Table of Contents
Life before the Church Page
1
Childhood memories
Military service
First exposure to the Book of Mormon
Joining the Church and gaining a testimony, 1950
Retiring from the automobile industry, 1977
Moving to Cape Town , South
Africa
South African civil marriage law
Experiences as the first patriarch in South Africa
Logistical and stenographical problems arise
Mineral and spiritual wealth
Gathering the tribes of Israel
Misconceptions about racism and apartheid
Many Callings Page
10
District president, 1958–1969
Arranging trips to theLondon
England Temple
Arranging trips to the
Counselor in the mission presidency, 1977
Patriarch for the Cape Town
First counselor in the Johannesburg
South Africa Temple
“We must build a temple generation”
Building a Temple Generation
President Gordon B. Hinckley’s visit to the Johannesburg Temple
Daily temple presidency duties
No firearms allowed in the temple
Reverence in a small temple
Deeper vision of the plan of salvation
CHURCH ARCHIVES / FAMILY AND CHURCH HISTORY
DEPARTMENT
THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS
THE JAMES MOYLE ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM
INTERVIEWEE: Kenneth Powrie
INTERVIEWER: Matthew K. Heiss
H: Today is the 23rd of September 1998. My name is Matthew Heiss. I work for the Historical Department of The
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
I’m in the Johannesburg
South Africa Temple
P: I was born in 1921, in a place called Lydenburg, a small
town near the Kruger
Park
H: Did you raise yourself, or did you go off to live with
relatives as a teenager with no parents?
P: Actually, what happened [was] my mother died in July 1939,
and the Second World War started in September, and I was into that at
seventeen. I spent six years and
seventeen days in the British Navy and the South African Navy. I was never really able to be an orphan boy
because I was always doing something. I
finished school early, started work early, did everything early.
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H: Tell me about your military service. Did you see combat? Did you stay down here in Africa ? If so, what was going on down here?
P: There was some
submarine activity around the South African borders, but I spent most of my
time in the Mediterranean sphere, at the invasion of Crete and Greece and the North African campaign, Malta Iceland
I first heard of the Book of Mormon when I was still going to
school. My widowed mother and two
sisters let the missionaries in and later said, “Oh, here’s this thing called
the Book of Mormon.” It lay on our
shelves for many a year. Coupled with
that, the National Geographic magazine—it was way back in the ’30s—was
running a series on Utah and Zion Park
I got married during the war to my cousin, Philippa Dymond, and
lived in Cape Town, then moved up to Johannesburg and went into the automobile
business. The missionaries called on us
in May of 1950. My wife, who was a great
one for religious studies, let them in the door, and I said, “Oh, here’s
another of those religions, study it through.”
She was rather stumped because the questions she asked were all answered,
and the missionary, Elder E. Mauray Payne, whom she thought she could handle
pretty well, didn’t turn out to be an easy one to push around.
Eventually in September of 1950 we were baptized. I drifted in.
I didn’t really understand it. I
had my ideas of religion. I used to pray
to the Father in Heaven up in the sky, who looked precisely, by the way, what
our Father in Heaven looks like in the temple.
That was my religion.
Anyway, I got put to work in a little branch. The first church meeting I went to was in
Krugersdorp, which is just twenty miles west of Johannesburg
H: How did you gain a testimony?
You said you just kind of got drug into it by your wife and put to work,
but somewhere along the way there would have to be a spiritual conversion, I
would think.
P: I don’t know. I
tagged along from May to September. She
said, “I’d like to be baptized on Sunday,” so I thought, “I might as well come
along.” In those days there was nothing
said to you about the Word of Wisdom. We
felt tithing was good, so we paid that before we joined
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the Church. Incidentally, my salary in the automobile
business increased about three-fold as I paid tithing, this over about two
years.
Things went very nicely. I
was put to work as the branch clerk, then branch teaching. There were only two priesthood holders in the
whole branch of twenty-five families; we were the only two and branch taught
the twenty-five. I was the only one with
a car in those days because I worked in the business. That’s how it started.
Then we progressed. In those
days, the priesthood was restricted until you had traced your genealogy out of
the country because of the black element and the seed of Cain, so my priesthood
progress wasn’t that rapid. In 1954, I
was ordained to the office of priest by Lowell D. Wood. He was a missionary in that time. He was in the Pacific Area Presidency. He
just died recently, an old friend of ours.
Ultimately, I was ordained an elder in 1957. I was called to be district president in
1958.
H: Of what district? The Transvaal ?
P: It was then the Transvaal District. That now embraces five stakes in the
area. There are now five stakes. We built the Johannesburg
H: I haven’t yet. We went
to church here, but we went to the school and didn’t get to see the chapel, but
we are going to see the chapel.
