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As an 18-year old Freshman at BYU, I joined the Mens Chorus under Ralph Woodward and participated in a Spring tour to New Mexico and Arizona. We gave concerts in Ward houses and stayed in the homes of members. The first night out we were in Farmington, NM. After our concert I was taken home along with one other choir member to a family named Jack (I still remember the family name, probably because of an experience in their home that then seemed extraordinary). We got up in the morning to eat breakfast with them before our buses left their town. Before starting breakfast we knelt together with them for family prayer. The dad called upon a small son, perhaps 8 or 9 years old, to offer the prayer. I was amazed to hear the maturity of this boy’s prayer, representing the family as voice, giving thanks for blessings this family had received and asked for things they needed this day. I guess I had never heard a child pray in this way before. (We blessed the food but didn’t have family prayer in our home.) This experience expanded my vision of what family could do to train their children in spiritual things.
I saw eviden
ce of the res
ults of this kind of spiritual training in our family Saturday. Sweet little Lindsey was baptized along with a little boy from their ward. Also in the same program, Scott gave a name and blessing to Brandon. (They did the latter because Scott’s parents and sisters were able to attend.) All of the Melchizedek priesthood holders in our family that are here in Utah participated in this blessing, myself, Nathan, Matthew, Quin, Bruce, and Andrew, plus Grandpa Blake and two of Scott's brother-in-laws. Perhaps the most exciting to me, was for how Lindsey’s brothers participated in the baptismal program for those parts that had been assigned to her family. Justin gave a talk on the Holy Ghost, confidently promising Lindsey that the Spirit would be a great blessing in her life. Ethan led the singing for two songs, smiling and following the patterns expertly and keeping the downbeats correctly. Finally Adam, confidently, thoughtfully, and in a grown-up and dignified way, said the closing prayer. I am grateful that my grandchildren are being raised with the same spiritual vision and expertise that I first saw many years ago at the home of the Jack's in Farmington NM.
We all had lunch at Scott and Emilie's after the service and Wendy brought desert, strawberry short (angel food) cake to celebrate my birthday. The Utah County families also dropped by Sunday evening for another birthday desert. All in all, this was a fine birthday celebration, to have all of this family association and their best wishes and love.
Alyssa called us last week, inviting us to a community Easter concert last Thursday night in which her choir was participating. She has become a member of the Utah Valley Children’s Choir. This appears to be a private choral musical development group with a spiritual and LDS-orientation. (See tour picture.)
The concert itself was an Spanish Fork City-sponsored Easter event, that included performances by four choirs, the children’s choir, Spanish Fork and Payson community choirs, and the UVU Institute choir. We went not knowing what to expect, but came away excited and having been spiritually fed. Each choir did about 4 numbers and there were three numbers by a combined effort. The two city community choirs were good, but being made up largely of elderly singers had perhaps a little trouble with excess vibrato and difficulty with higher pitches. The children’s choir was impressive and the UVU institiute choir outstanding.
Listening to these two young choirs particularly, reminded me of some remarks by Bro. Woodward when I was singing with him as a BYU student. He said something to the effect that young voices can produce absolutely the best choral sound and that there is an unmatched power in sacred music when sung by people with testimonies of the Restored Gospel.
I was spiritually moved to the point of tears as I heard musical witnesses of the mission, suffering, and atonement of our Savior. I resolved in my mind to seek out this kind of experience in future Easters and make this kind of thing part of my Easter observance and tradition. I was grateful that someone responsible for Spanish Fork City special events had seen the need for a tradition of an Easter choral presentation (its has been held for several years, we heard) and to Alyssa for helping get us there.
On Thursday afternoon, while we were working at the temple a storm front blew through Utah. According to weather news, it carried not much rain but had 60 mph winds and additional microbursts that blew down trees, took of roofs, etc., all across the Wasatch Front. The weather was calm when we came out of the temple. We didn’t notice anything different until I decided to go for a walk Friday morning. As I turned the corner to walk northward along 820 East, lo and behold, half of the fence along the west side of our property had been blown down. Two fence posts were broken off and three sections of the fence were lying over toward our garden.
Scott was generous to come over yesterday afternoon and help disconnect the sections and move them out of the way, and help me devise the strategy for fixing the fence. We will try to start the repair Monday evening, by digging out the two post bottoms (they are set in concrete), replacing the posts, then reattaching the three panels.
