This story about Gertrud Specht needs to be read by all who love the gospel and the truths of our Standard Works. Some of the Lord’s most elect and intelligent beings on earth know the truth when they hear it. Hear the story of a lady who seemingly had all the knowledge of the world, but found the divine direction of Christ on this earth.
Gertrud Specht
by Jonathan Green • May 6, 2008
“Gertrud Specht had been a searcher her whole life before she found what she was looking for. Born in 1896 in Augsburg, she went on to Gymnasium and then to the university in Munich in 1915-17 at a time when women at the university were rare but not unprecedented, at a time also when a generation of university students was being lost to senseless slaughter throughout Europe. She studied for four more semesters in Tübingen, where she completed a dissertation on the German cotton industry.[1] Today, we would call her an economist.” Source and more here
The following was sent to me by great friends, Mike and Betty LaFontaine
“This was read to us by Graham Doxey, President of the Manti temple. He added this note, I wonder what her feelings will be when she is served the dessert of the feast; the temple experience?”
C.1.6.2 Scott Anderson’s Journal Entry
Do We Really Know What We Have?
As written by Scott Anderson in his journal.
“We had an unexpected moment in the mission field. We knocked on a door and a lady said something to us we had never heard, “Come in”. Now remember, I was a German missionary. This never happened to us, not even the members would say that to us. At this point suddenly this dear lady invited us in. My companion said, “Do you know who we are?” “You want to talk religion, don’t you?” she said. “Yes we do” explained my companion.
“Oh, come in. I’ve watching you walk around the neighbourhood. I’m so excited to have you here. Please come into my study.” We went in and seated ourselves and she sat down behind the desk.
She looked at us with a smile, then pointed to three PhD’s hanging over her head. one in theology, the study of religion, one in Philosophy, the study of ideas, and one in European History specializing in Christianity. She then kind of rubbed her hands together and said, “Do you see this row of books here?” We looked at a well arranged row of books. She then said, “I wrote them all. I’m the Theology professor at the University of Munich. I’ve been doing this for 41 years. I love to talk about religion. What would you like to discuss?” My inspired companion said, ” we’d like to talk about the Book of Mormon.” She said,
“I don’t know anything about the Book of Mormon.” He said, “I know”. Twenty minutes later we walked out of the room. We had handed her a Book of Mormon and this trade off that we had been on was over. I didn’t see this lady for another 8 1/2 weeks.
It was a small room filled with people, {when I saw her again}, as she was standing in the front dressed in white. This Theology professor at the University of Munich was well known throughout Southern Germany. She stood up in front of this small congregation of people and said, “Before I’m baptized I’d like to tell you of my feelings. In Amos 8:11 it says, there will be a famine in the work of God. I’ve been in that famine for 76 years. Why do you think I have three PhD’s? I’ve been hungering for the truth and have been unable to find it. Then 8 1/2 weeks ago, two boys walked into my home. I want you to know these boys are very nice and wonderful young men, but they didn’t convert me. They couldn’t; they don’t know enough.” And then she smiled and said, “but since the day they walked in my door I have read the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, the Pearl of Great Price, all of Talmage’s great writings, Evidence and Reconciliations by John A. Widtsoe and 22 other volumes of Church Doctrine.” She then said something which I think is a challenge for everyone of us here. She said, ‘I don’t think you members know what you have.”
Then in her quiet, powerful way, she said, “After those years of studying philosophy, I picked up the D & C and read a few little verses that answered some of the greatest questions of Aristotle and Socrates! When I read those verses, I wept for 4 hours.” Then she said again, “I don’t think you members know what you have. Don’t you understand the world is in a famine? Don’t you know we are starving for what you have? I am like a starving person being led to a feast. And over these 8 1/2 weeks I have been able to feast in a way I have never known possible.”
Her powerful message and her challenging question was then ended with her favorite scripture, “For you don’t see the truth can make you free.”
She said, “these missionaries don’t just carry membership in the church in their hands, they carry within their hands the power to make the atonement of Jesus Christ full force in my life. Today I’m going into the water and I’m going to make a covenant with Christ for the first time with proper authority. I’ve wanted to do this all my life.” None of us will forget the day she was baptized. When she got finished being baptized, she got back out and before she received the Holy Ghost , she stood and said, “Now I would like to talk about the Holy Ghost for awhile.” She then gave a wonderful talk about the gift of the Holy Ghost.
