President Ballard Returns to Ontario

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By Sarah Jane Weaver, Church News

Almost 50 years have passed since President M. Russell Ballard and his wife, Sister Barbara Ballard, arrived in Eastern Canada to lead missionary work in Ontario. But stepping into Toronto’s cold, wet weather this past weekend took the Acting President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles right back.  

Driving through the city during a familiar rainstorm, President Ballard spoke of serving in Ontario from 1974 to 1977 — of the constant influence of his late wife, their missionaries’ determination, the profound experiences that refined his faith and the support of pioneering Latter-day Saint families. He also recalled traveling hours to minister to members in Ontario’s northern cities, hosting his children’s friends in the mission home, teaching countless missionaries from warmer climates how to navigate Toronto’s icy winter roads and praying each morning with his youngest son — who was reluctant to go to first grade.

His heart, he said, is intertwined with Toronto.

“This is a great part of the Church. The province of Ontario will always have a big part of our hearts. In so many ways, being here is like coming home.”

 
Speaking during a special stake conference in Hamilton, President Ballard said his testimony “of the reality of the great work of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was cemented in my heart and in my mind as I served those many years ago as your mission president.

“I moved about among the Saints in Ontario,” he continued. “I met with congregations and listened to the testimonies of you, dear Saints. I watched you work and serve and believe and attend to your duties.”

Thinking about those early days touches his heart deeply, he said. “I love this wonderful province of Ontario.”

‘Find a People Prepared for the Gospel’

Latter-day Saints first arrived in Canada in 1830, the same year the Church was organized in Fayette, New York. During the next two decades, an estimated 2,500 Canadians, mostly from Ontario, joined the Church and gathered with early members in the United States.

 
Missionary work progressed slowly in the area until a mission was organized in the province in 1919. The first Latter-day Saint meetinghouse in eastern Canada was dedicated in 1939 in Toronto; a stake was organized in the city in 1960, one year after late Church President Thomas S. Monson arrived in the city to serve as mission president.

While reflecting on his time in Toronto, President Ballard spoke about the significance of the area to the Church — and to him personally.

In 1836, Elder Parley P. Pratt answered the call to go to Toronto as a missionary. His wife, Thankful, gave birth to their son, Parley Jr., in his absence; Thankful died just after the birth. Among those who received the gospel during that most historic mission to Canada were Joseph Fielding and his sisters, Mary and Mercy. Mary Fielding — who would become the wife of Hyrum Smith — is President Ballard’s great-great-grandmother and the mother and grandmother of two Latter-day Saint prophets, President Joseph F. Smith and President Joseph Fielding Smith.

Knowing this important history, President Ballard said he remembered the words said by Elder Heber C. Kimball to Elder Pratt when President Ballard accepted his own missionary call to the area in 1974. “Thou shalt go to Upper Canada, even to the city of Toronto, the capital, and there thou shalt find a people prepared for the fullness of the gospel.”

 
Building on the work of President Monson and other previous mission leaders, President Ballard brought “a momentum” to missionary work in the northeast part of North America, said other Church leaders.

“He was someone who came with so much faith that he could build the kingdom of God,” said Elder Andersen. “He came with an energy and a faith and the Lord responded to that. And if you see this period where he served as a mission president, it was a period of enormous progress for the Church here in Canada. Not just in Ontario, because many of the people who were baptized moved around Canada.”

That success came, in part, because President Ballard has a “pure testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith and the Restoration and he bears it everywhere,” added Elder Andersen.

Elder David G. LaFrance, an Area Seventy, said examining Church growth in Ontario reveals a spike during the time of President Ballard’s service in Toronto. There is no question, he said, that President Ballard’s work as a mission president set the “foundation of growth” in the province, where there are now nine stakes and a district, 53,000 members and a temple.

Bruce Smith was serving as president of the Toronto Ontario Stake when President Ballard arrived in the city. President Ballard immediately began coordinating missionary work with the efforts of local leaders. In return, Latter-day Saints in the area embraced President Ballard’s enthusiasm for sharing the gospel. “It was a choice time,” said President Smith’s wife, Dolina Smith. “He won hearts.”

The Smiths said during his time in Toronto, President Ballard’s zeal for the area never slept.

President Ballard had “a charisma and a tenacity,” said President Smith. “Overriding all that was a personality of love. It was easy to love him because he exuded so much love.”