P: It was built in 1957.
I was called as district president at a conference, at which I imagine
there were probably three hundred people present. We figured, “How will we ever fill this
building?” Of course, now it’s far too
small. Anyway, I was district president
from ’58 to ’69. Then, I served in the
mission presidency a couple of times. In
those days it was a dual role. Of
course, the South African Mission embraced the whole country going up to Zimbabwe and what is now Zambia , and from there down to Cape Town
I was released in November of 1969.
The stake was created five months later, and I was called to be a stake
patriarch. Louis Hefer (the present
temple recorder), by the way, was called to be the district president. He succeeded me, and then became the first
stake president. I was a patriarch from
1970 until I came here in 1995, twenty-five years but for a break when I moved
down to Cape Town Johannesburg and Pretoria Cape Town
H: What took you down to Cape
Town
P: Yes, I retired from the automobile industry in 1977. I was looking around for something else to do
at age fifty-five when the Church set up a Presiding Bishopric Office. I was one of the applicants for the job of
assistant area manager administration and was successful and started working
for the Church in February of ’78. There was a regional office then Rosebank, a
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suburb of Johannesburg
After thirty-three year’s residence, we sold up our home, which was
about ten miles west of Johannesburg , and moved
down to Cape Town Cape . My forebears first came out to the country in
1820, some of them with the settlers, the well-known British 1820 settlers, but
mostly as individuals.
We moved down to Cape Town
In this country, by the way, a wedding in the temple is not accepted
as legal because the wedding ceremony has to be open to the public, either in a
home or in an office or a church. The door must be open so that outsiders can
come in, so in this country we have to have a civil wedding first. Tradition is [that] it’s in one of our
chapels, otherwise in a home, then they come to the temple to be sealed.
H: I would be interested to know about your experiences as the
first patriarch in South
Africa South Africa
P: Yes, Texas
On one occasion, quite interestingly, Rhodesia, at one stage in
about ’77 or so, was having what they called UDI, Unilateral Declaration of
Independence under British rule, so they were besieged as a country and under
sanctions. The Church membership were
kind of isolated because their foreign currency allowance was so meager that
they couldn’t travel. I received
permission in 1977 to go up there. As
you may know, a patriarch cannot function outside the stake without the Quorum
of the Twelve’s approval. I gained that
and went up there for ten days. It was
quite a gruelling effort. They said there
were about forty blessings, and I ended up with sixty-two. I was staying in the hotels in the area,
starting about eight a.m. and
finishing about six p.m., taking
two or three in families at a time. That
was quite an experience. That was the
first time I had actively worked for the Church on a full-time basis. Then that was followed up in ’78 when I
started as a Church employee. That was a
choice experience, but kind of gruelling.
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H: When you went down to Cape
Town
P: Yes. As a matter of
interest, the patriarch from there moved up here, and I moved from here to
there. I had a six month break while the
calling was being done. As you may know,
you’ve got to be called again, so from April ’88 until October ’88, I had a
hiatus.
H: As you were first called as patriarch, what training was
offered to you? I know that patriarchs
in Salt Lake City Salt Lake
P: I was set apart by Elder Marion G. Romney and ordained a
patriarch the 22nd of March 1970. I
thought, “Somebody will give me some instruction.” I waited and waited and waited and nothing
happened. Then, in about May, two
brethren came from Cape Town
To answer your question, I was invited to go to Salt Lake to
read these blessings in April 1970, but I was working at the time in the
automobile business for Peugeot, the French company, and I could not be spared
at the time because we had engagements for the Paris
H: For a general conference?
P: For general conference in April 1971, at which time I was
able to sit down in the archives and read through blessings, but that was a
year later. By the way, the so-called
instructions never appeared until several years later. They then produced a booklet about as thin as
this (eighth of an inch), with suggestions for patriarch. By that time, of course, I’d been on the way
for a long time, but as I was reading these blessings out of the Church archives,
you could see, going back into the 1800s and so on, it was Spirit, not the
patriarch, at work.
People wrote them by hand. I
remember some of our members went over to England
H: When you were called, were you given a tape recorder and
microphone, or did you have to get a secretary who could do shorthand? Tell me about that aspect of it.
P: Those days were very, very rough. Louis Hefer worked for IBM at that time—we
bought a Motorola tape recorder. You’ve
probably seen them in the archives. It
had the regular cassette tape, but in those days the tapes got tangled up on
the rollers, and a couple of times I had really rough problems. I tried with a secretary now and again, but
the reliance on other
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people is difficult because I’ve got to be there with
them. The transcribing was a problem
because I had to find somebody who could transcribe. In those days, you transcribed, edited, and
it had to be typed again. Nowadays, I’ve
got my own computer and edit it on screen.
