This is for your Ms. V

This is for you Ms. V.

You meet all kinds of people in my line of work.  Today I arrived in Atlanta from Amsterdam, working as Purser (that's the lead flight attendant on an international flight, for those a little less traveled).  While introducing myself I struck up a conversation with a delightful passenger who probable flies as much as I do. She was flying with her husband and son, returning from a ski vacation in Europe.  It's her fault that I'm writing this.

Somehow in the course of our conversation we wound up talking about Check-point Charlie in Berlin, (https://www.history.com/news/7-things-you-should-know-about-checkpoint-charlie) a museum dedicated to educating the world on what happened in Berlin when it became an island of democracy in the middle of communist East Germany.  During our conversation I told her that I had kept a journal while I lived in Germany, specifically in Berlin and Göttingen in the late 70's.  I made the mistake of telling her about this blog, and as a result feel compelled to write about my experiences back then- let's just say she inspired me to chronicle what it was like for a 21 year old, wet behind the ears LDS missionary from Utah living in the "Island of Freedom" surrounded by Communist USSR controlled East Germany.

November 2, 1978 twenty-one year old me walked into the MTC, the Missionary Training Center for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Provo, Utah, said goodbye to my family and embarked on one of the greatest adventures of my life.  I spent eight weeks trying to learn German and how to be a missionary.  One tool to motivate learning was the expectation to only speak German when conversing with my classmates and teachers. Don't be surprised when I tell you the first two weeks were pretty quiet around our dorms.  There was no shortage of grunts and other strange noises, including horrible misuse of what little German we did know as we tried to communicate the simplest phrases.  On January 2, 1979 I boarded a Lufthansa flight from Chicago to Frankfurt after a lengthy delay due to a snow storm hammering O'Hare International Airport. Several hours into the delay, I remember hearing an announcement "the Captain is going to go out and walk around to see if the runway is clear enough to take off..." So now I am imagining him out there sort of skating around in his patent leather black pilot shoes deciding if it isn't too slick to drive a 747 around and take off.  It wasn't and we did. Take off.  Off to another country where being an American could be good or bad, depending on who was asking. Most people spoke better broken English than my infantile German.  I did have a nice, very basic conversation with the gentleman in the seat next to me.  He patiently allowed me to practice my German on him for quite a while, a sort of on the fly mentor/tutor-perfect stranger, who gave me some confidence that I might be able to learn to communicate in my new environment after all.  Frankfurt airport is massive.  Connecting to my flight to Hamburg seems more like a dream than a memory.  January 3rd we met the mission president and his family, people I hold dear to my heart to this day.  After interviews with President Roylance, a testimony meeting, and wonderful dinner we were shuttled off to a hotel that was more like a hostel, and slept deep and hard.  The morning of the 4th we learned where we would be assigned to work.  I didn't know what to think about going to Berlin so I decided to just be excited about it and forget about my worries that I was going to be in this little round circle on the map in the middle of Communist East Germany.  

I don't remember if we landed at Tegel or Tempelhof. What I do remember is all the snow on the ground.  Everywhere.  It seems God must have thought it would be good for me to start my great new, in country adventure in the middle of the biggest snow storm Berlin had seen in 100 years.  In my journal I wrote something about feeling like it was -100 degrees Fahrenheit.  My first companion was a cowboy from Kamas, Utah.  He didn't know any more about how to use the coal oven heater in our apartment than I did.  I had never seen one before.  We lived in an apartment on the top of a six story walk-up (that means no elevator) with really thick walls, maybe 15 or 18 inches thick, and 12 foot ceilings.  When we woke up in the mornings I could see my breath.  If it was my turn that day, I would jump up out of bed, run into the kitchen, light the gas stove and oven, leaving the oven door open, close the kitchen door (very small kitchen) and race back into the bedroom/living room, climb quickly back into bed under the giant feather comforter and wait for the temperature in the kitchen to be warm enough to have breakfast. After two months my companion got transferred to another city and I got a new companion.  He was German.  He knew how to properly use the big ceramic coal heater we had, and he showed me what we had been doing wrong, just in time for a nice Spring thaw.

It was great having a German national as a companion that third month.  In addition to teaching me how to use a Kachelofen coal heater, he insisted it was his job to help me learn to communicate effectively in German.  I landed in Berlin with the mistaken impression that I could speak and understand basic German pretty well.  That was before I heard the dialect in Berlin, aptly called Berlinisch, which sounded nothing at all like the High German I had been studying intensely for two months.  They may as well have been speaking Russian.  That was quite a blow to my fragile linguistic ego.

I had never been on a subway train before.  We either walked wherever we went, or used public transportation.  I had been warned to be careful not to mess up and wind up riding the subway train into East Berlin by mistake.  Apparently, another missionary had ridden the train to Berlin from West Germany and had fallen asleep and missed his stop in West Berlin.  He was awakened in East Berlin by Russian soldiers with machine guns who immediately accused him of being a spy for the West and detained him for a couple of hours.  Imagining myself waking up surrounded by machine gun toting soldiers in an unfriendly communist country made me shiver. I was pretty sure my new great adventure did not need to include any episodes like that.  

I will add some memories from my journal about my missionary work in Germany in another post. Here I want to focus on my experiences with the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain border between East and West Germany.

