As I
reflect back over my life most of the worthwhile and lasting relationships I
have made in my lifetime have been those acquired through my service in the
Church.
Jeanne' and I received no Church callings during
the first year of our marriage while we were living in the Waldorf
Apartments. The first calling I received
was in 1949 when we were living on Ramona Avenue. It was the year Ann was born. I was called to be a ward clerk in the newly
created South Edgehill Ward which had been divided from the Edgehill Ward, in
the Hillside Stake. The new bishop was
Douglas H. Smith (my first cousin).
Doug called as his counselors, Stanley D. Rees and Marvin L. Pugh. Marvin
"Bus" Ludlow was called as the financial clerk and I as statistical
clerk. Not long after, E. Clive Earl and
Frank Smith were added as assistant financial clerks; and thus began an
association which lasted for many, many years.
The genesis of our ‘dinner group’
can be mostly attributed to Frank Smith.
Frank was the manager of Paramount Pictures Distributors in Salt Lake
and as such had access to Paramount’s new movies which he would screen for the
various movie theaters in the area. Paramount’s
office building on First South contained a screening room with about 50 seats. Frank would take our group to "sneak
previews" of many the new films being produced then by Paramount including
those of film director, Cecil B. DeMille.
Frank’s wife,Mona, is the twin sister of
Elder Mark E. Peterson, a member of the Corium of he Twelve
Apostles
I don't
recall if we first started going to dinner as a group, or attending the movies,
but dinner and a show soon developed into a monthly occasion. We would go to the home of a different member
of the bishopric group for dinner each month and then attend a movie
afterwards. At first each couple would put $1.00 a month
into a kitty, and when we accrued enough money we would reward ourselves by
going to dinner at a restaurant. Clive
Earl acted as our "treasurer", collecting our money each month. He was so funny. Clive would pay for our meal by taking our
money out of his wallet (and/or money belt) counting it out dollar by dollar, from
one billfold after another (or opening his money belt) until he had the
required amount! Clive was so
conscientious about this responsibility that it was hilarious to watch him, but
almost embarrassing as we waited for him to do this. I never quite understood why he didn’t change
those dollar bills into bigger bills! After
Clive’s death, that we stopped collecting the dollar and went to just having
dinner at everybody’s homes. All the
wives were excellent cooks and we decided we could have a delicious pot-luck dinner
without the expense of a restaurant.
Frank Smith was the first in the group to pass away, which ended our
movie going.
We had some wonderful times
together over the years. In our earlier years together we would play
party games after dinner; on some
holidays we even wore costumes (e.g., Halloween.) But as time went on things became more
subdued and we stopped playing games and wearing costumes, but we still tried
to get together each month. Even if a couple left for a mission or another
Church assignment we continued to do so, for almost 60 years. While we were on our last full-time mission to
the Pacific Islands Area, the group invited Helen Aldridge and Lillian and
Elwood Bywater to join with them. They
had been members of a dinner group that some of our group had been a part of, and
they fit in well. By the time we returned
from our last mission, we were all getting older and we had stopped having
dinners in homes and started going to the Lion House for lunch instead. Both Helen Aldridge and Elwood Bywater passed
away in 2007, and since most were now in their late 80’s and 90’s it began to
be rather difficult for some to even get to the Lion House, and our monthly
get-togethers petered out. We tried to have
an occasional dinner but with the death of Doug Smith in 2009 and health
problems of the Pughs and the Ludlows, our dinners ceased. Now
that many have died we have a hard time just seeing each other now.
Now back to South Edgehill Ward. After a few years as Bishop, Doug Smith
developed a serious health problem and was released. Stan Rees was called as the new bishop. Stan called Marvin L. Pugh and Preston G.
Adams to be his counselors. All of the
clerks remained, with the addition of Earl Baxter as 2nd Financial
Clerk. This made up what we have called
the "South Edgehill Bishopric Group,"
consisting of Doug and Barbara Smith, Stan and Helen Rees, Marv and
Kirksel Pugh, Pres and Carol Adams, Bus and Ruthe Ludlow, Clive and Nellie
Earl, Frank and Mona Smith, Earl and Mary Baxter, and Jeanné and me; a total of
18. Frank, Mona, Clive, Nellie, Earl,
Mary, Stan, Doug, Barbara, Kirksel, Marv and Bus have all passed away, leaving
only six of us in 2011: Helen, Ruthe,
Pres and Carol, and Jeanné and me.