In the little community of Glenwood, Washington, where I was raised, religion was important to a fairly small part of the people, and they represented several different denominations--Baptists, Presbyterian, a couple of Catholics. We had one Seventh Day Adventist family, the Andrews, that we quite dutiful after one of their children died. Early Saturday morning we would see them driving past our place to go to White Salmon for their church’s services and were quite conscientious about not doing any of their farm work on their Sabbath. When I was small my mother took us to the Glenwood Community Church for Sunday School and eventually my dad joined us in attending.
Sunday was also a baseball day. Every little town had their own ball team in those days. My dad usually had a team to play for until WWII started and then he had long work weeks plus he was trying to work our little dairy farm. After the war he tried to play baseball again but retired after about three years because he couldn’t compete with the younger guys any longer. After that we generally we went to Sunday School in the morning and in the afternoon watched the ballgames of the Glenwood townteam when they were playing at home.
Glenwood was primarily a farming community. During harvest season, most of the farmers had their big work days on the weekends, because that was the time when they could get extra help. Of course, my dad worked at his regular job during the week plus milked the cows morning and evening. He did the haying mostly on weekends and also helped neighbors with their big jobs (i. e., threshing grain) on the weekends. He was a big, strong man and hard worker and was in much demand in the fall, especially.
My Dad must still have had a little of his maternal ancestors’ Primative Baptist sabbath teaching in his head, who opposed working on the Sabbath (Sunday). Eventually, he concluded that when he tried to do his own farm work on Sundays, there were so many equipment breakdowns that it wasn’t worth trying. So he evolved a Sunday policy for himself. He wouldn’t do his own farm work on Sundays, but he would still help a neighboring farmer, when needed.
When I was a youth, baseball was a big thing for me and my good friend Jim Johnson. As early as about the 6th or 7th grade, we would bring our baseball mitts to school as soon as the snow started to melt, to play catch along the edge of the school building to begin to get our arms in shape for the baseball season. I played with the high school team starting about the 8th grade and also played a couple of years with the White Salmon American Legion team. In May of my senior year of high school, I also started to work out with the Glenwood townteam when they practiced on evenings. I sensed I was getting stronger physically. I still remember how the ball would jump off my bat in batting practice at that time. The men guys seemed excited to have me start playing on their team.
The week after I graduated from Glenwood High School I was baptized into the Church. I had wanted and prayed for this opportunity for over nine years. I quickly discovered that a new spiritual influence and direction had been added to my life. I immediately experienced discomfort with the idea of Sunday baseball. (That was when all the games were played.) I knew that I had new standards that I needed to live up to. So I made up my mind that I wouldn’t play baseball with the townteam. I let it be known that I had decided not to play, explaining that it was a religious commitment. The men expressed some disappointment, but I never looked back. This turned out to be a pivotal, life-directing choice.
Here are some of my thoughts after finishing the reading of the new biography of President Monson (TO THE RESCUE:THE BIOGRAPHY OF THOMAS S. MONSON, Heidi S. Swinton, Deseret Book, 2010). I gained tremendous new respect for President Monson through reading this book. People really come first with him. And he seems to make no differentiation between people, the high and the low, the rich and poor, the popular and the unknown.
In one respect, he reminds me of President Richard Lindsay. He really cares. And he has an exception memory about people that he has previously met. I used to say that President Lindsay had a memory about people that was computer-like. His mind and heart seemed to store the most recent status report he had received about each individual of his acquaintance; when he received a new report it would replace the older report. I would meet him in the hall of the Stakehouse, and he would say, “How is JoAnn?” often naming what the last thing he knew about her; then, “How is Alison?”; then on down through the family in order. He seemed to me to be genuinely interested in each individual, and would not be satisfied until he had an update in each one. A humorous thing happened as I was serving under him as Stake Executive Secretary. One night at Presidency meeting, he announced that he had not visited with the people in the stake family (persons with stake callings) for a number of months and wanted me to schedule 5 minute appointments with each one of them. Just at that moment, the telephone in the President’s office rang and he went into that room to answer it. The First Counselor, Louis Poore, (he was the one who kept this Presidency organized and on-track) turned to me and said, “Try to get him to allow more time to these interviews. He will get hopelessly behind if you only schedule 5 minutes interviews. Why, in 5 minutes he will not even have gotten down to asking how the dog is.”