Most of the time we were not in view of the Wall.  We were limited to the Charlottenburg area for missionary work, Dahlem to attend church, so most of the time it just seemed like we were in the middle of a big city.  One day a week is designated a P-day, short for preparation day, when we were to do laundry, shop for groceries, clean the apartment, write letters to home and one to the mission president to talk about our week, and anything else that might be on our mind. My first companion, Elder Prescott, the cowboy, would write his letters to President in a sort of Cowboy-ese using expressions and idioms only a true cowboy could make sense of. For example: "This week was cold enough to freeze the spurs off your boots, but we hunkered down, checked our topknot, and cinched her a little tighter and dallied up every chance we got, but these people over here are a tough lot. We'll post a better time next week and have more to show for our efforts." More than once President Roylance asked for translation help with Elder Prescott's letters. If we accomplished all the weeks preparation early in the day we could occasionally do some sightseeing.  

Checkpoint Charlie was the main border control point between East and West Berlin.  The West had a museum there, and last I heard it was still there.  It chronicles the history of the Berlin Wall, the Iron Curtain, and many of the failed attempts a few successes over the years where citizens of East Germany tried to escape to West Germany, which West Berlin was part of.  I remember watching films and seeing pictures of actual escape attempts. One that haunts me to this day was of a young man, who appeared to be in his early twenties, who was shot running across "no man's land" by Russian soldiers in a watchtower. He was left there on the ground for what seemed like the longest time, alone, bleeding, unable to move. They left him there until he was dead, and eventually carted his body off.  The Wall was a concrete barrier almost 12 feet tall. It has bits of sharp metal and jagged, broken glass embedded in the top.  On the East German side there was a "Death Strip" (No Man's Land) that was bare dirt a couple of hundred feet wide, bordered by a high metal fence topped with razor wire. Anyone unauthorized persons caught on the Death Strip was shot, arrested, or both. Somewhere between 120 and 200 persons were estimated to have been killed attempting to cross it to escape into West Berlin.  We weren't allowed to go into East Berlin.  We would have been arrested.  Missionary work, promoting Christianity, or even carrying a Bible was illegal and could get you arrested.  So what I was of East Berlin at that time was from a distance.  What I could see (from an upper story of a building) appeared to be all different shades of gray.  It was like looking at an old black and white photo of a large, third world city.  

When I was finally transferred to Braunschweig, a city in West Germany, I was relieved. While Berlin was a wonderful experience and I learned and grew tremendously there, the idea that I was no longer living in the middle of a tiny island of democracy in the middle of communist East Germany just made me feel a lot safer.  When I got news that the wall came down and the re-unification of East and West Germany had begun on November 9, 1989, I cried. I literally sobbed. I had lived for over ten years with the thought that it would never happen.  And then it did. Thanks be to God and Ronald Reagan.

Editor's note:  This post is a work in progress. To be continued...

My Dad- Real Live in-Person Superhero

 

Dad-Real Live In Person Superhero

 

Until now there has only been one perfect father, who is and eternally will be the Father of the only perfect Son.  He also happens to be the father of my spirit, who loves me in ways I am only beginning to have an inkling of comprehending.  Now that we’re clear on that let’s turn our attention to my other dad, the father of my mortal body, and the man who will be my dad throughout the eternities. A real live in person superhero. 

When I was growing up, Superman was just a TV guy who, with a lot of luck and hard work might someday live up to the superhero status my dad held in my esteem.  He loved to walk in the fields behind our modest duplex with our hunting dog after work.  One of my earliest happy memories is of me riding on his shoulders as he walked through the fields giving our English Pointer, Pat, an opportunity to sniff out a pheasant or quail.  As the years went by and siblings came along, I watched him love them the same as he did me, except he seemed to really know the strengths, weaknesses, and foibles in each of our characters, which meant he interacted with each of us differently, yet loved each of us the same.  As the oldest I had the advantage of being first to glow with pride over personal accomplishments in music or metal shop or math, and church, becoming a Deacon or a First Class Scout.  I also had the disadvantage of being the ‘guinea pig’ of the lot of us, both parents gaining wisdom in childrearing at my expense through experience.  Most of the time I wanted more than anything to make my dad proud.  When I got into mischief or did something stupid it most certainly was a product of having forgotten or lost sight of my desire to make him proud.  He only got really angry with me a couple of times. Each time I more than deserved it and probably worse.  He punched me in the shoulder one time pretty hard when I was about eleven or twelve because I had snuck off with a friend in the middle of the night during a back yard sleep over.  He had to come looking for us and when he found us running around the junior high school grounds he let me know in no uncertain terms that such behavior would not be tolerated.  I can’t imagine the scare it must have put into both him and mom.  The fact that my actions had disappointed him hurt a lot more than the bruise I had on my shoulder. 

 

Dad always introduced me to his friends as a ‘fine young man’.  I did not always live up to that title, and was often amazed that in spite of my antics proving otherwise, at least in my mind, he continued holding me up as a fine young man.  In later years, going through some difficult times of divorce and family restructuring, there was a period when I was angry and disappointed with him.  I suppose part of growing up for almost all kids is the shock and disappointment of discovering that mom and dad aren’t perfect after all, just regular human beings, amazingly, like our friends’ parents.  That is one of life’s hardest lessons, at least it was for me.  In the myopic hypocrisy of Teenager-dom, it seems perfectly normal to be a teacher’s nightmare at school, get into all kinds of mischief in the neighborhood, basically be a little turd, but feel shocked and betrayed when mom and dad aren’t icons of perfection.  As the years passed and a little maturity found it’s way into my frontal lobes, I regained not only admiration for my parents, but a strong desire to earn their approval.  That desire lives in me until this very day. 

