Prior to Final Book’s Release, ‘Saints’ Editors Discuss Volume 4 and Impact of the 4-Part Series

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This story appears here courtesy of TheChurchNews.com. It is not for use by other media.

By Trent Toone, Church News

In 1957, Primary General President LaVern W. Parmley and others were organizing a program for Primary leaders worldwide. The theme was “A Child’s Plea,” because they wanted to help parents and Primary workers to better appreciate their role in teaching children in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Parmley delegated a special task to Naomi Randall, a member of the Primary general board, to work with musician Mildred Pettit to create a song for the program.

After praying for inspiration and going to bed, Randall awoke at 2 a.m. Into her mind came the words, “I am a child of God, and He has sent me here.” More words flowed into her thoughts, and she wrote them down.

Later combined with Pettit’s music, the song was ready in less than a week. Soloists and a choir of Primary children sang “I Am a Child of God” at the Primary conference. Later, at a dinner for Church leaders, a choir of children from different nations and races dressed in traditional clothes performed the new song.

When the song ended, President David O. McKay told the children, “We will listen to your plea. We will walk beside you,” he said before turning to the general authorities. “We must accept the challenge to teach these children.”

Then-Elder Harold B. Lee of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles was also touched by the song. The future Church President said to Randall, “This is one song that will last through eternity.”

The tender story behind one of the most popular and often-sung Primary songs is told in the fourth and final volume of “Saints: The Story of The Church of Jesus Christ in the Latter Days.”

“Saints, Volume 4: Sounded in Every Ear, 1955-2020″ is scheduled to be released on Tuesday, October 29.

Historians, editors and writers who have worked on the project for many years hope the new volume and series help Latter-day Saints to love the Church more and find greater faith in Jesus Christ and the gospel Restoration.

“I hope that it helps them see their place in history and have an immense love for this story that really belongs to all of us,” said Scott Hales, a historian and literary editor on the project. “It helps us understand who we are. It helps us understand where we have been, and it gives us a sense of where we are going.”

Lisa Olsen Tait, a historian and general editor, said: “There is a real power from God that has been available and experienced by ordinary members of the Church, as well as leaders, all along, and it is still available today. I hope people will feel of that and that it will cause them to reflect on the ways they have experienced the power of God in their own lives.”

Jed Woodworth, managing historian for “Saints,” agreed.

“This volume is a testimony of God’s miraculous hand and that He is a God of miracles across all nations,” he said. “He is working through young people, old people, people of different languages, ethnicities and genders, and He speaks to all people.”

‘Saints’ Volume 4

Continuing a central theme of building houses of the Lord, the cover of Volume 4 features temples in Accra, Ghana; Hong Kong; Mexico City, Mexico; Nuku’alofa, Tonga; and São Paulo, Brazil.

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“When I think of the four volumes, I see a lot of continuity,” Woodworth said. “For example, in Volume 1, we see the early Saints moving from place to place, trying to build a temple. They succeed in Kirtland. They succeed in Nauvoo. In other places they are stymied, but their whole energy gravitates toward building the house of the Lord, ... [demonstrating] principles of sacrifice, consecration and devotion, and we see that over the course of the Church’s history. It’s played out in this volume on a much grander scale in all of these countries around the world, not just in the United States.”

Picking up with the dedication of the Bern Switzerland Temple in 1955, Volume 4 shows the global growth of the Church through the spread of temples around the world.

In addition to temples dotting the earth, Volume 4 details the organization of the São Paulo Stake in Brazil, the first stake in South America; the 1978 revelation on the priesthood; President Gordon B. Hinckley’s retention initiative and much more, including individual stories of faith.

Readers will learn about the following true accounts:

• How Nora Koot, a refugee from mainland China, became one of the Church’s earliest Chinese converts.
• What happens when a returned missionary agrees to fight in a boxing match to raise money for a Latter-day Saint couple to travel to New Zealand to receive their temple blessings.
• How a young woman in Czechoslovakia was introduced to the gospel by an older man who taught her yoga.
• How a young Peruvian missionary relied on his faith in the Savior after being severely injured by a car explosion.
• The story of a 13-year-old Primary president in Uruguay.
• The story of a Latter-day Saint reality TV star in Australia who announced his decision to serve a mission on the show.
• When Olive Osmond, mother of a famous family music group, gave a copy of the Book of Mormon to England’s Queen Elizabeth II.
• Stories about Church members dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic.

The editors encouraged readers to be open-minded, “curious travelers” in learning about the experiences and perspectives of Latter-day Saints in diverse parts of the world.

“It helps to show how personally powerful the gospel is for people in finding hope and healing, understanding and peace, in whatever circumstances and experiences they have had in their lives,” Tait said.

Some individual stories focus on young Church members who made critical decisions that affected the course of their lives.

