Letter from President Hinckley to All Missionaries:LA MISIÓN ESPANA BARCELONA
ChristopherColumbus
and theOpening of the Last Dispensation
As the sun sank below the western horizon of the AtlanticOcean on the evening of October 11, 1492, it left three small wooden shipssurrounded by the gathering darkness. The ships were located at latitude of 24degrees, slightly south of Key West, Florida, and a longitude of about 73degrees, about 3500 miles west of SanSebastian, The Canary Islands. In all of recorded history, there was no knownrecord of any ships sailing so far west from land, certainly not in the broadAtlantic.
The two smaller ships, the Niña and the Pinta, werecaptained respectively by Vicente Yañez Pinzon and Martin Alonso Pinzon, twobrothers from Sevilla Spain who were experienced captains. The third andlargest of the ships, sometimes known as LaGallega (having been constructed in Galicia) but named the Santa Maria by her devout captain, wasunder the command of a 45-year old Genoese seaman who used the Spanish versionof his name, Cristóbol Colon. In English speaking countries he is known asChristopher Columbus.
As darkness set in, the ships were at full sail in galeforce winds, traveling due west at about 9 knots. It had been 35 days sincethey had last seen land – the small port of San Sebastian in the Canary Islandswhere they had repaired a damaged rudder on the Niña. The voyage had already become the longest known journeythrough open ocean.
About 10:00 o’clock in the evening, an hour before moonrise,Columbus was standing on the sterncastle of the Santa Maria, scanning the dark horizon, when he thought he saw afaint light in the distance. Not certain in the darkness if it might be land,he did not inform his crew, but he mentioned it to an aide, Pedro Gutierrez,who thought he saw it to. The little fleet continued to sail due west underfull sail.
At 2:00 a.m. on October 12, Rodrigo Triana, a 23-year oldsailor from Sevilla, was atop the lookout on the Pinta. In the light of the moon, he saw “something like a whitesand cliff gleaming in the moonlight on the western horizon, then another, anda dark line of land connecting them” (Samuel Elliot Morrison, Admiral of the Ocean Sea, p. 226). Recognizing land, hecried out to the deck below, “Tierra! Tierra!”
In that moment the world changed. One era – an era thatcovered nearly 4 millennia of recorded history – ended, and a new era began.The known world, which had consisted of Europe, Africa, and Asia, expanded toinclude a New World previously unknown, and the discovery would arguably have amore profound impact on the world than any discovery before or since. In thedim light of the moon on that fateful morning of October 12, 1492, RodrigoTriana saw not just a slip of land on the horizon, but the dawn of a new dispensationand the fulfillment of prophecy.
The written story of Columbus begins nearly 2,000 yearsearlier in the deserts of Arabia, “in a valley by the side of a river of water”(1 Nephi 2:6). In this remote location, somewhere near the Gulf of Aqaba, Lehiand his family lived in a tent after leaving the city of Jerusalem. Duringtheir stay in the desert, the young Nephi was given a great vision in which he sawscenes from the history of his descendants as well as events leading up to therestoration of the gospel in the last days. Nephi gives us only a brief accountof these latter-day events, beginning with this interesting verse:
And I looked and beheld a man amongthe Gentiles,who was separated from the seed of my brethren by the many waters; and I beheld the Spirit of God, that it camedown and wrought upon the man; and he went forth upon the many waters, evenunto the seed of my brethren, who were in the promised land. (1 Nephi 13:12, emphasis added)
Columbus, of course, did not have access to Nephi’sprophecy, but by his own account his world-changing voyage of discovery was theresult of being “wrought upon” by the Spirit:
With a hand that could befelt, the Lord opened my mind to the fact that it would be possible to sailfrom here to the Indies, and he opened my will to desire to accomplish theproject. This was the fire that burned within me.
All who found out about myproject denounced it with laughter and ridiculed me. All the sciences … were of no use to me. Quotations of learned opinionswere no help… Who can doubt that this fire was not merely mine, but also of theHoly Spirit who encouraged me …urging me to press forward? (The Libro de las profecías ofChristopher Columbus, translation andcommentary by Delno C. West and August Kling)
LikeColumbus, you are engaged in a life-changing adventure. You may meet with manyobstacles, as did Columbus, but the work you do will have eternal impact. LikeColumbus, the learning of the world is of little use to you – it really doesn’tmatter how smart you are, how talented you are, or how well you speak. Whatmatters is the fire that burns within you, urging you to press forward!
May that same fire that burnedin the heart of Columbus burn within every missionary in the Spain BarcelonaMission,
Pte. Clark B. Hinckley
Columbus Day 2011
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| Christopher Columbus Statue, Barcelona |
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