You see, over time, I regained some portion of my memory that had been clouded by hormones, various substances I had no business fooling with, and teenage narcissistic stupidity. Fortunately age, wisdom, and the absence of various inappropriate substances lifted the clouds from my memories.  I remember dad letting me ‘help’ him work on his car, teaching me the names of various tools as we replaced the brake shoes on his Dodge.  He took me and my brother to hunter safety courses and taught us not only how to shoot a rifle and a shotgun, but how to respect and handle them safely. It was something he clearly enjoyed.  I wrote a whole blog post about the time he took me deer hunting at the annual family camp (http://skykevver.blogspot.com/2021/08/pine-chicken-and-deer-hunting.html).

I know it took at least twice as long to do the brake job with my ‘help’.  Funny how dad got a deer every year except the one where he took me up on the mountain hunting with him.  There were a myriad of projects he included my ‘help’ on…not because he needed the help; he could have gotten those things done way faster without my ‘help’.  He was teaching me.  How to be a man. And that you don’t have to be a professional to do some of the things ‘professionals’ do.  Get the tools, do some research, and it’s amazing what one can accomplish.  I learned that firsthand from my dad.  Nowadays I can do just about anything having to do with car repair, home maintenance, construction, plumbing, wiring, gardening, and even some amateur writing, thanks to my dad’s patient lessons ‘letting me help’.  Yes, I do have to mention dad was a skilled writer, with a great vocabulary, which he passed down to the degree we would let him.  I admired that about him and have worked hard to expand my own grasp on the written and spoken word. 

There comes this amazing time during this whole growing up business when a father shows the meekness of Moses, allowing his son to show him the how to of some thing or another.  It was just an awesome thing to be able to show my dad some skill he hadn’t yet mastered that I had.  And rather than feel ‘shown up’ or awkward because of some misplaced pride, that pride landed squarely on my shoulders, bringing me joy in my accomplishment, and dad’s appreciation of it.  Humility, vulnerability, and grace are traits a dad needs to demonstrate to his children, as my dad did for me.  Age will contribute to some of that but so does seasoning and wisdom. I love my dad today more than ever.  Even more than when I was five, and Superman was just some TV guy that, with a lot of luck and hard work, might someday measure up to my dad.  He is 87. He moves a little slower, but still works out several times a week, and has personal and financial goals he is not only striving for, but is actually achieving.  So, at the ripe old age of 64, I still want to be like my dad when I grow up.  He is, and always will be my Real Live In Person Superhero.

2019 GHM Pres. Roylance Reunion

Hyperlink to a recording of my missionary reunion in 2019. 

2019 GHM Pres. Roylance Reunion

Pine Chicken and deer hunting

 My brother Paul posted this:  Oakley in a cabin, in Oakley canyon on the way to Smith and Morehouse I saw the cabin when I was a teenager mom took me and Chris up there and showed us the cabin it was falling apart Grandpa built it. 

I added the following: I saw that same cabin. Mom showed it to me. A creek runs behind it where grandpa made a ‘fish cage’ with green willows or some such stuck next to each other like an underwater jail. When he caught a mess of Brook Trout he would keep them alive in the stream and get a couple every morning for grandma to fry up.

Dad used to go deer hunting at Smith & Morehouse every year with the Frazier family deer camp. We would drive him up there, then so mom had a car to drive, spend part of the day with cousins then drive home, leaving him there.  We stopped at the cabin one year and mom showed me the tiny room they lived in. It did have a loft!

Dad would either get a ride home or we would drive up and get him and his deer. I remember driving down the canyon with a buck tied to the roof of the station wagon.

The year I had turned 12, I got to stay up at deer camp in the Uintah Mountains at Smith & Moorehouse. with dad and the Frazier Clan.  One of the first days he took me up on the mountain with him.  I was not trained in being quiet; seems that is actually what he was doing, showing me how to move without scaring everything with ears.  Toward the end of the day since, surprise, we hadn’t seen a thing, we were starting the long walk down the mountain. It was 30-45 minutes down to camp. And you needed to get down before dark. Suddenly dad signaled me to stop and raised his rifle. It was a 1918 Enfield 30.06, bolt action with open iron sights. No scope here. Just those stock, open sights. He had amazing vision. And even better rifle marksmanship skills. What he was aiming at was a Pine Hen, otherwise known (to me) as a Sage Grouse. Nice plump game bird, but tiny little bird head. I couldn’t even see it, but he did. From about 25 yards-that’s 75 feet- he squeezed off this unbelievably loud boom while I was trying to see what he was shooting at.  He instinctively racked another round in the chamber, my clue to stay put. To my surprise he raised the barrel and squeezed off another incredible ‘boom’! That 30.06 can take down a moose or an elk.  He had used it to blast the head off from a Pine Hen, and knowing they always hung out in pairs, had waited for the other bird to take a look to see what happened.  Hitting one of those tiny heads was worthy of serious bragging rights. He took out two, with two clean shots, one right after the other.  We cleaned those two birds and had roasted ‘Pine Chicken’ for dinner.  And I had one more reason to look up to dad as a quiet hero who said more with actions than ever with words. 

