Twenty years after working to “establish the Church” in the Philippines as part of a special two-year assignment in the southeast Asian nation, President Dallin H. Oaks looked back. The time was significant not only for the Church in the Philippines but also for President Oaks personally.
Going to the Philippines with his wife, Sister Kristen M. Oaks, 18 years after he was called to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, President Oaks encountered many things he had not had the chance to learn before.
“I often tell people that the greatest period of my growth as an Apostle was the two years in the Philippines,” said President Oaks, now the first counselor in the First Presidency. “I had never served as a bishop or a stake president or a mission president or a full-time missionary.”
This Church News video, titled “The Period of Greatest Learning,” features President and Sister Oaks reflecting on that time.
When President Oaks was in the Philippines, Sister Oaks said, he “really taught from the heart.”
