In Oregon we lived on an eighty-acre farm that had cows, pastures, hay fields, corn fields, rows of sugar beets, watermelon and cantaloupe patches, and such. I don't know how much profit, if any, Dad ever made from the farm, since his main job was working for the railroad. We were always pretty poor. Looking back on it, I think he was really raising his eight sons more than he was raising crops.
When I was small we had a couple of draft horses that were used to pull the farm equipment. Later, probably about the time I was starting school, we bought a tractor—an orange, three-wheeled Minneapolis Moline. I was still little enough not to be of much help with a lot of things—like lifting bales of hay onto a wagon—so I got to drive the tractor sometimes.
There was always plenty of work to do on a farm. We had dairy cows, and you can never take a vacation from milking them every morning and every night.
Once we went to a family reunion at Lava Hot Springs in southeastern Idaho, clear across the state from where we lived. Jerry stayed home to milk the cows. Unlike my brothers who milked regularly and knew the cows by their names, Jerry wasn't used to the job and couldn't keep them straight or remember which ones had been milked and which ones hadn't. When we came home, we found he had tied a different color of cloth on each cow's tail and kept track of the cows by their colors.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Our farmhouse in Oregon
My parents and their six sons moved from northern Utah to eastern Oregon in June of 1947, two years before I was born. They found an eighty-acre farm in the Big Bend area about six miles from Adrian.
The house and yard and barn were on the southeast corner of our farm. The small frame house we lived in was not at all modern. It had electricity but precious little plumbing. (I've written elsewhere about our lack of indoor plumbing and about our party-line telephone service.)
The house had only four rooms—a kitchen, two bedrooms, and an all-purpose living-dining-sleeping room—plus an enclosed front porch that was used as an extra bedroom and a small back porch off the kitchen that served as a utility room and storage room. Joining the two bedrooms to the front room was a teeny little hall, where I used to hide during thunderstorms to be as far away as possible from any windows or doors.
We had a round dining table. I have no idea if it was big enough for everyone to sit around at the same time. By the time I came along and grew old enough to start remembering things, I have memories of sitting on top of a large metal can painted yellow with a blue lid. The can, as I remember, was used for storing clothing and yardage. It was apparently tall enough for me to be able to reach the table.
In addition to the dining table, with its associated chairs and metal can, the all-purpose living room also contained a small oil stove that as far as I know provided the only heat in the house during colder months. I remember cuddling around the stove to dress on cold winter mornings.
The room also had a couch for sitting by day and that folded out as a bed for sleeping by night. I think when I was younger I slept on that hide-a-bed. When I was a little older I slept in the enclosed front porch, which was only big enough to hold the bed that was in there. And always, always I slept with at least two other brothers, which was fine except when any of us were still at ages when we wet the bed. That was not so fine.
I do not remember if there was any other furniture in that living room. The only other thing I remember was a television set. In 1953 television came to southwestern Idaho and eastern Oregon. Our family must have been among the first families in the whole area to buy a television set. KTVB, Idaho's oldest television station, signed on the air July 12, as KIDO-TV. According to my mother's diary, she and my dad bought a televsion in Ontario two days later for $625. It was delivered on July 18, one day before my fourth birthday.
Our set was a big cabinet model that included a television, a radio, and a record player. It was an RCA because I still remember the picture of the old faithful dog listening at the gramophone to his master's voice. That was the RCA logo at the time. I was only three or four years old when we got a television, but I remember being so excited about watching it that we would even watch the test patterns as the station got ready to start broadcasting each afternoon and as it would sign off early each evening.
During the last year we lived in Oregon, in the fall of 1958, we built a new barn out of cinder blocks that was actually nicer and probably bigger than the little frame house we lived in.
I visited the old place years later. The barn was still standing, but the house was long gone.
Last summer [2008] I took my oldest son and his four oldest children to visit the farm and other haunts from my earliest childhood. The house and barn and trees and driveways were all gone. The foundation of where the house once stood was still visible from the stateline road where we had parked to take pictures. As we were taking those pictures that August morning, a pickup drove down the hill and stopped to ask if we were having car trouble. When they saw we had a camera, they concluded we were not.
"We're just taking pictures of where I used to live," I told the elderly couple in the pickup. "I lived in the house that used to be here until I was nine years old, almost ten."
"Oh, the Cleverlys," the lady replied. "We lived just up over the hill." I was so startled—it had been nearly fifty years since our family had moved from here in February 1959—that I failed to remember their names. She told me, but it was not a name that I could remember from the distant past of my childhood.
The house and yard and barn were on the southeast corner of our farm. The small frame house we lived in was not at all modern. It had electricity but precious little plumbing. (I've written elsewhere about our lack of indoor plumbing and about our party-line telephone service.)
The house had only four rooms—a kitchen, two bedrooms, and an all-purpose living-dining-sleeping room—plus an enclosed front porch that was used as an extra bedroom and a small back porch off the kitchen that served as a utility room and storage room. Joining the two bedrooms to the front room was a teeny little hall, where I used to hide during thunderstorms to be as far away as possible from any windows or doors.We had a round dining table. I have no idea if it was big enough for everyone to sit around at the same time. By the time I came along and grew old enough to start remembering things, I have memories of sitting on top of a large metal can painted yellow with a blue lid. The can, as I remember, was used for storing clothing and yardage. It was apparently tall enough for me to be able to reach the table.
In addition to the dining table, with its associated chairs and metal can, the all-purpose living room also contained a small oil stove that as far as I know provided the only heat in the house during colder months. I remember cuddling around the stove to dress on cold winter mornings.
The room also had a couch for sitting by day and that folded out as a bed for sleeping by night. I think when I was younger I slept on that hide-a-bed. When I was a little older I slept in the enclosed front porch, which was only big enough to hold the bed that was in there. And always, always I slept with at least two other brothers, which was fine except when any of us were still at ages when we wet the bed. That was not so fine.
I do not remember if there was any other furniture in that living room. The only other thing I remember was a television set. In 1953 television came to southwestern Idaho and eastern Oregon. Our family must have been among the first families in the whole area to buy a television set. KTVB, Idaho's oldest television station, signed on the air July 12, as KIDO-TV. According to my mother's diary, she and my dad bought a televsion in Ontario two days later for $625. It was delivered on July 18, one day before my fourth birthday.
Our set was a big cabinet model that included a television, a radio, and a record player. It was an RCA because I still remember the picture of the old faithful dog listening at the gramophone to his master's voice. That was the RCA logo at the time. I was only three or four years old when we got a television, but I remember being so excited about watching it that we would even watch the test patterns as the station got ready to start broadcasting each afternoon and as it would sign off early each evening.During the last year we lived in Oregon, in the fall of 1958, we built a new barn out of cinder blocks that was actually nicer and probably bigger than the little frame house we lived in.
I visited the old place years later. The barn was still standing, but the house was long gone.
Last summer [2008] I took my oldest son and his four oldest children to visit the farm and other haunts from my earliest childhood. The house and barn and trees and driveways were all gone. The foundation of where the house once stood was still visible from the stateline road where we had parked to take pictures. As we were taking those pictures that August morning, a pickup drove down the hill and stopped to ask if we were having car trouble. When they saw we had a camera, they concluded we were not.
"We're just taking pictures of where I used to live," I told the elderly couple in the pickup. "I lived in the house that used to be here until I was nine years old, almost ten."
"Oh, the Cleverlys," the lady replied. "We lived just up over the hill." I was so startled—it had been nearly fifty years since our family had moved from here in February 1959—that I failed to remember their names. She told me, but it was not a name that I could remember from the distant past of my childhood.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Lightening strike
Monday, August 11, 1975, was a typical summer day in Utah Valley. Late that afternoon a brief thunderstorm hit Provo and moved north along the Wasatch Front. Claudia was sitting in our front room nursing four-day-old Rachael. Michael Adam was next to her patting the baby. Rebecca was on her way to the kitchen looking for her grandma, who was putting clothes into the dryer.
That's when the lightning struck a tree overhanging our driveway, only ten feet from where Claudia was sitting. It sounded like a tremendous explosion. The sound was deafening. In the kitchen the dryer and stove sizzled before the power went out.
When I arrived home from work, there was evidence of shattered tree all over our driveway. The Provo Daily Herald had come to take pictures and ran a little story the next day with one of the fellows who lived in our basement standing next to his lightening-damaged tree holding a piece of a branch in his hand. No mention that it was really our tree.
For about three days, until the huge tree was completely removed, we had the most popular tree in the neighborhood.
That's when the lightning struck a tree overhanging our driveway, only ten feet from where Claudia was sitting. It sounded like a tremendous explosion. The sound was deafening. In the kitchen the dryer and stove sizzled before the power went out.
When I arrived home from work, there was evidence of shattered tree all over our driveway. The Provo Daily Herald had come to take pictures and ran a little story the next day with one of the fellows who lived in our basement standing next to his lightening-damaged tree holding a piece of a branch in his hand. No mention that it was really our tree.
For about three days, until the huge tree was completely removed, we had the most popular tree in the neighborhood.
Monday, April 27, 2009
My baptism
I turned eight years old on Friday, July 19, 1957. Two weeks later, on Saturday evening, August 3, consistent with the revelation the Lord gave His latter-day church concerning the baptism of children, I was taken to our stake center in Nyssa, Oregon, where my brother Jerry, then a priest in the Aaronic Priesthood, baptized me.
I think I understood pretty well for an eight-year-old what baptism meant for me. I knew it was the gateway into the Church. I knew it involved a washing away of sins. I knew it meant I was promising to keep the commandments. I knew it was the way I took upon me the name of Jesus Christ. And I knew it was the right thing to be doing.
As we prepared in the dressing room, dressing ourselves all in white, a tingling sensation raced up my back and down, stretching from my head to my very toes. In later years I learned to recognize such feelings as one way the Spirit of the Lord worked on me in bearing witness to the truth.
The next day was fast Sunday. In fast and testimony meeting my father confirmed me a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and gave me the gift of the Holy Ghost. I do not remember any specific words from the blessing he gave me. But I pretty well understood that if I was worthy, if I kept the commandments, if I tried to follow Jesus, the Holy Ghost would be with me. And that has been an invaluable gift throughout all the years since then.
I think I understood pretty well for an eight-year-old what baptism meant for me. I knew it was the gateway into the Church. I knew it involved a washing away of sins. I knew it meant I was promising to keep the commandments. I knew it was the way I took upon me the name of Jesus Christ. And I knew it was the right thing to be doing.
As we prepared in the dressing room, dressing ourselves all in white, a tingling sensation raced up my back and down, stretching from my head to my very toes. In later years I learned to recognize such feelings as one way the Spirit of the Lord worked on me in bearing witness to the truth.
The next day was fast Sunday. In fast and testimony meeting my father confirmed me a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and gave me the gift of the Holy Ghost. I do not remember any specific words from the blessing he gave me. But I pretty well understood that if I was worthy, if I kept the commandments, if I tried to follow Jesus, the Holy Ghost would be with me. And that has been an invaluable gift throughout all the years since then.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Attacked by friendliness
On Saturday morning, March 24, 1990, just eight days after our dog Bandit died, Rachael was reading the classifieds in the Deseret News and came across this ad: "Labrador/Golden Retriever 3 yrs old, female, neutered. Looking for good home. Free. 561-1982."
Mom called the number to see if the dog was still available. It was. And so that afternoon everyone but Talmage piled into the car and, with Michael at the wheel, drove to West Jordan to meet the dog and see if she was for us. The affection we felt for Bandit would be hard to replace.
Muffit was what greeted us. Or maybe attacked would be more accurate. Like Tigger in Winnie the Pooh, Muffit is an exuberant, bouncy, enthusiastic, friendly critter who loves to be around, or all over, people. Light honey in color, she looks more Lab than Retriever, and in personality and temperament is very different from Bandit. She's a loud, energetic breather, and her tongue is always licking whoever's in reach. In personality she must be a yellow.
The family she was leaving had taught her some tricks, such as sit, roll over, shake, and speak. They said they were gone all the time, and Muffit—very much a people dog—needed a family who would be around more.
After romping around with her for a while, we decided we'd take her home. We planned to keep her mostly chained in the patio area by the back door until she gets used to living here. The only problem was that she jumped all over whoever comes in or goes out the door. We hoped she would calm down when she got used to being here and found out we won't be gone all the time. Her first night she slept chained outside, some of the night on the step in front of the door, some of the night in the doghouse Grandpa built the previous November for Bandit.
Five-year-old Mary said of Muffit: "She's gentle, she's nice, and she's kind. And I like her very much. And she's very, very, very, very nice. And she loves to fetch her little shoe. And she loves to play soccer. She only kicks with her nose and kicks with her feet."
Eliza, nearly seven, said, "I like her because she's so fun to play with. If you give her a treat, she'll do tricks before you give it to her—sit down, roll over, and give you her hand, and speak. She'll jump on the beam and goes through the hoop. And she's funny. She likes to lick people a lot."
Eight-year-old Camilla said, "I think she's very nice, but she barks too much. She does lots of tricks, and she looks nice."
Muffit was a part of the family for the next seven years. Finally, she grew to be old and very decrepit. Near the end, she could barely move, and we finally had her put to sleep on Tuesday afternoon, July 30, 1996. Another very sad day. Muffit and Talmage had been especially close, and she died less than two months after he had started his mission.
Mom called the number to see if the dog was still available. It was. And so that afternoon everyone but Talmage piled into the car and, with Michael at the wheel, drove to West Jordan to meet the dog and see if she was for us. The affection we felt for Bandit would be hard to replace.
Muffit was what greeted us. Or maybe attacked would be more accurate. Like Tigger in Winnie the Pooh, Muffit is an exuberant, bouncy, enthusiastic, friendly critter who loves to be around, or all over, people. Light honey in color, she looks more Lab than Retriever, and in personality and temperament is very different from Bandit. She's a loud, energetic breather, and her tongue is always licking whoever's in reach. In personality she must be a yellow.
The family she was leaving had taught her some tricks, such as sit, roll over, shake, and speak. They said they were gone all the time, and Muffit—very much a people dog—needed a family who would be around more.
After romping around with her for a while, we decided we'd take her home. We planned to keep her mostly chained in the patio area by the back door until she gets used to living here. The only problem was that she jumped all over whoever comes in or goes out the door. We hoped she would calm down when she got used to being here and found out we won't be gone all the time. Her first night she slept chained outside, some of the night on the step in front of the door, some of the night in the doghouse Grandpa built the previous November for Bandit.
Five-year-old Mary said of Muffit: "She's gentle, she's nice, and she's kind. And I like her very much. And she's very, very, very, very nice. And she loves to fetch her little shoe. And she loves to play soccer. She only kicks with her nose and kicks with her feet."
Eliza, nearly seven, said, "I like her because she's so fun to play with. If you give her a treat, she'll do tricks before you give it to her—sit down, roll over, and give you her hand, and speak. She'll jump on the beam and goes through the hoop. And she's funny. She likes to lick people a lot."
Eight-year-old Camilla said, "I think she's very nice, but she barks too much. She does lots of tricks, and she looks nice."
Muffit was a part of the family for the next seven years. Finally, she grew to be old and very decrepit. Near the end, she could barely move, and we finally had her put to sleep on Tuesday afternoon, July 30, 1996. Another very sad day. Muffit and Talmage had been especially close, and she died less than two months after he had started his mission.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Bandit, a faithful companion
After our family began, we had not had any pets until after the children were in school. At first we started small—things like gerbils, frogs, fish, baby bunnies. We pretty much stayed away from snakes, lizards, and other scary things like that.
Finally, in November 1989, we broke down and acquired a family dog. Fourteen-year-old Rachael described our dog in the December 1989 issue of the Family Journal:
"On Tuesday, November 7, Bandit came into our lives. A pure-bred Golden Retriever—who, like her mother, Melody, loves people—Bandit was received with much enthusiasm.
"After hearing that one of Melody's children needed a new home, a family council was held. We discussed the need to take care of Bandit responsibly: to feed her, brush her, take her for walks, and clean up her messes. But even after all that, we decided to get her.
"Bandit has gotten a lot of attention since that cold November night, from the neighborhood as well as our family. Perhaps too much. It seems that she has become so accustomed to people that she can't handle being alone. She barks and scratches at the door at night until we let her in.
"But in spite of all that, we still love Bandit as we would any other new family member. As Mary so eloquently put it, 'We love her so, so much!'"
When she joined our family that November, just short of her third birthday, we thought Bandit wasn't a very good name for such a beautiful female dog. Plus there were a couple of other Bandits in the neighborhood. Apparently a popular dog's name in those days. Sixteen-year-old Michael lobbied to change her name to Bathsheba, Dad for Tess or even Bandy, but we never could agree on anything—so Bandit just stuck. After all, that had been her name for three years already. We didn't want to confuse the poor creature. Five-year-old Mary used to call her Kitty, however.
Toward members of the family and other people she knew, Bandit was a gentle, patient dog who loved to be around people. At night she would lie next to the little children or at the side of Mom and Dad's bed. In the morning she insisted on coming into the front room, which originally was off limits to her, to be with everyone for family prayer. The same for family home evenings on Monday nights. After church or on other occasions when the whole family was gone, she would go out of her mind for joy when we returned, her tail wagging or thumping wildly, her eyes bright with excitement. Sometimes she'd be up on her hind legs, especially with twelve-year-old Talmage, as if she were dancing.