Press a button, and zip, it prints.
I ended up giving 1,612 blessings over the twenty-five years, and
half of those were typed by my late wife.
I pay great tribute to her because she was not a typist. She said, “I’ll type.” Before that, what I had to do was take the
tape, give it to a secretary somewhere, go to work, come back over there, get
the transcript, come back, deliver it to be retyped, collect it again. It was
most, most cumbersome. My wife normally
did it at home. I figured out she must
have typed eight hundred. That’s a
couple of books, isn’t it?
H: It is.
P: Those were kind of logistical problems that we
encountered. Of course, later on the
Church said you could get a transcriber with a foot pedal and earphones and all
that, and a handy pocket recorder. That
alone has been an interesting experience to see the change in atmosphere of
these. The Church never would consent to
a computer or word processor. The
nearest thing was a typewriter with word processing capability, but it was so
cumbersome to work with that it was virtually unusable, so I got my own computer
for family history. After my wife’s
death, my daughter in Cape Town
Then the civil marriage officer exercise was quite demanding in time
and effort. In the early days I had to
travel to Port Elizabeth and Durban
H: When you were giving blessings, what would you do to prepare
for a blessing if you knew somebody was coming for an appointment? I’m interested to know if you had a special
regimen you went through or thing you did, or if you just said, “Okay, come on
in” and sat down.
P: Of course, when I was first called I was groping in the
dark. I had heard that it was good to
fast. By the way, the handbook says that
the person who receives a blessing, you don’t encourage them to fast; of
course, if they want to it’s there. I
tried it, and as you can see I’m not really meaty, so I found that, physically,
I just couldn’t handle it. The nearest
approach I could do was pray to the Lord.
During the war, there was a song devised by the American Navy, I think, “Praise
the Lord and Pass the Ammunition.” That’s
all one could do.
One thing that is interesting, when I was in Rhodesia
Page 7
One thing that amazed me in editing blessings, I used to look at
them and see two consecutive blessings completely different. Some sentences were long, some short. Some words were strange to me. One word I’d never even heard of. I had to look it up in the dictionary to see
what it was. I have a testimony. Of course, it was an enriching experience,
meeting all the people. The only way to
tune in, I felt, was to sit down and talk for awhile, then the Spirit gets into
the communication and off we go.
Of course, many said later, “Can you help me to interpret my
blessing?” To which I would respond, “My
assignment is to give the blessing, pronounce it, not to interpret it. The Spirit must help you.” I could give an opinion, the same as you
could, but the recipient of the blessing, to me, it is that person’s personal
blessing. We used to say, when you go
to water tap for water you don’t take much notice of the tap if the water comes
out. It’s a sobering experience.
H: I’m interested in the notion of tribal lineage. As I’ve travelled throughout the Church and
interviewed patriarchs, I usually like to talk about tribe, and if there are
certain places or pockets of people who tend to come from a tribe different than
Ephraim or even Manasseh. What’s been your experience with that?
P: I have a firm testimony that the Lord created the
world. The South African statesman Jan
Smuts said that the Lord created the world.
Of course, he was not a Latter-day Saint, but he was a very religious
man and a very far-seeing man. He said, “He
placed all the mineral wealth down at the bottom end of Africa . You’d think He’d emptied His pockets out in
the southern tip of Africa .” As some Americans have said, this is the
richest piece of real estate on the face of the globe. I was thinking, “Was it that that attracted
the seed of Israel Israel
Mainly, I experienced the seed of Israel Africa . That’s the way I interpret it. The ones that came to see me, I felt
straightaway, were real Ephraimites, people with get-up-and-go. I didn’t believe they had much to do with merely
the South African scene, but to me, we here are a very peculiar people. I’ve often thought when you look carefully—the
promised land, of course, is America Tower
of Babel
H: I haven’t.
P: He wrote a book called The Covenant. The covenant people he interpreted to be the
Afrikaner stock, the people of the Abrahamic covenant, people mainly from
Holland, people who were seeking religious freedom and freedom from the oppression
of the later British rule,
Page 8
from the rule and oppression of Europe at the
time. That’s mainly French,
Huguenots. Have you heard of them?
H: Yes.
P: Why did they come here?
Because it was halfway on the trade route to the East
Indies , and they stopped off here and thought this would be a good
place to stay. Then, later, they found
all the riches, the gold and diamonds, which attracted mainly the British
people. Then you get two hard-headed Ephraimite
groups there. This, to me, is the way
the history unfolded.
In my late wife’s early searching—she and her mother used to be
great searchers—there was a book written called The Destiny of the British
Empire and the USA
H: No.
