In 2014, Elder David A. Bednar taught that trains, telegraphs, radios, automobiles, airplanes, telephones, televisions, computers, satellite transmissions and the Internet “are part of the Lord hastening His work in the latter days.”
“In fact,” said Derek A. Marquis in a BYU in Provo devotional in 2011, “the marvels of what we’re able to do today are so instantaneous and commonplace that some of us may miss the miracles most of us hold in our hands.”
Marcus Martins, professor of religion, remembered, “President Kimball spoke about having some kind of electronic device that the missionaries would carry. A handheld device where you could have some recordings. He definitely was envisioning something like our tablets; iPad Minis that missionaries slowly are starting to use.”
Marquis said, “In earlier times, word traveled person-to-person, or through written epistles. If someone needed a message to arrive quickly, they could run, or perhaps they could ride a horse, or employ some other form of transportation that, by today’s standards, would seem slow and primitive. If a message needed to reach a large group, they could speak from a hillside, or they could erect towers or cause that copies of the message be painstakingly handwritten and distributed.”
Martins envisioned planes that will double or triple the speed of travel known to date. “Every time we thought we were there, [at the limit], God proved we still have a long way to go. We are not inventors. We are merely discoverers. We are discovering things that already have been invented in the eternities.”
Sister Larsen, a service missionary from Utah, said, “The development that I have seen is that we truly are a worldwide church now. People are more tolerant and more accepting of other cultures than ever before. Our young people now have stronger spirits than any generation before. And they have to have this faith, the church, scripture study and family prayer. This generation Satan is coming after more than ever. But they have been saved for the last days.”
Larsen and her husband lived in Saudi Arabia for 10 years. “In the 70s,” she remembered, “we had to make an appointment for a phone call. It’s unbelievable what we have seen. Now you can text your parents whenever you want.”
Marquis said, “I remember fondly being a young Aaronic Priesthood holder in the mid-1970s and sitting with my father in our chapel in Virginia listening to the priesthood sessions of General Conference, which were piped in via a telephone line that someone had dialed in to Salt Lake City and hooked up to the loudspeakers in the chapel.”
Speakers in General Conference giving talks in their native tongues is only a further indication of the global church. “Koreans would love to hear somebody speaking in Korean in General Conference,” said Hoyong Jung, a freshman from South Korea majoring in business management, “because they can get a better understanding of the speaker. I prefer to listen in English because I like to hear from the speaker directly. There is a different feeling.”
Martins said, “We still have to learn ways of reaching out to people through technology, and teach them by the technology actual lessons. We know how to be effective, but sometimes we are not. There is still a lot to do. We have not been able to get over 300,000 converts a year. Gordon B. Hinckley challenged us to double this number. The good news is we know how to do a better job.”