She especially seemed to love Mom and became well aware of her nightly and daily routines. She loved to be petted and often would hold up a front paw, in lady-like fashion, for someone to hold or pet. Mom and the younger children would let her lick their bare legs or feet or even faces.
Bandit sometimes enjoyed watching television with the children, especially cartoons or shows with animals in them. The video of Lady and the Tramp was her favorite and would often elicit barks.
She never did learn how to play catch. If she caught a ball or stick or anything else in her mouth, she'd just keep it tightly clenched in her teeth and not let it go.
On Friday morning, March 16, 1990, Bandit was playing in the front yard with Mary. About 8:30 Bandit dashed into the street, as she sometimes would, just as one of our neighbors, Dan Dearden, was coming along in his van. Bandit was hit and died moments later. Another neighbor, Boyd Martin, who had been a veterinarian for many years, came out to see if he could help and said the injuries were too severe for her to have survived.
Disbelief and sadness were the immediate reactions.
In her journal the next morning, almost-seven-year-old Eliza wrote: "Mary let Bandit out, and she [Bandit] was playing around, and she saw Dan Dearden's car, and then she saw a cat, and she went to the cat on the other side of the street, and then Dan Dearden's car didn't see her, and she got hit. Michael said, 'I think Bandit just got hit.' And Mom went outside to see her. And she went to get the vet, and when they came out Dad Dearden said she was already dead. They tried to make her still live, but there was too much blood. Mom didn't want to take off her collar, so she told Michael to do it. And after they took off the collar, Brother Martin said to get a big blanket, and they carried the blanket into the carport and put Bandit on it. And me and Mary wanted to see Bandit, and Michael let us pet her before she went to the animal shelter, and they picked Bandit up by her hands and legs. She died with her eyes opened. Jenny [Swenson] saw her and went back and told us Bandit looked at us. After they took her to the animal shelter, me and Mary started crying, and Mom told to Jenny that's why you should look both ways before crossing the road. And when Milla got home, she started to cry. Mom said that sometime we'd get a new dog. Becca said we'd have lots of animals after they're resurrected, and Milla tried to name all of them: Snowball [the cat], the baby bunnies, and Talmage's birds, and Bandit, and the gerbils, the frogs, and the fish—oh, and the bumble bee."
Five-year-old Mary wrote in her journal: "Yesterday me and Bandit went outside. I was looking at the snow. Then I looked under Dan's car. I yelled, 'Mom!' And then Michael looked out the window. I went inside, and me and Eliza started crying, and then Mom came in and started crying too. Then we started calling people to know that Bandit was dead. And then we were going to have lunch at a park, then we started to think about Bandit. Before we went Bandit got took to Animal Control.
"The day before yesterday we went up to Grandma's with Bandit. We made a little house, and Bandit was having fun, and when we went sledding Bandit followed us. After we went sledding we all went inside, and Bandit had to stay outside, and then for a few whiles Bandit stayed outside, and then we let her in after a few whiles. She went up and she went down. She was so happy. And then a few whiles after we went home. When we went home, we were all together with Bandit."
And thus ended a short chapter in the history of our family. Just a few days before her death, I had heard this saying at work: "For a proper perspective on life, every person should have a dog who adores him and a cat who ignores him." Bandit certainly adored us. In the four months she was with us, she became a full-fledged member of the family and filled our hearts and our lives with her loving, trusting ways. In every way she was a faithful, loyal companion.
Finally, in November 1989, we broke down and acquired a family dog. Fourteen-year-old Rachael described our dog in the December 1989 issue of the Family Journal:
"On Tuesday, November 7, Bandit came into our lives. A pure-bred Golden Retriever—who, like her mother, Melody, loves people—Bandit was received with much enthusiasm.
"After hearing that one of Melody's children needed a new home, a family council was held. We discussed the need to take care of Bandit responsibly: to feed her, brush her, take her for walks, and clean up her messes. But even after all that, we decided to get her.
"Bandit has gotten a lot of attention since that cold November night, from the neighborhood as well as our family. Perhaps too much. It seems that she has become so accustomed to people that she can't handle being alone. She barks and scratches at the door at night until we let her in.
"But in spite of all that, we still love Bandit as we would any other new family member. As Mary so eloquently put it, 'We love her so, so much!'"
When she joined our family that November, just short of her third birthday, we thought Bandit wasn't a very good name for such a beautiful female dog. Plus there were a couple of other Bandits in the neighborhood. Apparently a popular dog's name in those days. Sixteen-year-old Michael lobbied to change her name to Bathsheba, Dad for Tess or even Bandy, but we never could agree on anything—so Bandit just stuck. After all, that had been her name for three years already. We didn't want to confuse the poor creature. Five-year-old Mary used to call her Kitty, however.
Toward members of the family and other people she knew, Bandit was a gentle, patient dog who loved to be around people. At night she would lie next to the little children or at the side of Mom and Dad's bed. In the morning she insisted on coming into the front room, which originally was off limits to her, to be with everyone for family prayer. The same for family home evenings on Monday nights. After church or on other occasions when the whole family was gone, she would go out of her mind for joy when we returned, her tail wagging or thumping wildly, her eyes bright with excitement. Sometimes she'd be up on her hind legs, especially with twelve-year-old Talmage, as if she were dancing.
She especially seemed to love Mom and became well aware of her nightly and daily routines. She loved to be petted and often would hold up a front paw, in lady-like fashion, for someone to hold or pet. Mom and the younger children would let her lick their bare legs or feet or even faces.
Bandit sometimes enjoyed watching television with the children, especially cartoons or shows with animals in them. The video of Lady and the Tramp was her favorite and would often elicit barks.
She never did learn how to play catch. If she caught a ball or stick or anything else in her mouth, she'd just keep it tightly clenched in her teeth and not let it go.
On Friday morning, March 16, 1990, Bandit was playing in the front yard with Mary. About 8:30 Bandit dashed into the street, as she sometimes would, just as one of our neighbors, Dan Dearden, was coming along in his van. Bandit was hit and died moments later. Another neighbor, Boyd Martin, who had been a veterinarian for many years, came out to see if he could help and said the injuries were too severe for her to have survived.
Disbelief and sadness were the immediate reactions.
In her journal the next morning, almost-seven-year-old Eliza wrote: "Mary let Bandit out, and she [Bandit] was playing around, and she saw Dan Dearden's car, and then she saw a cat, and she went to the cat on the other side of the street, and then Dan Dearden's car didn't see her, and she got hit. Michael said, 'I think Bandit just got hit.' And Mom went outside to see her. And she went to get the vet, and when they came out Dad Dearden said she was already dead. They tried to make her still live, but there was too much blood. Mom didn't want to take off her collar, so she told Michael to do it. And after they took off the collar, Brother Martin said to get a big blanket, and they carried the blanket into the carport and put Bandit on it. And me and Mary wanted to see Bandit, and Michael let us pet her before she went to the animal shelter, and they picked Bandit up by her hands and legs. She died with her eyes opened. Jenny [Swenson] saw her and went back and told us Bandit looked at us. After they took her to the animal shelter, me and Mary started crying, and Mom told to Jenny that's why you should look both ways before crossing the road. And when Milla got home, she started to cry. Mom said that sometime we'd get a new dog. Becca said we'd have lots of animals after they're resurrected, and Milla tried to name all of them: Snowball [the cat], the baby bunnies, and Talmage's birds, and Bandit, and the gerbils, the frogs, and the fish—oh, and the bumble bee."
Five-year-old Mary wrote in her journal: "Yesterday me and Bandit went outside. I was looking at the snow. Then I looked under Dan's car. I yelled, 'Mom!' And then Michael looked out the window. I went inside, and me and Eliza started crying, and then Mom came in and started crying too. Then we started calling people to know that Bandit was dead. And then we were going to have lunch at a park, then we started to think about Bandit. Before we went Bandit got took to Animal Control.
"The day before yesterday we went up to Grandma's with Bandit. We made a little house, and Bandit was having fun, and when we went sledding Bandit followed us. After we went sledding we all went inside, and Bandit had to stay outside, and then for a few whiles Bandit stayed outside, and then we let her in after a few whiles. She went up and she went down. She was so happy. And then a few whiles after we went home. When we went home, we were all together with Bandit."
And thus ended a short chapter in the history of our family. Just a few days before her death, I had heard this saying at work: "For a proper perspective on life, every person should have a dog who adores him and a cat who ignores him." Bandit certainly adored us. In the four months she was with us, she became a full-fledged member of the family and filled our hearts and our lives with her loving, trusting ways. In every way she was a faithful, loyal companion.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Childhood pets
During the years I was growing up in eastern Oregon, we had a family dog named Red. I do not know what breed he was. Like most dogs, however, he loved to chase after balls or sticks and bring them back to be thrown again. We could tell when it was about to rain because Red would eat grass before an approaching storm. By the time we moved to Idaho in 1959, Red was getting pretty old in dog years. On one of several trips to the new house, he jumped out of the back of the pickup and was never seen again.
I think we had other dogs in later years, but I do not particularly remember any of them.
I am not particularly a dog person. That stems, I suppose, from having been bit by dogs during my growing up years in the Nampa area. The two incidents I recall both stem from when I used to go door to door trying to sell greeting cards. One was from a yappy little dog that bit me on my heel. So much for my mother's oft-repeated adage that a barking dog doesn't bite. The other bite came from a large dog, a German shepherd I believe, that quietly slipped up behind me and bit my buttocks before I even knew he was there. Not a warning bark or growl. Nothing. Maybe these incidents also explain why I've never been interested in being a door-to-door salesman.
Once on my mission in Brazil I had also had an encounter with another small yapping dog that tried to bite me and would have succeeded had not the owner right at that precise moment yanked him by the tail away from me. The dog got my pants but fortunately not my leg.
Claudia's family, during the years she was growing up in southern California, had a beagle named Sunny Boy. Knowing that healthy dogs have wet noses, she felt his nose once and, finding it dry, poured water on it to make sure he would stay healthy.
Her family also had goldfish, which once upon a time she killed by pouring milk into the fish bowl. She reasoned that if milk were good for her it must also be good for fish. Wrong.
In later years the Langes also had a German shepherd named Gunther. He was the family's dog at the time Claudia and I were married in November 1972. Just a month after we were married, we drove to southern California to spend our first Christmas with the Langes in San Gabriel. Claudia's younger brother upstaged Christmas morning as we were first gathering around the Christmas tree. David came into the living room, staff in hand, dressed in a robe, with Gunther at his side playing the part of a humble sheep, as David proclaimed in comedic voice, "And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night" (Luke 2:8). The comic moment was unforgettable, classic David, the stuff of happy memories.
I think we had other dogs in later years, but I do not particularly remember any of them.
I am not particularly a dog person. That stems, I suppose, from having been bit by dogs during my growing up years in the Nampa area. The two incidents I recall both stem from when I used to go door to door trying to sell greeting cards. One was from a yappy little dog that bit me on my heel. So much for my mother's oft-repeated adage that a barking dog doesn't bite. The other bite came from a large dog, a German shepherd I believe, that quietly slipped up behind me and bit my buttocks before I even knew he was there. Not a warning bark or growl. Nothing. Maybe these incidents also explain why I've never been interested in being a door-to-door salesman.
Once on my mission in Brazil I had also had an encounter with another small yapping dog that tried to bite me and would have succeeded had not the owner right at that precise moment yanked him by the tail away from me. The dog got my pants but fortunately not my leg.
Claudia's family, during the years she was growing up in southern California, had a beagle named Sunny Boy. Knowing that healthy dogs have wet noses, she felt his nose once and, finding it dry, poured water on it to make sure he would stay healthy.
Her family also had goldfish, which once upon a time she killed by pouring milk into the fish bowl. She reasoned that if milk were good for her it must also be good for fish. Wrong.
In later years the Langes also had a German shepherd named Gunther. He was the family's dog at the time Claudia and I were married in November 1972. Just a month after we were married, we drove to southern California to spend our first Christmas with the Langes in San Gabriel. Claudia's younger brother upstaged Christmas morning as we were first gathering around the Christmas tree. David came into the living room, staff in hand, dressed in a robe, with Gunther at his side playing the part of a humble sheep, as David proclaimed in comedic voice, "And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night" (Luke 2:8). The comic moment was unforgettable, classic David, the stuff of happy memories.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
My call to serve as bishop
At the January 1995 dedication of the Bountiful Utah Temple, as we sat in the celestial room of the temple, the Spirit whispered to me that I would be the next bishop of our ward. Knowing somewhat of what such a call could mean, I spent the better part of the year asking the Lord in my prayers that such a thing not happen and arguing that as long as President F. Michael Watson were the stake president he would not want to release me as his stake executive secretary.
Sometime in December my prayers started to change: I no longer asked that this cup pass from me but instead prayed, "not my will but thine be done." As one of my latter-day heroes, Spencer W. Kimball, did a couple decades earlier, and as Caleb did anciently, I began to pray, "Now therefore give me this mountain" (Joshua 14:12).
On the evening of January 2, 1996, the day after our return from spending the New Year's weekend with Cade and Rebecca in southern Utah, I was at the stake center, as I was every Tuesday evening, when President Watson called me into his office to discuss the change in our ward bishopric. He asked what I thought of a couple of ward members he was considering as bishop, either of whom I agreed would make an excellent bishop. He then inquired concerning my health and whether it would preclude my serving as bishop. He emphasized that it was just an exploratory interview, that no call was being extended, but I assure you I got little sleep that night. And it seemed to put future plans pretty much on hold.
Exactly two weeks later, on January 16, I was at the stake center again. Without knowing that President Watson had phoned Claudia and asked her to come down to his office, I looked pretty shocked to see her walk in, and I knew immediately what was going to happen. We were invited into his office, where he extended the call and explained that the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve had approved my serving as bishop. I didn't sleep much that night either.
The day after President Watson had first spoken with me, I wrote him a letter:
"In regards to our conversation last night, I have spent a considerable amount of time since then thinking and praying about the issue of my health. As I stated then, my condition appears to be fairly stable at present.
"I am convinced, if the inspiration comes to extend a call, that the Lord will bless me with sufficient health to be able to serve. In context of accepting responsibilities of service, my patriarchal blessing states, 'Your health and strength, I promise you, will be adequate to your needs and you shall dwell upon the land long enough for you to fulfill the full purpose of your being.'
"When we were talking last night, I probably should have mentioned a recent sacred experience I had the Sunday mornng Elder [David B.] Haight spoke to the priesthood of our stake. He shared a story about a man who, after his heart machine malfunctioned, wrote a note to his wife that he had seen the other side and was needed there and asked her to let him go. At that moment the Spirit whispered to me that I was not needed on the other side, but was needed here, where I still have much to accomplish. That came as an answer to months of prayerful soul searching about what lay ahead for me. Later that day I wrote in my journal, 'I take this to mean my disease will not progress substantially anytime soon.'
"I have some peripheral notion of how busy a bishop has to be, and I think my strength is sufficient to serve in such a calling without jeopardizing my health and without neglecting responsibilities at home or at work. It would be a temptation to hide behind health to avoid the onerous burden of leadership, but that would be neither honest nor true to the covenants I have made in sacred places. I have given my life to the Lord and am at the disposal of His servants to use as needed in serving His children and building His kingdom.
"I just wanted you to know these things so you know where my heart is as you seek the inspiration you need in finding a new bishop for our ward."
I didn't actually give this letter to President Watson until two weeks later after he extended the call.
I spent the next few days pondering and praying about my counselors, although the final selection, confirmed by the Lord, was the same as the first two names that popped into my head the night I was called: Larry Young as first counselor and Kevin Thueson as second counselor.
We were sustained in sacrament meeting on Sunday morning, January 28, 1996, and ordained and set apart that afternoon. I was the eighth bishop to preside over the Bountiful Twentieth Ward since its creation on April 30, 1961, following in the footsteps of John White (who served from 1961 until 1967), Duane Beazer (1967–1972), Glen Taylor (1972–1977), Don West (1977–1980), Jay Anderson (1980–1985), Delbert Strasser (1985–1991), and Gail Anger (1991–1996). I had served as second counselor to Bishop Strasser from July 1985 until my call to serve on the stake high council in March 1987.
The sustaining vote of the ward members, followed by numerous expressions of love and support, truly meant a lot to us as we began our new ministry.
We were grateful that many of our loved ones from outside the ward could be present—including Michael and Shauna, Cade and Rebecca, Grandpa and Venna Lange, Mac and Joan Christensen, my brother Kay, all of the stake presidency, and most of the high council—and undoubtedly numerous loved ones on the other side of the veil.
Sometime in December my prayers started to change: I no longer asked that this cup pass from me but instead prayed, "not my will but thine be done." As one of my latter-day heroes, Spencer W. Kimball, did a couple decades earlier, and as Caleb did anciently, I began to pray, "Now therefore give me this mountain" (Joshua 14:12).
On the evening of January 2, 1996, the day after our return from spending the New Year's weekend with Cade and Rebecca in southern Utah, I was at the stake center, as I was every Tuesday evening, when President Watson called me into his office to discuss the change in our ward bishopric. He asked what I thought of a couple of ward members he was considering as bishop, either of whom I agreed would make an excellent bishop. He then inquired concerning my health and whether it would preclude my serving as bishop. He emphasized that it was just an exploratory interview, that no call was being extended, but I assure you I got little sleep that night. And it seemed to put future plans pretty much on hold.