P: This was based upon the premise that the British Empire was Ephraim,
and the United States
So, to come back to this ethnic grouping, really I didn’t come
across anybody except Ephraim and Judah, and, of course, the adoption of the
blacks into the system, then Manasseh as well, through the Lamanite
affiliations.
H: I was going to ask if things changed after the revelation on
the priesthood in 1978. Now that blacks
could be baptized and have the priesthood and receive patriarchal blessings, have
you found a difference in lineage, or is it, as you said, that they were
adopted into Ephraim?
P: Or even Manasseh. We
were counselled by the Twelve at the time to say—if you’re in doubt—the
Abrahamic lineage is the major one anyway.
To me, destiny is right down the line.
The historians of the world are kind of floundering around. If they could only latch on to the Book of
Mormon and our beliefs in Abraham and these covenant people, it would be so
easy, but there seems to be a curtain of darkness placed on them.
H: Tell me how things changed in the Church in South Africa
P: I have heard, and I believe it to be true, that of all the
countries—you know, we’ve got this legacy of apartheid and the oppression and
so on—that’s the dark side of it. The
light side is, for example, I grew up employing black servants whom we treated
as one of the family in a Christian way.
Most people did. The farmers of
this land, mainly the Afrikaners, treated them perfectly well. It’s the bogie of apartheid, this oppression
and so on. I think it is remarkable how
we as a nation accepted it. I’ve heard
that we were less prejudiced than most other people. I think, on the whole, it went remarkably
well. We are mending fences here and
going at it in quite a remarkable way, I think, in this country.
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The problem is too many of the seed of Israel ,
in and out of the Church, are taking off for Australia ,
New Zealand , United States
H: My stay here in South Africa
P: I’d say it’s [the] teething problems of a new nation we’re
building. We’ve only been going five
years, as you know; next year it will be five years. If you look at the history of this country,
1910 was the Union of South Africa.
Prior to that were the English, British, South African, Dutch, the
Anglo-Boer War. The 1910 Union of South
Africa brought British Imperialism for roughly forty years up to 1948, when the
Afrikaner nationalism took over.
Actually, a policy of separate development, apartheid’s predecessor was introduced by the British way back in
the 1920s. The African National Congress
(the great black freedom movement) goes back to the teens or 1921 or
something. Then you had that forty years
of Afrikaner nationalism. Now we’ve come
to the year 1994, roughly. Can you build
a nation in anything but perhaps another forty years? It’s impossible. The whole generation of black people have
only known the so-called oppression.
By the way, it was interesting, when I visited Salt
Lake once in the early ’80s, I went
into the toilet in that headquarters building and there was a black man from
the USA South Africa U.S. United States
So, to answer your question, where are we going, I don’t know
whether we’ll live long enough to see into the Millennium or what, but to me
another twenty-five years perhaps will see the birth of the real nation, but now
we’re going through the birth pangs, teething troubles, or whatever you’d like
to call it. It can’t happen overnight;
you’ve got to give it time.
Of course, the problem with the crime rate is that unemployment is
terrible. What do you do if you’re short
of money? You go and rob. Of course, the new black politicians are on a
real gravy train because they’ve never known this before, so it’s
temptation. As one gets older,
Page 10
you look
that it’s just a fact of life, if temptation is there and your will is weak and
you’ve never known anything else, that’s the way you live.
The Saviour’s words on the cross, “Father, forgive them, they know
not what they do.” That, to me, is half
the problem. People don’t know how to do
it. We’ve been schooled in management
techniques greatly in the Church. To us,
government is second nature. To them it’s
foreign. They’ve never done it before. The money is there, help yourself. Maybe you’ll see the answer. I won’t.
H: I hope I do. Tell me
about your calling as a counsellor in the temple presidency. I guess I should ask, first, when was the
first time you were able to go to the temple?
P: September 1969, when I was the district president. We had been planning this temple trip for a
long time. In those days you could say
to a congregation, “How many have been to the temple?” and one or two hands
would raise, so we, as a district presidency, got together and we started
planning an organized trip.
H: Tell me how you did that?
The distance was so great. I
assume you went to London
P: Yes, eleven thousand kilometres, six thousand miles away.
H: How did you work out to organize a trip that far, that would
cost that much money?
P: I had two good counsellors.
One of them was a bank manager and chief financial manager, so we
started encouraging people to save.
Then, to cut a long story short, we got the list of people who wanted to
go, families and so on. It took several
years to plan and put money aside. Then
we chartered a Sabena 707, which would normally seat about 100 something
passengers. In those days the 707 was [a]
top-of-the-line aircraft. Anyway, we
hired this plane and they shut half of it off for cargo, and we as a group of
eighty went in the rest of it. We ran
them out of water and cold drinks because they had lots of drinks on hand.