Back Surgery in the Middle of the Middle Georgia Covid Pandemic

I recently had a long awaited procedure, a fusion at L5/S1 level of my lumbar spine (low back joint weld for my more edjumcated buddies). To the many friends and loved ones expressing concern about my recent back surgery I want to say thank you all for your prayers and kind thoughts. According to my surgeon, Dr. Pahl, whom I highly recommend, the procedure went well. I don’t remember what he said when he came in to check on me and report the outcome. I was too groggy to remember. But my wife, Linda, The-Best-Wife-Of-All-Time, has sharp hearing and a good memory (not always convenient for me LOL). He told her the MRI didn’t show how bad my condition really was. A nerve root in one side had been completely flattened between the vertebrae. When the space was restored it also regained its normal dimension. That’s a real good thing which could result in not only reduced pain, but also recovering some of the lost feeling or sensation in my leg. What happened since is a story, which I decided to post here on the loving advice of The-Best-Wife-Of-All-Time. As opposed to a super-too-long post on Facebook. Short version: Let's just say things got really bad, and now they are much better, with a bright outlook for the future.

The great staff at the Jack Hughston Memorial Hospital kept me overnight, took really good care of me - kept me well medicated. I was able to walk with assistance and a walker, pass urine, and had a pain level reasonable and expected for that surgery. Arriving home I started all my pain and other meds. By Thursday I began to have fever, chest was getting croupy, and pain down my left leg became near to unbearable. As evening drew on we called the Dr. office - and of course they said go to the ER. All the hospitals around here are at or above capacity with Covid, so I did NOT want to go there if at all possible. My ADHD logic said-‘maybe that heated blanket is causing a false temp reading.’ Turned off the blanket, temp started to fall. I started being more serious about the breathing gizmo they sent home. Lung function definitely improved. Going into Friday morning was rough, little sleep, leg pain getting worse, abdomen tight, still hadn’t had a bowel movement. By midday leg pain a steady 8, spiking to 10 a lot. The Dr office was okay with not going to the ER given now normal temperature and improved lung function, but getting concerned about lack of bowel activity. They told Linda the pressure in the abdomen could be causing if not contributing to the lag pain. So she went to the pharmacy and picked up some laxative: suppository and oral-hoping to avoid an enema. 😞

Well the suppository functioned as advertised-I will just leave it at: spectacular results. When I told an ER nurse (that’s still ahead) that I thought I passed what seemed like a large baked potato she nearly fell on the floor laughing-I think you have to have different sense of humor to do that job. By now evening is near spent and the left leg pain keeps getting worse. Called the Dr office and, you guessed it-advise you take him to the ER. Still fighting the idea, hoping the lack of pressure from abdominal distention, and by golly those 10mg Norco’ I’d been taking every four hours on the dot should most assuredly kick in by now…not to mention being in a waiting room with 20 or 30 Covid patients not yet gowned and drowned with sanitizer, well I didn’t go. That night. By morning I could not find a position where my leg didn’t feel like the sciatic nerve was hooked to one of those arc welding machines you see the bad guys torturing the good guy in the movies with. Called the UHC nurse line-believe it or not -she recommended; go to the ER. The pain was so severe I felt sub-ambulatory; no way Linda could help me into the car and in to the ER entrance, so I called 911. I was told in a blessing before my surgery that I would witness many small miracles on my journey to recovery. One named BJ walked into my bedroom and assured me he would get me into the ambulance and to the hospital without making my pain any worse. This 300 lb. gentle giant was true to his word. I found myself on a gurney in the hallway just outside the window of what appeared to be some sort of central command center for medical staff. Once in a while I could see reverse black marker being written in some codes on the glass. Covid patients had pushed our 60 bed capacity ER to nearly 100. I was politely informed that no rooms were available and likely wouldn’t be for a while by the triage nurse, in spite of my acute pain level. Some pain is so severe that you can’t remain silent no matter how brave you think you are, and I’m sure there is a medical term for involuntary loud noises when your brain decides THAT will make the pain more tolerable. It was after one of those as quiet as I could keep it nonetheless noticeable sounds I heard myself making when the next miracle occurred. A nurse stopped what she was doing and brought back a training nursing student who was actually quite skilled at the whole blood letting/getting thing. She told her to get my IV going, draw needed blood samples-yes, right there in the hallway, and gave me morphine. Technically, she asked if it would be ok with me for her to give me some morphine. I assented vehemently. I had started to feel dehydrated as it had been a couple of hours since I had been able to drink anything. Now I had a bag of saline solution flowing into my arm with blessed morphine. Not so thirsty anymore, I asked if she had already injected the morphine. Yes. Wow, still a 8-9-10 pain making me cringe and cry. Somebody rolled a portable x-ray wagon up and took a chest X-ray. Wishing more than ever I could get into a room to be able to make those involuntary sounds’ I was so happy to hear “May I give you some Toradol; it may help with your pain?” Yes please! Unfortunately it didn’t do much, took the edge off a little, but no major improvement. What did happen was all that saline was crashing like a waterfall into my kidneys, which in turn were dumping it into to my bladder. Next small miracle: I flagged down a nurse and told I would be happy to make a large donation into one of those little jugs for bedside use, but preferred to have at least a blanket for some privacy. She returned with the aforementioned jug (marvelous invention, the technical term for which is: urinal) and started wheeling me down to an unoccupied room that had just become vacant. She closed the door and waited outside to avert any accidental exposure. After removing my ‘donation’ she returned to say they were just going to keep me in this room for now. Time passed. A doctor came in and asked a few questions. Fortunately Linda had placed the discharge folder from Jack Hughston Memorial Hospital in my tote, which he gratefully took. Another nurse came and informed me that an enema had been ordered as first order of business. The EE doctor had call my surgeon who was still under the impression I hadn’t had a bowel movement since Tuesday. I cleared that up real fast. By now I had not only one but a few bowel movements behind me-the Dulcolax had performed very well.

