Choose to Serve | M. Russell Ballard | 1986

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Though we live in a morally conflicted world, we can choose to serve the Lord. We are promised the help revelation, a sure witness, and an anchor of faith.

This speech was given on January 5, 1986.

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"I thought that you might be interested in some of the things that have happened in my life in the last few months. On Thursday morning, October 10, 1985, in the fourth-floor council room of the Salt Lake Temple, I was invited to sit on a small stool placed at the feet of President Spencer W. Kimball, who sat in a chair. With President Kimball’s hands on my head, and surrounded in a circle by President Hinckley and all the members of the Council of the Twelve, I was ordained an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ and set apart as a member of the Council of the Twelve. President Hinckley was voice. I was given a blessing that is a great source of comfort and strength to me. To say the least, my brothers and sisters, I was then and still am now overwhelmed with this calling to serve as a special witness of the Lord and to serve you, the members of the Church.

In 1974 President Kimball called me to preside over the Canada Toronto Mission. He also called me to serve as a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy in 1976. It is very special to me to know that the last priesthood ordinance he participated in before his passing was my ordination to the holy apostleship. I have a deep love and respect for our beloved President Kimball. He will always hold a very special place in the hearts of my wife, Barbara, our children, and myself, as I know he does in all of your hearts.

As I have relived this most meaningful experience in my life over and over again, I have asked myself the question that I believe almost everyone asks when called to serve in the Church, “Why me, Lord?” The privilege of serving as a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy for the past nine and one half years has taken me to many parts of the earth on errands for the Lord. I believe I know as well as anyone in the Church that there are thousands of faithful and devoted men and women who serve the Lord with their whole soul and they serve him with great distinction. Knowing as I do that there are many men worthy and capable of such a sacred calling as mine, the question “Why me?” has had a sobering impact upon my own soul.

I have, during the past three months, come to the comforting knowledge that the Lord and my Brethren see in me something I can do to help the work of the Lord continue to move forward. In my specific case I am also aware that the dedicated service of many of my forefathers could well have influenced my call to the Council of the Twelve. Since the very beginnings of the restoration of the Church they gave all that they had, even their lives, for this great work. Family members of the Prophet Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum have served in the Council of the Twelve since the organization of the Council of the Twelve in 1835.

I count it a blessing to be a representative now of the family of Joseph and Hyrum, and acknowledge publicly that to follow my great-grandfather, Joseph F. Smith, and both of my grandfathers, Hyrum Mack Smith and Melvin J. Ballard, into the Council of the Twelve Apostles is a great honor and responsibility. I will do my very best to be the kind of a servant that is worthy of such a birthright.

On several occasions I have been assured by my Brethren that they felt my forefathers must have sustained my call in the councils on the other side as well as the First Presidency and the Council of the Twelve on this side of the veil. But how is it that a call to serve in the Church comes into the lives of sons and daughters of God? Let me explore this with you for a few minutes.

By Their Own Choice and Agency

To begin with, I am sure that our behavior in the premortal world had a great deal to do with our birthright here upon the earth. I do not pretend to understand the whole process, but I have come to a comfortable assurance in my own heart that to be born in a land that is free, where men and women can worship God through the dictates of their own feelings and consciences, is a great blessing. As you know, in many countries of this world today a meeting such as this one could never be held..."