also mindful of the country’s tense racial divisions. South Africa was governed by its white minority population, which had recently begun passing oppressive laws designed to treat Black and “Coloured” (or mixed-race) residents as second-class citizens, wholly separate from whites.
This system of laws, known as apartheid, had made strict racial segregation central to South African society. As President McKay pondered the problem, he had to consider the Church’s practice of operating within the existing laws of a nation. He also understood that even an inspired change to the priesthood and temple restrictions might draw the ire of white Church members and others outside the faith.18
The McKays arrived in South Africa in January 1954 and spent the next several days meeting with Saints across the country. President McKay took time to visit with as many people as he could, particularly those who seemed timid or on the edges of the crowd.19 In Cape Town, he shook hands with Clara Daniels and her daughter, Alice, who had been founding members of the Branch of Love years earlier. William Daniels, Clara’s husband and the branch president, had passed away in 1936. Since then, Clara and Alice had continued faithfully as some of the few Saints of mixed race in South Africa.20
During his travels, President McKay prayed sincerely to know how to address the priesthood restriction in the country. He observed the Saints carefully and pondered the difficulties they faced. He understood that if the Church continued to require prospective priesthood holders in South Africa to trace their ancestries off the continent, then the branches might not have enough local leaders to carry on the work of the Church.21
On Sunday, January 17, he spoke about the priesthood and temple restrictions at a missionary meeting in Cape Town. While he offered no definitive statement on the origin of the practice, he acknowledged that several Black men had held the priesthood during the presidencies of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. He also spoke of his past struggle to uphold the restrictions during his 1921 world tour, recounting the time he petitioned President Grant in behalf of a Black Saint in Hawaii who wished to receive the priesthood.
“I sat down and talked to the brother,” President McKay told the missionaries, “and gave him the assurance that someday he will receive every blessing to which he is entitled, for the Lord is just, and no respecter of persons.”
President McKay did not know when that day would come, and he affirmed that the restriction would remain in place until the Lord revealed otherwise. Yet he felt that something needed to change.
“There are worthy men in the South African Mission who are being deprived of the priesthood simply because they are unable to trace their genealogy out of this country,” he stated. “I am impressed that an injustice is being done to them.” From that time forward, he declared, Saints whose ancestry was in question would no longer have to prove their lineage to receive the priesthood.22
Before leaving South Africa, President McKay reiterated that the day would come when people of Black African descent would receive every blessing of the priesthood. Already, Black individuals from other countries were showing greater interest in the restored gospel. A few years earlier, several residents of the western African nation of Nigeria had written to Church headquarters for information. Other requests would soon come.23
At the same time, many Black people throughout the world were seeking equality, often by challenging the legality of segregation. As their actions rippled through society, more and more people were asking Church leaders heartfelt questions about the restrictions.24
Later that year, in the German Democratic Republic, a small ship lazily steamed up the Elbe, a wispy, white plume rising from the vessel’s lone smokestack. A single word was written on the ship’s side: Einheit. Unity.
Aboard the ship, Henry Burkhardt greeted other Saints from around the GDR who had gathered for a conference of the Mutual Improvement Associations. Although Henry was around the same age as many of the young adults in the crowd, as the leader of the Church in the GDR he was overseeing the event rather than simply enjoying it.25
The scenic boat ride was just one of many activities planned for the five hundred or so young adults at the conference. Since the 1930s, missions across the world had held MIA conferences to help strengthen faith and foster courtship and marriage within the Church. Lately, however, the East German police had begun forbidding church groups from holding any recreational activities, like ball games or hikes. Such restrictions made it difficult to be a Church member in the GDR, and already many East German Saints had fled to West Germany or to the United States. Henry knew many young people who dreamed of emigrating, but he hoped activities like these would encourage some of them to stay, ensuring the Church’s continued presence in the nation.26
The steamer continued gliding upriver, passing tree-covered hills and tall columns of gray sandstone. Among the crowd, Henry noticed Inge Lehmann, the young woman he had confirmed in Bernburg the previous year. He had seen Inge a few times since then, and they had talked with each other at an MIA activity on Easter.
Henry often felt tongue-tied and self-conscious around young women. When he was a nineteen-year-old missionary, he had been expected to focus on his work. Now that he had settled into his new Church responsibilities, some Saints in the mission had begun wondering when, and whom, he might marry.
As Henry talked with Inge, he felt something quite different from the awkwardness he had felt in the past. He decided he wanted to see her again.27
Over the next few months, Henry did what he could to visit Inge. He drove around the mission in an old Opel Olympia, and since cars were rare in the GDR, Latter-day Saints noticed whenever he drove through her neighborhood. Henry’s duties in the mission kept him busy, so he had few opportunities to see Inge. Still, it was not long before their relationship blossomed.
When winter came, Henry and Inge decided to get married. Over the Christmas holiday, Inge’s parents invited Henry and his parents to their home in Bernburg to announce their engagement. Although the Lehmanns had been unhappy with their daughter’s decision to join the Church, their attitude had begun to soften. They had even developed a friendship with Henry.28
As Henry and Inge celebrated their engagement, however, their future remained uncertain. Henry’s Church service made it difficult for him to earn a living, and he wondered how he could support a family. There was also the question of marriage in the temple—something Henry and Inge both wanted.
With the Swiss Temple less than a year away from completion, their dream was not entirely out of reach. It was not as easy as simply saving money for the journey, though. Policies governing who could travel outside the GDR were becoming stricter. Henry and Inge knew there was little chance the government would allow them to leave the country together.29