“A Tender Mercy from the Lord,” Liahona, July 2022.
Latter-day Saint Voices
A Tender Mercy from the Lord
For years, I wondered if my missionary labors on the French Riviera had been in vain.
Photograph of M. Gary Hadfield and his wife courtesy of the author
As a young man, I served a 30-month mission in France, from 1955 to 1958. During the last eight months of my mission, I was called to serve as branch president in Cannes. The Cannes Branch was small, with fewer than 10 active members.
Our mission president informed us that he planned to close the branch shortly if we had no baptisms. Miraculously, three elderly ladies soon requested baptism. After their baptism, one of them moved to Dijon, where there was no branch of the Church, and the other two struggled to remain active in the Church. Nevertheless, these new Church members helped us keep the branch open.
Imagine my surprise when I returned to Cannes in the 1990s with my wife, Kathleen, to find a new Latter-day Saint chapel in Le Cannet, a choice neighborhood on the slopes overlooking Cannes. It accommodated a vibrant and overflowing ward anticipating a split. When the congregation heard the humble story of my time in Cannes, we were cornered by three grandmothers who had joined the Church in the 1960s.
“If the Cannes Branch had not remained open,” they told us, “we would never have known about the Restoration of Christ’s Church! Now we all have grandsons serving in the mission field.”
As we rejoiced together at the happy result of keeping the branch open, a distinguished gentleman joined us who had overheard our conversation.
“I am Brother Paya, and I too joined the Church in Cannes in the 1960s,” he said. “I was the former bishop here, president of the Nice Stake, and a mission president in Spain.”
Later, Brother Paya became president of the Madrid Spain Temple and an Area Seventy. We all wept with joy upon hearing their stories.
What a tender mercy of the Lord for me to learn that our missionary work on the French Riviera was not in vain, as I had supposed for so many years. The Lord carefully oversees our labors and blesses them with success, though we cannot foresee the future outcome as He does.