David O. McKay

Every Easter season, I anxiously anticipate when the classic, Academy Award-winning, biblically epic movie The Ten Commandments begins to play on TV stations around the world.

During David O. McKay’s second year at the University of Utah, he and his siblings made arrangements with Emma Louisa Riggs to rent a cottage in the back of her house on Second West in Salt Lake City. As David and his brother, Thomas, walked up on the first day, Mrs. Riggs called her daughter to the window and observed, “Look, Emma Ray, here there are two young men who will make some lucky girls good husbands. See how considerate they are.”

“I accepted the message given to me on that stone, and from that moment we tried to do our part as missionaries in Scotland.” —President David O. McKay

Only three months after the Church was officially organized, the Lord instructed Emma to make a selection of hymns to be used by the Saints:

President Lyndon B. Johnson and President David O. McKay had one of the closest relationships between a Church president and U.S. president. They spoke fondly of each other and President Johnson visited Salt Lake City numerous times, even before Johnson was elected.

The following is an excerpt from No Other Success: The Parenting Practices of David O. McKay by Mark D. Ogletree.

The relationship between U.S. presidents and the Church hasn't always been friendly. In the early days of the Church, presidents were often viewed more like antagonists than allies to the Church and its cause. However, as the Church has grown and its members more involved in politics, so has its relationship with these important government leaders.

MR says: From meeting movie stars and royalty to flying planes, from milking cows to traveling the world, check out some of these incredible pictures of our Latter-day prophets.

President McKay said of his first experience with tracting, “Brother Johnston let me take one side of the street and as I approached a house I saw a lady standing in the doorway peering at me so you see, I didn’t even have to knock at the door. I greeted her and added, ‘I am a Mormon missionary and I should be pleased if you would accept this gospel tract.’ She put out her hand and took it with a sneer on her face, tore it to three or four bits and threw it on the ground, and said, ‘Good-bye’; and that was the end of our conversation.”

It’s little wonder that the leaders of the Church have historically made happiness in family life a high priority. Here are the love stories of five latter-day prophets and their wives.

When “Exodus: Gods and Kings” premieres in theaters Friday, Dec. 12, there will be inevitable comparisons between Christian Bale and Charlton Heston’s portrayals of Moses and between the work of directors Ridley Scott and Hollywood legend Cecil B. DeMille.

While serving his mission to Scotland in the late 1890s, then Elder David O. McKay (who served as Church President between 1951 and 1970) and his companion passed a building where the stone above the door was inscribed with a quotation usually attributed to Shakespeare: “What e’er thou art, act well thy part.” Recalling this experience while giving a talk in 1957, President McKay said he thought to himself, “You are a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. More than that, you are here as a representative of the Lord Jesus Christ. … Then I thought [about] what we had done that afternoon. We had been sightseeing, we had gained historical instruction and information, it is true, and I was thrilled with it. … However, that was not missionary work. … I accepted the message given to me on that stone, and from that moment we tried to do our part as missionaries in Scotland” (“Lesson 29: David O. McKay—Worldwide Ambassador of God,” The Presidents of the Church: Teacher’s Manual, [1996]).