Exactly two weeks later, on January 16, I was at the stake center again. Without knowing that President Watson had phoned Claudia and asked her to come down to his office, I looked pretty shocked to see her walk in, and I knew immediately what was going to happen. We were invited into his office, where he extended the call and explained that the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve had approved my serving as bishop. I didn't sleep much that night either.
The day after President Watson had first spoken with me, I wrote him a letter:
"In regards to our conversation last night, I have spent a considerable amount of time since then thinking and praying about the issue of my health. As I stated then, my condition appears to be fairly stable at present.
"I am convinced, if the inspiration comes to extend a call, that the Lord will bless me with sufficient health to be able to serve. In context of accepting responsibilities of service, my patriarchal blessing states, 'Your health and strength, I promise you, will be adequate to your needs and you shall dwell upon the land long enough for you to fulfill the full purpose of your being.'
"When we were talking last night, I probably should have mentioned a recent sacred experience I had the Sunday mornng Elder [David B.] Haight spoke to the priesthood of our stake. He shared a story about a man who, after his heart machine malfunctioned, wrote a note to his wife that he had seen the other side and was needed there and asked her to let him go. At that moment the Spirit whispered to me that I was not needed on the other side, but was needed here, where I still have much to accomplish. That came as an answer to months of prayerful soul searching about what lay ahead for me. Later that day I wrote in my journal, 'I take this to mean my disease will not progress substantially anytime soon.'
"I have some peripheral notion of how busy a bishop has to be, and I think my strength is sufficient to serve in such a calling without jeopardizing my health and without neglecting responsibilities at home or at work. It would be a temptation to hide behind health to avoid the onerous burden of leadership, but that would be neither honest nor true to the covenants I have made in sacred places. I have given my life to the Lord and am at the disposal of His servants to use as needed in serving His children and building His kingdom.
"I just wanted you to know these things so you know where my heart is as you seek the inspiration you need in finding a new bishop for our ward."
I didn't actually give this letter to President Watson until two weeks later after he extended the call.
I spent the next few days pondering and praying about my counselors, although the final selection, confirmed by the Lord, was the same as the first two names that popped into my head the night I was called: Larry Young as first counselor and Kevin Thueson as second counselor.
We were sustained in sacrament meeting on Sunday morning, January 28, 1996, and ordained and set apart that afternoon. I was the eighth bishop to preside over the Bountiful Twentieth Ward since its creation on April 30, 1961, following in the footsteps of John White (who served from 1961 until 1967), Duane Beazer (1967–1972), Glen Taylor (1972–1977), Don West (1977–1980), Jay Anderson (1980–1985), Delbert Strasser (1985–1991), and Gail Anger (1991–1996). I had served as second counselor to Bishop Strasser from July 1985 until my call to serve on the stake high council in March 1987.
The sustaining vote of the ward members, followed by numerous expressions of love and support, truly meant a lot to us as we began our new ministry.
We were grateful that many of our loved ones from outside the ward could be present—including Michael and Shauna, Cade and Rebecca, Grandpa and Venna Lange, Mac and Joan Christensen, my brother Kay, all of the stake presidency, and most of the high council—and undoubtedly numerous loved ones on the other side of the veil.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Moving away
My earliest memory of national politics stems from the fall of 1960, when Richard M. Nixon and John F. Kennedy were challenging each other for the presidency of the United States to replace Dwight D. Eisenhower, who had been the popular Republican president during the previous eight years. Nixon was serving as Eisenhower’s vice-president.
I favored Nixon, the Republican candidate, but not as strongly as some of my fellow classmates, who vowed that they and their families would be moving to Canada if Kennedy were elected. The youthful Kennedy won the November elections by a slim margin and was inaugurated in January 1961, but I cannot remember anyone at school moving away during those early months of the new decade.
Unfortunately, our family did move again in the spring of 1961, not as far as Canada, but off the farm and six miles into town, which was sufficient disruption of my little world.
We moved to a smaller house on the south edge of Nampa, just a couple blocks from the high school. Our house, was located on a little acerage on the north side of Montana Avenue, which was later renamed Colorado Avenue. There was a pasture behind the house, and we still had a couple of cows that had to be milked every morning and night. The place was just south of the Northwest Nazarene College. [Today the Northwest Nazarene University has taken over the area where our house once stood.]
The move seemed to come up suddenly and I suspect involved a default on the farm payments. Eleven-year-old boys weren't privy to such bits of information.
I just know I was pretty brokenhearted at the prospects of leaving Scism School and my many friends there. And it was pretty tough starting at Roosevelt Elementary during the last month or so of my sixth-grade year. Fortunately, we were still in the same ward, so at least I did not have to deal with changing friends at church too.
I favored Nixon, the Republican candidate, but not as strongly as some of my fellow classmates, who vowed that they and their families would be moving to Canada if Kennedy were elected. The youthful Kennedy won the November elections by a slim margin and was inaugurated in January 1961, but I cannot remember anyone at school moving away during those early months of the new decade.
Unfortunately, our family did move again in the spring of 1961, not as far as Canada, but off the farm and six miles into town, which was sufficient disruption of my little world.
We moved to a smaller house on the south edge of Nampa, just a couple blocks from the high school. Our house, was located on a little acerage on the north side of Montana Avenue, which was later renamed Colorado Avenue. There was a pasture behind the house, and we still had a couple of cows that had to be milked every morning and night. The place was just south of the Northwest Nazarene College. [Today the Northwest Nazarene University has taken over the area where our house once stood.]
The move seemed to come up suddenly and I suspect involved a default on the farm payments. Eleven-year-old boys weren't privy to such bits of information.
I just know I was pretty brokenhearted at the prospects of leaving Scism School and my many friends there. And it was pretty tough starting at Roosevelt Elementary during the last month or so of my sixth-grade year. Fortunately, we were still in the same ward, so at least I did not have to deal with changing friends at church too.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Scism School
I was a fourth grader when we moved from Oregon to Idaho, and March has to be a terrible time of year to transfer to a new school. But the other kids were excited to see a new face so late in the school year and quickly befriended me. So, even though I was pretty shy about being the new kid on the block, I soon felt like I fit in. And I was able to head into summer vacation already having friends throughout the area.
Scism School was a three-room country school a couple miles north and west from our farm. Grades 1, 2, and 3 were in the same room. Grades 4, 5, and 6 in a second room. And grades 7 and 8 in a third room. After that a student had to travel into Nampa to attend the ninth grade in one of the junior high schools before going on to high school.
I came to Scism in the final months of my fourth-grade year. Sylvia Jones was the teacher. The next school year (1959–60) I was in the fifth grade and got to move over into the middle two rows of the same room. Mrs. Jones was still my teacher. The next school year (1960–61) I was in the sixth grade and got to move over into the two rows closest to the windows. Mrs. Jones was still my teacher.
Had we not moved in the spring of my sixth-grade year, I would have gone into the next room for the seventh and eighth grades, where Herman Jones (Mrs. Jones's husband) would have been my teacher. He later transferred to teach at one of the junior highs in Nampa, and I happened to be in one of his classes my eighth- or ninth-grade year at Central Junior High School.
Looking back now, decades later, I am convinced that those years I spent in that little classroom with Mrs. Jones were among the best of my entire educational experience. She was a master teacher who cared deeply for her students and inspired in us a love for learning.
She was also a deeply religious person, a Seventh-day Adventist, who loved the Lord deeply. In those days, before the Supreme Court ruled that prayer in public schools violated the First Amendment, an unfortunate ruling to be sure, schools in Idaho would begin each day after the Pledge of Allegiance with scripture reading from the Bible. It was probably supposed to stop there, but Mrs. Jones would often go on to expound on what she read and to share her beliefs and feelings. I often recognized, as a fifth or sixth grader, that her interpretations didn't always coincide with my own Mormon beliefs, but never once did it occur to me that anyone could be offended or harmed in any way by what she taught us.
The reverence she gave the Bible and other sacred things, including the names of Deity, are an inspiration to me to this day. A simple illustration was her observation one morning that the scriptures were so sacred to her that she would never let them fall to the floor or ever place other books on top of them.
Scism School was a three-room country school a couple miles north and west from our farm. Grades 1, 2, and 3 were in the same room. Grades 4, 5, and 6 in a second room. And grades 7 and 8 in a third room. After that a student had to travel into Nampa to attend the ninth grade in one of the junior high schools before going on to high school.
I came to Scism in the final months of my fourth-grade year. Sylvia Jones was the teacher. The next school year (1959–60) I was in the fifth grade and got to move over into the middle two rows of the same room. Mrs. Jones was still my teacher. The next school year (1960–61) I was in the sixth grade and got to move over into the two rows closest to the windows. Mrs. Jones was still my teacher.
Had we not moved in the spring of my sixth-grade year, I would have gone into the next room for the seventh and eighth grades, where Herman Jones (Mrs. Jones's husband) would have been my teacher. He later transferred to teach at one of the junior highs in Nampa, and I happened to be in one of his classes my eighth- or ninth-grade year at Central Junior High School.
Looking back now, decades later, I am convinced that those years I spent in that little classroom with Mrs. Jones were among the best of my entire educational experience. She was a master teacher who cared deeply for her students and inspired in us a love for learning.
She was also a deeply religious person, a Seventh-day Adventist, who loved the Lord deeply. In those days, before the Supreme Court ruled that prayer in public schools violated the First Amendment, an unfortunate ruling to be sure, schools in Idaho would begin each day after the Pledge of Allegiance with scripture reading from the Bible. It was probably supposed to stop there, but Mrs. Jones would often go on to expound on what she read and to share her beliefs and feelings. I often recognized, as a fifth or sixth grader, that her interpretations didn't always coincide with my own Mormon beliefs, but never once did it occur to me that anyone could be offended or harmed in any way by what she taught us.
The reverence she gave the Bible and other sacred things, including the names of Deity, are an inspiration to me to this day. A simple illustration was her observation one morning that the scriptures were so sacred to her that she would never let them fall to the floor or ever place other books on top of them.
Monday, April 20, 2009
My first bike
I remember getting my first bicycle. It was on Thursday, June 11, 1959, my brother Jerry's twenty-first birthday. He was off serving a mission in Canada at the time. I had been earning and saving money, selling greeting cards, thinning sugar beets, and other such stuff a nine-year-old boy was able to do.
On our farm we used to get paid for thinning or hoeing sugar beets, something like 25 cents a row, as I remember. And they were long, long rows. I don't think we were paid for anything else around the farm. Except grades. I think in an effort to encourage Ray and Dale to get better grades at school, my parents used to pay for each A on the report card. I didn't need the encouragement, since my report card was typically filled with A's, but I reaped the benefit since they had to be fair about it.
Finally, after a lot of time and effort, I had accumulated the $50 I needed. Well, I actually had $28, and my brother Gene loaned me $22. We went to the bike store in Nampa to pick out my bike. I chose a blue Schwinn. A one-speed.
And then, to my wounded sense of fair play and justice, my parents proceeded to pick one out for Dale, who was seven. His was a red one. A little smaller than mine. He hadn't earned a penny toward his, and here they thought if I had one he should too. Because he was littler than I was. How unfair can life be?
I didn't appreciate it at the time, but my bike was far more fun to have because Dale had one too.
I don't remember particularly when or where I first learned to ride a bike. But I remember clearly that first day we were home with them, and we started circling the open yard where the cars and pickups and tractors and other stuff parked, and seven-year-old Dale was headed straight toward the side of the barn yelling, "How do I stop this thing?"
Fortunately, neither boy nor bike was too seriously injured as a result of his collision with the barn.
On our farm we used to get paid for thinning or hoeing sugar beets, something like 25 cents a row, as I remember. And they were long, long rows. I don't think we were paid for anything else around the farm. Except grades. I think in an effort to encourage Ray and Dale to get better grades at school, my parents used to pay for each A on the report card. I didn't need the encouragement, since my report card was typically filled with A's, but I reaped the benefit since they had to be fair about it.
Finally, after a lot of time and effort, I had accumulated the $50 I needed. Well, I actually had $28, and my brother Gene loaned me $22. We went to the bike store in Nampa to pick out my bike. I chose a blue Schwinn. A one-speed.
And then, to my wounded sense of fair play and justice, my parents proceeded to pick one out for Dale, who was seven. His was a red one. A little smaller than mine. He hadn't earned a penny toward his, and here they thought if I had one he should too. Because he was littler than I was. How unfair can life be?
I didn't appreciate it at the time, but my bike was far more fun to have because Dale had one too.
I don't remember particularly when or where I first learned to ride a bike. But I remember clearly that first day we were home with them, and we started circling the open yard where the cars and pickups and tractors and other stuff parked, and seven-year-old Dale was headed straight toward the side of the barn yelling, "How do I stop this thing?"
Fortunately, neither boy nor bike was too seriously injured as a result of his collision with the barn.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Naughty toes
In the early days of my mission in Brazil I had surgery on my toes. I had arrived in Brazil on Wednesday morning, December 18, 1968. Thursday night I took a bus all alone to Petrópolis, a city in the mountains about an hour and a half by bus from Rio de Janeiro. There I met my first companion, Elder Dean Slade from Las Vegas. I was just beginning my mission. He was about to finish his.
As we were preparing for bed that first night, my companion noticed that the big toe on my right foot was all red, inflamed, and infected. That was not good, he concluded, with all the walking missionaries do, with the humid climate, with the rainy season coming on.
Elder Slade called the mission president that night and the next day he took me back down to Rio, where we went to Hospital Silvestre, a clean, well-equiped hospital run by the Seventh-Day Adventists that had doctors and nurses who actually spoke English. I wasn't very fluent in Portuguese yet. That Friday afternoon, December 20, I had my toe operated on and the nail completely removed from my right big toe.
For the next week I convalesced in the mission home. I was supposed to stay off my foot for the most part. The incessant pain helped me do that. I celebrated my first Brazilian Christmas as a patient lying on a bed or hopping around in the mission home. During that week I also kept reviewing the missionary discussions in Portuguese, read James E. Talmage's Jesus the Christ again, read nearly half of President David O. McKay's Man May Know for Himself, typed the entire new mission handbook onto stencil so that it could be mimeographed for the missionaries, and visited the hospital every other day for bandage changes.
Finally, on the evening of Saturday, December 28, I returned to Petrópolis. Elder Slade was grateful to have a companion again. I still had a bandage on my toe and had to wear sandals rather than shoes.
A little over a month later, on Wednesday, February 5, 1969, Elder Slade and I returned to Rio. He was on his way home to the United States. I was merely going to the hospital to have my toe checked and planned to return to Petrópolis that afternoon. My companion went with me to the hospital, where shortly thereafter I came out without a toenail on my left big toe.
I reflected that the first day and the last day that Elder Slade was my companion he had been with me in the hospital watching me lose toenails. I said my final good-bye to him from on my back in a bed in the mission home. He had been a good companion, one that I relied on heavily for help with my lessons and the language. He gave me a good start on my mission.
The next morning, after an overnight stay in the mission home, I returned alone to Petrópolis to prepare to transfer to the Tijuca area of Rio de Janeiro. That change came as quite a shock. I had been in Petrópolis only six weeks. Perhaps the president wanted me a little closer to the hospital, a little closer where he could keep an eye on my toes.
I was supposed to go with the other two elders in Petrópolis to the neighboring town of Teresópolis for the evening when they went over there for Mutual. One of the elders was the branch president in Teresópolis, and he and his companion traveled over there a couple times a week. As mentioned, I was supposed to go with them. But when I got back to Petrópolis, they had left me a note informing me they had already gone.
I spent the rest of the day alone, somewhat frightened at being alone. I stayed in my room at the boarding place, the pensão where we lived, being careful with my foot, packing, preparing instructions for those continuing after me, finishing my part of the district history, writing in my journal, catching up a bit of delinquent correspondence, and such. Sometime that evening I poured out my soul in prayers of thanksgiving and pleading. My eyes were wet. And my toe down there throbbing with pain at the end of my leg did not even seem to matter at that moment.
And so the next day, Friday, I was off to Rio and my new assignment with a new companion. And with a throbbing toe.
"Last Friday evening," I wrote in my journal on Wednesday, February 12, "I had an experience that deepened my appreciation for the Savior's atoning sacrifice and demonstrated the weaknesses of the flesh. I was changing the bandage on my toe for the first time since the operation and the pain, because of sticking to the raw skin where the toenail used to be, became so unbearable that I blacked out right there on the bed. It was only a few seconds but had Elder Sarager [my new companion in Tijuca] a bit worried."
I wished afterward that Elder Sarager had finished ripping the bandage off while I was out. Unfortunately, he did not. After I recovered a bit, I still had to deal with getting the sticking gauze the rest of the way off. The pain was horrendous.
I continued in my journal: "How weak we are! The Savior suffered such intense pain in Gethsemane, causing bleeding at the pores, that my experience is weak in comparison. His was for hours, mine only minutes. His was more than physical pain, mine only that. Yet Jesus Christ fainted not but perfected His Father's plan. For this experience I am grateful and can appreciate and understand a little more clearly now.
"Health is a beautiful and one of our most valuable gifts from our Father in Heaven. Like too many blessings we often do not appreciate it until it is taken from us or we forfeit the right to have it. If I have not yet learned another thing from my mission, I do know that health should be jealously guarded with good sense and the proper measure of faith. We must be clean that bear the vessels of the Lord."
