Jan 8, 2012 following Stake Conference

Stake Conference Jan 7-8, 2012

Today the Stake Presidency was released. President John K Frischknecht, Ist Coun. Collin Allan, and 2^nd Coun. Scott Summerfeldt.  The new presidency was then sustained as President Scott Summerfeldt, 1^st Counselor David Jensen and 2^nd Coun. Ryan Moss.

The visiting General Authorities were Elders Marlin Jensen and Christopher B Munday. Elder Munday had a great sense of humor only bested by Elder Jensen’s. It was a lot of fun listening to them. They gave us some great counsel and I have decided to pass it on to you as well.

Pres and Sister Frischnecht both spoke about families first followed by our visiting authorities.

Elder Munday spoke yesterday of the importance of families and most importantly teaching children the gospel. He said that we need to teach not just the what of the gospel principle but also the why. He told a story when one of the general authorities (Elder Nelson) came to his stake in England and asked for two youth speakers to give talks and bear their testimonies of the gospel. He picked the two youth that he knew would best represent the gospel (and make him look good). They got up and both gave the basic same talk about all the things that we do not do in the gospel. After they sat down Elder Nelson looked over at him and simply said, “Interesting.” That dwelt on his mind for some time after conference was over and finally he came to the understanding that those he had chosen knew the whats of the gospel but did not understand the whys. He determined that from that time forth he would teach the whys. The whats of the gospel are the word of wisdom, temple marriage, home teaching, plan of salvation, etc. The whys are the reasons why  the Lord gave them as commandments. Health and strength by obedience to the Lords giving the word of wisdom. Forever families and our becoming Gods are two of the whys for temple marriage. Looking out for the welfare of our fellow men is the why for home teaching and becoming like God the why for the plan of salvation. He admonished us to always teach the whys with the whats as we teach our children and as we minister in the gospel.

Elder Jensen then spoke about our need to tell our stories. He said that as we tell our stories the spirit of the Lord can teach our children and grandchildren and beyond why we have testimonies and where we may have struggled to learn to obey the commandmants. They will be strengthened by knowing our stories.

(I thought about Hayden’s gift two years ago that started me on that very path by starting the blog of my stories. I hope they mean something to you and to your children.) He told about his great grandfather getting a piece of horehound candy in his stocking one year and that was all any of them got that Christmas. So he decided to put a plan into action where he could enjoy that candy all year. He would lick it a couple of times and then wrap it in some tissue and put it by his bed and each night before bed he would take it out and lick it a couple of times and by so doing it lasted a full year.  He then said “And in me is a part of him.” He then told a couple other stories to illustrate things that he had learned form his grandfather and father ad then again said “And there is a part of them in me.”

  

Both talks were really good and we were there a full two hours that didn’t seem that long.

Today several bore testimonies from the former Stake Presidency and the new one as well.

Then Elder Munday spoke about the fact that they had all mentioned that their wives were so much a reason for their being where they were. Then he said that there was a quote that hangs in their home in England that reads, “She who sits and waits also serves.” He then spoke to the youth and admonished them to be faithful to their parents and the gospel and to the young men to serve a mission even if they don’t want to do it. He also spoke about having personal priesthood interviews with each of your children every fast Sunday. He explained that as a Bishop he once had a father and son come to him and the father told him that his son had told him something last night that he needed to tell the Bishop. After the interview he asked the father how he had gotten his son to tell him first about the problem and he then explained that he had always had PPI’s with his children even from before they could really talk and that was why he son came to him first.

Elder Jensen then talked to us and explained that as a Mission President he found that the Bishop’s were not using the Elders to speak in Sacrament meeting and he found out that the Bishops didn’t use them because they couldn’t give good talks. His wife then went to work to find out how they could be taught to speak better He explained that she found out that the best speakers always did 4 things. 1. Give an introduction to the topic. 2^nd. Tell a story and preferably one from your own experience and 3^rd back it up with a scripture that supports the story and then finally bear your testimony in closing about that principle and the gospel.  This is something that might well be taught to your children, especially as they get into their youth talk giving years. Teach it by doing it every time you talk as well so they learn from example also before that time. He then gave his talk following those very steps. It was really good.

At the end he summed up his testimony by saying something to the fact that when all is said and done if he has someone who will call him Honey, and children that he helped to make call him dad and grandchildren who call him Papa that it will be good enough for him. What a testimony to the strength of a family. 

