1991 letter to Michael Bird

I found a copy of this letter I wrote to Michael Bird who was a missionary contact of Matthew's, and who wrote and later visited us. I don't think he ever joined the Church:

Salt Lake City, Utah, September 26, 1991

Dear Brother Bird:

I really appreciate receiving your kind letter about our son Matthew, shortly after his return home. The kind things you said touched me a great deal. Matthew has spoken highly of you and I believe you have also had an influence for good on him. One thing I appreciate is that he has come home with an appreciation for serious music that he didn't have before, and I think you helped reinforce that interest. I learned to love the music of the masters to some extent from my mother as a small child but to a greater extent as a college student. One little frustration I have had in life is that not many of my children have come to share with me the love of this type of music. It was such a pleasant surprise, when my boys and I started on short camping trip this August, that Matthew had brought along tapes of Mozart and other classical composers to play as we traveled. Before his mission, the music would have been the Beach Boys or some popular group.

Matthew has been away from home now for nearly a month attending Brigham Young University, at Provo, which is about 50 miles south of here. He seems happy and is enjoying his classes and the whole college experience. He struggled just a bit just after he got home because it took about six weeks for him to find a job after he got home. I think it was a hard adjustment for him to have come from a situation where he had such a busy, demanding, and structured life, and then to go to a situation where he had nothing to do. Also his friends were still on missions. Things got better as summer progressed, though, as a man who lives in our LDS ward here offered him some work and as Shawn Bell and others returned from their missions.

I sure love him and have great hopes for him. I think he is quite a bit farther along in his development, spiritually, mentally, etc., than I was when I was his age.

I note the things you describe of your background, as an Anglican, and your conversations with the chaplain on the subject of Mormonism. I can relate to this somewhat having come partially myself out of a Protestant background and being baptized into the LDS church at age 17. To me, the teachings of the Book of Mormon, especially those about the Savior, seem to be a perfectly complimentary extension of the teachings of the Bible. To me, the same Spirit of Truth that whispered that God lives and Jesus was actually my Savior, when taught by my Presbyterian and Baptist Sunday School teachers, also confirms the truth of 3 Nephi and the visit of the Father and the Son to Joseph Smith. I rejoice in the additional insights and understandings available through the Book of Mormon and our modern-day prophets.

One insight I shared with several of my family members recently was about the crucial role of the Book of Mormon in helping people to grow in their faith in God and Christ. (Note in the frontpiece of the Book of Mormon where it says it own purpose to be "... to the convincing of the Jew and gentile that Jesus is the Christ..") My observation is that most people really struggle with faith. I recall as an LDS missionary in Manitoba, Canada, meeting a man who was an elder in his congregation in the United Church of Canada, who in spite of his leadership role in the church, admitted he neither knew of the reality of Christ or really even believed. I think the Bible alone is subject to all sorts of interpretations. It seems often to be understood, even by outwardly good Christians, simply as moral wisdom from another age, with anything miraculous or spiritual dismissed a myth. The beauty of the Book of Mormon is that it is a second witness of Christ, along with the Bible, which cannot be accepted by thinking persons except on its own terms. To be accepted at all, it has to be accepted totally. And being accepted, it confirms all sorts of spiritual things: Joseph Smith is a prophet of God, in the full Biblical sense. God truly does live, because he appeared personally to Joseph Smith to call him as a prophet, and so does Jesus Christ. Christ is our Savior, who both redeems us from physical death through the power of his own resurrection, and cleanses us from the effects of our personal sins as we accept his Gospel and come to live his teachings. The Priesthood, the authority of God to administer the ordinances of salvation, have been restored, as have the gifts of the Spirit, where also were prominent in the New Testament church. And so forth. It seems to me, that for the Book of Mormon to fulfill its God-intended mission, it has to be both a test of faith and a confirmer of faith. I think the Lord designed it so that it could only be believed spiritually, by faith, as opposed to intellectually or secularly. If it were meant to be popular and accepted easily, it would not have such things in the first few chapters as visions, appearances of angels, the killing of Laban justified, chapter after chapter of Old Testament Isaiah quoted nearly verbatim, etc. And to top it all off, the whole book was recorded on plates of gold which an angel retrieved, with no trace remaining. Oh, there are some physical, historical, and archeological evidences, but a person is not apt to come across and appreciate them early in their investigation of the Book of Mormon.