That should have been enough in the toe department. But that was not to be.
Nearly nine months later, on Monday, October 27, 1969, I wrote in my journal, "Today turned into one of those days when all sorts of things happen to make life look different and exciting. Making a visit to Hospital Silvestre, I learned from Dr. Kovach that my cold was really bronchitis. An infection that started in my right big toe again last week, ten months after the operation on it, required the toenail to be removed again. I was told that the problem was not really ingrown toenail problems but a fungus of some type on the toenail. For all this I have been given medicines of all shapes, colors, and forms: one taken every four hours, another every 12 hours, another three times daily, another every day at lunch for 40 days. The worst part of the whole experience was calling President Johnson to give him the good news and writing my family to give them something to worry about."
Enough with toes already.
As we were preparing for bed that first night, my companion noticed that the big toe on my right foot was all red, inflamed, and infected. That was not good, he concluded, with all the walking missionaries do, with the humid climate, with the rainy season coming on.
Elder Slade called the mission president that night and the next day he took me back down to Rio, where we went to Hospital Silvestre, a clean, well-equiped hospital run by the Seventh-Day Adventists that had doctors and nurses who actually spoke English. I wasn't very fluent in Portuguese yet. That Friday afternoon, December 20, I had my toe operated on and the nail completely removed from my right big toe.
For the next week I convalesced in the mission home. I was supposed to stay off my foot for the most part. The incessant pain helped me do that. I celebrated my first Brazilian Christmas as a patient lying on a bed or hopping around in the mission home. During that week I also kept reviewing the missionary discussions in Portuguese, read James E. Talmage's Jesus the Christ again, read nearly half of President David O. McKay's Man May Know for Himself, typed the entire new mission handbook onto stencil so that it could be mimeographed for the missionaries, and visited the hospital every other day for bandage changes.
Finally, on the evening of Saturday, December 28, I returned to Petrópolis. Elder Slade was grateful to have a companion again. I still had a bandage on my toe and had to wear sandals rather than shoes.
A little over a month later, on Wednesday, February 5, 1969, Elder Slade and I returned to Rio. He was on his way home to the United States. I was merely going to the hospital to have my toe checked and planned to return to Petrópolis that afternoon. My companion went with me to the hospital, where shortly thereafter I came out without a toenail on my left big toe.
I reflected that the first day and the last day that Elder Slade was my companion he had been with me in the hospital watching me lose toenails. I said my final good-bye to him from on my back in a bed in the mission home. He had been a good companion, one that I relied on heavily for help with my lessons and the language. He gave me a good start on my mission.
The next morning, after an overnight stay in the mission home, I returned alone to Petrópolis to prepare to transfer to the Tijuca area of Rio de Janeiro. That change came as quite a shock. I had been in Petrópolis only six weeks. Perhaps the president wanted me a little closer to the hospital, a little closer where he could keep an eye on my toes.
I was supposed to go with the other two elders in Petrópolis to the neighboring town of Teresópolis for the evening when they went over there for Mutual. One of the elders was the branch president in Teresópolis, and he and his companion traveled over there a couple times a week. As mentioned, I was supposed to go with them. But when I got back to Petrópolis, they had left me a note informing me they had already gone.
I spent the rest of the day alone, somewhat frightened at being alone. I stayed in my room at the boarding place, the pensão where we lived, being careful with my foot, packing, preparing instructions for those continuing after me, finishing my part of the district history, writing in my journal, catching up a bit of delinquent correspondence, and such. Sometime that evening I poured out my soul in prayers of thanksgiving and pleading. My eyes were wet. And my toe down there throbbing with pain at the end of my leg did not even seem to matter at that moment.
And so the next day, Friday, I was off to Rio and my new assignment with a new companion. And with a throbbing toe.
"Last Friday evening," I wrote in my journal on Wednesday, February 12, "I had an experience that deepened my appreciation for the Savior's atoning sacrifice and demonstrated the weaknesses of the flesh. I was changing the bandage on my toe for the first time since the operation and the pain, because of sticking to the raw skin where the toenail used to be, became so unbearable that I blacked out right there on the bed. It was only a few seconds but had Elder Sarager [my new companion in Tijuca] a bit worried."
I wished afterward that Elder Sarager had finished ripping the bandage off while I was out. Unfortunately, he did not. After I recovered a bit, I still had to deal with getting the sticking gauze the rest of the way off. The pain was horrendous.
I continued in my journal: "How weak we are! The Savior suffered such intense pain in Gethsemane, causing bleeding at the pores, that my experience is weak in comparison. His was for hours, mine only minutes. His was more than physical pain, mine only that. Yet Jesus Christ fainted not but perfected His Father's plan. For this experience I am grateful and can appreciate and understand a little more clearly now.
"Health is a beautiful and one of our most valuable gifts from our Father in Heaven. Like too many blessings we often do not appreciate it until it is taken from us or we forfeit the right to have it. If I have not yet learned another thing from my mission, I do know that health should be jealously guarded with good sense and the proper measure of faith. We must be clean that bear the vessels of the Lord."
That should have been enough in the toe department. But that was not to be.
Nearly nine months later, on Monday, October 27, 1969, I wrote in my journal, "Today turned into one of those days when all sorts of things happen to make life look different and exciting. Making a visit to Hospital Silvestre, I learned from Dr. Kovach that my cold was really bronchitis. An infection that started in my right big toe again last week, ten months after the operation on it, required the toenail to be removed again. I was told that the problem was not really ingrown toenail problems but a fungus of some type on the toenail. For all this I have been given medicines of all shapes, colors, and forms: one taken every four hours, another every 12 hours, another three times daily, another every day at lunch for 40 days. The worst part of the whole experience was calling President Johnson to give him the good news and writing my family to give them something to worry about."
Enough with toes already.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
And here we have Idaho
I learned the Idaho state song during the spring of 1959. We had moved from Oregon to Idaho in the end of February, and I was a fourth grader at Scism School, a three-room country school south of Nampa. The fourth, fifth, and sixth grades were all in the same classroom with the same teacher. I learned the song in this classroom as we studied the history of Idaho.
That is the chorus of the song. I never lived in the Gem State after I became an adult, but like a true Idahoan, I always sang the chorus as we crossed the state line into Idaho on various visits through the years. As I sang it, the words gradually morphed into this slightly alternative version:
My wife and my children heard me sing my garbled version of the song enough times, almost as a rite of passage into the state, as it were, that some of them can sing some of the lines. I'm sorry that I taught them the wrong words.
I vaguely remember the lyrics of the first verse, although my singing the song as we entered the state did not include the verse:
I did not even remember, if ever I knew, that it had a second verse:
Interestingly, I never learned the Oregon state song during the nearly four years of school I attended in the Beaver State.
And here we have Idaho
Winning her way to fame.
Silver and gold in the sunlight blaze,
And romance lies in her name.
Singing, we're singing of you,
Ah, proudly too,
All our lives through, we'll go
Singing, singing of you,
Singing of Idaho.
That is the chorus of the song. I never lived in the Gem State after I became an adult, but like a true Idahoan, I always sang the chorus as we crossed the state line into Idaho on various visits through the years. As I sang it, the words gradually morphed into this slightly alternative version:
And here we have Idaho
Wending her way to fame.
Silver and gold in the sunlit plain,
And romance lies in her name.
Singing, singing of you,
All proudly too,
All our lives through, we'll go
Singing, singing of you,
Singing of Idaho.
My wife and my children heard me sing my garbled version of the song enough times, almost as a rite of passage into the state, as it were, that some of them can sing some of the lines. I'm sorry that I taught them the wrong words.
I vaguely remember the lyrics of the first verse, although my singing the song as we entered the state did not include the verse:
You've heard of the wonders our land does possess,
Its beautiful valleys and hills,
The majestic forests where nature abounds,
We love every nook and rill.
I did not even remember, if ever I knew, that it had a second verse:
There's truly one state in this great land of ours
Where ideals can be realized.
The pioneers made it so for you and me,
A legacy we'll always prize.
Interestingly, I never learned the Oregon state song during the nearly four years of school I attended in the Beaver State.
Friday, April 17, 2009
An early injury
When I was a boy in Oregon we lived eighteen miles from church. During the summer, when school was out, we went to Primary on a weekday morning. We would normally catch a ride with neighbors who were headed that way. It may not have always been the same, but the one I remember is Sister House, who lived with her family at least two and probably even three miles from us.
One summer morning Dale and I had been to Primary. We had ridden home with Sister House and were then walking the rest of the way home from her place.
It was a beautiful day, probably early in the summer, because it didn't seem to be too hot yet. We were coming down the hill about a mile west of our house, where the road curved from south to east. We may have been running down the hill, I don't really remember, but I tripped and fell onto the asphalt pavement. I instinctively stretched out my hands to break my fall and ended up with a nasty gash in the palm of my right hand. There was a lot of pain and a lot of blood, and I probably bawled the rest of the way home.
I simply do not remember whether we bandaged me up at home or went to the doctor in Parma to have it stitched up. Probably the latter. It would have been a dirty cut and likely full of gravel.
Today, more than half a century later, I still have a scar in the palm of my hand where the injury occurred.
One summer morning Dale and I had been to Primary. We had ridden home with Sister House and were then walking the rest of the way home from her place.
It was a beautiful day, probably early in the summer, because it didn't seem to be too hot yet. We were coming down the hill about a mile west of our house, where the road curved from south to east. We may have been running down the hill, I don't really remember, but I tripped and fell onto the asphalt pavement. I instinctively stretched out my hands to break my fall and ended up with a nasty gash in the palm of my right hand. There was a lot of pain and a lot of blood, and I probably bawled the rest of the way home.
I simply do not remember whether we bandaged me up at home or went to the doctor in Parma to have it stitched up. Probably the latter. It would have been a dirty cut and likely full of gravel.
Today, more than half a century later, I still have a scar in the palm of my hand where the injury occurred.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Unjustly accused
My younger brother Dale was born when I was two and a half years old. I cannot remember his being born. We were the seventh and eighth of what eventually were nine children.
As we both got a little older and Dale became big enough to be a playmate, especially in those early years before either of us started school, we would spend hours and hours playing in the yard near our farmhouse. Because we lived on a farm, relatively isolated from other kids our ages, our neighborhood was our family, and our fun was homemade, fashioned out of whatever might be at hand. Our family was poor, and we had a few simple toys, undoubtedly a number of them hand-me-downs, nothing at all elaborate or fancy or expensive such as children might enjoy in more prosperous times.
On summer evenings I remember playing games with our older brothers, games such as hide-and-go-seek, Annie-Annie-over, or cowboys and Indians. Or in the winter there were snowball fights and fox-and-geese.
Sometimes Dale and I would climb up into the apple tree and pretend we could see the end of the world. Or we would go exploring among the weeds and cattails and other growth along the drain ditch bottom across the road from our house.
Just north of our house was an old abandoned silage pit that made a fun place to play with our little toy trucks and cars. Dale and I would build our roads and towns right on the edge and down the side of the pit.
We had a family dog named Red, who was fun to play with. He loved to chase after balls or sticks and bring them back to you to throw again. We could always tell when it was about to rain because Red would eat grass before an approaching storm. By the time we moved to Idaho in 1959, when I was nine years old, Red must have been getting pretty old in dog years. On one of our many trips to our new house, he jumped out of the back of the pickup, and we never saw him again.
Once Dale and I were playing with some spears we had fashioned out of some tall, dried stalks of some kind. Dale threw one through the window in the back door and smashed the glass in the storm door. That meant big trouble for the one who had done it. Dale tore off to some hiding place, while I stood innocently around, my spear in hand, to get caught at the scene of the crime.
Ray, my next older brother, was four years older than me. He had witnessed the accident, he said, but claimed that he'd seen me throw the spear. Despite my earnest pleadings to the contrary, I was found guilty and got a good licking from Mom.
As we both got a little older and Dale became big enough to be a playmate, especially in those early years before either of us started school, we would spend hours and hours playing in the yard near our farmhouse. Because we lived on a farm, relatively isolated from other kids our ages, our neighborhood was our family, and our fun was homemade, fashioned out of whatever might be at hand. Our family was poor, and we had a few simple toys, undoubtedly a number of them hand-me-downs, nothing at all elaborate or fancy or expensive such as children might enjoy in more prosperous times.
On summer evenings I remember playing games with our older brothers, games such as hide-and-go-seek, Annie-Annie-over, or cowboys and Indians. Or in the winter there were snowball fights and fox-and-geese.
Sometimes Dale and I would climb up into the apple tree and pretend we could see the end of the world. Or we would go exploring among the weeds and cattails and other growth along the drain ditch bottom across the road from our house.
Just north of our house was an old abandoned silage pit that made a fun place to play with our little toy trucks and cars. Dale and I would build our roads and towns right on the edge and down the side of the pit.
We had a family dog named Red, who was fun to play with. He loved to chase after balls or sticks and bring them back to you to throw again. We could always tell when it was about to rain because Red would eat grass before an approaching storm. By the time we moved to Idaho in 1959, when I was nine years old, Red must have been getting pretty old in dog years. On one of our many trips to our new house, he jumped out of the back of the pickup, and we never saw him again.
Once Dale and I were playing with some spears we had fashioned out of some tall, dried stalks of some kind. Dale threw one through the window in the back door and smashed the glass in the storm door. That meant big trouble for the one who had done it. Dale tore off to some hiding place, while I stood innocently around, my spear in hand, to get caught at the scene of the crime.
Ray, my next older brother, was four years older than me. He had witnessed the accident, he said, but claimed that he'd seen me throw the spear. Despite my earnest pleadings to the contrary, I was found guilty and got a good licking from Mom.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
The runaway manure spreader
A large irrigation ditch ran across the northern border of our farm in Oregon. A narrow path where the tractor or a pickup could drive ran along our side of the canal. Once, when we still had horses instead of a tractor, some of my older brothers were coming off this ditch bank road onto the main dirt road that ran in front of our place, the boundary road between Oregon and Idaho, with the horses pulling a manure spreader.
Something spooked the horses, and they started running down the hill toward the yard. The bottom of the spreader bed, which one of my brothers was standing on, would move like a conveyer belt whenever the wheels were engaged, which they were on this occasion, and he was running at break-neck speed on top of the spreader while hanging onto the reins trying to stop the horses.
Had he lost his footing, he would have gone out the back of the spreader and been mangled or even killed. Somehow he managed to hold on, running in place as fast as he could, and survived the sharp turn off the road into the yard, where the horses stopped short as soon as they reached the barn.
Something spooked the horses, and they started running down the hill toward the yard. The bottom of the spreader bed, which one of my brothers was standing on, would move like a conveyer belt whenever the wheels were engaged, which they were on this occasion, and he was running at break-neck speed on top of the spreader while hanging onto the reins trying to stop the horses.
Had he lost his footing, he would have gone out the back of the spreader and been mangled or even killed. Somehow he managed to hold on, running in place as fast as he could, and survived the sharp turn off the road into the yard, where the horses stopped short as soon as they reached the barn.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
The scary canal
We lived on an eighty-acre farm in the Big Bend area of eastern Oregon when I was a child. It is the only portion of the state east of the Snake River.
A dirt road ran along the eastern edge of our farm and on up and over the hill that was to the north of us. That road was the state line between Oregon and Idaho. We had substantial ties to both states. My parents both worked in Idaho. We went to school in Oregon. Our mailing address was in Idaho. We went to church in Oregon. Our telephone number was in Idaho. But we lived in Oregon.
A paved road ran along the southern edge of our farm. That road headed west to Adrian, which was about six miles west and north from where we lived. Adrian is where I went to school. Going in the other direction, that same road turned by our house and headed south toward the Snake River, which was about a mile away, and then mostly east from there to Wilder and Greenleaf and Caldwell.
Someone else's farm was to the west of ours.
A large irrigation ditch, a canal really, ran across the northern border of our property. A sagebrush-covered ridge that was too rocky and steep for farming was on the other side of the canal. A narrow path where the tractor or a pickup could drive ran along our side of the canal. And that was what was scary. I used to panic when I was riding in the truck with my dad and he'd turn around, repeatedly backing and pulling forward enough times to turn the thing around in an area that was way too small for such turns, and with my knowing that some day he was going to back right into the ditch, and we'd drown, and that would be the end of that.
But he never did.
A dirt road ran along the eastern edge of our farm and on up and over the hill that was to the north of us. That road was the state line between Oregon and Idaho. We had substantial ties to both states. My parents both worked in Idaho. We went to school in Oregon. Our mailing address was in Idaho. We went to church in Oregon. Our telephone number was in Idaho. But we lived in Oregon.
A paved road ran along the southern edge of our farm. That road headed west to Adrian, which was about six miles west and north from where we lived. Adrian is where I went to school. Going in the other direction, that same road turned by our house and headed south toward the Snake River, which was about a mile away, and then mostly east from there to Wilder and Greenleaf and Caldwell.
Someone else's farm was to the west of ours.
A large irrigation ditch, a canal really, ran across the northern border of our property. A sagebrush-covered ridge that was too rocky and steep for farming was on the other side of the canal. A narrow path where the tractor or a pickup could drive ran along our side of the canal. And that was what was scary. I used to panic when I was riding in the truck with my dad and he'd turn around, repeatedly backing and pulling forward enough times to turn the thing around in an area that was way too small for such turns, and with my knowing that some day he was going to back right into the ditch, and we'd drown, and that would be the end of that.
