President Hinckley waves at the Saints in Freiberg, Germany

At 92, it ought to be enough to sit back and relax, especially if you’ve acknowledged to the world that you don’t like to travel. Yet, this week President Gordon B. Hinckley is on a mission of love in Europe, traveling at a breakneck pace that would fatigue anyone who wasn’t moved by a transcendent purpose. Saturday, September 7, he was in Freiberg, Germany, rededicating the expanded Freiberg Temple. He stopped that afternoon in Paris for four hours, and then on Sunday dedicated the new temple in The Hague in the Netherlands. Monday he flew onto Kiev, Ukraine for an unprecedented meeting with the members and then, to even more distant points which we will report on tomorrow in Meridian.

President Hinckley leaves the Freiberg Temple after the Rededication. Most of the Saints here had never seen the Prophet in person

Gordon B. Hinckley said he wants to move the work forward and fast. He feels an urgency that has nothing to do with his cane or his longevity. Though recently he has mentioned more than once, “I am an old man and I don’t know how long I have to live,”
it is the magnitude and importance of the work that propels him. He says that no greater responsibility has ever come upon any people in the history of the earth than has come upon us. He feels the weight and the joy of it; and he has this remarkably creative vision that finds the bold, new ways to move the work along.

Thousands of Saints look upon the Prophet, Gordon B. Hinckley, with love and many tears in their eyes. Spontaneous singing of “Gott sei mit Euch bis Aufwiedersehen” (God be with you ‘til we meet again)broke out as his car slowly pulled away.

In Freiberg, he looked over the crowd of faces he had come to know and love during the years they lived behind the Iron Curtain, longing for a temple, and said, “I repent.” The reason? He repented that he had scheduled such a short time there in his frenetic schedule, and seeing them again, he longed to linger.

As Meridian’s editor and publisher, “following the prophet” this week is a phrase that has taken on new meaning for us. We are grateful for the members who have made it possible for him to fly across the world on Church business in a private jet, because trying to keep up with him on commercial airliners, in rented cars and on street cars is not easy. We missed our Air France connection from Paris when the pilots went on strike, they lost our suitcase for three days, and we had to buy new clothes in an hour’s run in downtown Berlin so we could attend the temple dedications. We were grateful that Germany’s Autobahn had no speed limits as we drove between destinations.

Sister Sabine Tilgner leads a choir of German Saints that sounded more like heavenly angels

The reason for this madness is because the Internet offers a whole new world of possibilities for “being there” at sacred moments. At Meridian we are not bound by having only so many print pages and no more. We are not stuck waiting for printing presses and snail mail. With the magic of digital photography and broadband hookups, we can be your eyes in an instant, at any significant Church event that happens anywhere in the world, taking you places with scores of images and stories. You are there as the Saints in Freiberg burst into “We Thank Thee O God for a Prophet,” or the choir at the temple dedication at The Hague continues singing in the rain. You can become connected in new ways to the international Church as you feel the pulse of events and see them through the viewfinder of a camera lens.

The possibilities of the Internet give us at Meridian a chance to document events of the Restored Church in ways that have not been possible before. You experienced it as we photo-documented the amazing dedication and events of the Nauvoo Temple.

So, hold on, for the ride, and in the next few days on Meridian, you are invited on the prophet’s journey through Europe, seeing him intimately embracing the Saints, sensing the Spirit that accompanies these gatherings, focusing on the faces of the faithful. What is surprising is that through these photos comes something that is invisible, but powerfully tangible—people who have received his image in their countenance.

Sister comes early to attend the first session of The Hague Temple dedication

“I’ve always wanted to do this,” Scot said as he spoke of intimately photographing the faces of the Saints in Germany and the Netherlands. As he reviewed the 800 images he shot in Freiberg and the 848 images he took at The Haag, he was filled with the Spirit. “As I scrambled to get angles and see the people I felt like I was the curtain that opened the view for a 100,000 Meridian readers who couldn’t see these events and couldn’t meet these Saints.”

We have seen again that God moves his work forward through those who are truly converted and give their whole hearts to his work. Watch for these stories coming in Meridian:

-The remarkable story of the Saints of Freiberg who lived forty years under Communist rule but kept the fire of their faith alive. They knew the oppression of spies at their sacrament meetings and interrogations by secret police, but they became among the most faithful people on earth—longing endlessly for a temple so they could enjoy the sealing ordinances. It seemed impossible—but God has his ways. We’ll include wonderful photo essays of the faces of the Saints in eastern Germany.

-Photo essays on the temple in The Hague with special reports on how the Dutch national media softened toward the Church.

-A report from Keith Stephan, Church Architect, on how the Church has been able to build so many temples so quickly.

-The stories of Saints who travel all night on trains or rent buses to join together and feel the Spirit.

-Scores of photos of the international Church, reminding us that this work is bigger than our own small circles or cultures.

-Portraits of people whose lives demonstrates gospel love like this one:

The morning of the Hague Temple dedication five-year-old Daniel Klunder told his mother, Ingid, that he didn’t want to go to any long meetings, but, said he, “I just want to see the prophet.”

She told him he had to get dressed up and he said he didn’t want to get dressed up, “I just want to see the prophet.”

She told him that he had to put on a tie, and he said he didn’t want to put on a tie, “but I do want to see the prophet.”

So he got dressed up and put on his tie, and then at the cover stone ceremony, President Hinckley put some mud on the stone and after a few others had done the same, he then turned characteristically to look across the large gathering of Saints for a little child to come and add a bit of mortar. It’s his way of passing the baton on to a new generation, of carefully teaching the rising children what really matters, of helping them remember. He looked out on the audience through the pouring rain and pointed toward Daniel, and his sister Mariette, “you two children, yes, you, come on up here.” Not only had Daniel seen the prophet, the prophet had seen him.

Click here to watch the story of Daniel Klunder unfold in eight photographs.