Church Talks
TESTIMONY FOR STAKECENTER DEDICATION JUNE 25, 2023
[Talk presented by John E. Enslen at the dedication of the new Montgomery Alabama Stakecenter located at 9385 Park Crossing, Pike Road, Alabama, on Sunday afternoon, June 25, 2023.]
I am grateful to Elder Millington and President McLaughlin for this special opportunity. When you are an old man like me, you have a lot you can talk about, but no one wants to listen. I am also grateful for their wives who stand beside them with loyalty and devotion.
On the night of July 25, 1975, the District President of the Montgomery Alabama District of the Florida Tallahassee Mission, Gayle D. Heckel, met extemporaneously with church president Spencer W. Kimball in President Kimball’s hotel room in Chattanooga, TN. President Heckel pleaded with President Kimball for the formation of a new stake in Montgomery, Alabama, and a little over three months later, on November 2, 1975, Elder LeGrand Richards of the Twelve created the Montgomery Alabama Stake with President Heckel as the first Stake President.
As a district, we had been a part of the Florida Tallahassee Mission, and in the same month that President Heckel met with President Kimball, the mission presidency had changed from Spencer H. Osborn to Stanley Kimball.
President Heckel, an Air Force Officer, was transferred after less than eight months of service as stake president, and in June of 1976, Elder Howard W. Hunter of the Twelve called Frank W. Riggs III to serve as stake president. President Riggs, a local attorney, had been a member for only five years. Near the time of his baptism, he had been told by the mission president, Hartman Rector, Jr., that he would become a stake president.
In May of 1978, having also been in the church for five years, I was released as president of the Wetumpka Branch, which was meeting in our home, and called to serve as a counselor in the stake presidency, replacing LeRoy Gunnell. I was 31 years of age, and my wife Dianne was 29. Four of our six children had already been born, and the fifth would come the next year. I was released as branch president the Sunday before I was to occupy the new branch president’s office in the just-completed, first-phase Wetumpka Chapel.
Ned P. Jenne of Ozark was shortly thereafter called into the stake presidency, and we three, under the direction and instruction of Elder L. Tom Perry of the Twelve, divided the geographically expansive stake into three districts with each member of the stake presidency taking a major responsibility for a district.
In those days, the southern boundary of the stake was Florida, the western boundary was Mississippi, the eastern boundary was Georgia, and the northern boundary was the Shelby County line. The ward and branch priesthood brethren met early on Sunday mornings. The Sunday school, where sacrament was passed and speakers spoke prior to class time, was held in the late mornings. The 90-minute sacrament meeting was held in the evenings. Temple recommends were good for only one year. Twice a year for 10 years, we had bus excursions to the Washington D. C Temple.
We were weak in numbers and our units were small. Under church policy, we needed to maintain at least four wards to have a stake, and there were times when the wards in our stake included the Highland Home Ward, later returned to branch status, the Selma Ward, later returned to branch status, and the Montgomery Third Ward, later abolished. During President Riggs’s administration, we formed new branches in Alexander City, Clanton, and Opelika, and the Alabama Birmingham Mission was created.
In March of 1986, Elder Russell M. Nelson of the Twelve released President Riggs and called me to serve as the third stake president of the Montgomery Alabama Stake, and he called Ned P. Jenne to serve as the first stake president of the newly created Dothan Stake. On the day before this stake division, there were 19 units in the stake—the largest number of units in a stake in the entire church. The nineteen units were Alexander City, Andalusia, Auburn, Camden, Clanton, Demopolis, Eufaula, Highland Home, Montgomery I, Montgomery II, Montgomery III, Magnolia, Opelika, Ozark, Prattville, Selma, Toxey, Troy, and Wetumpka. It was a time of extensive and expensive, gasoline-crisis travel, with no computers and no cell phones. But there was one thing of which there was absolutely no shortage—organized anti-Mormon activity.