Through the years, our group members have
served in many Church callings. After overcoming
the health problem that culminated in his being released as Bishop, Doug was
made a counselor in the Hillside Stake presidency and later Hillside Stake
president. He was later made a Regional
Representative, after which he was called as a member of the Second Quorum of
Seventy, and was made an emeritus member after five years service. While a General Authority he served for three
years as Area President of the Asian Area of the Church, with headquarters in
Hong Kong. Prior to Doug’s calling as a Seventy, Barbara
served as General President of the Relief Society for ten years; later would be
president of American Mothers, and still kept active in women's affairs
throughout the country for years. Doug
died in February 2009 and Barbara died 13 September 2010. Just prior to her death, Barbara had moved
into the Gateway Condo across the hall from her daughter, Lillian Alldredge. She had Pulmonary Fibrosis and had
to be on oxygen most of the time.
Stanley Rees served as Mission
President of the German Mission, during the days of the "Berlin Wall". During his tenure he made many trips into
East Germany to serve the Saints there, often taking a General Authority with
him (including Thomas s. Monson.) Later
he and Helen served as president and matron of the Swiss Temple in Bern. Jeanné and I toured Switzerland, along with
Ann and Steve, while they were serving in the Swiss Temple and had a lovely
visit with them. Stan served as a sealer
in the Salt Lake Temple until his health failed. He passed away in December 1997. We loved him dearly and miss him greatly. Helen is living in the Sunset Retirement Center
on Hyland Dr. Bus and Ruthe Ludlow moved
into the same center. Bus passed away in September 2011.
After Jeanné and I moved into our
home on the Avenues, South Edgehill Ward was divided. Marv Pugh was then called as Bishop of the Mountain
View Ward in the Hillside Stake, which had been realigned so he was then in
that ward, and later, after moving to
Holladay, served as president of the Holladay Stake. He served as Mission President of the Ireland-Dublin
Mission and later was called to be a counselor in the Salt Lake Temple
presidency. Marv was serving as the Director
of Temple Square when Jeanné and I began serving there. Marv later served as counselor in the Jordan
River Temple and served as a sealer there in until 2008, when his health
prevented him from continuing. Marvin
and Kirksel celebrated their 70th Wedding Anniversary in 2007. In 2009, in their mid-nineties, they had to
have caretakers 24 hours a day in their home.
We visited them as often as time permitted and found Kirksel in bed
following a bad fall, and Marv looking badly, too. After months on hospice Kirksel died
peacefully on February 1st, 2010.
Marv died peacefully on August 25th that same year. Marv was 98 when he died and his funeral was held
in his home ward of Holladay 27th Ward, which was literally packed
with relatives, friends and former missionaries. The wife of one of his missionaries started
coming to Marv and Kirksel’s house in 2008 thoroughly cleaned it once a
week At the time of Marv’s death, Linda
and Mark Timothy replaced their former caretakers (Mark had been one of Marv’s
missionaries) and personally cared for him five or six days a week, and making
sure he got to his church meetings on Sunday.
What love that couple had for him!
Pres and Carol served as Directors
of the Visitors Center at the new San Diego Temple, and Pres is currently
officiating in the Salt Lake Temple.
Pres’ health has not been too good.
He passes out frequently, so he can’t drive anymore, and is getting
quite hard of hearing, but otherwise seems to be happy.
Bus and Ruthe served one full 18‑month
mission to the Swiss Temple, and were called back there for two more short‑term
missions later. Bus was a sealer in the
Salt Lake Temple for years, and Ruthe served in the temple, until Ruthe had to
stop for health reasons. Bus formally
retired as a sealer in the Salt Lake Temple, but he still substituted 2 or 3
times a week until he and Ruth moved into the Sunset Retirement home in 2009
when Bus was 96 years old. As mentioned
earlier, Bus died in 2011.
Frank Smith's wife, Mona, is a twin
sister to Apostle Mark E. Peterson.