H: Alcohol.
P: Yes, which we didn’t use, but it was a good experience. We went over to Brussels ,
then to London London Temple
I happened to be working for Peugeot at the time, so I went to the
Paris Motor Show. It was business time
and pleasure half the time. Then we
toured England and Scotland
Thereafter, the floodgates opened, because just after that the stake
was organized in 1970. Six months later
the stake was organized. I think the
Lord and the authorities saw “These people mean business. Let’s go.”
H: I was going to ask what difference it made to all of a sudden
have a core of people who had been endowed, who had made the covenants. I guess seeing the stake, that’s answered the
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question. Was this the only occurrence
where members of the Church would charter a jet, or did this perpetuate? Did you set the example and did this continue
until this temple here was built?
P: No, after that the largest group was fifteen or twenty. It was not chartering the whole aircraft deal,
but that, to me, was the breakthrough.
H: I read in one of the histories of the Church here that there
was kind of a perpetual temple fund, where Saints would—I don’t know if you
would pool your money or make a loan and people could pay it back. Was there that kind of thing going on to get
people to the temple?
P: Not that I know of.
After that, I was a patriarch.
One of the grouches that I had as a patriarch, if I may call it a
grouch, was that I’m mainly an administrator and organizer, and to be shoved
out or put up on a pedestal, I used to grouch at it. Anyway, I was called as a patriarch in March
1970. Then the greatest thrill came to
me in 1977, when I was called to be a counsellor in the mission presidency,
because now I could get back into business again.
H: Was this with President Dale LeBaron?
P: Yes, and then subsequently Lowell D. Wood succeeded
him. To me, that was a thrill. I’ve always liked being in administrating and
doing things. Now when you’re a
patriarch you must sit and meditate in a corner all the time or something.
H: As a counsellor in the mission presidency, could you continue
to function as patriarch?
P: Yes, I did. Indeed,
Elder David B. Haight set me apart as a counsellor to President LeBaron. I was interested in the [General] Authorities’
viewpoints over the years. One says, “You’re
not to be touched. You’re untouchable.” Another one said I could serve as a high
priest group leader or counsellor in the mission presidency. That was kind of an executive position. Then certain Authorities came and said, “No,
patriarchs must not be touched,” so of course, I went back into isolation. I personally preferred the ability of being
able to have a closer and more personal contact with Church members.
H: Prior to your call as a counsellor in the temple presidency,
were you a temple worker, or was your call to serve as a counsellor your first
experience for working in a temple?
P: Interestingly enough, all my life I have felt the temple was
so special I didn’t want to work there.
I think the angels heard that and told all the temple authorities to
leave this man alone. I went from 1969
doing odd visits—I used to go to Europe for
Peugeot, and I used to go to the temple.
In 1969, right through 1971 on to the temple dedication in 1985 here, I
used to pay periodic visits, including U.S. Cape Town
The first temple work I undertook (I was called in ’95) was probably
in 1993 or 1994. They started to say, “Would
you like to help bring people through the veil?” You didn’t have to be a temple worker for
that, so I used to do that. Nobody ever
said, “We want you to be a temple worker,” and I never complained, so when I
was called here, I was absolutely green.
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H: What was your reaction to the call?
P: Mighty shocked. I’m
sitting down there in Cape Town
H: How would you describe the leadership style of President
Palmer? What does he bring to the
calling as the first South African called as a brand new president? I know that Lionel Bibb assumed the
presidency and did that for two years, and he now lives in the States.
P: That’s right.
H: So tell me a little bit about President Palmer.
P: He spent fifteen years or so in a very small unit of the
Church in Klerksdorp. I had a speaking
assignment there a couple of weeks ago and there were twenty-two at the sacrament
meeting, but his style is—he was a miner all his life. He’s a very enthusiastic, go-getter man, so
his style has always been, “Let’s get the job done and go kind of thing.” It’s been refreshing style. I think we’ve brought in a fresh atmosphere
in the fact that we were now the first all–South African crew. It was a good feeling to do that.
H: What does it mean to the South Africans here to see a
complete South African presidency?
P: I don’t know. I think
within themselves, if they notice it, they thrill. Of course, people are not as perceptive as
they should be or might be. I think the
Spirit permeates the whole place. I think
our only concern is that people are so busy, so under pressure to earn money to
keep their heads above water, they don’t have time, or they think they don’t
have time, to come to the temple and get refueled and renewed and rejuvenated,
and all their troubles will be lightened.
That vision is not here.
A couple of years ago we had a get-together in the Gatehouse with
Elder [Christoffel] Golden [Jr], Area Authority Seventy, who is South African, and
he said, “We must build a temple generation.”