Okay so now we needed ultrasounds of both legs. In the meantime, since I had had so little pain improvement they gave me an IV steroid. The results from the ultrasound came back ok, they said my blood work was all okay, so now they were discharging me with a prescription for pneumonia and a diagnosis of sciatica. Honestly, my pain level had subsided to a 6-7-8, but I thought surely they can’t be sending a patient home with that kind of pain. Yup. They sure did. Main question was “who is picking you up and how long till they get here?” “Oh, do you want to wait inside (with 30+ Covid patients not yet gowned and drowned) or would you like us to park you in your wheelchair by the driveway?”

Outside please. I have pneumonia? "Yeah, we gave you a prescription for it, see"… Can I get it filled here? "Nope you can go to Walmart, or wherever tho’". So I left knowing that I had real bad leg pain and apparently pneumonia (probably from Thursday). When The-Best-Wife-Of-All-Time started questioning me about all the time, expense, etc. Just to find out what I pretty much already knew, I simply told her “Hey, they didn’t kill me. Can we go home now.”

Brush with the veil-personal story

After returning  home from a two year mission to the Germany Hamburg mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I moved with my young bride to Logan, Utah to attend Utah State University. One great blessing I enjoyed was living so close to my maternal grandparents, Grandma and Grandpa Frazier. They lived with my uncle in Hyde Park, just a few miles north. I had always loved visiting them as a child. Now, as an adult I was able to see them regularly and grew even closer. Grandpa had suffered a stroke leaving one side weakened, control of his hand limited. I don’t know if I have ever seen anyone with greater determination. He worked and struggled for hours to regain enough fine motor control of his hands and fingers to the point of being able to take up a favorite hobby: tying fishing flies.  He tied beautiful flies and sold them to the corner gas station for a few extra dollars of spending money. I don’t know how much that gas station guy made from selling grandpa’s flies, but they sold quickly as soon as he put them out. I wish I had some of those flies now. Grandpa crossed the veil on April 27, 1983 at the age of 76. He had lived a humble, yet rich and full life. Mom told me he was mean and drank and smoked as a young man. Then one day grandma put her foot down. She told him if he didn’t quit smoking and take her to the temple she was leaving. He quit from one day to the next. Determination.  The grandpa I knew was a man of faith, nothing like the stories mom told of his younger, wild days, like the time he got into trouble for riding his horse into the church dance, trying to impress a young lady he would later marry. 

He told me some things that helped him change. Part of his conversion had to do with a faithful home teacher, who happened to be his Stake President. It seems the man owned quite a few cattle. Now Grandpa loved to ride horses and being up in the mountains. When his friend, who happened to be the Stake President and his Home Teacher invited him to assist with the Fall cattle round up, he was more than  happy to help. The cattle had been grazing in the upper mountain pastures over the summer, and now had to be rounded up and brought to the lower valleys for the winter.  There were a number of men working the round up. It just happened that Grandpa was assigned to ride with his friend/Home Teacher, the boss. They had been working all day, had almost all the cattle rounded up.  As evening approached they realized there was one cow missing. It would be dark soon. They had searched for a long time in vain. Finally, his friend pulled up next to him and said something like “Doug, we’ve searched everywhere we can think of, and still haven’t found that cow. We sure don’t know where it is, but the Lord does. It’s time we asked him for help.” I don’t know which of them said the prayer, but sitting there in their saddles they acknowledged their limits and asked God for help. Would he please guide them so they could find the lost cow and help them get down off the mountain before dark. Grandpa told me he just let the reins loose and let his horse go without direction. It went directly to a thicket of trees where the missing cow was standing! He knew their prayers had been answered. He started going to church after that.  Grandma laughed when she told me he came home from church in a panic shortly after returning. He told her he had been called as bishop! There was no way he could handle that...she called the Stake President and learned he was mistaken: he had been called as Ward Sunday School President, had misunderstood. She thought that was so funny how panicked he was, now so humble he didn’t think he could handle being bishop. 

Several years after Grandpa’s passing I was visiting with Grandma at her apartment in Ogden, Utah.  It was a high rise near the temple, where seniors could have as much or as little assistance as they needed. Newer, much more modern than their older home or my uncle’s home they had lived in before Grandpa died, I think she felt little guilty about living in this modern facility. As we sat there talking, she confided something in me I’ll never forget. She told me how she had started praying to die. She missed Geandpa so much, she just wanted to die so she could be with him. She had friends there, but the loneliness of being without him was overwhelming. What she told me next, she spoke most reverently. One evening while or shortly after her plea to the Lord Grandpa visited  her. She said he appeared in front of her, then went into the bedroom and bath, sort of inspecting the place. He told her he approved of it. Now she must stop asking to die in her prayers. She still had work to do, lives to touch. It was not her time yet. When it was, he promised he would come for her. Then he was gone. Oh how she wished he could stay longer. But she understood it had been a special visitation in response to her prayers. She was at peace after that, happy with her new friends and the wonderful activities made available to them in the senior community, and of course, attending the Ogden temple. 

Grandpa came to guide her through the veil on October 14, 1989.  I had taken a job in Atlanta as a flight attendant for Delta Air Lines. I don’t remember why I wasn’t able or at least didn’t think I would be able to attend her funeral. I was broke and recently divorced, struggling to make it in a new career far from what had been home until 1988. All these years later I know I could have been given time off, even emergency pass travel if I had just requested it. I regret that I didn’t.  I was too worried about making waves in my new job.  If I had it to do over again, I would have been there. She had always been a spiritual guide in my life since I was old enough to understand. In a way, the memory of her confiding the sacred visitation she had with Grandpa still serves as a guide for me. I have no doubt, when the time comes, we will have a joyful reunion on the other side of the veil.

