In his October general conference address, President Boyd K. Packer, president of the Quorum of the Twelve, related how he and other church leaders barely survived a boat-rocking sea storm near Western Samoa in 1971. The turbulent experience gave the apostle personal insight into the central message of one of his favorite LDS hymns, which he quoted. “There is in our hymnbook a very old and seldom-sung hymn that has very special meaning to me,” President Packer said. “Brightly beams our Father’s mercy from his lighthouse evermore, but to us he gives the keeping of the lights along the shore. Let the lower lights be burning; Send a gleam across the wave. Some poor fainting, struggling seaman, you may rescue, you may save.”
