GRANDMA BURTON'S WITNESS By Justin Collings, a grandson

GRANDMA BURTON'S WITNESS By Justin Collings, a grandson

One of the first books I read after returning from my mission to Italy was Elder Bruce C. Hafen's wonderful biography of Elder Neal A. Maxwell, A Disciple's Life. As I read of Elder Maxwell's experiences as a young infantryman during World War II—particularly the descriptions of the fear and anxiety he felt amid the mud and heat of Okinawa—my thoughts turned to Grandpa Burton, who had passed away during my mission and whom I saw for the last time a couple of hours before I entered the MTC. In the book's later chapters I read of Elder Maxwell's missionary service. I was impressed by Elder Hafen's assessment of the post-WWII generation of missionaries—missionaries whose integrity had been forged during dark days when war clouds swirled overhead and uncertainty about the future loomed large. Many servicemen who believed that the Almighty had preserved their lives returned, like Elder Maxwell, feeling that they had "promises to keep" and sought to repay the Lord's mercy with diligent missionary service. That may have been the finest generation of missionaries the Church has yet produced and reading of them prepared me for a simple yet profoundly moving experience I was to have with a special sister missionary of that era not long thereafter.

The first time I visited Grandma Burton after my mission she shared freely, almost urgently, some experiences from her life of deep spiritual significance. One such experience, whose impression on me is bound to have a long shelf-life, was the story of a zone conference from her missionary days where the visiting authority was the relatively recently ordained apostle, Elder Spencer W. Kimball. I had always known Grandma Burton to be a fiery woman, but when she spoke of this particular zone conference I noted an intensity in her eyes—an intensity born of an inner strength forged during the course of a long life. I knew that she belonged to that special generation about whom I had recently read.

She told of a testimony meeting with which the conference opened—of the heartfelt testimonies of elders who had served overseas and who had made special and private covenants with the Lord about the service they would render in his kingdom should their lives be spared and who now bore witness to the blessings that had come as they strove to make good on those promises. Grandma told me, in so many words, that her missionary generation was of a different mettle than mine. I have to admit that she was right.

After the testimonies had been borne, Elder Kimball addressed Grandma and her fellow-laborers. She told me that because of the caliber of missionaries he was addressing, Elder Kimball felt at liberty to speak more freely than the Brethren generally do about the sacred and solemn interviews involved in calling and apostle and qualifying him to stand as a special witness of the Lord Jesus Christ in all the earth. He told them a story familiar to many of us—of the anxiety and the inadequacy he felt; of the nagging doubt that he had been called, not by revelation, but because he was the grandson of President Heber C. Kimball; and of his flight to the mountains, amid fasting and prayer, to seek a witness from the Lord that the call had come from Him and not from man. From the familiar story, we know that Elder Kimball obtained the witness. But to Grandma Burton and to her stalwart missionary peers, this mighty man of God revealed an additional and dramatic detail about how that witness came. President Kimball, like so many others of the noble and great ones called to the holy apostleship in this final dispensation of grace, saw the Lord Jesus and heard from the mouth of the Savior Himself the soul-cheering affirmation, "I have called you to be my witness to the world. Doubt not, but be of good cheer."

Grandma's telling of this story was electrifying, and I knew that she knew in a very special way, as I know, that "The keys of the kingdom of God are committed unto man on the earth, and from thence shall the gospel roll forth unto the ends of the earth, as the stone which is cut out of the mountain without hands shall roll forth, until it has filled the whole earth" (D&C 65:2). I felt bound by Grandma's testimony, and I went home knowing more about what it means for the hearts of the children to be turned to their fathers than I had known before I had come. And I better knew what President Kimball meant when he told a general priesthood session in April 1978, "'I know that God lives. I know that Jesus Christ lives,' said John Taylor, my predecessor, 'for I have seen him.' I bear this testimony to you brethren in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen."