Mark was in Quito, Ecuador, at the home of President and Sister Gene Gook when he received a phone call from President Kimball asking for his approval in extending the priesthood to all worthy male members. Francis M. Gibbons, secretary to the First Presidency, read to Mark the statement that was to be published concerning the revelation.

Mark recalled, "I was delighted to know that a new revelation had come from the Lord. I felt the fact of the revelation's comming was more striking than the decision itself. On the telephone I told President Kimball that I fully sustained bot the revelation and him one hundred percent." Mark's first reaction was to think of the joy in the black family whom he had befriended in Cincinnati [Len and Mary Hope]. Never dereaming that he would ever hold the priesthood until the hereafter, Brother Hope still lived the life of a true Latter-day Saint.