Jan. 8, 2012

Finding Steve's home in Palmyra

While I worked at Signetics I was asked at one point in my career there to be a maintenance supervisor. I was on dayshift and was the supervisor over the Thin Film manufacturing area. I had about five people who reported to me and with whom I would hold daily team meetings before we started our shift. I was the one who had started the practice of having a team meeting each day because I found it easier to start everyone on the same page that way. I would go in a little early and get a run down on all of the equipment that was down and then hold the team meeting where I would make assignments and then send the technicians out to interface with the other shift before they went home. As part of my duties I was also required to do semi-annual reviews on everyone. One year I remember being pretty upset about one of the reviews since my supervisor had ranked one of my men pretty harshly. I knew I couldn’t really refute what he said but also knew it was very unfair since I knew that he was one of my best techs. It was somewhat obvious to me that my supervisor didn’t like him and wanted to get rid of him so he was trying to make him mad enough to quit. At least that was how it appeared to me. After the interview I could tell that Steve was pretty upset but there was not any time where I could get with him since his shift was over and he quickly left work. I decided snce I knew that he lived out in Plamyra that I would go out and see if I could find him at home and talk to him. I didn’t know where in Plamyra just that it was in Palmyra. SO I decided that I would just let Lord take me there. I drove and when prompted would turn and then finally when I began doubting my ability to listen to the spirit I stopped and asked a farmer where he lived. I was one street away and a lot closer than I thought possible.

Well he was on a tractor in the field so when he saw me he stopped and I went out and got up on the tractor with him o we could talk about it. I don’t recall now anything that I said but it was fairly apparent that he knew he wasn’t wanted and yet by the time we finished talking we both felt good about it. He stayed with the company a few more weeks until he was able to find another job closer to home and left to work there. I will always remember the incident however not so much for the outcome but rather the experience of knowing the Lord loved us both and I was able to be directed to within a few yards of where he lived.

Jan. 7, 2012

Guess who? 

Then look at the last couple of pictures.

Jan. 6, 2012

Church Song Festival with Leesa.

Singing has always been a part of my life and especially since the time that we sang as a family for Sacrament meeting one day and Alma taught me to sing the alto part in that song. (Seems like the song was Love at Home but I am really not sure at this point.) Anyway I have been able to sing the alto part to many song since then and did so until my voice became of age and I had to start singing the base line instead. I have fun even now though using my falsetto voice and joining Marie on the alto parts of several songs that I had learned in my youth.

We had a number of opportunities to sing also and Leesa and I had a chance once to be part of a church wide festival where we sang in the large basketball facility on the University of Utah campus. We practiced the songs at the stake center for several weeks before we boarded a bus and traveled to Salt Lake city to the U of U campus where we stayed in the dorms and then practiced for several hours each of tow days with the actual conductor who would lead the singing for the event. It was a grueling couple of days with even some threats that it would be cancelled from the conductor because some of the youth thought they were there just to have a good time and thus didn’t sing during the practices.

Well the threats must have worked because we did sing a quite a few numbers, even had a record made from the performance and grew to love music even more than before after it was done. I can’t remember the numbers that we sang anymore and don’t even know where the record might be but I will always remember the feeling we had as we performed with such a large number of youth mostly 14 to 16 years of age.

Jan 5, 2012

Baptism Interview at the County Fair and baptism.

The summer of 1961 was as special as any summer could be for an 8 year old member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and that was where I was during that year. I can somewhat clearly remember working hard to make sure I had the Articles of Faith memorized and was ready for any question that the Bishop could throw at me when I had my baptismal interview. I also remember waiting for the call to go into the Bishop’s office as had all of my friends prior to that. I was the youngest in the group and consequently the last.

The day finally came when the call came and Bishop Moon set an appointment with me. We were to meet at the county fair ( a pretty important event in those days in Duchesne County) and I was somewhat surprised that it wouldn’t be in the Bishop’s office. I was to learn at a fairly young age that the Lord’s work could be done anywhere that there was peace and quiet. However you wouldn’t expect there to be much peace or quiet at the county fair with the concessions booths, exhibit halls buzzing with people and all of the livestock barns full of noisy animals. However when the Bishop and I met in the cab of his pickup truck it seemed that the world was locked out and it was just the two of us. I cannot remember what was asked or if I thought that I day failed any of the questions but I do remember sitting there in the passenger side very intent on the interview. (It is kind of like the day I was married, the most important date in my life and the main thing I remember was pacing in front of the temple because my bride and sweetheart still wasn’t there and they were driving from Mapleton to Manti that day to be there.)