Frank was the first of our group to pass away and was followed a few
years later by Mona. He had been inactive
for many years prior to being called to serve as clerk because of a word of wisdom
problem, but when he became active he threw away his cigarettes and never
smoked again. Frank was truly a
gentleman and a friend. We all loved him
very much.
Clive was the second member of the
group to pass on and his sweet wife, Nellie, passed away several years later after
moving to a Nursing Home. Clive and
Nellie served an 18 month mission in Darwin, Australia.
Earl Baxter was the next to pass
away, and Mary remained a member of the group for several years, until she
asked to be excluded. Having lost track
of Mary, I am sure she has died, but don’t have a date.
I have spent quite a little time
telling about my association with this special group of people because of the
tremendous influence they have each had on my life. A person could not have had better friends,
to look up to and strive to emulate, than this wonderful group of people have
been. South Edgehill ward no longer
exists as such. I understand the ward
was later renamed when the names of the wards in the stake were given
numbers. We were a unique group. I have not heard of any other bishopric group
that remained together longer than we did.
(The bishopric that I had the pleasure of serving with in the Olympus
3rd Ward never even got together as a group one time for dinner. . .)
I thoroughly enjoyed serving as a
ward clerk in the South Edgehill Ward. I
put a small desk in the basement of our home on Ramona Avenue and would spend
as much time as needed in keeping the ward membership records up to date.
After moving to Ninth Avenue, we
lived in the Ensign ward. During the
first year we lived there, the Ensign Ward was divided and we were then in the
East Ensign Ward. I was called as M‑Men
leader and worked closely with Dorothy Holt, the Gleaner leader. (At that time the M‑Men and Gleaners met
together. It was later supplanted by the
Young Women’s and Young Men's programs.)
I served in that calling only about a year when we moved, but it was one
position that I enjoyed immensely and remember fondly. The young people presented Jeanné and me a
lovely engraved silver tray when we left.
While working at Lowe’s Pharmacy, I
served as a baptizer in the Salt Lake Temple for about two years. In those days the baptizer would work
regularly scheduled times. My shift was on
Wednesday morning from 6 to 10 am. I
stopped keeping track of the number of baptisms for the dead I had performed when
I reached 20,000. When we moved to
Holladay I had to resign because work interfered with my temple schedule. Things have really changed with Baptisms for
the Dead over the years. Young people
and adults would come in groups as today, but we would baptize in groups with
three proxies in the font at a time. I would
take one proxy, and an officiator would read out the name of the deceased person
for whom the ordinance was being performed.
After being baptized the proxy would climb up out of the font to a chair,
at the top of the stairs, to be confirmed by two priesthood holders, remaining
there while I baptized the next proxy before returning back into the font. That would make it so that one proxy was being
baptized, one being confirmed, and one waiting his or her turn. That way we were able to complete baptisms
for about 200 names during the 4‑hour session.
Today the confirmations are done in a separate area, after all the
baptisms have been performed. They also use
a teleprompter from which the baptizer can read the names, and by baptizing
each proxy for several deceased persons, one after the other, they accomplish
the number of baptisms we did in a fraction of the time it used to take! I thoroughly enjoyed that work and had the
pleasure of having my wife and daughter act as a proxy a few times. On one of those times I was kiddingly
admonished “not to drown my wife!" after I had baptized her quite a few
times. I recall how tired my feet would get standing
in the font by the end of each shift. I then
better understood what was meant by Temple "work"!
When we first moved to Holladay we
were members of the Holladay 5th Ward. We
met in the Holladay Third Ward chapel located on 25th East and 48th South. LeGrand (Bud) Curtis was Bishop. That building was later razed and rebuilt under
the direction of Jeanné’s brother/architect . It was the ward that Steve and Delpha Baird
attended until Steve died, and where Steve served as Bishop. My first calling was as Explorer Leader,
serving with Holly Fryer.
When we moved into our new home at
2545 Evening Star Dr., construction on our new chapel had just begun: They had just poured the foundation. It was pleasure to help in the construction
of the chapel; that was before the Church stopped using local help to build chapels
with. As soon as the chapel was completed,
the Holladay Stake was divided. We were
then in the Olympus Stake. At that same
time the Holladay 5th Ward was divided and we were then in the Holladay 9th
Ward. A few years ago, the Olympus stake
realigned the boundaries of the wards, while at the same time renaming all of
the wards in the Stake. Our ward
boundaries remained the same, but our ward was then renamed Olympus 3rd Ward.