That was two years ago. It’s going to take how long to build a temple
generation. One of the sad things, when
the temple was eleven thousand kilometres away, it was a thrill to go to the
temple. Now it’s eleven minutes
away. It’s too easy. That’s human nature.
H: What is the Gatehouse?
I’ve heard it referred to, and I don’t know what it is.
P: It’s this appendage here.
When this was originally a residence, it was one of the relics, it was
kind of a traditional building style of this Parktown ridge. To the locals, it was kind of a sacrosanct
area. There was a mansion here of kind
of a pseudo-American style building. We demolished
it, of course. It had a gatehouse. In the old days, when people came in horses
and carriages, they went through a gatehouse, so as a concession to the locals
we said we would
Page 13
demolish this gatehouse, but we would replace it with a modern
one. It’s called the Gatehouse for that
reason. You ride underneath it to get
into the basement parking. That’s where
the term comes from. It is officially
part of the temple, but it’s really an appendage. In days gone by, certain of our temple
presidents have used that as a visitors’ centre, as a kind of a social place,
or even as a waiting area, but technically, it’s part of the temple, and it’s
now used as a waiting area for children being sealed to parents. And, of course, it’s used if General Authorities
come and want to meet with the staff, as with President [Gordon B.] Hinckley when he came here. He met with all the workers in that area.
H: Tell me about that.
Tell me about President Hinckley’s visit here.
P: It was scheduled for one o’clock, a walk around the temple
for half an hour, then address the temple workers for fifteen minutes. He was so busy, he got here at 1:20, and
hurried around. We were all going to see
him at the big gathering, anyway, but we appreciated him. It was lovely to see him,
to get to know him for a few minutes. He
dedicated the temple, as you saw, at which time it was a great experience.
H: What are your specific responsibilities as the first
counsellor in the temple presidency?
P: Between President deVilliers and myself, I handle baptistry
and the sealings, and he handles the endowments and initiatory ordinances. We’re supervising those areas. On Friday and Saturday we split the
presidency because we have to take care of kind of two full days running. This week, for example, I’m on Friday morning
and Saturday afternoon. The other two
are on Friday evening and Saturday morning.
Otherwise, we handle our respective callings.
H: What does that mean?
Does that mean you are the person in charge? When you pull that shift on Friday and
Saturday, which are the busiest days, as I understand it, does that mean that
you sit here in the office and troubleshoot, or are you in the sessions making
sure things are running? What does that
mean?
P: Well, as far as baptistry is concerned, we have Saturday
morning only. We have a very competent
baptismal operation supervisor. We gather
all the youth together, outside in the foyer, I say a few words of welcome to
them, and then hand them over to the supervisor, and he and the lady supervisor
shift them. Unfortunately, our baptistry
has only got two showers and six lockers on either side.
H: What happens when you have a big group?
P: They have to sit and wait and be ferried through two by two,
which is one of the restrictive parts of the temple, unfortunately, because we
cannot accommodate large groups. The
youth, of course, are not called, but, nevertheless, it’s kind of a special
occasion. They say, “Hey, do you want to
go?” and they volunteer, the more, the merrier kind of thing. It takes a bit of watching over. I do the preliminaries with the various
stakes. Each one has a turn every five
weeks. We try to ensure that there’s
order in the place.
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H: I remember being a young deacon and teacher and priest, and
going to the temple was a very special thing.
I still remember some portions of the talks that were given to us as we
waited to go do the baptisms. We were
told what a sacred experience it is, and how the work that we do parallels the
work on the other side of the veil. For
me, it was a profound experience, and I was wondering what approach you take as
you meet with the youth.
P: Similarly, I try to have them remember something
meaningful. You probably got one turn a
year, didn’t you?
H: Yes.
P: Here each stake has every five weeks, and then within the
stakes, the various units are catered for, but we are still maturing in that
respect to sort of have the image of a special occasion impressed upon
them. Our priesthood leaders don’t have
the vision of the fact that this is a sacred call and opportunity for the youth
to come to the temple. It’s a special,
special occasion.
I guess all the way through it’s a question of maturing viewpoints
and activities. It takes time. I’ve always been impressed with the fact that
the plants grow slowly. People grow
slowly. Man just wants to do instant
coffee, instant tea, instant conversion.
As you grow older, you see it differently.
H: Are you called upon to speak and give firesides and encourage
temple attendance because of your position in the presidency, or do you shy
away from that and say, “I’m supposed to minister here in the temple, not
advertise.”
P: No, we grab every opportunity we can. For example, my eldest son got remarried a
couple of weeks ago in East London , so we went
down there. The branch president knew we
were coming so he said, “Oh, can we have a fireside?” That was nice. No, we take every opportunity. I mentioned I spoke out at Klerksdorp two
weeks ago. I’m on the speaking
assignment list for Roodepoort Stake.