“That’s something that is important for all young people today,” Hales said. “They need to realize that they have a place in the history of the Church. What they are doing now matters and has consequences, and as you rely on the Lord to make these choices, He can take your life in a remarkable direction.”

Both Difficult and Easy

The editors said gathering information and stories for the fourth volume was both difficult and easy.

Easy because the Church has gathered a massive amount of oral histories from Latter-day Saints who are still living.

Difficult because with a “mountain” of options, it wasn’t realistic to include stories from every country where the Church is established, and some had to be left out. The team did its best to present material that was representative of all Latter-day Saints, nations and cultures.

Another challenge was overcoming the language barrier in working with sources that required a great deal of translation.

“It was not easy. It took a lot of time,” Hales said. “It was a huge challenge for the writers to try and figure out the stories when we couldn’t read the primary documents like we had with the previous three volumes.”

Will ‘Saints’ Have Volume 5?

Will “Saints” produce a fifth volume in the near future?

The editors say not likely, given that Volume 4 covers 65 years.

“The year 2020 was just four years ago, so if we want to do Volume 5, we have some decades to live first,” Hales said.

While Volume 5 is many years away, the Church History Department has plans to extend the “Saints” brand, including the storytelling style and methods, to other projects.

“We’re excited about the possibility of keeping the ‘Saints’ theme and brand alive for people in the future,” Tait said.

This panoramic illustration shows the four covers of the “Saints” series next to one another. The Church released the first volume in 2018 and the fourth will be released on October 29, 2024.

The ‘Saints’ Series

The Church released “Saints: The Standard of Truth, Volume 1, 1815-1846” in 2018 — the first multivolume Church history published in nearly 90 years. The fast-paced narrative was written and designed to help readers learn the key events of the Restoration and other inspirational stories of faith, including accounts of individuals who do and don’t figure prominently in Church history. The series was made available for free in 14 languages on the Church history website, in the Gospel Library app and other digital platforms, including an audiobook in English, Portuguese and Spanish.

Church leaders said the volumes are “transparent, honest and faithful,” with controversial aspects of Church history covered in the context of the entire story, the Church News reported.

“These real-life experiences are threads in the beautiful tapestry of the Restoration. The Lord uses individual histories to teach us how to draw closer to Him, to repent and to be more like Him,” Elder Dale G. Renlund of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles said when the first volume was released in September 2018.

“Saints, Volume 2, No Unhallowed Hand, 1846-1893” was released in February 2020.

“Saints, Volume 3, Boldly, Nobly, and Independent, 1893-1955” was released in April 2022.

Matthew S. McBride, director of publications for the Church History Department, said the series has been read by millions through the Gospel Library app, the audiobook version and the print edition. The Church History Department has produced a podcast that follows the stories in the book and a series of Church History Topics, which are short articles on key topics featured in the books.

Woodworth attributes the high interest and readership to “the hunger the Saints have to understand their history.”

“I think Latter-day Saints naturally gravitate towards trying to understand their history, but it’s also the quality of the writing and storytelling,” he said. “I‘m very pleased with what our team has produced.”

For the fourth volume, McBride said the Church hopes to expand readership by making some of the inspiring stories available online as articles, supplementing some with photographs and video.

“Of course, we hope that after engaging with a story online, people will be excited to read more stories in the book itself,” he said.

Thoughts on the Series

Hales started working on the project in December of 2014. After working on “Saints” for just under a decade of his life, Hales said it has been “immensely rewarding” to look over at his shelf and see all four volumes lined up together.

“It has been an exciting and exceptional journey from before the First Vision to the present day. The fourth volume goes to 2020, so we really have experienced the panorama of Church history from start to finish,” he said. “And it’s been a very beautiful experience.”

Hales added that he has enjoyed getting to know all the people featured in the series. “I feel like I’ve made a lot of friends in Church history along the way.”

With the release of each volume has come more enthusiasm and anticipation. Readers have wanted to know more about the background of the stories and how they were selected, Tait said.

“It’s been fun to see all of this work having an influence and being so meaningful to so many people in the Church,” she said.

The “Saints” team has received feedback on the series from Latter-day Saints all over the world, including missionaries, families and empty-nester groups. The most satisfying comment Woodworth has heard people say is, “‘I’m not a reader’ — not only do they not read history, they don’t read very much at all — then they say, ‘But I love “Saints.”’”

One of the challenges of writing “Saints” was to make it enjoyable for younger and older readers. The language is simple enough for children, but the storytelling is deep enough to interest adults. In some ways it reminds Woodworth of the parables of Jesus, stories with layers of meaning.

“It’s been a herculean task to try and write in such a way that a worldwide readership would have access to these books. There’s a whole range of education levels [and ages]. Trying to write in such a way that we’re understood across the world in many nations, across language barriers, has been a huge task,” he said. “So it’s gratifying that so many people in different parts of the world have been reading and enjoying the books.”

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