Foley Richards was called as the
first Bishop of the Holladay 9th Ward. He
called me to be the Finance Committee chairman.
This was back in the days when a ward was responsible for collecting a percentage
of the money needed to pay for the new building. That was a challenge! We used virtually every idea we could think
of to raise money for the building fund. Probably the most successful was when we would
have a "ward dinner" each month at which the members would bring an
assigned pot-luck food and then come and pay to eat it. It was interesting how people would to pay to
eat their own food, but wouldn't donate money directly! The only folding chairs we had at that time were
those used in the classrooms, so we had to carry all the chairs to and from the
classrooms for each dinner. That was a
job!
I read where the State of Utah was
going to allow charitable organizations to operate concession booths at the
State Fair. With Bishop Richard's
blessing, we applied for permission to have a booth. We had a fish pond. It turned out to be a real fiasco. It took a lot of time and effort, and we
didn’t make enough to make it worth all the work. The interesting part was how the
"hucksters", who make their living working concessions at State Fairs
around the country, tried every scam they could to con us out of what little money
we did make. We learned that the only
way you make money in one of those affairs is through avarice and
cheating! Obviously not a way for a
Church group to make money!! I don't
think they invited groups to ever do it again.
After the ward was dedicated, I was
called as the Cubmaster. That calling was
one of the most enjoyable I ever had in the church. After Reid and John left the Cub Scout
program, I was called as Assistant Scoutmaster, and then Explorer and Venture
Leader. During this time I became
involved with the scouting District, and later the Salt Lake Council scouting
program and served in various capacities, culminating as an assistant Explorer
director for the Salt Lake Council. Dr.
Madison Thomas served as the director and Mel West the other assistant. I was in charge of the Salt Lake Council
Explorer Road Rally for several years and during our tenure we had a very
successful Explorer Conference, held in the Utah State Capital building. Interestingly, we were suddenly released. Dr.
Thomas later confided in me that the reason for our release was that we were
doing too well, and some of the council professionals were jealous of our
achievements. Strange.
While living on Evening Star Drive,
I served as both a counselor and as president of the MIA, and as a Sunday
School teacher. Jeanné was called, a
second time, to be the Primary President, and she asked me to be a Primary teacher. I was the Seventies Quorum instructor for several
years. While I don't claim any special
skill, I always enjoyed serving as a teacher.
I served as a Stake Missionary for a couple of years, and considered
myself "third counselor" in
the Relief Society during Jeanné’s tenure as president of that organization.
A year or so after John came home
from his mission (after he was married) he began serving as a guide on Temple
Square, (or host, as they were called at that time; they are now set apart as
missionaries) and I joined him sometime later.
We served together on Temple Square for a about a year. We were serving together the year the new South
Visitor’s Center was opened (which replaced the Church Museum building) and we
took some of the first tours that were taken through the new visitor’s center. The new tours began on the basement
level. We would move from room to room
through three exhibits depicting events from the Book of Mormon. The
rooms had a new cordless microphone system.
The host would pick up a different mike as he/she entered each room. Some of the guides couldn't quite get the
hang of it and would take the microphone with them into the next room instead
of leaving it. That made it so that the group in the previous room would hear
the voice of the host in the next room rather than their own guide, who was
left without a microphone! It proved
quite interesting until everyone caught on.
Some years
later, while our dear friend, Marv Pugh, was serving as director of Temple
Square, Jeanné and I volunteered as missionaries on Temple Square and served for
seven years. We served on Wednesday
morning, and truly enjoyed our experiences there, as well as enjoying the
dedicated missionaries we worked with. We asked to be released in June 1989, the year
before we went on our first full-time mission to Tennessee-Nashville. About a year prior to our leaving Temple
Square, the Church began calling young Sister missionaries to serve there. That proved to be an interesting transition;
but they were able to provide many foreign language skills that weren’t
available before that. Not long after
we left, all older missionaries, except for those who could speak a foreign language,
or those who would serve a full-time mission, were released, virtually turning Temple
Square over to the Sister missionaries.
