By Elder James J. Hamula Of the Seventy
James J. Hamula, “Commandments, Calamities, and the Second Coming,” Ensign, Dec 2010, 18–21
The power to avoid the “great judgments” that are coming upon the earth came through the priesthood keys that Elijah helped restore to the Prophet Joseph Smith in the Kirtland Temple.
On Sunday, August 28, 2005, I was in Houston, Texas, USA, on a Church assignment. Upon returning to my hotel that night, I found the parking lot filled with cars with Louisiana license plates. In the lobby, many guests of the hotel were talking with some anxiety about a hurricane approaching the Gulf Coast of the United States.
Early the next morning, I flew from Houston to Atlanta. Prior to departure, I watched television monitors in the gate area broadcasting news reports of the expected landfall of what was characterized as a monstrous storm.
During my flight east, I observed that the entire southern horizon was consumed by a dark, menacing storm front. Although I was more than a little troubled by the enormity of the storm, I did not appreciate its ferocity until images of Hurricane Katrina’s impact began to appear in the news media.
A week later, President Boyd K. Packer, President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and Elder M. Russell Ballard of the Quorum of the Twelve visited Hurricane Katrina survivors. I will never forget their observations. They reported that the overriding concern of the people was not the loss of their material things but the loss of connection to family members.
“The thing that kept going through my mind everywhere we were was the children,” President Packer said. “They don’t understand, and can’t understand, what has happened. And then there were the mothers with their little children; in many cases, the men were not there.”
Elder Ballard added: “One of the things that was so heart wrenching were the people trying to get in touch with their own, people trying to find their families—their parents, children, siblings, cousins, grandparents, aunts and uncles. They were just trying to make some connection.”1
These observations, coupled with an assignment I received to assist in locating displaced Church members and their families in the Houston area, gave me a vision of the anguish that awaits those who may lose their families in the eternities as a result of the storms of mortality. In the last days, the storms of mortality seem to be particularly intense and seem to be gathering in scope and fury. Latter-day conditions were foreseen to come upon mankind “as a whirlwind” (D&C 112:24), to be vexatious (see D&C 97:23), perilous (see 2 Timothy 3:1), and calamitous (see D&C 1:17; 45:50; 136:35), and to “not be stayed until the Lord come” (D&C 97:23). With no one knowing when the Lord will come (see Matthew 24:36; D&C 39:21; 49:7), and with all people enduring such difficult conditions, it is no wonder that the Lord’s disciples “were troubled” (D&C 45:34) after hearing of such conditions prior to His Second Coming.
Ancient prophets who foresaw the last days also seemed to have been troubled. Referring to the Lord’s latter-day coming, Joel asked, “Who can abide it?” (Joel 2:11). Similarly, Malachi exclaimed: “Who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth?” (Malachi 3:2; see also 3 Nephi 24:2; D&C 128:24). And after seeing the signs of the last days, John the Beloved cried out, “The great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?” (Revelation 6:17).2 These are expressions of concern about the ability of people to endure the calamities and perils of the last days. Fortunately, the Father and the Son have addressed these prophetic concerns.