[MUSIC] I think the Spirit of the Lord is brooding over Africa. So much is happening that there just seems to be great momentum. It really is featuring, and now it seems to be kind of the African moment, in a sense.

I normally tell people the year 2012 has been a blessing for this country.

We have been waiting for this for years. We have been blessed. I'll always savor, I'll always cherish these assignments in Africa to see, in a sense, the Church being born in a day--to, in a sense, watch it happen before your eyes.

[MUSIC AND SINGING] If ever you wanted an object lesson that your happiness doesn't depend on your material wealth, you would go to Africa.

These people are a happy, blessed, joyful people, and in many cases they have almost nothing.

It's really quite a miracle to me that welfare-related issues, immense poverty where somebody is not going to survive unless the Church helps or takes care of them--that's almost nonexistent in Africa, which I think is just one of the great tributes to the African people. It does bless and add to my testimony to watch this happen, to see what it means to people, to see them respond, to see them believe against all odds and against a lot of challenging opposition and natural difficulties. [MUSIC AND SINGING] Everywhere we go to organize these stakes, we just clear our minds, come in fasting and praying, and we just start with a clean slate. We start to interview. We learn as much as we can about the stake: What are its needs? What are its strengths? What would a new stake president need to pay attention to? You know, we learn as much as we can. And then you go through these interviews. And of course, what you're waiting for is--in addition to what any given man says in the interview, what you're waiting for and feeling and praying for is the whispering of the Spirit saying, "You're talking to the stake president. You're listening to the man who is to lead." That's at least as important, if not more important than what any given man is saying about what he thinks the stake is doing or who he thinks good men in the stake are.

I am just humbled--I am moved that they know so much about the order of the Church.

They were just so well on their way that it was fun to teach; it was fun to go into those scriptures and answer their questions. They were very good questions about matters that any bishop anywhere in the Church or any new stake president anywhere in the Church would ask. And that, too, reassured me that this was a group of men more than ready, more than worthy to be a stake. I really left Sierra Leone with that comfort. [MUSIC] What this assignment gives us a chance to do is to remember and declare that this is the work of Almighty God. This is the Church of Jesus Christ.

I testify that He not only lives but that He loves us and that He's engaged in our lives and that He has no other matter before Him except the happiness of His children--that the universe and the plants and the flora and the fauna and the coming of the spring and the arrival of autumn--everything about our external life is for the happiness and good of His people. And that's what He does.