The sister missionaries do a wonderful job now and we feel it was a wise
move on the part of the Church. We
recently took a tour with the Sisters as our guide and learned that they now
have 200 missionaries serving.
In 1987 I
was called to serve as first counselor to Bishop Richard (Rick) L. Jenson,
along with Martin Craven, as second counselor. I was released when we received our mission
call. I really did enjoy the experience I had during
those few years I served in the bishopric.
Please see Chapter Nine for
information on our Tennessee-Nashville Mission.
Some time after being released from
Tennessee-Nashville mission, we ran into one of the Sisters that we had formerly
worked with on Temple Square. She
suggested that we might enjoy something she was doing: Working as a Church Service Missionary member
locator in the Membership Department. We
spoke to our Bishop, and were called to serve in that department; which we did
for five years until being released on 16 Jun 1996. At first we would call telephone numbers of
parents, possible relatives, etc. that the Church would supply us as
"leads" to locate members whose names were in the “address unknown”
file. After doing that for some time, I was asked,
since I could use a computer, to work in the office along with full-time
employees locating lost members. I performed
several different tasks. For awhile they
had me go through the obituaries in the newspaper and check the names against
the church membership to see if their names had been reported as “deceased” and
if they had not I would change their records accordingly. I did other various assignments that I can’t
recall, and then was assigned to researching names using various resources
which I had access to via the computer, to obtain addresses and phone numbers
of the members, who had ended up in the "address unknown" file -- or
their family members or relations -- which were then passed on to the phone
callers. When I left I was responsible
for doing all the research of "address unknown" members who resided
in Canada.
Jeanné was transferred into the
office where I was working, shortly after I moved over so we could be together. When the phone callers reached an answering
machine, they would leave a message, together with a toll‑free number to call
back, asking if the person being called could help. If those calls were returned, their calls had
to be matched up with the original phone number that had been called so they
wouldn't be called again, and those who hadn't phoned back were then recycled
to receive another phone call. Jeanné
was given the big responsibility of filing all of the sheets that had been called,
on which a toll‑free number had been left.
She worked with huge piles of
forms each week and since only a couple of people did that work, she was kept
very busy with it. She was very adept at
it, and she enjoyed it!
Following our mission to Tennessee
I was called as the Gospel Doctrine teacher.
The Olympus 3rd ward had so many adults that they had two
Gospel Doctrine classes, and with each class being taught by two teachers. For a time I taught with Dr. Steve Heath (a M.D.),
and when he was released I taught with Jim Faust (eldest son of President James
E. Faust.) I enjoyed this calling very
much. This class kept me on my toes, having
to teach alongside such capable men.
Since returning from our mission we became involved in
genealogy extraction work both on a ward and stake level. We extracted various records and placed them
on computer disk so they could be digitally added to the Churches Family
History Library files.
Jeanné and I would have loved to serve
another full-time mission, but at this time our mission was to care for
Jeanné’s parents. We finally persuaded Mom
and Dad Baird to move into our home with us so we could take care of them
better; and that was a special time for me.
I love them both very much.
About 1992‑3 I was asked to work as
a Stake Family History library specialist.
When the former director and his wife left for a mission, I was called
as the assistant director, serving with Nelean Meadows. My main responsibility seemed to be to keep
all the computers working, if you can imagine!
I also taught the ward specialists and other patrons how to use the
Family Search program, and PAF (Personal Ancestral File.)
I was called as MIS (membership)
clerk in July 1994 when the prior clerk moved from the ward. I am quite sure that I was called to this
position because they thought I knew
how to use a computer. My computer
knowledge was enhanced by my being able to pick up my telephone and ask one of
my sons to help me when I got into trouble!!
I enjoyed that calling, and the pressure was much less than that present
while teaching. Since it required a lot
of time, it was especially nice that I could do my work at the ward during the
week on my own time -- and I really enjoyed being a clerk again.
Jeannè’s father, Marion Lester
Baird, died 4 April 1996, and so we now had only Mom Baird living with us. She could care for herself fairly well, so we
felt we could leave her alone for short periods during this time.