But he never did.
Monday, April 13, 2009
This life is the time to prepare
My wife Claudia wrote the following experience in the fall of 1974. We lived in Provo and had two children, Michael Adam and Rebecca.
Amulek in the Book of Mormon bears testimony of many important and eternal truths as he speaks to the people. Among his words we find this message: "For behold, this life is the time for men to prepare to meet God; yea, behold the day of this life is the day for men to perform their labors" (Alma 34:32). The vital nature of this life in relation to eternity was further impressed upon me by an experience I had once while going to the temple.
It all began at an earlier time when Dean and I had gone to see some friends of ours sealed in marriage. Coming home, my recommend didn't get put in its usual place; so when our branch went to the temple again later, I went without my recommend. We hoped I could get through on an oral recommendation from our branch president, since he would be going through with us and had interviewed me for my recommend. Such was not the case.
Upon entering the temple and explaining the situation, I was quickly ushered into President Clark's office (he was the temple president) with Dean and our branch president by my side. President Clark then explained the rules the First Presidency had given all temple presidents to follow in dealing with such situations. The rules were simple and I knew I was no exception to them, for the Lord doesn't consider exceptions. "I, the Lord am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise" (D&C 82:10). The temple policy was this: If you were from far away and that was your only chance to go through that particular temple, they would just call a member of your stake presidency and get a verbal okay. But if you were from within the temple district (and I was) and could come again, you had to have your temple recommend with you. He said, however, that if my branch president would sign a recommend for me right there and if a member of the stake presidency would come to the temple and sign it also—I could go through with everyone else.
At this point I was in a state of tears. More than anything I wanted to be deeper within the walls of that sacred house, to be where the Spirit of the Lord and peace could be found. Dean could easily go without me—he had his recommend—as could all the others. Oh how I longed to be there with them! My branch president signed the new recommend and President Clark tried to get a hold of a member of the stake presidency—the stake president was out of town, one counselor wasn't home and was unable to be located, while the other one's line was busy.
It occurred to me then and I was further impressed with it again during the session (we finally got hold of one of the counselors) that the temple experience was somewhat like the eternities, though different in certain ways. There are certain qualifications we will have to meet before we can enter into the joy of our Lord and celestial glory. Unlike the temple recommend, however, we won't be able to get it just right then—our qualifications are something we will bring with us from our earthly existence.
Again Amulek says: "Therefore I beseech of you that ye do not procrastinate the day of your repentance until the end; for after this day of life, which is given us to prepare for eternity, behold if we do not improve our time while in this life, then cometh the night of darkness wherein there can be no labor performed" (Alma 34:33).
If this same situation occurred in the eternities, Dean would have his "recommend" and this time he wouldn't wait for me. I can think of nothing sadder nor more tragic than to hear the Lord say, "I am sorry, but those are the rules and you just didn’t qualify." And then to see your loved ones enter into the celestial kingdom while you stood beyond on the outside. To me there could be nothing so tragic as being eternally separated from the people I truly love. Families and loved ones are what the gospel's all about and are the basis of eternity.
This experience made me realize even more deeply the importance of this earth life and of the things we do here. I love Dean and all of you more than I can express; and though it was but a type and shadow of a greater eternal sorrow, I never want to feel even the loss I felt there in the temple without a recommend. Like Amulek, I bear you my witness that his life is indeed the time to prepare to meet God—it is the only time we have to do so.
Amulek in the Book of Mormon bears testimony of many important and eternal truths as he speaks to the people. Among his words we find this message: "For behold, this life is the time for men to prepare to meet God; yea, behold the day of this life is the day for men to perform their labors" (Alma 34:32). The vital nature of this life in relation to eternity was further impressed upon me by an experience I had once while going to the temple.
It all began at an earlier time when Dean and I had gone to see some friends of ours sealed in marriage. Coming home, my recommend didn't get put in its usual place; so when our branch went to the temple again later, I went without my recommend. We hoped I could get through on an oral recommendation from our branch president, since he would be going through with us and had interviewed me for my recommend. Such was not the case.
Upon entering the temple and explaining the situation, I was quickly ushered into President Clark's office (he was the temple president) with Dean and our branch president by my side. President Clark then explained the rules the First Presidency had given all temple presidents to follow in dealing with such situations. The rules were simple and I knew I was no exception to them, for the Lord doesn't consider exceptions. "I, the Lord am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise" (D&C 82:10). The temple policy was this: If you were from far away and that was your only chance to go through that particular temple, they would just call a member of your stake presidency and get a verbal okay. But if you were from within the temple district (and I was) and could come again, you had to have your temple recommend with you. He said, however, that if my branch president would sign a recommend for me right there and if a member of the stake presidency would come to the temple and sign it also—I could go through with everyone else.
At this point I was in a state of tears. More than anything I wanted to be deeper within the walls of that sacred house, to be where the Spirit of the Lord and peace could be found. Dean could easily go without me—he had his recommend—as could all the others. Oh how I longed to be there with them! My branch president signed the new recommend and President Clark tried to get a hold of a member of the stake presidency—the stake president was out of town, one counselor wasn't home and was unable to be located, while the other one's line was busy.
It occurred to me then and I was further impressed with it again during the session (we finally got hold of one of the counselors) that the temple experience was somewhat like the eternities, though different in certain ways. There are certain qualifications we will have to meet before we can enter into the joy of our Lord and celestial glory. Unlike the temple recommend, however, we won't be able to get it just right then—our qualifications are something we will bring with us from our earthly existence.
Again Amulek says: "Therefore I beseech of you that ye do not procrastinate the day of your repentance until the end; for after this day of life, which is given us to prepare for eternity, behold if we do not improve our time while in this life, then cometh the night of darkness wherein there can be no labor performed" (Alma 34:33).
If this same situation occurred in the eternities, Dean would have his "recommend" and this time he wouldn't wait for me. I can think of nothing sadder nor more tragic than to hear the Lord say, "I am sorry, but those are the rules and you just didn’t qualify." And then to see your loved ones enter into the celestial kingdom while you stood beyond on the outside. To me there could be nothing so tragic as being eternally separated from the people I truly love. Families and loved ones are what the gospel's all about and are the basis of eternity.
This experience made me realize even more deeply the importance of this earth life and of the things we do here. I love Dean and all of you more than I can express; and though it was but a type and shadow of a greater eternal sorrow, I never want to feel even the loss I felt there in the temple without a recommend. Like Amulek, I bear you my witness that his life is indeed the time to prepare to meet God—it is the only time we have to do so.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
A conference miracle
The spring and fall general conferences of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are among my favorite times of the year. They are like having two extra Christmases every year.
For a number of years in the 1980s and 90s a group of us with ties to Brazil would meet on Temple Square and attend conference together in the Tabernacle. Our group at times included Mike Bertasso, Doug Holt, Arlen Woofinden, and me. The four of us had served as missionaries in the Brazil North Mission. Wives sometimes participated, particularly those who traveled from out of state. As the years progressed, a number of our children also joined the group.
Our tradition rather fell apart after the new Conference Center opened in April 2000. At the Tabernacle we all had priesthood leader or companion tickets and could sit with each other for any session we wanted as long as we found each other and waited together in the same line. Once the Conference Center opened, our passes were for particular sessions, and we had to enter through different doors and sit in wholly different sections. It was hard to coordinate our being together anymore.
One year Mike Bertasso and I had a touching experience while waiting to get into the Tabernacle before the Sunday morning session of the October 1993 conference. Even though we had arrived by 7:45, fifteen minutes earlier than on Saturday morning, we had to get in the line outside the north gate of Temple Square and there was some doubt about whether we'd get inside the Tabernacle. It was a brisk autumn morning.
Two ladies from Clinton, in the northern part of Davis County, were standing behind us in the line. As it became increasingly uncertain that we'd get in, even though we all had priesthood leader or partner tickets, the ladies made some comment about how the original two people in our group had grown to about ten or twelve people, and they hoped we weren't the last ones let in. We had them get in front of us, and as we visited with them found out they had never been to a general conference before and they said, without ever revealing why, that it was critically important that they get in.
One of the ladies was a sister to Kent Hood, the bishop in the 36th Ward in our stake who had died of cancer. My brother Kay and his family lived in Bishop Hood's ward.
When it became very clear that we would not get in, Mike and I walked over to the head usher, Gary, whom we'd become acquainted with over the years as we'd come to conference together, and explained the situation and asked if there were any way he could get the two sisters in. After the session had started, Gary asked each of the approximately fifty people in front of us if they'd mind if these two ladies went in to the two remaining seats he had inside. No one objected, so he took them in, and their tears and gratitude compensated fully for our not getting in.
They found us after the session and gave us big hugs and, with tears streaming down their cheeks, thanked us again for helping them get in. It was a wonderful experience, far more than this rough account of the experience begins to convey.
A few weeks later I published the following thought in the October 25, 1993, Family Journal: "Elder Neal A. Maxwell has written, 'The very usefulness of our lives depends upon our willingness to serve others' (Even as I Am, 62). . . .
"This past week I saw another fulfillment of that true principle. A couple weeks ago I reported an experience Mike Bertasso and I had the Sunday morning of general conference while waiting to get into the Tabernacle. By talking to the head usher, we were able to help two ladies from Clinton get into the morning session. One of those ladies, Marsha Hambleton, sent me a nice thank-you letter this past week:
"Dear Brother Cleverly,
"I wanted to send you a note to thank you for your great kindness, rendered to myself and my friend this past conference.
"I am one of the two ladies you helped get into the Tabernacle on Sunday morning of general conference.
"I can't begin to tell you the great impact of your service. We were to attend that particular session of conference under divine instruction. Little did we know just how divine it would be. Though I can't share with you the details of why we were to attend that conference, I will tell you that if it hadn't been for you and your associates we would not have been able to enter.
"The work of the Lord is in full force and sometimes a simple act of service and sacrifice can mean a great deal to someone. That particular morning you did an act of service which meant the changing of a heart.
"I can't express the gratitude we felt. As we sat in that conference with tears streaming down our faces how thankful we were to the strangers still waiting in line outside. The Lord, personally, had you and your friends help with that task that morning to meet both a promise and a gift of love. You will never know the extent of your kindness, but believe that on that morning you and your friends were serving the Master.
"Thank you for being the kind of men that can feel the Spirit and then respond to it. Thank you for being the kind of men that the Savior would guide and direct. Thank you for your rescue!
"Thank you again for your great act of kindness. It will never be forgotten, neither by me, my friend, nor by the Lord. You were truly an instrument in His hands that day.
"Please extend our gratitude to all involved. God bless you always.
"Isn't it wonderful how the Lord focuses on little details, on quiet whisperings of the Spirit that nudge us to be in the right spot at the right time, on simple impressions to be doing some little thing for another person, on incredible little coincidences that are a part of His divine tapestry."
For a number of years in the 1980s and 90s a group of us with ties to Brazil would meet on Temple Square and attend conference together in the Tabernacle. Our group at times included Mike Bertasso, Doug Holt, Arlen Woofinden, and me. The four of us had served as missionaries in the Brazil North Mission. Wives sometimes participated, particularly those who traveled from out of state. As the years progressed, a number of our children also joined the group.
Our tradition rather fell apart after the new Conference Center opened in April 2000. At the Tabernacle we all had priesthood leader or companion tickets and could sit with each other for any session we wanted as long as we found each other and waited together in the same line. Once the Conference Center opened, our passes were for particular sessions, and we had to enter through different doors and sit in wholly different sections. It was hard to coordinate our being together anymore.
One year Mike Bertasso and I had a touching experience while waiting to get into the Tabernacle before the Sunday morning session of the October 1993 conference. Even though we had arrived by 7:45, fifteen minutes earlier than on Saturday morning, we had to get in the line outside the north gate of Temple Square and there was some doubt about whether we'd get inside the Tabernacle. It was a brisk autumn morning.
Two ladies from Clinton, in the northern part of Davis County, were standing behind us in the line. As it became increasingly uncertain that we'd get in, even though we all had priesthood leader or partner tickets, the ladies made some comment about how the original two people in our group had grown to about ten or twelve people, and they hoped we weren't the last ones let in. We had them get in front of us, and as we visited with them found out they had never been to a general conference before and they said, without ever revealing why, that it was critically important that they get in.
One of the ladies was a sister to Kent Hood, the bishop in the 36th Ward in our stake who had died of cancer. My brother Kay and his family lived in Bishop Hood's ward.
When it became very clear that we would not get in, Mike and I walked over to the head usher, Gary, whom we'd become acquainted with over the years as we'd come to conference together, and explained the situation and asked if there were any way he could get the two sisters in. After the session had started, Gary asked each of the approximately fifty people in front of us if they'd mind if these two ladies went in to the two remaining seats he had inside. No one objected, so he took them in, and their tears and gratitude compensated fully for our not getting in.
They found us after the session and gave us big hugs and, with tears streaming down their cheeks, thanked us again for helping them get in. It was a wonderful experience, far more than this rough account of the experience begins to convey.
A few weeks later I published the following thought in the October 25, 1993, Family Journal: "Elder Neal A. Maxwell has written, 'The very usefulness of our lives depends upon our willingness to serve others' (Even as I Am, 62). . . .
"This past week I saw another fulfillment of that true principle. A couple weeks ago I reported an experience Mike Bertasso and I had the Sunday morning of general conference while waiting to get into the Tabernacle. By talking to the head usher, we were able to help two ladies from Clinton get into the morning session. One of those ladies, Marsha Hambleton, sent me a nice thank-you letter this past week:
"Dear Brother Cleverly,
"I wanted to send you a note to thank you for your great kindness, rendered to myself and my friend this past conference.
"I am one of the two ladies you helped get into the Tabernacle on Sunday morning of general conference.
"I can't begin to tell you the great impact of your service. We were to attend that particular session of conference under divine instruction. Little did we know just how divine it would be. Though I can't share with you the details of why we were to attend that conference, I will tell you that if it hadn't been for you and your associates we would not have been able to enter.
"The work of the Lord is in full force and sometimes a simple act of service and sacrifice can mean a great deal to someone. That particular morning you did an act of service which meant the changing of a heart.
"I can't express the gratitude we felt. As we sat in that conference with tears streaming down our faces how thankful we were to the strangers still waiting in line outside. The Lord, personally, had you and your friends help with that task that morning to meet both a promise and a gift of love. You will never know the extent of your kindness, but believe that on that morning you and your friends were serving the Master.
"Thank you for being the kind of men that can feel the Spirit and then respond to it. Thank you for being the kind of men that the Savior would guide and direct. Thank you for your rescue!
"Thank you again for your great act of kindness. It will never be forgotten, neither by me, my friend, nor by the Lord. You were truly an instrument in His hands that day.
"Please extend our gratitude to all involved. God bless you always.
"Isn't it wonderful how the Lord focuses on little details, on quiet whisperings of the Spirit that nudge us to be in the right spot at the right time, on simple impressions to be doing some little thing for another person, on incredible little coincidences that are a part of His divine tapestry."
Saturday, April 11, 2009
The mantle of a prophet
Thomas S. Monson had been my brother Jerry's mission president in eastern Canada. After Jerry returned home in 1960, I recall his saying we needed to keep an eye on President Monson, that someday he would be called as a General Authority.
Undoubtedly a lot of returned missionaries are that impressed with their mission presidents, but just a couple years later Brother Monson was called as an apostle. That occurred at the October 1963 general conference when I was fourteen years old. He filled the vacancy created by the death of President Henry D. Moyle. I don't specifically remember President Moyle, but Elder Monson was the first person I consciously remember being called into the Twelve.
Through the years I have had occasional interactions with Elder Monson because of my work in the Missionary Department, especially after he became a counselor in the First Presidency. With his incredible memory, I was always intrigued that he never seemed to connect me with an Elder Cleverly who had served in his mission in Canada.
On Sunday, February 3, 2008, Thomas S. Monson became the sixteenth President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His appointment came a week following the death of President Gordon B. Hinckley. Two months later, on Saturday morning, April 5, in a solemn assembly at the beginning of the Church's annual general conference, President Monson was officially sustained as President of the Church.
That same evening in the priesthood session, near the end of President Monson's talk to the assembled brethren, the Holy Spirit quietly but powerfully bore witness to my soul that Thomas S. Monson was indeed the Lord's anointed prophet, seer, and revelator for the season ahead. I was grateful for that revealed knowledge. Now my heart knew what my head already accepted.
I appreciated, therefore, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland's comment the next day as he began his masterful talk in the closing session on Sunday afternoon: "Of the many privileges we have had in this historic conference, including participation in a solemn assembly in which we were able to stand and sustain you [President Monson] as prophet, seer, and revelator, I cannot help but feel that the most important privilege we have all had has been to witness personally the settling of the sacred, prophetic mantle upon your shoulders, almost as it were by the very hands of angels themselves. Those in attendance at last night's general priesthood meeting and all who were present in the worldwide broadcast of this morning's session have been eyewitness to this event. For all the participants, I express our gratitude for such a moment. I say that with love to President Monson and especially love to our Father in Heaven for the wonderful opportunity it has been to be 'eyewitnesses of his majesty' (2 Peter 1:16), as the Apostle Peter once said."
The notion of a previous prophet's mantle falling upon a new prophet stems from Old Testament times. After Elijah was dramatically taken up into heaven in a chariot of fire (see 2 Kings 2:9–12), his mantle fell from him, and Elisha took it and performed his first prophetic miracle (see 2 Kings 2:13–14). The sacred text then records: "And when the sons of the prophets . . . saw him, they said, The spirit of Elijah doth rest on Elisha" (2 Kings 2:15).
