“Zero would be better.” At ages 95 and 91, President Russell M. Nelson and President M. Russell Ballard have kept busy schedules this past week, a fact that led to a jaunty exchange on Wednesday between an important Cambodian leader and the president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. President Ballard visited New York City and held meetings, sat for media interviews, hosted dignitaries and spoke at events from 8 a.m. to at least 9 p.m. on both Friday and Saturday. I included the comments he made during his visit to the United Nations in a story about his first day in the city. My story about his second day in New York included details about a longstanding church effort to create and maintain relationships with ambassadors, a main part of his visit. President Nelson, of course, is in the midst of ministry visits in Southeast Asia, where he is speaking at five meetings with church members in five cities in four nations on five consecutive nights. On Tuesday night, President Nelson and Elder D. Todd Christofferson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles met with dignitaries before speaking to 2,800 members in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The story I wrote there included his optimism about the country’s future. The exchange between President Nelson and one of the dignitaries he hosted created a lighthearted scene that was underscored by an intriguing partnership to improve health care in rural Cambodia. The partnership involves the church’s Welfare and Self-Reliance Department and His Excellency Gen. Meach Sophana, a four-star general and secretary of state in the Ministry of the Interior. I will be publishing a story on that partnership in the coming days. “Welcome to Cambodia, sir,” Gen. Sophana said to President Nelson. “I hope your visit is wonderful. Your (people) have done well. Your mission here is very noble. You should be proud of them. … You are improving the standard of living here. I think we can carry out this noble mission together.” The entire room had stopped to listen to the exchange between the two leaders. |
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The general next mentioned how busy President Nelson’s schedule is on his trip, on which he also is accompanied by his wife, Sister Wendy Nelson, and Elder Christofferson’s spouse, Sister Kathy Christofferson. “But we’re excited to be here,” President Nelson said brightly. “That keeps us awake!” The general smiled. He spoke in English sharpened by his studies as a Fulbright scholar at New York University. He looked President Nelson up and down. Then he commented on how healthy President Nelson looked. “I would like to know,” he said, “What is your recipe for this longevity?” President Nelson leaned into a brief explanation of part of the church’s health code, the Word of Wisdom. “We tell our people,” he said, not to use tobacco, smoke cigarettes or drink alcohol. “I was a cardiac surgeon,” he added. “I’ve seen what effect those substances have on the heart.” The general smiled broadly and said, “I don’t smoke, and I drink rarely, only moderately.” President Nelson looked him in the eyes and smiled back. “Zero would be better,” he said. The general threw his head back and laughed along with everyone else in the room. Still laughing, he said, “I will take your advice seriously.” |
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What I’m Reading ... This story on emergency rooms in remote areas initially caught my eye because I thought it would relate somewhat to the story I reported on today in Cambodia. Telemedicine is still only part of the future in the Cambodian hinterlands, but while my story will be about how medicine is advancing in remote parts of the Southeast Asian nation, this piece takes an intriguing look at how — in the poorest, sickest and most remote parts of the United States — the choice is increasingly to have a doctor on screen or no doctor at all. I’m constantly fascinated by the role of opportunity in life and the meaning of opportunities seized or squandered. In this piece, a man grabbed his sudden big break by the throat, succeeding in front of millions of people. Days later, the future that he appeared to have bashed down the door has — with the accompanying fun, fame and fortune — disappeared due to the tiniest of errors at the most mundane of tasks in the digital age. Here is The Associated Press story that appeared hours after President M. Russell Ballard gave an interview to the AP’s new global religion team. There wasn’t space in my story to note that the team’s editor, Sally Stapleton, had been in Salt Lake City last month. I met her as we attended the International Association of Religion Journalists conference at the Thomas S. Monson Center. Stapleton had just started her new job, and she gave a presentation about how she had led Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage at the Pittsburgh Press-Gazette of a synagogue shooting that made international news. The team, launched with eight new hires funded by a multimillion grant, also includes Michael Rezendes, who came from The Boston Globe’s famed Spotlight investigative team. The story on President Ballard had a double-byline; it was written by Gary Fields, the global religion team’s news editor, and Brady McCombs, the AP’s supervisory correspondent in Salt Lake City. Fields previously worked as a Wall Street Journal investigative reporter but most recently had been the senior content manager for Lutheran World Relief/IMA World Health. He focused this story on President Ballard’s response to a question on Boy Scouts and the church’s new youth program. Dad-shaming? Mom-shaming? I propose we try to avoid shaming. |
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| Elder David F. Evans, left, and Elder Peter F. Meurs, right, both from the church's Asia Area Presidency, meet with President Russell M. Nelson, His Excellency Gen. Meach Sophana of the Cambodian Ministry of Interior and Elder D. Todd Christofferson before the church leaders spoke at a member meeting in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on Wednesday. |
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| This image by my frequent international travel colleague, Deseret News photographer Ravell Call, captured a moment during President Ballard’s first-ever tour of the United Nations. Our editors chose to make it the A1 centerpiece photo in Saturday’s newspaper. Here are some of the threads to the story behind it: Felipe Queipo of the U.N. Department of Global Communications led the tour. He took more time talking about this spot than anywhere else, other than the famed hall where the U.N. General Assembly meets. He explained that late U.S. first lady Nancy Reagan loved the Norman Rockwell image depicting the Golden Rule inscription, “Do unto others as you would have done unto you.” So, she commissioned a glass mosaic as a gift from the United States to the U.N. On the tour, President Ballard had just come from the General Assembly Hall, where he had said, “If, from our point of view in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints …the teachings and commandments of God through His beloved Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, could be the foundation by which people would believe and relate, it would be a better world. It would be a safer world. It would be a more peaceful world.” Gazing at the Rockwell a few minutes later, he said, “Nobody could do it like Norman Rockwell. He did things with faces that will last forever.” |
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| I wrote about half of the story behind this photo in my article about President Ballard’s meetings with reporters, high-ranking U.N. officials, ambassadors and faith leaders on Friday. I described the remarkable history Rabbi Meir Soloveichik shared with President Ballard about how the origins of his synagogue near Central Park date back to a group of Jews persecuted in Spain in 1492. Driven to Portugal and on to Amsterdam, they migrated to Brazil — where persecution drove them to leave again in 1654. Rescued on the high seas after being captured by pirates, they were taken to New Amsterdam, now New York City. The rest of the story of this photo lies with President Ballard, who has a keen perspective on the history of early Latter-day Saints because his great-great-great grandfather is Hyrum Smith, who was martyred along with his brother Joseph Smith. “You know, our history is like your history,” President Ballard told Rabbi Soloveichik. “We’ve been driven from here to there.” Those somber notes alone would not accurately characterize the visit. The rabbi has strong friendships with multiple Latter-day Saint leaders and has spoken multiple times at BYU, including a speech he gave on Tuesday. He was witty throughout the meeting with President Ballard, teasing him at one point that, “I feel more conferences should be held where I can speak at the BYU campus in Hawaii.” |
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