President Monson seems to have this kind of memory and concern for people and yet combines this with strong leadership and organizational skills. But he seems to be leading the Church both by example and by his teaching and preaching to give a greater emphasis to ministering as opposed to administering. But even in our work with people in and out of the Church, there seems to me to be somewhat different emphasis. For example, we have heard Elder Packer advocate for study of the gospel as the means to change behavior in people. “I have long believed that the study of the doctrines of the gospel will improve behavior quicker than talking about behavior will improve behavior.” (“Washed Clean” Conference address April 1997). President Monson’s emphasis regarding the means to invoke changes in others seems to focus more upon love, service, and gentle invitation.
His background and experience may have helped him focus on the little person and their simple needs, and help me to give him greater respect. Some details–President Monson was raised on the west side of Salt Lake City that is now freeway and industrial buildings, in the vicinity of 5th South and 5th or 6th West. In those days, there were lots of train whistles, transients, and little old homes with widows and foreign-born persons. His own family may have been a cut above some of his neighbors (his father had a steady job) but they had no history of Church leaders (i.e., Bishops, Stake Presidents, general authorities, etc). His parents were married in the temple, but his father didn’t go back for a second time until elderly. His extended family had a little cabin at Vivian Park and the family appeared to spend summers there, Sundays included. There was an incident where a shotgun fired accidentally that narrowly missed his brother Robert, while the two of them we duck hunting in the Great Salt Lake marshes on a Sunday morning, that caused him some reflection. This happened a few weeks prior to his call as a Bishop’s Counselor and seemed to help point both him and his brother toward a greater commitment to obedience.
PARTAKING OF THE REDEMPTION OF CHRIST AND QUALIFYING FOR ETERNAL LIFE A number of the speakers addressed various aspects of the process by which a person might have the blessings of the atonement in their lives and progress toward eternal life. Elder Dallin H. Oaks detailed a series of steps. The process starts with our Desires, around which we develop Priorities and make Choices. Our Actions follow, which ultimately determine what we become, including our eternal destiny, the most valued outcome, eternal life, which is made possible by the atonement and through the inspiration of the Spirit. At a most basic level, we must manage, discipline and prioritize our desires, so that they lead us toward righteous actions and eternal life. Highlights of other talks addressing this general topic included that of Elder D. Todd Christofferson, that we should be willing to accept and even seek correction from the Lord and his servants so that we might take a course in life that will sanctify us and prepare us to live again with our Heavenly Father. Elder Lynn G. Robbins considered how “to-do” and “to-be” together lead to us become like our Savior, affecting ultimately our very nature, character, and identity. Elder C. Scott Grow emphasized how Christ invites each of us to repent and through the miracle of his atonement can heal and redeem each of us. Elder Walter F Gonzales stated that two key characteristics that define followers of Christ are their love for others and their willingness to make and keep covenants. Speaking about keeping specific commandments were: Elder L. Tom Perry–Sabbath observance; Elder Carl B. Pratt–Tithing; Elder Neil Anderson--Missionary service; President Thomas S. Monson--Temple
DEALING WITH ADVERSITY/FORGIVING A related topic had to do experiencing and triumphing over trials, adversity, suffering, and the turmoil in the world. These things need to be dealt with in faith and have potential to teach us lessons and draw us closer to God (Elders Kent F. Richards, Russell M. Nelson). No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience, is wasted, if we bear it patiently, but builds our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls (Elder Paul V. Johnson). We also must exercise a lot of forgiveness (to those who may have hurt us--Elder Boyd K. Packer).
GROWING IN PRIESTHOOD POWER Another related theme was express in the Priesthood meeting. President Henry B. Eyring related how quorum unity, love, and shared conviction of the overarching priesthood purpose help speed an individual’s growth in the priesthood. President Dieter F. Uchtdorf challenged priesthood holders to live equal to their privileges, by studying the doctrines of the priesthood (scriptures), seeking the revelations of the Spirit, and finding joy in priesthood service--“the wonder and awe of what the Lord has entrusted to us.”