As other stakes were formed around us, our stake became more compact. Distances shortened, but financial sacrifices remained the same. In addition to tithing and fast offering, we were assessed for the stake budget, our ward or branch budget, the building fund, the stake welfare farm payment, and the general missionary fund. As time progressed, our leaders instituted many changes, and they continue to do so—all for the better.
The stake center on Carter Hill Road, not originally designed to be a stake center, has served us well for more than 47 years. During my 16 years in the stake presidency, we added onto or remodeled that building at least four different times.
Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Twelve released me in 1994 and called as the fourth stake president Lynn G. Oborn, who as a young man had served in the same mission in England with Elder Holland. I will let others, if they so desire, add any additional history from that point.
I now wish to say a few words in the way of testimony.
Last month, on May 5th, at about 3:00 p.m. in the afternoon, marked the 50th anniversary of my baptism into the Church. I had an enjoyable phone call from one of the two missionaries who had taught me. The relationship between missionary and convert will extend throughout eternity, and we all have a conversion pedigree chart which may be as important as our biological family pedigree chart.
The Church is just as true now as it was half a century ago when I became the first person living in the city limits of Wetumpka, Alabama, to join the church. I want to pay tribute to my deceased wife Dianne who became the second Wetumpkian to join the Church, about two minutes after me. One year and one month later, we were sealed in the assigned temple for our district, the Salt Lake Temple. Four months after that, October of 1974, we had a little branch of our own in Wetumpka, a sister branch to the simultaneously organized Prattville Branch. The next month we were assigned to a new temple district in Washington D. C.; in 1983, we became a part of the Atlanta Temple District; and in 2000, the Birmingham Temple District. The only thing standing in the way of a Montgomery Temple District is us and those who are watching on their monitor!
Over those five decades, my love, admiration, respect, and appreciation for my Savior Jesus Christ has continued to deepen as I have studied and sought to live by His words. When I ponder His mission, His miracles, His meek methods, and His majesty, I find it impossible to love, adore, and worship Him enough. The Holy Ghost has born witness to me that He lives and literally leads The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. May we learn of, live like, and love Him with all that is within us. The Savior more than fully deserves, and is more than completely worthy of, our most devoted worship throughout all eternity.
I have a testimony of the prophetic calling of Joseph Smith and his successors in office, right down to President Russell M. Nelson, whose apostolic hands I have felt on my head. Two days from today will mark the 179th anniversary of Joseph’s and Hyrum’s martyrdom in the Carthage Jail. The Lord used Joseph to hold keys of knowledge and power, to reestablish His church on the earth, to restore His pure gospel in its fullness, and to bring forth the Book of Mormon, Another Testament of Jesus Christ.
I have a testimony that the Book of Mormon is authentic ancient scripture reserved for our day. When the Lord says that something constitutes evidence of a fact, we can know that such evidence is both powerful and irrefutable in the establishment of that fact. In the 20th Section of the Doctrine and Covenants, after the Lord refers specifically to the Book of Mormon, he states: “Proving, p-r-o-v-i-n-g, to the world … that God does inspire men and call them to his holy work in this age and generation….” The Book of Mormon is the linchpin proof of the restoration. The Book of Mormon, of itself, is more profound than any human mind that considers it. It is deeply layered beyond our mortal comprehension. The Lord stakes his very existence and his divinity on the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon when he says: “[Joseph]” has translated the book, even that part which I have commanded, and as your Lord and your God liveth it is true.” (D&C 17:6)
I have a testimony that the world on the other side of the veil is as real as this world. It is a highly organized, priesthood-led, busy place, where effort, work, and activity are essential to all of the happiness and joy that exists there. We can prepare for that next life by steadily working and engaging in good activities here and now.
Finally, I have a testimony that we are individually saved from our natural selves by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, repentance from our sins, and obediently honoring the covenants we made at baptism and in the temple. I have seen, witnessed, personally experienced, and felt too much to believe otherwise.
To this I bear my solemn witness, in the sacred name of the Worthy Lamb to whom I owe all, even Jesus Christ, Amen.