My Testimony of the Book of Mormon

My Testimony of the Book of Mormon - Another Testament of Jesus Christ

By Kevin James Keddington

As I begin the year’s church home study course “Come Follow Me” studying the Book of Mormon I have decided to record the testimony I already have of the divinity and truthfulness of this great volume of scripture.  If I am so blessed that someone perchance should come across my record, there is no greater desire in my heart than to impart some semblance of how important this book is to me and what an impact it has had on my life.  Of all the books, fiction, non-fiction, history, instruction, or scripture the Book of Mormon is by far my favorite. 

I was born in Salt Lake City to LDS parents. As a teenager I began to question the values and teachings I had been raised with, which resulted in a departure from church activity and exploration of other philosophies, religions, and life styles. I had begun my college studies, attending Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Oklahoma, when my best friend was killed in a private plane crash. As I grieved his loss and tried to make sense of what seemed to be such a senseless death, serious questions about the purpose of life took center stage in my mind. Were there really answers to these questions and if so, where would I find them? In this process it occurred to me that if I were to be honest and fair with myself, I needed to include a thorough investigation of the religion I was born into while searching for the truth among other beliefs. It seemed illogical to exclude it simply based on the fact that it was what I had grown up with. I decided to read the Book of Mormon cover to cover with a sincere desire to discover the truth. My question at the outset had been "Is this the product of Joseph Smith's imagination, one of the greatest frauds of our time, or is it possible that the time had come for the restoration of all things prophesied in the New Testament and Joseph Smith was telling the truth?" If the former were true, I would need to continue my search elsewhere, among other beliefs and philosophies. Throughout the entire time I was reading the Book of Mormon, I attended Sunday meetings at the local university student branch. What I experienced during this time was the kind of enlightenment which I could best describe as a series of "Aha" moments. My most profound questions regarding the purpose of life, and my life in particular became clear and I came to know the Book of Mormon to be exactly what it claimed to be...scripture, translated by the gift and power of God from the writings of ancient prophets. Scripture which enhanced my understanding and belief in Christ as the Son of God and Savior of the world, my personal Savior and Redeemer, whom I could have a real and personal relationship with. It wasn't just intellectual analysis that brought me to that conclusion, although I found nothing contrary to logic or reason.

What became the bedrock of my testimony of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon were spiritual experiences I was having as I was reading and studying.  I had the good fortune of working as a tank truck driver for a company hauling salt water from oil wells to injection wells.  As crude oil is pumped out of the ground it almost always contains a certain amount of salt water.  At the well site there is equipment the separates the crude from the salt water diverting it into two tanks, one for the crude oil and a large tank for the salt water.  The crude oil is hauled to a refinery or a collection of larger tanks where it is pumped through pipelines to a refinery. There it is made into gas, diesel, engine oil and other petroleum products.  The salt water on the other hand is a byproduct that has little use other than to take it injection wells where it is pumped back into the ground to push the underground oil reserves toward the well where it can be pumped to the surface.  Each time I either filled my tanker or emptied it at the various well sites I had twenty to thirty minutes of down time while the salt water was being transferred either into or out of my truck’s tank.  This process happened five, six, sometimes seven or eight times a day.  That gave me anywhere from two and a half to four hours a day to do whatever I wanted.  The truck’s engine had to kept running to power the auxiliary pump which transferred the salt water back and forth. As nice as the new tank truck was it did not have air conditioning.  Summers in central Oklahoma are hot and humid.  I carried a sack lunch with me along with a jug of ice water and my copy of the Book of Mormon.  While the pump was transferring the salt water either from or into the truck’s tank I would sit in the shade of the truck’s shadow and read.  Sometimes stories or the doctrine in the scriptures I was reading had me so engrossed it was difficult to stop once my tank was filled or emptied.  But I had a schedule to keep. And I knew that I could resume reading where I left off at the next stop.  The drive between wells gave me an opportunity to ponder and pray about what I had just read.  I even read while I was eating my lunch.  The truck had an AM radio, but I don’t think I ever turned it on.

 