The beauty of this arrangement, or so it seems to me, is that once a person has paid the price to gain a spiritual witness of the truth of the Book of Mormon, e.g., looked beyond the initial shock of what the book contains, read it and pondered its implications, begun as Alma says (chapter 32) to find the doctrines therein enlarging ones soul, prayed, and received the confirming witness of the Spirit, it becomes a great foundation of faith for that individual. In these difficult times, surrounded by skeptics and unbelievers, doubts disappear and faith triumphs. For me, I could then accept baptism and go forward in the Gospel and Church.

The Book of Mormon sustains me today. If I ever am discouraged, I can read in it and my faith is renewed and my spirits elevated. It has anchored my relationship with God and my functioning in life, through happy times and especially through the times of trial and challenge. I hope, as you have continued your quest, you are beginning to feel the same strength from the Book of Mormon.

Again let me thank you for writing and sharing with us your experiences with Matthew and your introduction to the Church.

Spanish Fork's Ensign Peak

On Friday night, at a ward campout, at a group camping area just beyond the little reservoir up above the house where David and Rebecca used to live, Wendy and I were asked to make a short spiritual presentation before people bedded down. (Pictured: an evening view of the valley from near the same camping area, taken Saturday, with Wendy, Olivia, and Jack in the foreground; also, the kids feeding three resident ducks.)

Here is what we said:

[Bob] This setting reminds us of Ensign Peak, the little knob that rises just north of downtown SLC My office was on North Temple I used to run to the top of Ensign Peak and back at lunch (3 miles each way).

[Wendy] Like here, on Ensign Peak there is a better view of the heavens and the stars that God placed there. You also have a wonderful view of the valley, and the lights of the towns below.

[Bob] Two important things that happened on Ensign Peak: 1) On July 26, 1847, Brigham Young and others hiked to the top and dedicated this area as a gathering place for the saints -- a symbol of Isaiah’s prophecy that the Lord would lift up an ensign to the Nations, that his kingdom and temple would be established in the tops of the mountains and all nations would flow unto it, to be taught HIS WAYS.

Wendy] 2) Since there was a no temple in Utah in 1847, Ensign Peak was also set apart temporarily as a place for temple ordinances. For example, Addison Pratt returning from a mission to the South Pacific, received his endowments on Ensign Peak.

[Bob] It has been said that Brigham Young saw Ensign Peak in vision before the Saints left for the west with a flag waving from its top. In vision he also looked out from the peak and saw in the future, these valleys completely filled with homes of the Saints.

Wendy] Mountains and temples are related-- Temples are said to be a connecting place between heaven and earth. Mountains also can get us up above the world and closer to God. We can see the heavens better and we have a better view of what this world is all about. Isaiah called the temple the Mountain of the Lord’s House. As with Ensign Peak, sometimes mountains are a substitute for temples and have been used to administer temple ordinances.

[Bob] Perhaps this Spanish Fork setting tonight can become our Ensign Peak, in which we increase our faith in God, where we rededicate our lives to helping spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to have greater reverence and love for the sacred ordinances of the temple.

Update on Grandma Wendy

Wendy has had a really full schedule. To go along with her ward calling a Relief Society Counselor, she has a new assignment in the temple. She has just been installed as the women’s Assistant Shift Coordinator for the Thursday second shift in the Provo temple. She and the new Coordinator, Ruth Bacalla, have been working with the outgoing coordinators for about a month, to learn and take over these duties. There are about 70 ladies on this shift which covers from 11 am to 4 pm. Among other things, Wendy is in charge of assignments which means she produces various print-outs to tell the ladies which posts or assignments they are to be at what time of day. These sheets are currently maintained in an Excel spreadsheet and require quite a lot of update to keep them current and consistent. Last Wednesday night, Wendy stayed up until 3 am working with these charts to try to get them accurate and then was still so involved with the data that she couldn’t go to sleep. But she must have functioned OK and seemed to have a successful first day.

I had lots of temple workers, both women and men, approach me and tell me how pleased they were that Wendy received that assignment, what a good job she will do, and how much they like her.

This calling necessitated that we drop our Thursday first shift, if we are to still travel together. Wendy needs to be at meetings starting at 9 am to help prepare for shift 2. I have arranged to also start at 9 am and just help with the veil until it is time for the 2nd shift preparation meeting at 10:30 am.

The pictures are of Wendy working on apricot nector. We picked the fruit from Matthew and Kim’s tree (a nice crop) as they were in MO and also got quite a lot from our tree. Wendy bottled the fruit (21 quarts)and did nectar (14 quarts) and jam (21 quarts), giving some back to Kim and some jam to Emilie.

