David O. McKay on Eternal Progression
David O. McKay
[President McKay] said, “Brother [Ted] Jacobsen, the United States is trying to put a man on the moon. How would you like to be the first one to fly to the moon?” I [Jacobsen] had never thought about that question. I said, just quickly, “President McKay, I think maybe I’d rather be the second man to fly to the moon, so the first one would have some experience.” He spoke right up and he said, “You know, I’d love to be the first man to fly to the moon. How do you suppose we are going to travel from one planet to another in the hereafter unless we learn how to do some of it on this earth?” Then he quoted the old song in the hymnbook called “If You Could Hie to Kolob.” He quoted every word from memory, all verses of that song to me. And he said, “Now this is just not a figment of imagination. There’s a lot of truth in what this man has put in this song.” … He [McKay] was a kind of forward-looking man, and he was not one who didn’t think that it was possible for us to go to the moon. He wanted to be there also.”