I had started out with this company working as a yard hand maintaining and repairing equipment used in the oil fields to lay pipe lines and repair oil wells.  After several weeks of ‘proving myself’ to the owners that I could be relied on to first of all to show up every day on time, and to complete work I was assigned without much supervision, I was given bigger jobs or assigned to assist experienced roustabouts who then taught me how to do things I hadn’t learned yet.  When the company bought a new tanker truck and asked me if I would like to be the sole driver and operator for a new business endeavor, transferring salt water for their clients, I was honored and thrilled.  As long as the salt water was transferred on schedule I was pretty much on my own, working with little or no supervision.  I was even allowed to drive the truck home at night, on days when my schedule could be improved by driving directly from home to the next job rather than starting out at the companies ‘yard.’  In hindsight it was easy to see how the Lord was blessing me, knowing that I was seeking to know the truth about Him and His works.  I remember gaining an understanding of the Plan of Happiness, how we needed a savior to receive a remission of our sins in order to be worthy to return to that God who created us.  I read about how Adam and Eve, our first parents, made the choice to undergo death, both spiritual and physical, so that mankind could be, and enter into this state of probation, to learn faith, and prove to ourselves and God that we would repent and keep his commandments, make covenants and serve Him and each other to qualify for salvation and eternal life.  When I read in Alma how we would all be resurrected, regardless of whether we were good or evil, and that not one hair of our head would be lost, and no matter what kind of infirmities we had in this life, we would be restored to a perfect and immortal body, I felt the warm confirmation of the Spirit that I was learning the truth.  I felt that so many times, like learning about the need for opposites, opposition in all things, or how good people can experience terrible, unjust things in this life because God gives agency to all men, and will more than make up for those injustices in the eternities, because he is both a just and merciful God.  I came to understand the relationship between justice and mercy, how mercy cannot rob justice, but can save us from our mistakes and transgressions if we repent, because Jesus Christ paid the price required by justice for those who believe on Him and make sacred covenants, keeping His commandments to the best of their ability, learning and growing spiritually to have power to overcome mortal weaknesses.  My heart was filled, I felt as if intelligence and light were poured into me from heaven.  I knew what I was reading was true. I knew it in my heart and my mind.  It made sense. It felt right.  I’ll never forget reading the footnotes to verse 16 in 2 Nephi chapter 12.

 

“16 And upon all the ships of the ^asea, and upon all the ships of Tarshish, and upon all pleasant pictures.”

Here is the footnote:  The Greek (Septuagint) has “ships of the sea.” The Hebrew has “ships of Tarshish.” The Book of Mormon has both, showing that the brass plates had lost neither phrase.

The brass plates obtained by Nephi from Laban had the records of the first five books of Moses, books of prophecy from other Hebrew prophets up to Zedekia and Jeremiah, including most importantly Isaiah.  I knew the original texts used for the King James Bible were Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, the Old Testament in Hebrew and Greek.  These scriptures were handed down for many, many generations, copied by hand until the age of Renaissance and Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press.  It’s not hard to find some simple errors, especially in the Old Testament, mathematical and otherwise. I don’t read Hebrew, or Greek. Here is documented that between the two translations into English for the King James Bible, there are three elements in verse 16. Two of the three appear in the Hebrew, and two of the three in the Greek translation, with only one of the three being common to both of those translations. Yet all three appear in 2 Nephi, which Mormon abridged from the brass plates.  The brass plates had not been copied over and over and translated, had not lost plain and precious truths, or even simple little details like one of three elements Isaiah used to describe a circumstance of his time.  Here they were, all three in the Second Book of Nephi.  Joseph was translating at a rate of seven to nine pages as they appear in our current version of the Book of Mormon.  No one can tell me credibly that Joseph Smith, a relatively uneducated farmer who had difficulty with spelling correctly, who stopped in the middle of translating a page to remark to his wife, Lucy, that he never knew there was a wall around Jerusalem, which she politely confirmed there to be, I can not imagine that Joseph had access to or a working knowledge of Greek and Hebrew translations of the Bible let alone an awareness of the discrepancy between those translations in Isaiah chapter 2.  Over the years I have become aware of a few things appearing in the Book of Mormon that seemed contrary to common knowledge in 1830, but have since been proven true.  Evidences, even compelling ones like that found in Second Nephi still aren’t convincing on their own merit that this is holy writ, translated by the gift and power of God.  They serve to bolster my faith and strengthen my testimony, and for that I am grateful. Most importantly, my faith in the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon comes from reading it, feeling the Spirit of the Holy Ghost confirm the doctrines taught over and over again.  Over the years I have read the Book of Mormon numerous times. To be honest, I wouldn’t attempt to claim a number of times as I have lost count.  Each time I read it, I am amazed to find new understanding of doctrines, new perspectives on the teachings which I have previously read and yet, it is almost like I’m reading some of them for the first time.  I can’t read those pages without feeling somehow uplifted, enlightened, or inspired.

Upon completion of that reading during the summer of 1978, I determined to put Moroni’s promise to the test.  Since I was a little boy in Primary I remembered being taught this powerful promise (Moroni 10:3-5):

“3 Behold, I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if it be wisdom in God that ye should read them, that ye would remember how ^amerciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things, and ^bponder it in your ^chearts.

4 And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ^aask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not ^btrue; and if ye shall ask with a ^csincere heart, with ^dreal intent, having ^efaith in Christ, he will ^fmanifest the ^gtruth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.

5 And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may ^aknow the ^btruth of all things.”

I had read the Book of Mormon from cover to cover thanks to having a job which not only made it easy, but ensured time to reflect on what I was reading.  So, I went to my bedroom and knelt down to pray.  I was definitely expecting either a total blank spiritual silence indicating I had been fooling myself, or some kind of marvelous manifestation, an epiphany like witness.  Angels had appeared to others, could they not appear to me as well? Or appear and tell me I had been misled and needed to seek truth elsewhere…well I knelt there praying, listening, and felt the Spirit whisper clearly “You don’t need angels, or a marching band to come crashing through the wall, or a pillar of light and heavenly music. You don’t need anything like that because you already know.  Remember how you felt reading in Second Nephi? Alma? Remember how you felt reading about the Savior’s appearance to the Nephites after his resurrection and ascension? Remember how you felt when you read the words Jesus spoke to the Nephites about other sheep whom He had not manifested Himself to, but would, and there would be one fold, and one shepherd? Remember the burning in your heart, the tears streaming down your cheeks as you read Third Nephi chapter 17, when Jesus blessed the little children, and angels came down and ministered to them?” I remembered how comforted I felt reading Ether 12:27:

“27 And if men come unto me I will show unto them their ^aweakness. I ^bgive unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my ^cgrace is sufficient for all men that ^dhumble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make ^eweak things become strong unto them.”