Anyway I must have passed since I was baptized at the start of the next month the day prior to fast Sunday. It was the 2^nd of September 1961. We went to the font in the old Stake Center in Duchesne where I spent Sunday’s for the entire segment of my youth growing up years. I even reported to the High Council in that building the day after I got home from my mission and the day I gave my talk in Sacrament meeting and the day I headed off to Snow College for my sophomore year for which I was two weeks late. A lot of other things took place in that building as well and it was a major part of my life. But there was a baptismal font in that room down the hall towards the Junior Sunday School room. We had an opening exercises in the Cahpe; after I had gotten dressed in my white clothes and we watched as other children my age from the stake were baptized. I don’t remember how many but I do remember sitting there by the font watching two or three before it was my turn. Dad then led me down into the water, of which I was very afraid of in those days, and we proceeded to do as we had practiced. I let dad hold my wrist with the one hand and I grabbed his arm with my other hand. He said the prayer, something he had done for all of my other older siblings and then proceeded to baptize me. As I came out of the water having survived the drowning the witnesses kindly told my dad that my toes had come out of the water. So we repeated the event a second time and I survived it as well but the witnesses then informed my dad that he had missed a word in the prayer, a prayer that has to be said word for word as the Lord had directed Joseph Smith. So we tried it again and that time dad said the prayer correctly and stepped on my toes so I wouldn’t come up. I am sure it was as hard on my dad to have to have done it three times as it was for me and I guess that was what really ended up making it so special in the long run. My fear of the water after two times was gone and I listened closely to the prayer the third time and we were there in it together until it was right.

I have baptized several investigators in the mission field, all six of my own children, done baptisms for the dead and even had an opportunity to baptize a new convert in the ward here at BYU and everytime I have practiced the prayer repeatedly and stepped on the toes of the one I was baptizing because I remember so well the events that occurred on the day I was baptized at a tender young age of 8 years old. 

Jan. 4, 2012

33 Degrees Below Zero

We recently had a spell of cold weather this winter when the temperature outside were 10 degrees below zero and Clair reported toward the end of the spell that Duchesne had finally gotten above zero during the day. It reminded me of one year in my youth when it got below zero for several days and I still had the assignment to milk the cows and do the chores. I started doing chores around the barn when about eight years old. I would go to the stack yard and pull some hay down into the manger for the cows and then return to the barn to milk the cows. I became the main one to milk the cows though later in my teen years when the last son (Lynn) prior to me left for his mission. It was during one of those years when the temperature had dropped to well below zero for several days and one of them was at minus 33 degrees and Dad and I were the ones left to do the chores. They were not real hard but I never really considered them to be real pleasant either. However when the temperatures dropped during that winter they were even far less pleasant. I felt sorry for myself having to go milk the cows in such cold weather but felt even more sorry for the cows that had to eat, sleep and be milked in such weather. Cows are not really very particular where they leave their piles of processed hay and grass (manure) and even less particular about where they sleep either and the two places are often the same. It was always a joy to have to press your head in front of their hind leg to prevent them from kicking while you were milking them but the fact that they had been laying in manure made it even worse. That also meant though that their bags were also many times also laying in manure and so we would have to take rags soaked in warm water and wash their teats and bags before starting to milk them. It was more than one time during these cold winter days that the rag would still be frozen while hanging on the wall in the barn and putting it into the warm water was necessary not only to get it wet but to thaw it out from the previous session of milking. Those cows probably enjoyed the warmth of the water and the warmth of our hands as we milked them but I often worried how it felt as they were released from the barn back into the cold air outside of the barn. Maybe that’s why they would then go lay down in another warm pile of processed hay (manure) that would then be there to wash off the next time we milked.

Marsha and Scott's family 1/1/2012

I hope I get the names spelled correctly.

 Dusty, Amber and Kai

 Marsha, Scott

 Kai, Marsha, Scott, Max

Jace, Riley

 JJ, Jace, Genny

Riley

 Richard, Max, Lauren

 Riley, Kai, Jace, Max

Max