Spencer J. Palmer

The Seoul mission president in the Asia chapters of Gordon B. Hinckley — Go Forward With Faith (Sheri L. Dew’s biography of Gordon B. Hinckley). Palmer is the recipient of one of the book’s most-quoted exchanges: after monsoon rains in July 1966 sent a wall of water down a canyon near the Seoul mission home, destroying property and morale, Palmer’s report to Elder Hinckley carried “the ring of disheartened attitude.” Hinckley replied by return mail — recounting standing waist-deep in water bailing out the London Temple the night before its dedication — and closed with the line “I only want to suggest that your experience is not peculiar to Korea. Noah had a worse time.” Palmer later described Hinckley’s manner under pressure as “a balm of Gilead,” recalling that “he expected us to take challenges on the chin” and that his practical, sometimes humorous disposition was “an ointment for all of us who sometimes felt that the challenges were just too great.”

Context: Spencer J. Palmer (1927–2000) was a scholar of religion and a longtime professor at Brigham Young University, specializing in Asian religions and Latter-day Saint church history in Asia. He served as president of the Korean (Seoul) mission of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the 1960s.

Where this appears

• Gordon B. Hinckley — Go Forward With Faith — the Seoul mission president whose flood-discouragement letter draws Hinckley’s “Noah had a worse time” reply; recurs as a witness to Hinckley’s steadiness in the Asia chapters