The pictures are of Wendy working on apricot nectar this afternoon. Notice that she is soaking her right big toe at the same time she is making nectar. Also she is wearing a heart monitor with an accompanying cell phone that sends in data constantly to someplace. In addition to all of the Relief Society, Temple and family stuff, she had two doctor’s appointments Wednesday. She needed a podiatrist to work on an ingrown toenail, plus she got set up with a Holter test of her heart for two weeks. She occasionally has some different rhythms, and is getting some help to try to understand what is going on.

Forgiving your parents and losing your entitlements

Through long observation and reflection, I have come to believe that harmonious and peaceful extended family relationships are best achieved when we as adult children forgive our parents and lose our sense of entitlement in our relationship with our parents. It seems to me that this is a mark of having achieved psychological and emotional adulthood. We need to forgive our parents for their imperfections.

It is typical for younger children to see perfection in their parents. As we approach or enter adolescence, we begin to recognize that they have some imperfections. Sometimes this is quite disillusioning. In some cases, children then dismiss parents as irrelevant. In a sense this kind of thinking is a continuation of childish “black and white” thinking patterns. A sign of the achievement of psychological adulthood is when a young (or old) person comes to a realization and conviction that his or her parents did the best they could in their raising of that person and it was good enough.

A few years ago Eric Berne published a book of popular psychology entitled “Games People Play" that included a simple but useful way of thinking about happy and effective relations of grown children to their parents. He proposed three personas existing within each of our personalities–our inner child, our inner parent and our inner adult--any one of which can be active. This suggests three harmonious sets of two-person relationships, parent-to-child, child-to-parent, and adult-to-adult. While it is not inappropriate for us to let our inner child have expression at times, and some situations naturally require us to assume a parental role, adult relations are generally most satisfying when the “inner adults” for both parties are active and dominant in the interaction. This is the adult-to-adult relationship. Generally this latter type of relationship implies that the parties are equals, that there is open communication and mutual respect, that decision are consensual, each is able to take an adult’s responsibility, etc. Child and parent relationships have one party more dependent, the other superior or having authority, responsibility, or resources the other needs or wants. There may exist agendas in the latter party that are not or cannot be fully shared. Strategies for each one influencing the other party may be less open.

The child-parent kinds of relationships are appropriate when circumstances dictate, e.g., when children are children and when adults are their parents, or perhaps when an adult becomes sick or incapacitated. Adult functioning requires us to allow another to function as an adult as much as possible but also to step into a parental role when necessitated by another’s situation.

Sometimes we see dysfuntional child and parent relationships. There are parents who will not let their adult child grow up. Worse, there are grown children who still want to be a child when relating to a natural parent. As a part of growing up, we ought to aspire to an adult-to-adult relationship with our parents and hope it will last many years before, perhaps, we need to become the parent. We should rejoice when we achieve an adult friendship with our parents and take this as a badge of our adulthood.

Considering further the situation of a chronological adult continuing to play a child role in relation to their parent, some people carry into their adult years a harmful sense of continuing to be entitled to particular favors, treatment, attention, privileges, resources, etc., from their parents. In relationships, an entitlement can be defined as a sort of emotional (or other kind of) debt that one feels is owed to them by another person by some sort of natural right. Often such entitlements are assumed, and not spoken, and may not even be fully or consciously understood. People would generally agree that parents owe certain things to their children, such as love, protection, opportunities to grow, temporal provision, etc. However, maintaining these kinds of (typically unspoken) expectations in an adult relationship setting can be a cause of much grief. For example, in dysfunctional marriages there sometimes is an expectation by one partner that “If he/she loved me he/she would know that I need [a particular response or action]. I shouldn’t have to tell him/her.” Or, a grown child may feel entitled, from their parents, to a certain kind of gift, particular actions toward their children, specific financial benefits or inheritances, etc. Hard feelings, anger, alienation, etc., often result when such expectations go unmet. It is better in adult relationships to focus on what you can do for the other person and to not have large expectations about what one can or should receive. Then a person can be genuinely appreciative when a gift is received. It would be well for me to conclude, when arriving at adulthood, that my parents have given me what I needed to reach this point in life and I do not really need them to give me more.

Therefore, to help loving and satisfying relations to exist in families across generations, grown up children need to find forgiveness in their hearts for any imperfections that their parents may have possessed. It is inappropriate and self-defeating to hold others to a higher standard than you hold yourself. Also, grown children should drop their entitlements, their unspoken, uncommunicated sense that their parents still owe them something. Such feelings are destructive to family relationships. As a better alternative, as grown children we should work toward and relish a mutually satisfying adult-to-adult relationship with our parents to the extent and for the longest duration possible.