Suffice it to say I came to know the Book of Mormon to be true, and it's author and translator, Joseph Smith, to be who and what he claimed to be, a modern day prophet called to be a tool in the hands of God to restore the fullness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and His church in preparation for His prophesied return.

Since those early days in a salt water tanker and a humble single wide mobile home in Stillwater, Oklahoma, my testimony of the existence of God, whom I know to be my literal spiritual Father and Creator, and His Son, Jesus Christ, my Savior and Redeemer, Friend and Advocate with the Father, has grown exponentially.  The expression “Faith precedes the Miracle” has proven true on my life too many times to count.  At times like this, I wish I had done a better job of documenting those personal miracles.  Many are recorded in my missionary journals, and many which have happened since my mission are recorded only in my memory and I am quite sure in some books kept by angels in heaven.  I know, as surely as I know the sun will come up in the morning, that God lives and loves us all, with a love that is so great, so wonderful, so deep and so tender it is difficult to comprehend, and His Son, Jesus Christ loves us the same, if it were possible, even more deeply, as He paid the awful price for our redemption personally.  I love Him. I love them both. You cannot love the one without loving the other.  The knowledge and understanding of my purpose for being here, of the great Plan of Happiness and my part in it is more precious to me than anything this world has to offer.  Knowing that this life is a small part of a greater plan, and what I need to do to have happiness and joy here, in this life, as well as in the eternities in the life to come is a gift so sweet and precious it is nearly beyond comprehension.

Why would God speak to prophets anciently to offer guidance, send angels to proclaim His gospel, the coming forth of His Son, our Redeemer and Savior, reveal His commandments, and give us sacred covenants, and then leave us hanging in the dark at a time when the world is more wicked than ever?  They foretold a restoration of all things prior to His Second Coming.  I know that restoration took place.  I know the priesthood which He bestowed on His apostles anciently was restored in our time, to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery.  I have been ordained to that same priesthood and exercised it in the service of others.  The sick have been healed miraculously in my life under the hands of myself and other priesthood holders. 

It is important to know that while I know the gospel of Jesus Christ is perfect and teaches us all things we need to do and know to receive salvation and exaltation; I am far from perfect.  There are periods in my life I wish I could erase or do over.  I have repented sorely for terrible things which I don’t need to enumerate here, as it would serve no purpose.  I wish I had been more obedient, led a more exemplary life, had not strayed from the path when I did.  Experience has taught me there was only misery in seeking worldly pleasures, being rebellious, and disobedient.  It has been a process putting the natural desires I was born with aside and schooling my desires. That process continues today.  I have made great progress, due most certainly to exercising faith in Jesus Christ, in His gospel, in His prophetically chosen leaders, choosing to do more right than wrong, repenting daily in an effort to become more like Him.  Because I love Him.  And while I can never repay Him for what He did for me, I can show my gratitude by keeping His commandments to the best of my ability.  I do not have to be perfect to know He loves me perfectly, and He loved me first.  Yes He has shown me my weaknesses, and helped me overcome many of them as I was willing to humble myself and subject my will to His.  And yes, I have a long way to go.  One thing is certain, and that is that I am on the right path.  If you are not already on this path, I invite you to join me.  Bring what you already know and add to it.  Come test the things I claim for yourself and find out what you don’t already know.  And share what you do know so we can both be uplifted and edified.  I bear my solemn witness that God lives and so does His Son, Jesus Christ.  They have restored the true church with apostles and prophets just like it existed in the meridian of time.  Priesthood keys and authority have been restored in our time, the dispensation of the fullness of times.  All things have been restored just as prophesied by ancient prophets.  Sacred covenants established before the creation of the world are available to us today in Holy Temples, where worthy and righteous men and women go and serve and teach and learn.  God speaks to us today through living prophets and apostles.  Joseph Smith was the first prophet of the restoration.  Since his time when the restoration began, there has always been a living prophet on earth as there is today.  His name is Russel M. Nelson.  God has promised that the gospel in it’s fullness will never again be taken from the earth, that we live in a time of preparation for the Second Coming of His Son, Jesus Christ.  I don’t know if that will happen in my lifetime.  Whether it does or not what is most important is whether or not I have done all I could to be prepared to meet Him, whether here or on the other side of the veil. 

What a marvelous gift He has given us, given me.  To have my sins remitted! To be cleansed from all those poor choices! It is not enough to have ceased to do wrong, not enough to regret having made mistakes and foolish choices.  No degree of remorse or attempt to repay the wrong somehow could make me whole.  Only His redeeming love, the gift of the Atonement can do that.  Oh how I love Him!  He has done for me what I could never do…cleansed me from sins of commission and omission, extending mercy and love because of my faith in Him, and my desire to serve and obey Him.  He knows me. Knows me better than I do. And He loves me.  In ways I can’t entirely comprehend, I know He loves me and wants only what is best for me.  I am grateful beyond my ability to express in words that He lives, He offers His love and grace to all, and suffered unimaginable pain and anguish for us all, for me.  Russel M. Nelson is His chosen prophet today.  He chose Joseph Smith when he was just a boy of 14 to be His servant, the prophet of the restoration.  He brought forth the Book of Mormon, Another Witness of Jesus Christ to testify of Him. I bear solemn witness to the truthfulness of these things in the sacred name of Jesus Christ, Amen.