And so it happened once again in our time. The mantle of the prophet so ably worn by Gordon B. Hinckley (1910–2008) during the previous thirteen years had now fallen on Thomas S. Monson, and the Lord's Holy Spirit rested upon him.
Undoubtedly a lot of returned missionaries are that impressed with their mission presidents, but just a couple years later Brother Monson was called as an apostle. That occurred at the October 1963 general conference when I was fourteen years old. He filled the vacancy created by the death of President Henry D. Moyle. I don't specifically remember President Moyle, but Elder Monson was the first person I consciously remember being called into the Twelve.
Through the years I have had occasional interactions with Elder Monson because of my work in the Missionary Department, especially after he became a counselor in the First Presidency. With his incredible memory, I was always intrigued that he never seemed to connect me with an Elder Cleverly who had served in his mission in Canada.
On Sunday, February 3, 2008, Thomas S. Monson became the sixteenth President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His appointment came a week following the death of President Gordon B. Hinckley. Two months later, on Saturday morning, April 5, in a solemn assembly at the beginning of the Church's annual general conference, President Monson was officially sustained as President of the Church.
That same evening in the priesthood session, near the end of President Monson's talk to the assembled brethren, the Holy Spirit quietly but powerfully bore witness to my soul that Thomas S. Monson was indeed the Lord's anointed prophet, seer, and revelator for the season ahead. I was grateful for that revealed knowledge. Now my heart knew what my head already accepted.
I appreciated, therefore, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland's comment the next day as he began his masterful talk in the closing session on Sunday afternoon: "Of the many privileges we have had in this historic conference, including participation in a solemn assembly in which we were able to stand and sustain you [President Monson] as prophet, seer, and revelator, I cannot help but feel that the most important privilege we have all had has been to witness personally the settling of the sacred, prophetic mantle upon your shoulders, almost as it were by the very hands of angels themselves. Those in attendance at last night's general priesthood meeting and all who were present in the worldwide broadcast of this morning's session have been eyewitness to this event. For all the participants, I express our gratitude for such a moment. I say that with love to President Monson and especially love to our Father in Heaven for the wonderful opportunity it has been to be 'eyewitnesses of his majesty' (2 Peter 1:16), as the Apostle Peter once said."
The notion of a previous prophet's mantle falling upon a new prophet stems from Old Testament times. After Elijah was dramatically taken up into heaven in a chariot of fire (see 2 Kings 2:9–12), his mantle fell from him, and Elisha took it and performed his first prophetic miracle (see 2 Kings 2:13–14). The sacred text then records: "And when the sons of the prophets . . . saw him, they said, The spirit of Elijah doth rest on Elisha" (2 Kings 2:15).
And so it happened once again in our time. The mantle of the prophet so ably worn by Gordon B. Hinckley (1910–2008) during the previous thirteen years had now fallen on Thomas S. Monson, and the Lord's Holy Spirit rested upon him.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Read aloud
One of the defining spiritual experiences of my life occurred early in the summer of 1968 as I was preparing for my mission. My freshman year at Brigham Young University had ended, and I returned home to Idaho. I was horribly homesick for Provo. I felt as empty as I've ever been in my life. Before or since. I really missed BYU and the people and the experiences I had had there. For a week it continued.
One morning after especially earnest pleading with the Lord to comfort me and lift me out of my depression, a voice softly suggested: "Read aloud." I do not know if I heard the voice in my mind or in my ears. It seemed at the time as real as if someone were in my bedroom with me.
Read what aloud? But no answer.
I felt moved to turn to the Book of Mormon. I thumbed through its pages, not knowing what I was looking for, until I reached a passage that jumped out at me as if it were in type twice the size of any other verse on the page. Its message entered with considerable force into my soul: "For the eternal purposes of the Lord shall roll on, until all his promises shall be fulfilled" (Mormon 8:22).
Those brief words said everything that was necessary for me: The Lord was mindful of me and my needs. His work would move forward. He was inviting me to participate if I desired. He loved me and had the best in store for me in the context of His all-knowing economy, even if I could not understand what all of His plans and purposes might be.
One morning after especially earnest pleading with the Lord to comfort me and lift me out of my depression, a voice softly suggested: "Read aloud." I do not know if I heard the voice in my mind or in my ears. It seemed at the time as real as if someone were in my bedroom with me.
Read what aloud? But no answer.
I felt moved to turn to the Book of Mormon. I thumbed through its pages, not knowing what I was looking for, until I reached a passage that jumped out at me as if it were in type twice the size of any other verse on the page. Its message entered with considerable force into my soul: "For the eternal purposes of the Lord shall roll on, until all his promises shall be fulfilled" (Mormon 8:22).
Those brief words said everything that was necessary for me: The Lord was mindful of me and my needs. His work would move forward. He was inviting me to participate if I desired. He loved me and had the best in store for me in the context of His all-knowing economy, even if I could not understand what all of His plans and purposes might be.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Accept with a willing heart, again
On Sunday, July 28, 2002, just a week after my fifty-third birthday, I was sustained as the choir accompanist in our ward.
When the bishop called me a couple weeks earlier, I explained that I really couldn't play all that well beyond the hymn arrangements in the hymnbook, and that perhaps I was not the right person for the job. We agreed that I'd think and pray about it for a few days. My thoughts returned naturally to when I was sixteen years old and received my patriarchal blessing, which among other things said, "Accept with a willing heart the responsibilities of service, and God will magnify you until you will be capable of confounding the wise and learned and will melt the defense of the unrighteous, and even though they accept not the message which you bear, yet they will testify of the power which is within you."
I had relied on that promise as a sixteen-year-old when I accepted my first calling as an organist. Did I have less faith now?
I talked with President Lance Wood, a counselor in our stake presidency. He said that Bishop Frederickson had asked the stake presidency if he could extend the calling, since I was serving as a member of the high council. The stake presidency had given approval if I felt I had time to fulfill both callings. Interestingly, President Wood's wife was also the choir accompanist in their ward, and he said she really struggled with some of the arrangements and put in a lot of time practicing. He did not think it would be unreasonable to decline the calling.
I also talked with Coila Robinson, the choir director, which the bishop said I could do. The call had not been her suggestion. As far as she was aware, the idea had originated with the bishop.
I spent a lot of time counseling with the Lord in prayer. I discussed what I was thinking and feeling with Claudia. I prayed some more.
After much thought and prayer, I concluded that if the Lord's servant was extending me a call then I could not in any good conscience, and for the first time ever in my life, turn down a call from the Lord. So I decided to accept, going forward with faith that the Lord would make me equal to the task. As President Thomas S. Monson has taught on many occasions, "Whom the Lord calls, the Lord qualifies."
I guess I was in need of some further stretching at this point in my life.
A couple months later, on the Sunday afternoon of general conference, I wrote in a letter to our missionary daughter Camilla, "Last Sunday the ward choir sang for the first time since its summer break, and I had my debut as the choir accompanist. We sang a song entitled 'Listen to the Prophet,' an appropriate number for the week before conference, and I felt I was greatly blessed in being able to master music beyond my present abilities. The Lord delights to honor those who honor Him, as I'm sure you’re finding out there in the mission field."
Camilla had been an assistant choir accompanist in our ward before she left on her mission.
A month later, now in the middle of November, I wrote Camilla again: "In sacrament meeting I played the organ for the first time since becoming choir accompanist (I had played the piano before) as the congregation sang the first two verses of 'Now Let Us Rejoice,' joined by the choir for an oblagato part on the third verse. It was very impressive, and the choir sounded better and I played better than ever before in practice."
When the bishop called me a couple weeks earlier, I explained that I really couldn't play all that well beyond the hymn arrangements in the hymnbook, and that perhaps I was not the right person for the job. We agreed that I'd think and pray about it for a few days. My thoughts returned naturally to when I was sixteen years old and received my patriarchal blessing, which among other things said, "Accept with a willing heart the responsibilities of service, and God will magnify you until you will be capable of confounding the wise and learned and will melt the defense of the unrighteous, and even though they accept not the message which you bear, yet they will testify of the power which is within you."
I had relied on that promise as a sixteen-year-old when I accepted my first calling as an organist. Did I have less faith now?
I talked with President Lance Wood, a counselor in our stake presidency. He said that Bishop Frederickson had asked the stake presidency if he could extend the calling, since I was serving as a member of the high council. The stake presidency had given approval if I felt I had time to fulfill both callings. Interestingly, President Wood's wife was also the choir accompanist in their ward, and he said she really struggled with some of the arrangements and put in a lot of time practicing. He did not think it would be unreasonable to decline the calling.
I also talked with Coila Robinson, the choir director, which the bishop said I could do. The call had not been her suggestion. As far as she was aware, the idea had originated with the bishop.
I spent a lot of time counseling with the Lord in prayer. I discussed what I was thinking and feeling with Claudia. I prayed some more.
After much thought and prayer, I concluded that if the Lord's servant was extending me a call then I could not in any good conscience, and for the first time ever in my life, turn down a call from the Lord. So I decided to accept, going forward with faith that the Lord would make me equal to the task. As President Thomas S. Monson has taught on many occasions, "Whom the Lord calls, the Lord qualifies."
I guess I was in need of some further stretching at this point in my life.
A couple months later, on the Sunday afternoon of general conference, I wrote in a letter to our missionary daughter Camilla, "Last Sunday the ward choir sang for the first time since its summer break, and I had my debut as the choir accompanist. We sang a song entitled 'Listen to the Prophet,' an appropriate number for the week before conference, and I felt I was greatly blessed in being able to master music beyond my present abilities. The Lord delights to honor those who honor Him, as I'm sure you’re finding out there in the mission field."
Camilla had been an assistant choir accompanist in our ward before she left on her mission.
A month later, now in the middle of November, I wrote Camilla again: "In sacrament meeting I played the organ for the first time since becoming choir accompanist (I had played the piano before) as the congregation sang the first two verses of 'Now Let Us Rejoice,' joined by the choir for an oblagato part on the third verse. It was very impressive, and the choir sounded better and I played better than ever before in practice."
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Accept with a willing heart
I received my patriarchal blessing on Thursday evening, September 2, 1965, six and a half weeks after I turned sixteen. For the most part I did not remember the details of what the patriarch said until the typed copy came in the mail a few weeks later.
I did recall, however, that I was told never to decline callings that would come to me to serve in the Church. That is what I remembered, and it would shortly become important counsel to me. What the patriarch actually said to me, I learned a few weeks later, was slightly different, although the intent I suppose was essentially the same:
"Accept with a willing heart the responsibilities of service and God will magnify you until you will be capable of confounding the wise and the learned and will melt the defense of the unrighteous, and even though they accept not the message of truth which you bear, yet they will testify of the power which is within you."
The following Sunday a member of the bishopric met with me and called me to serve as our ward's Sunday School organist. In those days Sunday School was a separate meeting and had an opening exercise with its own opening and closing hymns, a period of song practice, and the administration of the sacrament with an accompanying sacrament hymn. That was at least four hymns every Sunday, sometimes more depending on what we did during the hymn practice.
I said yes, I would do it. With only two and a half years of piano study behind me, having never had an organ lesson, and being able to play only four of the simplest hymns, I accepted the position solely because of the patriarch’s admonition and promise from just a few days earlier.
"You said what?" my incredulous piano teacher said to me when I told her I had accepted the call. Sister Ruby Hurren, an organist in our ward, had been my early-morning seminary teacher the year I was a freshman. Her husband was a counselor in our stake presidency. She was my piano teacher. I thought a lot of her and greatly valued her opinion. She agreed I needed a lot of help and we began a crash course in learning how to play hymns on the organ.
The Sunday School chorister was also understanding and cooperative. She agreed to list all the hymns I would have to play during the coming month, including the various practice hymns, and promised not to stick any additional ones in that I was not prepared to play. She also got me a key to the building and to the organ and arranged for me to spend time after school and on weekends to come into the chapel and practice on the organ itself. Early on I spent hours and hours practicing the organ. It was a grand old instrument, an actual pipe organ, not like the little electronic instruments I played in other places in other years.
The Lord kept His word and magnified my talent all out of normal proportion. I had accepted the calling with a willing heart, and God had magnified my meager talent. Within months I had mastered the organ even better than the piano and soon I was also serving as Mutual organist, priesthood pianist, stake priesthood pianist, and unofficially as an assistant ward organist. It would serve me well in later years when I went off to college and after that served my mission in Brazil.
Outside my own family and my piano teacher and the Sunday School chorister, I doubt anyone else knew or appreciated that I really had not known how to play. That clearly was a blessing from the Lord and not a stroke of my musical genius because, with hymns excepted, I did not progress a great deal in other areas of musical study. To this day hymns are about the only thing I know how to play.
I did recall, however, that I was told never to decline callings that would come to me to serve in the Church. That is what I remembered, and it would shortly become important counsel to me. What the patriarch actually said to me, I learned a few weeks later, was slightly different, although the intent I suppose was essentially the same:
"Accept with a willing heart the responsibilities of service and God will magnify you until you will be capable of confounding the wise and the learned and will melt the defense of the unrighteous, and even though they accept not the message of truth which you bear, yet they will testify of the power which is within you."
The following Sunday a member of the bishopric met with me and called me to serve as our ward's Sunday School organist. In those days Sunday School was a separate meeting and had an opening exercise with its own opening and closing hymns, a period of song practice, and the administration of the sacrament with an accompanying sacrament hymn. That was at least four hymns every Sunday, sometimes more depending on what we did during the hymn practice.
I said yes, I would do it. With only two and a half years of piano study behind me, having never had an organ lesson, and being able to play only four of the simplest hymns, I accepted the position solely because of the patriarch’s admonition and promise from just a few days earlier.
"You said what?" my incredulous piano teacher said to me when I told her I had accepted the call. Sister Ruby Hurren, an organist in our ward, had been my early-morning seminary teacher the year I was a freshman. Her husband was a counselor in our stake presidency. She was my piano teacher. I thought a lot of her and greatly valued her opinion. She agreed I needed a lot of help and we began a crash course in learning how to play hymns on the organ.
The Sunday School chorister was also understanding and cooperative. She agreed to list all the hymns I would have to play during the coming month, including the various practice hymns, and promised not to stick any additional ones in that I was not prepared to play. She also got me a key to the building and to the organ and arranged for me to spend time after school and on weekends to come into the chapel and practice on the organ itself. Early on I spent hours and hours practicing the organ. It was a grand old instrument, an actual pipe organ, not like the little electronic instruments I played in other places in other years.
The Lord kept His word and magnified my talent all out of normal proportion. I had accepted the calling with a willing heart, and God had magnified my meager talent. Within months I had mastered the organ even better than the piano and soon I was also serving as Mutual organist, priesthood pianist, stake priesthood pianist, and unofficially as an assistant ward organist. It would serve me well in later years when I went off to college and after that served my mission in Brazil.
Outside my own family and my piano teacher and the Sunday School chorister, I doubt anyone else knew or appreciated that I really had not known how to play. That clearly was a blessing from the Lord and not a stroke of my musical genius because, with hymns excepted, I did not progress a great deal in other areas of musical study. To this day hymns are about the only thing I know how to play.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
My patriarchal blessing
I was sixteen years old when I received my patriarchal blessing. It was a Thursday evening, September 2, 1965. I drove alone to the stake center. Neither of my parents came with me. There in a warm room we had to ourselves I met the patriarch, Leon H. Swenson, and his wife. She was there as his scribe.
I had handed him the recommend that authorized him to give me a blessing. My parents' names were on the recommend. The only specific thing I remember from our preliminaries is that he asked me what the R stood for in the middle of my father's name: Ivard R Cleverly. That was his actual full legal name. But I knew the R stood for his mother's maiden name, Ritchie, and I told him that, not realizing until afterward that in the record he created he renamed my father Ivard Ritchie Cleverly. My real answer should have been that the R stood for nothing.
Brother Swenson had me sit in a chair, and he walked around behind me and placed his hands on my head and began speaking. "Brother Dean Batt Cleverly," he began, "in the authority of the Holy Melchizedek Priesthood which I bear and by the authority in me vested as an ordained patriarch in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I place my hands upon your head and give unto you your patriarchal blessing."
He spoke a phrase at a time and paused long enough for Sister Swenson to write it down in long-hand. He continued that way throughout the blessing, alternately speaking and pausing until he came to the end of the blessing: "This blessing I now seal upon you by the power in me vested and in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen."
And then I drove home. I had not felt anything particularly special about the experience and for the most part did not remember the details of what he said until the typed copy came in the mail a few weeks later.
I did recall that I was of the tribe of Ephraim, which did not surprise me since everyone else in my family who had received patriarchal blessings, and indeed most members of the Church I knew anything about, were of Ephraim. And I remembered that I was told never to decline opportunities that would come to me to serve in the Church. That would shortly become important counsel to me.
The next afternoon, however, I received a spiritual confirmation that the blessing was literally from the Lord. During the summers I drove the mobile Dairy Queen truck around Nampa and sold ice cream to whoever would stop me. We affectionately referred to it as the Dilly Wagon. I had the town divided into three basic areas and would cover one of them on Mondays and Thursdays, the second one on Tuesdays and Fridays, and the third one on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
Friday afternoon I drove up the street that passed by the stake center in my ding-a-linging Dilly Wagon. As I slowly drove by, the Spirit of the Lord come upon me in a particularly powerful manner and confirmed in my heart and soul that there in that building the previous evening the heavens had opened and the Lord, through his authorized servant, had given me a revelation that was for me alone.
