President David O. McKay

A short time ago, I stood in a little room in Wales, in which my mother was born 102 years before, the room so small that the six-foot bed covers the entire width, and its length is barely two feet longer than it is wide, and the old rafters just two feet above my head, so about eight feet high. But my thoughts on that occasion have been sacred to me. I share one or two of them with you. 'I thought, as Sister McKay and I stood in that small bedroom, how different life would be now if two humble elders had not knocked at that door a hundred years ago! And how different life would be if my mother's father and mother had not accepted that message? I looked around the village and found decedents of others who heard it at that time, descendants of some who ridiculed my grandfather and grandmother, for having accepted the truth; and they made light of their religion, scoffed at them and ostracized them for having accepted Mormonism. I realize how unenlightened those neighbors were when they condemned my grand parents. ...Father's folk were way up in the north of Scotland. It was only through the gospel that Father and Mother met. So I expressed gratitude, as I sensed it probably never so keenly before, as we stood in that little room, six by eight.'

(Gospel Ideals, pp. 122-3)