{Later in Elder Anderson’s journal}
Two young missionaries, both relatively new, {one had been out about 5 months, the other 3 weeks}, accidentally knocked of the door of the seminary in Regensburg. 125 wonderful men were studying to become priests inside. They didn’t realize this was the door they had knocked on because it looked like any other door. They were invited in. In somewhat of a panic, the man said, “I am sorry we just don’t have time right now.” The 2 missionaries were relieved, but then he said, “Would you come back next Tuesday and spend 2 hours addressing all 125 of us and answer questions about your church?” They agreed that they would, and ran down the road screaming. They made a phone call to their mission president and cried for help. The mission president called us and said, “Do you think that dear lady that you have just brought into the church would like to come help these 2 missionaries with this assignment?” I called her to explain what was to happen, and she said, “more than I would like to eat, more than I would like to sleep, more than…” I said, “Fine, you don’t have to explain.”
We drove her to the seminary, and as we went in, she grabbed the 2 missionaries that had originally been invited, put her arms around them and said, “you are wonderful young men. Would each of you spend about 2 minutes bearing your testimony and then sit down and be quiet please?”
They were grateful for their assignment. they bore their testimony and then seated themselves. Then she got up and said, “For the next 30 minutes I would like to talk to you about historical apostasy.” She knew every date and fact. She had a PhD in this. She talked abut everything that had been taken away from the great teachings the Saviour had given, mostly organizational, in the first part of her talk. the next 45 minutes were doctrinal.
She gave every point of doctrinal changes, when it happened and what had changed. By the time she was done, she looked at them and said, “In 1820 a boy walked into a grove of trees. He had been in a famine just like I have been. He knelt to pray, because he was hungry just like I have been. He saw God the Father and His Son. I know this is hard for you to believe that they could be two separate beings, but I know they are.” she shared scriptures that showed that they were and then said, “I would like to talk about historical restoration of truth.” she then, point by point, date by date, from the Doctrine and Covenants, put back the organizational structure of Christ’s church. The last 20 minutes of her talk were absolutely brilliant. For the first time we realized that she had been their Theology professor. She continued by saying, “Last year when I was teaching you, I told you that I was still in a famine.
I have been led to a feast. I invite you to come.” she finished with her testimony and sat down. What happened next was hard for me to understand. These 125 sincere, wonderful men stood and for the next 7 minutes, gave her a standing ovation. By the time 4 minutes had gone by I was crying. I remember standing and looking into their eyes and seeing the tears in their eyes too. I wondered why they were applauding after the message she had given. I asked many of them later. They said, “to hear someone so unashamed of the truth, to hear someone teaching with such power, to hear someone who finally has conviction.”
The truth is what can set us free…Do we really know what we have?
C.1.6.3 My Additions and Response
As indicated in the introduction to this account, the sister referred to really existed (she passed away in the mid-1980s) and was as remarkable, in my experience, as this account indicates. I know this because I not only knew Sister Gertrud Specht (or “Frau Doktor Doktor Specht” as she was known in German), but I was her home teacher and later worked with her in the mission office of the Germany Munich Mission. I also kept in touch with her until illness curtailed her activities in the early 1980s.
I first met Sister Specht, who was retired from the University of Munich by this time, but still living in the Bärerstraße in München-Schwabing, the university district, in the autumn of 1973. In our mission, missionaries were called to be home teachers as well, to supplement the local members’ efforts. We had three assignments: a single mother with a young girl, a middle-aged widow who had served a mission in pre-War Czechoslovakia (and served us huge servings of BöhmischKnödeln which we could never finish!); and this kindly old lady who lived in an apartment where absolutely every square metre of space was occupied by bookshelves or piles of books, or binders of correspondence.
From November 1973 until I was called to a new assignment in July 1974, I, along with my various companions, served as her home teacher and met with her at least once a month. Her apartment was within walking distance of our own apartment in the Habsburgerstraße and we’d often end up spending an entire afternoon with her while she regaled us with mini-lectures on ancient history, archaeology and languages. As far as I can recall she was fluent in English, French, Arabic, Hebrew, Latin and Greek and said she was “struggling with” learning Turkish. All this from a woman in her late 70s.
My new assignment, in July 1974, was as secretary to the mission president, Professor Doktor Hans-Wilhelm Kelling (originally from Bremen, now a renowned Goethe expert at Brigham Young University). About the same time, Sister Specht had been called as Mission Public Affairs Director, where she dealt with the media and VIPs. I had plenty of time to work with her there and got to know her better. She loved to talk to the missionaries and occasionally told the story of her conversion, which as I recall is accurately reflected by the Internet account of Elder Anderson’s journal. She met any visiting VIPs, including Elders (now Presidents) Gordon B. Hinckley and Thomas S. Monson who were then apostles who would stop off in Munich on their way to Eastern European countries, which were then behind the Iron Curtain. We had no idea how the Gospel would be spread there, but even back then, a quarter of a century ago, the apostles knew that the Wall would eventually fall, and they were preparing for that day.
Little did I know that 26 years later I would be thrilled as my own son was called to serve.”