H: Does that mean you’re on the high council?
P: No, just as an invitee, a guest speaker on the speaking
assignment schedule. President
deVilliers is on the list as well. We
try to encourage stake presidents to invite us, because we can’t come in and
say, “Hey, how about giving us some time to talk. We’re available anytime you want us,” so we
take every opportunity.
H: You said that your other responsibility was over
sealings. What does that entail?
P: That entails monitoring the temple file work, also when
people come in with a family file to accommodate them in sealing sessions,
trying to encourage people to bring a whole family group along with the family file.
We’ll provide the sealer and the room,
and you provide the patrons. In other
words, I oversee the sealing operation: to see that it functions, that the
sealer is there and the room is open, and the people get in and get going. Once it’s going, then I step back.
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H: Tell me about the occurrence when black members of the Church
from West Africa or East Africa or maybe even Zimbabwe and some of the
countries north of here come to the temple.
It’s kind of unique that priesthood leaders and members who live in very
dire circumstances are brought here to the temple, and I’d just be interested
to know some of your experiences and some of the feeling that occurs when these
members are able to come here to the temple.
P: I think the most impressive thing is they usually come
Tuesday or Thursday, and by Friday they’re kind of different people. There is something that lights up within
them. We are used to watching television
and fancy movies and see all this kind of decor with carpets and so on. I walked into our toilet here once, and there
was a black man standing looking at it.
I don’t know whether you’ve seen the tap where you lift and turn. He looked and said, “How do you turn this tap
on?” I had to explain that. Then we had to show them how to use the
toilet and wash their hands.
In the baptistery, it’s customary that everybody going into the font
has to have a shower. We have to go
through and show them how to use a shower.
Some of them have never even seen a shower. We take it for granted. We have to go back to basics and show them
how to use the shower. “Turn here for the
heat. This turns it on. Here’s a towel.” We have to kind of nursemaid them through the
first few days, but then after a couple of days you can see them blossoming.
It’s particularly challenging when we have people from Ivory Coast or the Congo
It’s a once in a lifetime experience for them to come the first
time. They’ll get a temple in Ghana
The marvel to me, in the Church, is that all the leadership in the
Church are giving them the benefit of the doubt. The finest type computers are going up into West Africa . We
used to say, “Oh, it’s wasted on them.”
The finest buildings are being built.
The whole gospel is unrolled before them in all its glory, no respecter
of person, and that, to me, is the marvel of it all. The gospel fits everybody.
H: When these people from West or East
Africa come to the temple, and you spend the whole time with them,
do you create special sessions for them, or are they plugged into the three o’clock
or five o’clock session?
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P: In the past we used to run special sessions, but we’ve found
that we were so stressed for labour and all that, we preferably leave it to what
it is. We may come in a bit early to accommodate
ourselves as to the handling of them, but mainly they keep to the basic
schedule.
H: Do you notice a different spirit that they bring to the
temple, or do you notice the same thing from somebody from Johannesburg
P: Oh, they appreciate it.
It’s a question of appreciation and taking it for granted, the same with
the locals. Some come here as a matter
of course. Like I said, it depends on
people’s attitudes as to whether they receive all the blessings. “I might as well go,” or “I want to go.” That’s the difference. Are you crying out for it or taking it for
granted? I think that’s the biggest
problem. The temple here is so easy. We take it for granted, which is sad, but we
have some who you can see it’s their life.
H: I’ve heard that there are two questions that are asked as
somebody enters the temple. One, “May I
see your recommend?” and two, “Are you carrying a firearm?” Is that true?
Is that not true? I’ve been told
this for a couple of years, but I’ve never had somebody in the temple
presidency set me straight.
P: A lot of people carry firearms, plenty. We had one lady with a nine millimetre
automatic. She had a very heavy caliber
one. She used to come in and plonk it on
the desk. Now we’ve been counselled. Please take it down to your car and lock it
up. You do not bring it into the
temple. We stop cameras also, but the
firearm is a very, very real thing. A
lot of people carry them. Of course,
this is a mixed blessing because the hijackers, who are inclined to stop you at
a traffic light or something, if you move your hand, if you’re reaching for a
gun, they’ll shoot you. This is the
problem.
We had one poor lady coming here about two months ago. She stopped at a traffic light down there
with two kids in her car. Her cell phone
was lying on the seat. The man smashed
the window and she hit him. She said it
was like hitting a rock. She was
screaming. Then he grabbed her cell
phone and ran off, fortunately, but the problem is, it’s a real thing. We educated people to leave their
firearms. This lady used to leave hers
at the desk. Now we’ve encouraged her to
put in the trunk of her car and lock it up.
