Ezra Taft Benson

Our Commission to Take the Gospel to All the World

Now I want to say a few words to some of you older brethren. We have need for select missionary couples.

My father was called on a mission and left mother at home with seven young children, and the eighth was born four months after he arrived in the field. There came into our home a spirit of missionary work that never left it, for which I am deeply grateful.

Some of you who are grandparents can have more influence on your grandchildren by letters from the mission field than by any other means.

I remember so well, after the chores were done, sitting around the kitchen table as mother read letters from father. It seemed as though it was halfway around the world as she mentioned the towns where he was laboring; but it was only Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Chicago and Springfield, Illinois; and other towns in the great Midwest. . . .

My father’s family later grew to eleven children. All eleven of us have now had the joy of filling missions. The last one recently returned from filling a mission with her husband in San Diego.

Learn more about George Taft Benson’s missionary service