I am grateful for my patriarchal blessing. And I am grateful for the confirming witness that came to me, through the power of the Holy Ghost, that its message was scripture to me, a blessing from a loving Father to guide me throughout my life.
I had handed him the recommend that authorized him to give me a blessing. My parents' names were on the recommend. The only specific thing I remember from our preliminaries is that he asked me what the R stood for in the middle of my father's name: Ivard R Cleverly. That was his actual full legal name. But I knew the R stood for his mother's maiden name, Ritchie, and I told him that, not realizing until afterward that in the record he created he renamed my father Ivard Ritchie Cleverly. My real answer should have been that the R stood for nothing.
Brother Swenson had me sit in a chair, and he walked around behind me and placed his hands on my head and began speaking. "Brother Dean Batt Cleverly," he began, "in the authority of the Holy Melchizedek Priesthood which I bear and by the authority in me vested as an ordained patriarch in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I place my hands upon your head and give unto you your patriarchal blessing."
He spoke a phrase at a time and paused long enough for Sister Swenson to write it down in long-hand. He continued that way throughout the blessing, alternately speaking and pausing until he came to the end of the blessing: "This blessing I now seal upon you by the power in me vested and in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen."
And then I drove home. I had not felt anything particularly special about the experience and for the most part did not remember the details of what he said until the typed copy came in the mail a few weeks later.
I did recall that I was of the tribe of Ephraim, which did not surprise me since everyone else in my family who had received patriarchal blessings, and indeed most members of the Church I knew anything about, were of Ephraim. And I remembered that I was told never to decline opportunities that would come to me to serve in the Church. That would shortly become important counsel to me.
The next afternoon, however, I received a spiritual confirmation that the blessing was literally from the Lord. During the summers I drove the mobile Dairy Queen truck around Nampa and sold ice cream to whoever would stop me. We affectionately referred to it as the Dilly Wagon. I had the town divided into three basic areas and would cover one of them on Mondays and Thursdays, the second one on Tuesdays and Fridays, and the third one on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
Friday afternoon I drove up the street that passed by the stake center in my ding-a-linging Dilly Wagon. As I slowly drove by, the Spirit of the Lord come upon me in a particularly powerful manner and confirmed in my heart and soul that there in that building the previous evening the heavens had opened and the Lord, through his authorized servant, had given me a revelation that was for me alone.
I am grateful for my patriarchal blessing. And I am grateful for the confirming witness that came to me, through the power of the Holy Ghost, that its message was scripture to me, a blessing from a loving Father to guide me throughout my life.
Monday, April 6, 2009
My first general conference
I remember the first time I attended a general conference in the Salt Lake Tabernacle. It was the April 1966 general conference. I had watched conference sessions on television at home in Idaho, but this was the first time I had attended in person. My older brother Jerry and I had come to Salt Lake for the occasion. I was sixteen years old, a junior in high school.
Moments before the beginning of the Saturday morning session, President David O. McKay entered the rather noisy Tabernacle. In a moment a solemn hush filled the air as the thousands of gathered Saints rose in deepest respect to their prophet-leader. Tears of joy and gratitude gathered in my eyes as the Spirit bore forceful witness that for the first time in my life I was standing in the presence of a Prophet of God.
The next morning, Easter Sunday, dawned early upon us as we crowded into the historic conference site. At the concluding session that afternoon, President McKay delivered his own final address and left his blessing upon the Church. He was advanced in age, and it proved to be the last sermon he ever personally gave in a general conference. Once again the moment was thrilling.
As he finished, the mighty organ and choir joined together in "The Hallelujah Chorus" from Handel's Messiah. As is the tradition with this Easter anthem, the congregation stood. After the last powerful strains had filled the air, the choir softly and reverently intoned President McKay's favorite hymn:
I need thee every hour,
Most gracious Lord;
No tender voice like thine
Can peace afford.
I need thee; O I need thee;
Every hour I need thee!
O bless me now, my Savior;
I come unto thee!
I doubt there was a dry eye or an untouched soul in the entire building.
The two of us, my brother and I, stayed in Salt Lake the following day to do genealogical research. During the afternoon I prevailed upon Jerry to take me to the Church Administration Building to be introduced to his mission president, Elder Thomas S. Monson, now a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. In those days you could still just walk into the building. Elder Monson was not in his office.
Feeling increasingly more confident, we walked into Elder Harold B. Lee's office to look at his wall genealogy chart. We wondered if Brother Lee's family was related to Grandma Batt, who was a Lee before she married Grandpa. Elder Lee was also out of the office that afternoon, but his secretary kindly showed us the chart. Nothing seemed to match.
Then we waxed fully bold as we decided to visit President Joseph Fielding Smith, then president of the Twelve, and his good wife, Jessie Evans Smith, in their Eagle Gate apartment. I cannot believe we had the nerve. What an absolutely audacious thing to do!
When we knocked, President Smith came to the door and graciously invited us in. The Smiths had been watching the evening news when we arrived but turned it off immediately to chat with us for some twenty minutes. I remember little of what transpired, but admittedly I left walking six inches off the ground. Now I appreciated this chief Apostle and great gospel scholar in a warm, new light. Four years later, following the death of President McKay, President Smith became the tenth President of the Church.
Moments before the beginning of the Saturday morning session, President David O. McKay entered the rather noisy Tabernacle. In a moment a solemn hush filled the air as the thousands of gathered Saints rose in deepest respect to their prophet-leader. Tears of joy and gratitude gathered in my eyes as the Spirit bore forceful witness that for the first time in my life I was standing in the presence of a Prophet of God.
The next morning, Easter Sunday, dawned early upon us as we crowded into the historic conference site. At the concluding session that afternoon, President McKay delivered his own final address and left his blessing upon the Church. He was advanced in age, and it proved to be the last sermon he ever personally gave in a general conference. Once again the moment was thrilling.
As he finished, the mighty organ and choir joined together in "The Hallelujah Chorus" from Handel's Messiah. As is the tradition with this Easter anthem, the congregation stood. After the last powerful strains had filled the air, the choir softly and reverently intoned President McKay's favorite hymn:
I need thee every hour,
Most gracious Lord;
No tender voice like thine
Can peace afford.
I need thee; O I need thee;
Every hour I need thee!
O bless me now, my Savior;
I come unto thee!
I doubt there was a dry eye or an untouched soul in the entire building.
The two of us, my brother and I, stayed in Salt Lake the following day to do genealogical research. During the afternoon I prevailed upon Jerry to take me to the Church Administration Building to be introduced to his mission president, Elder Thomas S. Monson, now a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. In those days you could still just walk into the building. Elder Monson was not in his office.
Feeling increasingly more confident, we walked into Elder Harold B. Lee's office to look at his wall genealogy chart. We wondered if Brother Lee's family was related to Grandma Batt, who was a Lee before she married Grandpa. Elder Lee was also out of the office that afternoon, but his secretary kindly showed us the chart. Nothing seemed to match.
Then we waxed fully bold as we decided to visit President Joseph Fielding Smith, then president of the Twelve, and his good wife, Jessie Evans Smith, in their Eagle Gate apartment. I cannot believe we had the nerve. What an absolutely audacious thing to do!
When we knocked, President Smith came to the door and graciously invited us in. The Smiths had been watching the evening news when we arrived but turned it off immediately to chat with us for some twenty minutes. I remember little of what transpired, but admittedly I left walking six inches off the ground. Now I appreciated this chief Apostle and great gospel scholar in a warm, new light. Four years later, following the death of President McKay, President Smith became the tenth President of the Church.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
The birth of our seventh child
Our seventh child was born on a cold, windy day in the spring of 1983.
"Today was quite a day," I had written in my journal on Monday evening, April 4, the day before the birth. "Hurricane force winds ripped out of the canyons all day and wrecked havoc all over Davis County. We were without power for six hours."
That day Claudia went to the hospital for her non-stress test. Apparently she was already having contractions, and the doctor was willing to start the baby then, or he was willing to wait until Wednesday morning if the baby had not come on its own by then. Wednesday would be April 6, and we thought that would be an appropriate date for little Joseph to be born.
"A long, exciting day," I wrote on Tuesday, April 5. Sometime around midnight, just as April 4 was becoming April 5 in our time zone, Claudia woke me up to say she didn't think she was going to have an April 6 baby. She was having regular contractions, not very strong yet, but regularly every two to three minutes, so I lay in bed timing them while she busied herself getting ready to go to the hospital. We drove to the hospital with gale force winds buffeting the car.
We arrived at Lakeview Hospital around 2:30 in the morning. Fortunately, Dr. David G. Lewis happened to be there already delivering another baby. Otherwise, he would not have made it. The baby was born at 2:51 a.m. It had to have been Claudia's easiest delivery: two strong pushes, and the baby was out.
"I see why you didn't wait for April 6," Dr. Lewis said as the baby was born. "It's not Joseph." Eliza weighed 7 pounds 6 ounces and was 19 inches long.
A little after 4:00 I left the hospital to try to get a couple hours of sleep before the children starting waking up. Talmage, who was five years old, came in at 6:00 and was the first to learn he had a new baby sister (except he never did ask me if the baby was a boy or a girl). The others soon followed. The radio announced that all the schools in Davis County would be closed for the day because of the continuing high winds and extensive power outages.
On Thursday afternoon, April 7, which was my Dad's 68th birthday, Eliza and her mother came home from the hospital. We had a birthday homecoming party. Claudia had a gift for each of the other children (nine-year-old Michael, eight-year-old Rebecca, seven-year-old Rachael, five-year-old Talmage, four-year-old Anna, and twenty-two-month-old Camilla), and I had one for her.
"Eliza is a cute baby who has been home for a week now," I wrote in my journal on Thursday, April 14. "I've never heard her, but Claudia tells me she wakes up at night."
And then on Thursday, May 5: "Eliza is one month old today. She is a cute little toad and has finally started to sleep through the night, I understand. We all just adore her."
Eliza's name came from her great-great-grandmother on my side, Eliza Brazier Batt (1864-1926), and her great-great-grandmother on Claudia's side, Elise Marie Pehrsson Fraughton (1861-1951). Also in part from Eliza R. Snow (1804-1887), one of the most celebrated Latter-day Saint women of the nineteenth century. We learned from our dear friend and backdoor neighbor, Tom Brandon, that Eliza was also his mother's name.
Eliza was named and blessed during the fast and testimony meeting of the Bountiful Twentieth Ward on Sunday, May 1, 1983. I gave the blessing:
"Our kind and gracious Heavenly Father, in a spirit of thanksgiving and love and humility, we take this child in our hands today to give her a name and a blessing. We do it in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the power and the authority of the holy Melchizedek Priesthood. The name that we give her is Eliza Cleverly.
"Eliza, we bless you at this time that you may grow and develop both in stature and spirit, in body and mind, that you may accomplish the reason for your coming here to the earth at this time. You have recently been in the presence of our Heavenly Father. You come here as a covenant child, a daughter of our Heavenly Father sent to the house of Israel at this time in the important period as we prepare for the great millennial period and the return of our Savior to the earth.
"As you grow and develop, may the Lord bless you with an extra measure of faith and obedience, that you may accomplish all that a loving Father desires to pour out upon you as you go through the various experiences of this life. We bless you, through your parents, your family, your teachers, and all who may have any influence upon you as you grow in the gospel, that they will train you up in the ways of truth and righteousness, that you will be a great servant of our Heavenly Father and live up to the great heritage that you are receiving, a royal birthright, a noble lineage. We pray in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen."
"Today was quite a day," I had written in my journal on Monday evening, April 4, the day before the birth. "Hurricane force winds ripped out of the canyons all day and wrecked havoc all over Davis County. We were without power for six hours."
That day Claudia went to the hospital for her non-stress test. Apparently she was already having contractions, and the doctor was willing to start the baby then, or he was willing to wait until Wednesday morning if the baby had not come on its own by then. Wednesday would be April 6, and we thought that would be an appropriate date for little Joseph to be born.
"A long, exciting day," I wrote on Tuesday, April 5. Sometime around midnight, just as April 4 was becoming April 5 in our time zone, Claudia woke me up to say she didn't think she was going to have an April 6 baby. She was having regular contractions, not very strong yet, but regularly every two to three minutes, so I lay in bed timing them while she busied herself getting ready to go to the hospital. We drove to the hospital with gale force winds buffeting the car.
We arrived at Lakeview Hospital around 2:30 in the morning. Fortunately, Dr. David G. Lewis happened to be there already delivering another baby. Otherwise, he would not have made it. The baby was born at 2:51 a.m. It had to have been Claudia's easiest delivery: two strong pushes, and the baby was out.
"I see why you didn't wait for April 6," Dr. Lewis said as the baby was born. "It's not Joseph." Eliza weighed 7 pounds 6 ounces and was 19 inches long.
A little after 4:00 I left the hospital to try to get a couple hours of sleep before the children starting waking up. Talmage, who was five years old, came in at 6:00 and was the first to learn he had a new baby sister (except he never did ask me if the baby was a boy or a girl). The others soon followed. The radio announced that all the schools in Davis County would be closed for the day because of the continuing high winds and extensive power outages.
On Thursday afternoon, April 7, which was my Dad's 68th birthday, Eliza and her mother came home from the hospital. We had a birthday homecoming party. Claudia had a gift for each of the other children (nine-year-old Michael, eight-year-old Rebecca, seven-year-old Rachael, five-year-old Talmage, four-year-old Anna, and twenty-two-month-old Camilla), and I had one for her.
"Eliza is a cute baby who has been home for a week now," I wrote in my journal on Thursday, April 14. "I've never heard her, but Claudia tells me she wakes up at night."
And then on Thursday, May 5: "Eliza is one month old today. She is a cute little toad and has finally started to sleep through the night, I understand. We all just adore her."
Eliza's name came from her great-great-grandmother on my side, Eliza Brazier Batt (1864-1926), and her great-great-grandmother on Claudia's side, Elise Marie Pehrsson Fraughton (1861-1951). Also in part from Eliza R. Snow (1804-1887), one of the most celebrated Latter-day Saint women of the nineteenth century. We learned from our dear friend and backdoor neighbor, Tom Brandon, that Eliza was also his mother's name.
Eliza was named and blessed during the fast and testimony meeting of the Bountiful Twentieth Ward on Sunday, May 1, 1983. I gave the blessing:
"Our kind and gracious Heavenly Father, in a spirit of thanksgiving and love and humility, we take this child in our hands today to give her a name and a blessing. We do it in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the power and the authority of the holy Melchizedek Priesthood. The name that we give her is Eliza Cleverly.
"Eliza, we bless you at this time that you may grow and develop both in stature and spirit, in body and mind, that you may accomplish the reason for your coming here to the earth at this time. You have recently been in the presence of our Heavenly Father. You come here as a covenant child, a daughter of our Heavenly Father sent to the house of Israel at this time in the important period as we prepare for the great millennial period and the return of our Savior to the earth.
"As you grow and develop, may the Lord bless you with an extra measure of faith and obedience, that you may accomplish all that a loving Father desires to pour out upon you as you go through the various experiences of this life. We bless you, through your parents, your family, your teachers, and all who may have any influence upon you as you grow in the gospel, that they will train you up in the ways of truth and righteousness, that you will be a great servant of our Heavenly Father and live up to the great heritage that you are receiving, a royal birthright, a noble lineage. We pray in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen."
Saturday, April 4, 2009
More on my fear of water
After my early experiences with water—the scare I received on Jenny Lake in July 1951 and my near drowning in the Owyhee River in July 1955—I had an active fear of any water I couldn’t see the bottom of, such as a lake or a river. I could deal with bath tubs or swimming pools, but I never became much of a swimmer.
When I was a Boy Scout, we used to go to Scout camp every summer at Camp Billy Rice, which was located in the mountains north of the Boise area somewhere east of the town of Cascade. The camp was located on Warm Lake, which was anything but warm. If you jumped or were thrown into the frigid water, it would absolutely take your breath away. And if you stayed overly long in the water, you would begin to believe that you had no feet or legs or other body extremities. The water temperatures were that numbing.
I managed at camp to pass the short swimming requirements for the various rank advancements, but my fear of water kept me from actual swimming and thus from earning my Eagle rank. I was a Life Scout by the time I quit Scouting, and I was only two merit badges short of Eagle—swimming and lifesaving.
By the summer of 1967, just after I graduated from high school, I finally worked up the courage to try water skiing for the first time. We were at a youth outing on Lake Lowell, a reservoir south and west of Nampa, and I decided to go for it. I made it up onto the skis and let the boat pull me around for a while. And I actually survived. Of course, I was wearing a life jacket and that made it difficult to sink into the dark watery depths below me.
I can remember going water skiing only two other times during my life: The first was on Lake Washington during June of 1971, when I was spending a week visiting Dana Blackham, whose family lived in Seattle and owned a boat. Dane and I had been missionary companions in Brazil while we served in Maceió. Later we were roommates at Brigham Young University. He served as the best man at our wedding reception. And I let him take me water skiing again.