RECOGNIZING THE SPIRIT/RECEIVING REVELATION AND TESTIMONY Elder David A, Bedner reviewed two patterns of revelation, as analogous to 1) turning on a light– darkness disappears immediately, and 2) dawn–gradual discernment of light. The latter is most common, in which the Spirit whispers revelation gently and delicately. Care must be taken to not impair our ability to discern these subtle messages– avoid inappropriate media, pornography, addictive substances and behaviors. We also must more forward step by step, acting in faith, hope and charity to receive more revelation (President Deiter F. Uchtdorf–Sunday am session). A testimony is like a living organism and must be nourished and protected to thrive (Elder Cecil O. Samuelson).
CARING FOR THE POOR/CHARITY AND SERVICE Adding impetus to the expectation that we minister to the needy, the sick, and the suffering were speakers Elder H. David Burton, Silvia H. Allred, President Henry B. Eyring (Saturday am), Elder M. Russell Ballard and President Thomas S. Monson. Members were invited to participate in a coming Worldwide Day of Service, to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Church’s welfare program.
SUCCESSFUL MARRIAGES, PARENTING/CONTRIBUTIONS OF WOMEN Elder Richard G. Scott gave a very moving personal account of his own marriage and family and used that to testify of the “supernal joys” of family life. He urged young men to give highest priority to finding an eternal companion after their missions (as did several other speakers) and for married couples to be faithful mentally and physically and be kind and supportive of each other. President Thomas S. Monson told of restoring a couple to a loving relationship through inspiration to take them back to the temple to witness a marriage. Elder Richard J. Maynes gave instructions on ways families can establish celestial traditions in their homes. Elder Quentin L. Cook spoke of the “incredible’ women of the Church who work in equal partnership with their husbands to meet the needs of their family. He specified two principles for women in the Church: 1) no women should feel the need to apologize because she is devoting full-time to raising her children, and 2) we should not be judgmental if the decision is made for a women to work outside the home.
I was intrigued and pleased by President Monson’s conference announcement that a temple will be built in Winnipeg, Manitoba. As a young missionary, I served 16 months in that part of Canada. I was in Selkirk for 2 months, Dauphin for 8, and Winnipeg for 6. As best I can recall, when I was there in 1958-9, Selkirk had a tiny Sunday School, Dauphin had one member family (we added another while there), and Winnipeg (the capitol–a city about the size of Salt Lake) had one branch of 200 or 300 members and with the only chapel in the whole province.
Currently there is a stake headquartered in Winnipeg with 6 wards and 7 branches. Metro Winnipeg has four buildings. It appears that Dauphin now has a branch and a building of its own as do most of the other branches.
According to Google Maps, Regina, Saskatchewan, now has the closest temple to Winnipeg, 571 miles and 7 hours away. The temple in Minneapolis/St. Paul is about 8 hours driving time as is the temple in Bismark ND.
I could not determine that this temple would serve other that members of this one stake. Regina is the nearest population center to the west and has its temple. Thunder Bay, Ontario, the nearest large city to the east, has one ward and belongs to the Minnesota Duluth Stake. It is 700 miles and a 9 hour drive from Thunder Bay to Winnepeg and only a 350 mile 6 hour drive from Thunder Bay to the temple in St. Paul, MN.
If the Church can build a temple for one stake (perhaps 3,000 members at most) in Manitoba, it seems to me that Bentonville AR must be near the top of the list for other places to put temples.
(Picture: Regina Saskatchewan temple)
ce of the res
ults of this kind of spiritual training in our family Saturday. Sweet little Lindsey was baptized along with a little boy from their ward. Also in the same program, Scott gave a name and blessing to Brandon. (They did the latter because Scott’s parents and sisters were able to attend.) All of the Melchizedek priesthood holders in our family that are here in Utah participated in this blessing, myself, Nathan, Matthew, Quin, Bruce, and Andrew, plus Grandpa Blake and two of Scott's brother-in-laws. Perhaps the most exciting to me, was for how Lindsey’s brothers participated in the baptismal program for those parts that had been assigned to her family. Justin gave a talk on the Holy Ghost, confidently promising Lindsey that the Spirit would be a great blessing in her life. Ethan led the singing for two songs, smiling and following the patterns expertly and keeping the downbeats correctly. Finally Adam, confidently, thoughtfully, and in a grown-up and dignified way, said the closing prayer. I am grateful that my grandchildren are being raised with the same spiritual vision and expertise that I first saw many years ago at the home of the Jack's in Farmington NM.