It’s not our responsibility, and of course, cell phones are another
thing. We encourage people to leave them
outside or switch them off.
H: Those are basically the questions. I discussed a lot of these other issues with
President Bundy-Palmer. Before I ask my
final question, is there some major topic about your responsibilities here in
the temple that we haven’t touched upon?
I don’t want you to sit there and think, “Boy, I have all these great
stories, but he hasn’t asked me the question yet.”
P: I would assume with you having talked with President Palmer
you’ve got the routine going here. As I
see it, about six months ago we had a couple whose son was coming off a
mission. They worked in the [Mesa ] Arizona
Temple Arizona
Page 17
have a very good friend with whom I worked
in the Cape Town Mission office some years ago.
He’s in Bountiful , Utah Salt
Lake Temple Bountiful
I think it’s more an enriching experience being in a smaller temple,
but at the same time it’s much more demanding, much more so. For example, with my going on seventy-seven,
I frequently do about a forty hour week.
Most people should be sitting down watching the birds fly around. I don’t know whether that point has been
covered before. By the way, another
challenge in a temple like this is everybody knows everybody.
H: Why is that a challenge?
P: Because everybody wants to talk. Reverence is a problem. “Oh, I haven’t seen you for ages. How are you doing?” Then they start talking about the latest
cricket score, rugby score, stocks and shares.
How do you stop friendliness? It’s
like the reverence in chapels. I’ve been
to an overseas temple. You go there and
you know nobody. What a lovely
experience. Everything is [whispering]
quiet. The Jordan River and Salt Lake
H: It’s not that green on the other side of the fence.
P: Which is your home ward and temple?
H: Salt
Lake Temple
You’ve had a varied experience with the Church here as a patriarch,
as a Church employee, and now in the temple.
My final question, as we conclude the interview, is that I’d like to
know what the experience here in the temple has brought into your life that is
somehow different than the administrative callings that you’ve had, and the
mission presidency, or even the calling of patriarch.
P: Another of my callings in the temple has been as an
administrator, as well.
The temple has brought me a deeper vision of the plan of
salvation. You’re with it all the
time. One of the things that I have a
firm testimony of is that the Lord lifts you up to heights—physically,
spiritually, emotionally—that you never could have achieved any other way. It’s like being in a business with lots of
perks, housing, entertainment. Here, my
wife and I have been kept going miraculously at the hand of the Lord. By the way, we’ve known each other about
thirty-five years. Her husband died
several years ago, and my wife died six years ago. We got married two and a half years ago. The Lord brought us together, I know,
Page 18
because
I came as a counsellor and she came as the assistant to the matron in the
opposite spot.
H: And you weren’t married at that time?
P: No, we weren’t married.
I’d been prompted over the years to seek her as a companion, but I
resisted it because I didn’t think she was interested. Anyway, that’s another story. I think we’re the oldest couple in the
temple, and we haven’t been off on a day’s sick leave. Other ones stay home. It’s a testimony-building experience.
A couple of months ago I had a dose of food
poisoning. I had an administration in
here Tuesday night. Wednesday morning
President Palmer said, “Don’t bother to come in. Get yourself right.” I discussed it with my wife. We were feeling pretty grim. “No, we’ll come in.” From that very moment, [we] could feel
it. We were renewed.
These are things that happen numerous times. Time and time again we’ve seen the hand of
the Lord directing our footsteps, lifting us up. That, I think, is the most significant
experience, and it scares us really when we contemplate having to give it
up. It’s like when you’re a bishop and
you’re replaced. The mantle is taken off
of you. To us, it’s a scary experience
to say, “One day it’s got to end.” That’s
probably the hardest thing about this calling.
I was taught many years ago when you get a calling to remember that
there’s a release note in your pocket. I
think the Lord looks after His servants, and this is a special place to be
looked after.
H: I’m interested to know, were you called in this presidency as
a single man?
P: Yes.
H: That’s kind of unique, isn’t it? I’ve never heard of a counsellor in the temple
presidency being called who wasn’t married.
I think it’s wonderful. That’s
very interesting.
P: Possibly, the Lord saw I would be married. I started September 1st. We got married February 10th, but as I say,
we’d known each other for years and years and years. My wife was baptized in 1960, and I was
baptized in 1950. We worked together,
she as Relief Society president over the whole country, and I was the district
president. Of course, she was happily
married with five kids, and I had five.
Her husband died in 1990, and my wife in ’92. I saw her here and treated her cordially and
all that, but I know the Lord brought us together. I know I wouldn’t have had the nerve to
remarry if he hadn’t said so. These are
the perks. These are what the temple has
done for me. It’s special.