The other time was at Pineview Reservoir up near Huntsville and Eden in the Ogden Valley on July 17, 1999, two days before my fiftieth birthday. It was another youth outing. This time I was there as bishop. I suspect I had not actually planned to ski that day, but before the outing was over, I was out there on the water being pulled around by Sheldon Panter's boat. I had a difficult time, as I remember it, getting up on the skis, but finally I made it. For a little bit anyway. I am not as young as I used to be.
When I was a Boy Scout, we used to go to Scout camp every summer at Camp Billy Rice, which was located in the mountains north of the Boise area somewhere east of the town of Cascade. The camp was located on Warm Lake, which was anything but warm. If you jumped or were thrown into the frigid water, it would absolutely take your breath away. And if you stayed overly long in the water, you would begin to believe that you had no feet or legs or other body extremities. The water temperatures were that numbing.
I managed at camp to pass the short swimming requirements for the various rank advancements, but my fear of water kept me from actual swimming and thus from earning my Eagle rank. I was a Life Scout by the time I quit Scouting, and I was only two merit badges short of Eagle—swimming and lifesaving.
By the summer of 1967, just after I graduated from high school, I finally worked up the courage to try water skiing for the first time. We were at a youth outing on Lake Lowell, a reservoir south and west of Nampa, and I decided to go for it. I made it up onto the skis and let the boat pull me around for a while. And I actually survived. Of course, I was wearing a life jacket and that made it difficult to sink into the dark watery depths below me.
I can remember going water skiing only two other times during my life: The first was on Lake Washington during June of 1971, when I was spending a week visiting Dana Blackham, whose family lived in Seattle and owned a boat. Dane and I had been missionary companions in Brazil while we served in Maceió. Later we were roommates at Brigham Young University. He served as the best man at our wedding reception. And I let him take me water skiing again.
The other time was at Pineview Reservoir up near Huntsville and Eden in the Ogden Valley on July 17, 1999, two days before my fiftieth birthday. It was another youth outing. This time I was there as bishop. I suspect I had not actually planned to ski that day, but before the outing was over, I was out there on the water being pulled around by Sheldon Panter's boat. I had a difficult time, as I remember it, getting up on the skis, but finally I made it. For a little bit anyway. I am not as young as I used to be.
Friday, April 3, 2009
The post office
An account of my trying to leave Brazil in December 1970 at the conclusion of my mission, written in the fall of 1971 while I continued as a student at Brigham Young University.
Leaving Brazil, somehow, wasn't an easy thing to do. And I haven't figured out even now why they wanted to make it so hard. Maybe I never will.
I remember the morning well. It was a slow day, slow even with all I had to do to get out of the country. The flies were even slow, especially the one that raced a bead of sweat down my leg and lost. The lines were always slow, but today more than ever. Each trip to the post office here always took longer than I had to spend. Once I stood behind 11 people—there was plenty of time to count—and the window closed for lunch only two people away. The next shortest line had 16. One of these was the teller's cousin or something, and she had to tell him all about her trip to Rio. Another had a complaint about some letter she'd received, or hadn't received, I couldn't quite hear which, although it took her the whole of seven minutes to complain about it. And one old man couldn't find the letter he'd come to mail.
On this particular day, the day I was trying to leave town, it took only 20 minutes in line to find out that I had to haul my suitcase upstairs to the naval shipping office. So I lugged it up the winding staircase to an incredibly dusty room that I was pleased to find had no lines. There were three or four clerks in the room, none of them looking very busy.
"I want to ship this suitcase," I said to a young man, the closest to me. He didn't say a word, just stared (I guess he'd never seen an actual American before), and finally pointed over into a corner. A short man with a pudgy stomach and a bald spot, who I soon learned was the head clerk here, looked up at me.
"I want to ship this suitcase," I repeated.
"Today?"
"Well, yes, I was hoping today." I didn’t like the tenor of his question. It was nearly noon on Friday, and I was leaving for Recife Sunday afternoon. It was now or never.
"We're busy today, with the weekend and all," he said, getting up and walking over to where I stood in the doorway. "Can't you come back Monday, or even better, Tuesday?"
"Tuesday?" I echoed. "Look, sir, I'm leaving town Sunday and I have to send this today."
"We're so busy," he started again.
"You don't understand. I am leaving for America Sunday. That's the day after tomorrow."
"Well, let me look at it. Where are you sending it?" he asked, heading for my suitcase, my intrusion not making him too happy. I wondered if anyone ever sent anything through this office; all I could see was pile upon pile of paperwork.
"America." The answer seemed specific enough to satisfy him.
"How much does this weigh?" he asked as soon as he saw how big the suitcase was.
"About 25 kilo." I probably should have said 20 kilo. The not-too-accurate scale Dona Creuza had found for me estimated its weight at 22. In Rio I had shipped a 30-kilo package and had been told that 30 was the absolute limit.
"I knew we couldn't handle you today," he said. "The limit is 20 kilo. You'll have to come back Monday." I wondered if he had ever listened.
"Twenty kilo?" I was hoping I hadn't heard him right.
"Yes, 20 kilo."
"But in Rio, just last year, I shipped one for 30 kilo, and I didn't have this hassle."
"But the limit here is only 20. Excuse me." He turned to go, sounding like he'd already won, and I couldn't let him win that easily.
"Why is the limit 20 kilo?" I persisted.
"Why? Because it just is." He looked at me, then he continued. "You do not understand, senhor americano, how things are here . . ."
I was afraid I understood all too well.
". . . in this post office. Let me read you something." He rummaged through three piles of paper looking for something, maybe a document that would tell me why. After a few minutes he found it, or at least something that would serve just as well.
"Listen," he said, and then he started into some government regulations governing the classification of post offices. Even in Portuguese the language of official documents is gobbledygook, so I didn't understand most of what he was reading. I wonder now if even he did.
After he had read for long enough, he took off his glasses and looked at me again and said, "Our post office here in Maceió is a second class post office. If we were a first class post office we could send your suitcase, but were not and the limit is still 20 kilo. Besides, we have to close now for lunch."
That sounded final. I tried a parting shot: "If I come back this afternoon with only 20 kilo, can you still ship it for me?"
"Yes, I suppose so," he said with as little enthusiasm as possible. "But remember, the limit is 20 kilo."
Leaving Brazil, somehow, wasn't an easy thing to do. And I haven't figured out even now why they wanted to make it so hard. Maybe I never will.
I remember the morning well. It was a slow day, slow even with all I had to do to get out of the country. The flies were even slow, especially the one that raced a bead of sweat down my leg and lost. The lines were always slow, but today more than ever. Each trip to the post office here always took longer than I had to spend. Once I stood behind 11 people—there was plenty of time to count—and the window closed for lunch only two people away. The next shortest line had 16. One of these was the teller's cousin or something, and she had to tell him all about her trip to Rio. Another had a complaint about some letter she'd received, or hadn't received, I couldn't quite hear which, although it took her the whole of seven minutes to complain about it. And one old man couldn't find the letter he'd come to mail.
On this particular day, the day I was trying to leave town, it took only 20 minutes in line to find out that I had to haul my suitcase upstairs to the naval shipping office. So I lugged it up the winding staircase to an incredibly dusty room that I was pleased to find had no lines. There were three or four clerks in the room, none of them looking very busy.
"I want to ship this suitcase," I said to a young man, the closest to me. He didn't say a word, just stared (I guess he'd never seen an actual American before), and finally pointed over into a corner. A short man with a pudgy stomach and a bald spot, who I soon learned was the head clerk here, looked up at me.
"I want to ship this suitcase," I repeated.
"Today?"
"Well, yes, I was hoping today." I didn’t like the tenor of his question. It was nearly noon on Friday, and I was leaving for Recife Sunday afternoon. It was now or never.
"We're busy today, with the weekend and all," he said, getting up and walking over to where I stood in the doorway. "Can't you come back Monday, or even better, Tuesday?"
"Tuesday?" I echoed. "Look, sir, I'm leaving town Sunday and I have to send this today."
"We're so busy," he started again.
"You don't understand. I am leaving for America Sunday. That's the day after tomorrow."
"Well, let me look at it. Where are you sending it?" he asked, heading for my suitcase, my intrusion not making him too happy. I wondered if anyone ever sent anything through this office; all I could see was pile upon pile of paperwork.
"America." The answer seemed specific enough to satisfy him.
"How much does this weigh?" he asked as soon as he saw how big the suitcase was.
"About 25 kilo." I probably should have said 20 kilo. The not-too-accurate scale Dona Creuza had found for me estimated its weight at 22. In Rio I had shipped a 30-kilo package and had been told that 30 was the absolute limit.
"I knew we couldn't handle you today," he said. "The limit is 20 kilo. You'll have to come back Monday." I wondered if he had ever listened.
"Twenty kilo?" I was hoping I hadn't heard him right.
"Yes, 20 kilo."
"But in Rio, just last year, I shipped one for 30 kilo, and I didn't have this hassle."
"But the limit here is only 20. Excuse me." He turned to go, sounding like he'd already won, and I couldn't let him win that easily.
"Why is the limit 20 kilo?" I persisted.
"Why? Because it just is." He looked at me, then he continued. "You do not understand, senhor americano, how things are here . . ."
I was afraid I understood all too well.
". . . in this post office. Let me read you something." He rummaged through three piles of paper looking for something, maybe a document that would tell me why. After a few minutes he found it, or at least something that would serve just as well.
"Listen," he said, and then he started into some government regulations governing the classification of post offices. Even in Portuguese the language of official documents is gobbledygook, so I didn't understand most of what he was reading. I wonder now if even he did.
After he had read for long enough, he took off his glasses and looked at me again and said, "Our post office here in Maceió is a second class post office. If we were a first class post office we could send your suitcase, but were not and the limit is still 20 kilo. Besides, we have to close now for lunch."
That sounded final. I tried a parting shot: "If I come back this afternoon with only 20 kilo, can you still ship it for me?"
"Yes, I suppose so," he said with as little enthusiasm as possible. "But remember, the limit is 20 kilo."
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Agent at customs
An account of my arrival in Rio de Janeiro, written during the year following my mission (1971) as a creative writing assignment for one of my English classes at Brigham Young University. The story is not intended to convey any disrespect for that wonderful, vast realm I came to love as much as my own homeland.
I wasn't really ready for my first day in Rio de Janeiro, and it wasn't exactly ready for me. Between the two of us there was a considerable mix up.
The truth is that it had been snowing at Kennedy International on the eve of our journey, and this meant I had come to this land of sun lugging an overcoat filled with the extra weight of books and film. When you have no use for an overcoat, except as a piece of luggage, to haul it all over creation seems strangely like a bit of stupidity. Rio, on its part, was having trouble too. It couldn't find an agreeable temperature or a decent humidity. Our mutual discomfort established some minor rapport between us, and I realized that Rio de Janeiro and I actually both needed the same thing—a nice cool day.
The flight to Rio starts with the pilot's trilingual welcome. It is a long, uneventful journey, with gracious hospitality and lots of food, with two major meals on top of one another, dinner and breakfast. It offers time to stare at the darkness, later at clouds, water, and jungle; to chat in broken foreign tongues with fellow passengers; to sleep between the meals that are obviously from the kitchens of foreign chefs.
Suddenly you see the first intimation of the future, of Rio—the city of fun and sun—and there is the runway and the banners waving from the airport complex and the brave hope of a glimpsed destination. Except for the overcoat, handbag, camera case, books, and box of home-baked cookies that all had to be carried off the plane, I might have been walking into a fantasy world, for I felt that perhaps here would be the exotic land all men dream of, the vast jungles, the natives in their festive dress, awaiting carnival. A closer inspection, however, by the end of the walk to the customs area, revealed that it was merely a giant greenhouse—the same old hot humidity we had been warned of, with no immediate jungles, and the natives in rather drab attire.
The airport is filled with people—mixed, assorted people, with tourists hailing from every continent, and in the air the sound of incessant chatter. There are benches all along for the waiting and the waited, and though Rio's failure to cope with the indoor heat had dampened my enthusiasm and wilted my courage, the idea of getting through customs beckoned me on.
It was not particularly surprising, somehow, when at last, after so many months of anticipation and after so much arduous study and preparation, when at last I arrived, overcoat in hand, at the very threshold of my mission, when I finally presented myself there at the customs section, face to face with the man at the desk behind a little mountain of declaration forms, expectant, ready to enter at last where I had never been before, Rio de Janeiro—it was not, somehow, particularly surprising to find the man was not going to let us in his country.
That's the way it is with Brazil. Even after the Revolution of '64 had made it the country of the future, there is still an exasperating, archaic incompetence.
The elders with me were not surprised either, but they seemed apprehensive. We all did.
"Can we get through?" someone asked timidly.
"No, sir," said the agent. "Not without the luggage you've declared."
We were not encouraged. "But what if it's in New York still?" we replied, realizing that our luggage had not made our quick flight change at Kennedy International.
"Too bad," he replied. "Wait here a few moments."
I clocked the wait. It was 43 minutes. Not bad for one not expecting to get in at all.
Much depends, when you pause at the brink of entry, on the attitude with which you happen to be met by the man with the stamp, the agent at customs, and scrutinized in his omniscient way for some of the slowest moments that tick by in this lazy land. If you arrive just as night has faded into dawn, and without any advance warning about being barred from an entrance into the country, the experience is something that sticks with you.
I was lucky. Rio de Janeiro, when it first burst upon my expectant sight, was as thrilling as a Christmas present, and for a moment or two I didn't catch on that the unwrapping would be so difficult. If I hadn't been with seven other greenies, I would have felt lonelier than perhaps even this situation merited.
"Come back tomorrow," he said, with the stiff authority that an office had given him, "to pick up your luggage, for now we can do nothing for you."
I don't know how long it normally takes there. Twenty minutes, half an hour maybe. But when we returned on the next morning, to begin the whole mess all over, it took six and a half hours.
I wasn't really ready for my first day in Rio de Janeiro, and it wasn't exactly ready for me. Between the two of us there was a considerable mix up.
The truth is that it had been snowing at Kennedy International on the eve of our journey, and this meant I had come to this land of sun lugging an overcoat filled with the extra weight of books and film. When you have no use for an overcoat, except as a piece of luggage, to haul it all over creation seems strangely like a bit of stupidity. Rio, on its part, was having trouble too. It couldn't find an agreeable temperature or a decent humidity. Our mutual discomfort established some minor rapport between us, and I realized that Rio de Janeiro and I actually both needed the same thing—a nice cool day.
The flight to Rio starts with the pilot's trilingual welcome. It is a long, uneventful journey, with gracious hospitality and lots of food, with two major meals on top of one another, dinner and breakfast. It offers time to stare at the darkness, later at clouds, water, and jungle; to chat in broken foreign tongues with fellow passengers; to sleep between the meals that are obviously from the kitchens of foreign chefs.
Suddenly you see the first intimation of the future, of Rio—the city of fun and sun—and there is the runway and the banners waving from the airport complex and the brave hope of a glimpsed destination. Except for the overcoat, handbag, camera case, books, and box of home-baked cookies that all had to be carried off the plane, I might have been walking into a fantasy world, for I felt that perhaps here would be the exotic land all men dream of, the vast jungles, the natives in their festive dress, awaiting carnival. A closer inspection, however, by the end of the walk to the customs area, revealed that it was merely a giant greenhouse—the same old hot humidity we had been warned of, with no immediate jungles, and the natives in rather drab attire.
The airport is filled with people—mixed, assorted people, with tourists hailing from every continent, and in the air the sound of incessant chatter. There are benches all along for the waiting and the waited, and though Rio's failure to cope with the indoor heat had dampened my enthusiasm and wilted my courage, the idea of getting through customs beckoned me on.
It was not particularly surprising, somehow, when at last, after so many months of anticipation and after so much arduous study and preparation, when at last I arrived, overcoat in hand, at the very threshold of my mission, when I finally presented myself there at the customs section, face to face with the man at the desk behind a little mountain of declaration forms, expectant, ready to enter at last where I had never been before, Rio de Janeiro—it was not, somehow, particularly surprising to find the man was not going to let us in his country.
That's the way it is with Brazil. Even after the Revolution of '64 had made it the country of the future, there is still an exasperating, archaic incompetence.
The elders with me were not surprised either, but they seemed apprehensive. We all did.
"Can we get through?" someone asked timidly.
"No, sir," said the agent. "Not without the luggage you've declared."
We were not encouraged. "But what if it's in New York still?" we replied, realizing that our luggage had not made our quick flight change at Kennedy International.
"Too bad," he replied. "Wait here a few moments."
I clocked the wait. It was 43 minutes. Not bad for one not expecting to get in at all.
Much depends, when you pause at the brink of entry, on the attitude with which you happen to be met by the man with the stamp, the agent at customs, and scrutinized in his omniscient way for some of the slowest moments that tick by in this lazy land. If you arrive just as night has faded into dawn, and without any advance warning about being barred from an entrance into the country, the experience is something that sticks with you.
I was lucky. Rio de Janeiro, when it first burst upon my expectant sight, was as thrilling as a Christmas present, and for a moment or two I didn't catch on that the unwrapping would be so difficult. If I hadn't been with seven other greenies, I would have felt lonelier than perhaps even this situation merited.
"Come back tomorrow," he said, with the stiff authority that an office had given him, "to pick up your luggage, for now we can do nothing for you."
I don't know how long it normally takes there. Twenty minutes, half an hour maybe. But when we returned on the next morning, to begin the whole mess all over, it took six and a half hours.
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