Elder Oaks

Elder Oaks of the 70's came out late Friday night to speak with us. In case you are not aware of what an Elder in the 70's means: its part of the leadership of the Church. The 12 apostles are delegated responsibilities from the 1st Presidency over different functions of the church like PR, missionary, finance/education ect..then since the world is such a large place and our church membership it around 12million--more outside the U.S. than inside the 1st Presidency and Quorum of the 12 apostles delegates responsibilities to area presidencies to preside over regional areas. They visit the branches and wards, handle the administration, meet with government officials for humanitarian projects, and testify of Christ looking after the spiritual welfare of the areas for which they have authority. It's a very structured system going down from the Prophet and apostles to the quorums of the 70's to mission presidents and stake presidents, to bishops at the ward and branch presidents all the way down to the individual members.

Elder Oaks is responsible for over 22 countries in his region. The Church headquarters for this region is in Frankfurt Germany. They are over much of Europe and into Eastern Europe and the whole of the Middle East and Greece. We have church branches in the United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, Egypt, and some other places I'm probably forgetting in the Middle East. It is a huge responsibility for them. We have had the privilege of meeting Eder Oaks and Elder Kapiesh who is the 1st counselor to Elder Oaks and is German(it's so interesting to hear his expereinces). I feel close to Elder Oaks b/c he was over the South East African area when I was a missionary in South Africa and the Church headquarters for that area was in Johannesburg which was the same as my mission headquarters. He was able to tour our mission often and give some amazing insight into the gospel and missionary work for us. Also, when I was in the back of the truck with Elder Corrigan when he fell out resulting in his passing, Elder Oaks and Elder Snow immediately went to the hospital with Elder Corrigan's family and then to the memorial service. Elder Oaks had some very insightful words that touched my heart and have impacted my life. I was excited to hear from him again.

He was a 4 star general in the Air Force and was in charge of the European Command during his military career. When he came in the room I quickly stood up straight and our friend April asked 'was that b/c he is a General Authority or b/c he was a military General' I replied probably a little of both :)

He gave a wonderful talk all about the amazing experiences in Africa he had when he was assigned there. I guess he noticed my big smile as I was remembering my great experiences there also, and April whispering things like did you serve in that area or do you know them etc...So he stopped his talk--there was about 15 of us in the room and said 'did you serve there?' I replied yes sir! 'in Mozambique' No sir, in Johannesburg and Botswanna. Everyone got a kick out of that. Then he began apologizing for not recognizing me. After the meeting he apologized again. I said a couple of times not to worry about it b/c it was such a large mission. There were over 200 missionaries just in my mission and he was responsible for over 16 nations and met with every stake twice per year and every missionary area twice per year on top of his other administrative responsibilities.

He came to Cairo to personally deliver medical supplies, specifically bandages to the humanitarian missionaries. He did a Middle East tour which included visits to the UAE and Jordan. He visited the UAE first and related the experiences there. He said the place is so rich the whole city of Abu Dhabi is like Disney Land--it's unreal. The 300 or so church members there met in a hotel that costs over 1,000 US dollars a night. They met in a meeting room there that he said has, I think it was, 5 huge chandlers as HUGE and nice as he had ever seen. He went on to speak about the spirit he felt among the people was the same as he felt meeting in little mudbrick huts in South Africa and went on to speak of the Gospel.

It was amazing to me and Casey how much the Lord loves all his children from the richest cities in the world to a small group of people in a village out in Mozambique. He sent Elder Oaks out to us just for one night b/c it was important enough to have contact with us out in Egypt and to strengthen us spiritually. His flight was delayed so he flew in around 10:00pm and drove straight to our branch villa arriving after 10:30pm then spoke until almost midnight. Then he was going to the hotel to wake up early to finish his business in Egypt and fly out to Jordan.

It was a wonderful experience with Elder Oaks.