Prayers accepted and redirected

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Saturday Afternoon Session of the April 1987 Conference.

Some weeks, I have a hard time finding which talk I want to write about—but this week I wanted to write about ALL of them! They were so good. I think it was partly because many of them were focusing on the Book of Mormon, after President Benson's strong talk on the Book of Mormon the previous October. And that seemed extra relevant to me since WE are focusing on the Book of Mormon this year too. But my favorite thing was actually not related to the Book of Mormon. It was about Elder Tuttle.

Now, you have to understand, I had never even heard of Elder Tuttle before starting this General Conference Odyssey project. He was a member of the Presidency of the Seventy for many years. [I also learned that he was the Provo Temple President when I was born—and I read this interesting story about his participation in the flag-raising at Iwo Jima in World War II. But that was just now as I looked up his biographical information.] I have no memory of him from my own life. I have only come to know him these past few years, through his talks in General Conference. After a little while I noticed that I was often choosing HIS talks as my favorites, or HIS stories as the ones that I wanted to highlight. Then I started looking forward to seeing his name—knowing that his way of thinking often resonated with my soul.

So when I got to this April 1987 Conference, and started skimming idly through the Statistical Report, and saw, under "Prominent Members Who Have Passed Away Since Last April," the name "A. Theodore Tuttle"—I let out a genuine gasp of dismay. I felt like I was hearing about the death of a friend. It seemed so sudden! They'd mentioned him being sick in the previous conference, but I'd hoped he wasn't THAT sick! And I was sad. (Which is kind of funny, I guess, since he'd already been dead, decades before I even started reading these conferences!)

Then, when Elder Packer started his talk and said he wanted to share a memory of Elder Tuttle, I was excited because I wanted to hear more about this man I had grown to love! And it was an amazing story Elder Packer told. Here it is:

I hope it is not presumptuous of me to place into the record of this conference, and therefore into the history of the Church, a note to complete the record of the last one. 

In the last session of October conference, Elder A. Theodore Tuttle gave a touching and inspiring sermon on faith. He spoke from his heart, with scriptures in hand, without a prepared text. When he had concluded, President Hinckley, who conducted that session, said: 

“I should perhaps be guilty of an indiscretion, but I think I will risk it and say that Brother Tuttle has been seriously ill and he needs our faith, the faith of which he has spoken. It will be appreciated if those who have listened to him across the Church would plead with our Father in Heaven, in the kind of faith which he has described, in his behalf.”

President Ezra Taft Benson, who was the concluding speaker, endorsed what President Hinckley had said and appealed himself for fasting and prayers of faith for the recovery of Brother Tuttle. 

But Brother Tuttle did not recover. He died seven weeks later. 

Now, lest there be one whose faith was shaken, believing prayers were not answered, or lest there be one who is puzzled that the prophet himself could plead for the entire Church to fast and pray for Brother Tuttle to live and yet he died, I will tell you of an experience. 

I had intended to tell this at his funeral, but my feelings were too tender that day to speak of it. 

One Sunday when Brother Tuttle was at home, confined mostly to his bed, I spent a few hours with him while Marné and the family went to church.= 

He was deeply moved by the outpouring of love from across the world. Each letter extended prayers of faith for his recovery. Many of the messages came from South America, where the Tuttle family had labored for so many years. 

…No matter that he had never recovered from serious physical troubles which began on his first assignment there. That day Brother Tuttle spoke tenderly of the humble people of Latin America. They who have so little had greatly blessed his life. 

He insisted that he did not deserve more blessings, nor did he need them. Others needed them more. And then he told me this: “I talked to the Lord about those prayers for my recovery. I asked if the blessings were mine to do with as I pleased. If that could be so, I told the Lord that I wanted him to take them back from me and give them to those who needed them more.” 

He said, “I begged the Lord to take back those blessings and give them to others.” 

Brother Tuttle wanted those blessings from our prayers for those struggling souls whom most of us hardly remember, but whom he could not forget. 

The scriptures teach that “the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much”. 

Can you not believe that the Lord may have favored the pleadings of this saintly man above our own appeal for his recovery? 

We do not know all things, but is it wrong to suppose that our prayers were not in vain at all? Who among us would dare to say that humble folk here and there across the continent of South America will not receive unexpected blessings passed on to them from this man who was without guile? 

May not lofty purposes such as this be worked out in our lives if we are submissive? 

Now, I know that skeptics may ridicule such things. But I, for one, am content to believe that our prayers were accepted and recorded and redirected to those whose hands hang down in despair, just as Brother Tuttle had requested.

Isn't that interesting? I am always wondering so much about prayer—how it works, why it works, what factors could make it more or less effective. I know it's probably not a simple formula like "the more people praying, the more likely it is to be granted" or anything like that. But surely there ARE rules to prayer—or heavenly laws it follows? And I wish I knew more of them!

Anyway, this gave me a new thing to ponder about prayer. I have wondered many times if there was some way to "give" your own blessings to other people. I know I've sometimes prayed things like, "If someone has to get sick, let it be me instead of the baby—" but of course I never know if it's really okay to pray things like that. But it sounds like Elder Tuttle was doing something similar! Knowing (perhaps) that he had accomplished enough in this life, and knowing that the faith of the church members could perhaps keep him alive longer—he voluntarily gave that up and asked that the power of that faith be redirected. It makes "faith and prayers" seem so much less abstract when you think of it that way—like a literal wave of power, a literal THING that can be directed, or transferred, as the case may be. I have sometimes heard people speak of it like that—that the prayers of their ward or their family gave them tangible and palpable strength. But I hadn't seen this kind of application before!

I still have lots of questions, but this little story made me love Elder Tuttle even more. Isn't it cool that we can learn to know and admire someone across time and space like that? All because of the spirit speaking to me through his talks.


Other posts in this series: "Oaths: promises that never waver"— by Jan Tolman