The area saw significant Church growth; two stakes were created during President Ballard’s tenure in Toronto. With the foundation he laid, the Church continued to grow in the decades that followed as Canada welcomed hundreds of thousands of immigrants to the country, said Bruce Smith.

That legacy continues today.

Wendy McCartney of the Oshawa Ontario Stake said each time President Ballard returns to Ontario, the membership feel strength and peace. “He is one of our Apostles,” she said.

 
‘Courage and Boldness’

During his assignment this month to Toronto, President Ballard visited the Toronto Ontario Mission home — where his family lived during their own mission.

In a special meeting with missionaries serving in the area, President Ballard recalled visiting the mission home with a wonderful family being taught by the sister missionaries. He answered the family’s questions and shared his testimony, but two weeks later they had still not committed to baptism. He invited them back to the mission home and asked the father to pray.

The man, however, did not know how to pray. “The missionaries had been doing all the praying,” recalled President Ballard. “They had never had him ask whether or not what he was being taught was true. And as he started to pray, it was not long before he knew.

He stood up and asked President Ballard, “What is happening to me?”

President Ballard responded, “Heavenly Father is answering your prayer.”

While visiting the mission home, President Ballard showed Elder Andersen where he had knelt, next to a small table, with the father and his family.

Elder Andersen said the experience is an example of the “courage and boldness” that President Ballard “brought to Canada in a marvelous way.”

“He came here and he made a big difference,” said Elder Andersen. “The Lord saw that, and so did the leaders of the Church, and suddenly it changed his life for the rest of his life.”

In 1976, President Ballard was called as a General Authority Seventy.

Addressing the missionaries in Toronto, President Ballard promised that their service will also change their lives.

“Thank you for your willingness to accept the call to come and serve the Lord in this wonderful Canada Toronto Mission,” he said. “It is no small thing.”

This, he said, is a “precious and important part of our Heavenly Father’s vineyard. This is a wonderful country. The maple leaf will live in your hearts the rest of your lives.”

 
First Presidency Visit

During his mission, President Ballard also experienced numerous moments that would shape the rest of his life. One moment came during a 1976 visit from the Church’s First Presidency — President Spencer W. Kimball, President N. Eldon Tanner and President Marion G. Romney.

The leaders were staying at a local hotel and one evening President Ballard drove them back to their rooms. As they went upstairs, D. Arthur Haycock, then secretary to the First Presidency, realized they did not have room keys and President Ballard went upstairs to deliver the keys.

President Kimball invited President Ballard to join the First Presidency for prayer in President Tanner’s room. Because they were in his room, President Tanner was asked by President Kimball to determine who should pray and President Kimball was selected.

“And then it hit me,” recalled President Ballard, reflecting on the privilege of praying with the First Presidency. He began to cry.

“With the four of us kneeling around the bed, President Kimball prayed. And he did not ask for anything other than about the things that they had done. ‘Did we please Thee.’ [President Kimball] pled with Heavenly Father that the services they had rendered that day would be acceptable. He did not ask for anything else. It was just a plea for approval for their efforts.”

President Ballard, overcome with emotion from the experience, said his tie “was soaked” with tears.

“It was quite a moment,” he said, noting he learned that everything done at every level of the Church is “so dependent on the Lord.”
 

Toronto Ontario Temple

After his mission, President Ballard returned to Toronto on two significant occasions. On October 10, 1987, he accompanied President Thomas S. Monson, then a counselor in the First Presidency, when he broke ground for the Toronto Ontario Temple — the Church’s second temple in Canada. The Ballards returned again to Canada with their seven children in August 1990 to participate in the dedication of the temple by President Gordon B. Hinckley.

Often during this month’s weekend assignment to Toronto, Elder Andersen observed President Ballard pause. “I knew what he was thinking,” said Elder Andersen. “He was thinking of her.”

Sister Ballard died October 1, 2018. Her funeral was held on President Ballard’s 90th birthday.

President Ballard said it is impossible to be in Toronto without recalling tender, significant and wonderful memories of Sister Ballard.

Speaking to Latter-day Saints in the Hamilton Ontario Stake, he shared his testimony of the Savior and spoke again of his late wife.

“How grateful I am for Jesus, and for the Restoration, and for the temple, and for the sealing [power] and that I have my precious Barbara,” he said. “Even though she is not with me and has not been with me for almost five years, she is with me.”

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