I was seated on the stand of the Tabernacle by assignment representing the General Counsel of the Church. It was the Saturday Evening session of General Conference in 1980. The director of the Public Affairs department handed me a copy of President Kimball's talk. President Kimball cut his talk short. Here are a few paragraphs that he did not read.

On June 8 [Note: the date was actually June 1], 1978, the Lord revealed to me and to my counselors and to the Council of the Twelve--by the power of the Holy Ghost--that it was His mind and will and purpose for the full blessings of the gospel to go to those of every nation and race and color.

It was then that the voice of God, given by the power of His Spirit, ‘the still small voice, which whispereth through and pierceth all things’ (D&C 85:6) made manifest that the Holy Priesthood, all of the blessings of the temple, including celestial marriage, together with all the obligations that appertain thereto, should now be offered, on the sole basis of personal worthiness, to all men of every race and color.

On that sacred occasion, akin to certain Pentecostal days of old, each of the apostolic witnesses then present came to know the mind and will of the Lord relative to the salvation and exaltation of myriads of His mortal children.

What then happened is one of the signs of the times which had to occur before the second coming of the Son of Man. So that the gospel could be taken—in its everlasting fullness—to those of every nation and kindred and tongue and people.