Despite the prosperity of the United States as a whole in the 1920's, times were hard for many of the people of the Moapa Stake. The lack of a flood-control channel through the Moapa Valley brought about several of those hardships. They often prayed for rain only to have such prayers answered by huge floods rushing through the washes from either side of the surrounding mesas, or from floods gushing down from the Meadow Valley and the California Washes into Moapa Valley itself, eventually forming a shallow lake that extended from the bottom of foothill to foothill. Then after a few days the natural flow of the Muddy River would help dissipate the floodwater into the Colorado. What water remained had to either sink into the ground or evaporate from the sun. Meanwhile the valley floor looked a mess. Debris lay strewn along fence lines, along the sides of houses, and in the roads – boards and batches of hay and tubs and clothes mired in the muck; dead chickens, like little mounds of graves, dotted backyards; harnesses and bridles from collapsed tack shes tangled in the brush; wire poked from underneath piles of flotsam; everything was crusted with a chocolate film from flood silt left drying in the hot summer sun.

After one such flood in the month of August, Elder Charles H. Hart of the First Quorum of Seventy visited a Moapa Stake Conference held in St. Thomas. He berated the Saints for the appearance of their communities. He had failed to realize there had been a flood a week or so before the conference, and the valley was in its usual disarray after such an event. The people were already discouraged with their losses. And the thoughts of all the needed repairs and the notion of having to start over again depressed them. Now to add insult to injury, here was Elder Hart saying how disappointed he was with them, that the disheveled conditions of their homes and roads and farms demonstrated they were without ambition, indeed that they were just plain lazy. He talked in this manner for some time, extending the meeting beyond its normal let-out-time. As the people sat there listening, the looks on their faces revealed they were hurt with his unfair judgement and felt an emotion that went beyond discouragement, perhaps bitterness.

When he finally finished, President Jones arose to make his final remarks and close the meeting. He did not try to explain to Elder Hart, nor did he try to apologize for the people's lack of industry. Instead, he rebuked the General Authority in the strongest language that anyone had ever heard President Jones use. He told him how proud he was of his people. They had struggled against great odds in a hostile environment in an effort to conquer this harsh land. They often were faced with insurmountable discouragements, but they pressed on in their faithful service to the Lord. He bore his testimony of the goodness of the people, and when he was finished, there was not a dry eye in the audience (Nash 97).

The meeting was adjourned, and not much was said among the people on the stand. But as President Jones and his wife were riding home in the twilight, she turned to him and remarked, "Willard, you have presided at Stake Conference for the last time!" President Jones responed, "I don't give a damn if I have. I said what needed to be said. I had to uphold my people" (Nash 102). President Jones truly felt that he might be released after that, but he never heard another word about it from Salt Lake. The people, however, remembered for a long time the strength shown by their Stake President.