In the fall of 1996 Jeanné and I
applied to serve as Church‑service Missionaries at the Family History
Library. We were interviewed for the
positions sometime in August or September, and received our calls in December. We started working in January 1997 and were
assigned to the U.S./Canada Section, on the main floor of the Family History Library. It was necessary to take several training
classes to learn what we were doing, but even after those classes we felt quite
inadequate for about six months when we finally started feeling as though we
knew a little about things. As Church‑service
missionaries we worked one day a week; we worked Saturday morning. We were given the responsibility of opening the
library which opened at 7:30. We had to
be there by 7:15 A.M. Each hour, on the
hour we would rotate to a different location to serve. Those
included Guide (front information desk) and Exit Desk (checking people as they
left.) Greeter (assisting the Guide at
the front desk), Counter 1 and Counter 2 (information counters on the first and
second floor), Census, Special Collections, Family Search (mostly helping
people with the computers), and Rove 1 and 2 (helping out anywhere on 1st and
2nd floors.) In December 1997, Jeanné
asked to be released so that she could keep a closer tab on her mother whose
health was failing and needed her. I
continued on with another 6‑month extension and am happy to report that I got
so that I felt quite comfortable in the work there ‑‑ not saying that I knew
everything, just that I think I finally knew where to find the answers. About the same time that Jeanné was released,
they divided the responsibilities of the missionaries. They created one group who were just involved
with greeting the patrons, and giving them orientation. I was placed in the other group who dealt
with working with the patrons in the Library (i.e., census, information desks,
Family Search, Special Collections, etc.)
After completing this Church
Service Mission, I heard about another Church-service mission which sounded interesting. I applied and was accepted to work, again in
the Family History department, but this time in what they called the computer test
lab. This involved taking the computer
programs that the Church was working on (e.g., the PAF 5 program) and testing them
to see if they were working the way they were designed. In effect we were to test the program and try
to find any faults it might have. What
we were doing was the ‘Alpha testing’ of the programs. From there the programs would be sent to
various Family History operators throughout the world for ‘Beta testing.’ When those testers found a problem, it was then
our responsibility in the test lab to try to duplicate the error they had found. Once identified, the experts we worked with
would fix the problem. I truly enjoyed
this work and stayed there for about 3 years, working most of the time with
Alvin Bytheway.
Mom Baird died April 15th,
1998 and with both of Jeanné’s parents now gone, Jeanné and I felt we could go
on another full time mission – but it took two years before we finally ended up
on our mission in Nauvoo.
Please see Chapter Ten for a report
of our Nauvoo Mission.
Not much more than a year after
returning home from Nauvoo, we learned from Van MacCabe (an ex-Nauvoo
missionary) about an opening for a senior missionary couple in the Pacific
Islands Area office. (Elder and Sister
MacCabe had attended the MTC with us prior to Nauvoo.) The MacCabes had already
been on four missions, and Van had been called to serve as the Executive Secretary
for the Pacific Islands Area Presidency with its headquarters in Takapuna (a
suburb of Auckland), New Zealand. The
Area office wanted some missionaries to take charge of the Confidential Records. They needed help straightening those records
out, as I will explain more in Chapter Eleven.
Jeanné and I talked it over and thought it sounded like something we would
enjoy, so we turned in our papers and it wasn’t long before we were on our
way. We didn’t even have to go to the
MTC as they were anxious for us to get there, and we had been to the MTC twice
brfore.
Please see Chapter Eleven for a
report of our Pacific Islands Mission.
Upon our return from New Zealand I
was given the position of High Priest secretary in our new ward, the Fairoaks
Ward. Jeannè was called to the position
of Relief Society secretary at the same time, and I helped her with the
computer.
In June 2007, John invited me to
join him working in the Jordan River Temple as a veil worker. I did and have truly enjoyed that experience. In that position we are asked to attend one
endowment session just prior to our service on the next six veils. Jeannè started joining us by attending our 3
p.m. endowment session and then going on the next one at 5 p.m., which took her
to the veil at the end of our last session.
It has been my pleasure to be able to take her through the veil each
time she goes on that second session.
When she can, Ann has joined her mother on one or more sessions.
In the Summer of 2008, we were
asked to join Brother Allen Litster’s sealing group on Wednesday mornings by
Harold Bullock, a High Priest who lived in our ward. I say “lived” because Harold and his wife,
Sybil, moved out of our ward that fall, and the group we originally worked with
sort of fell apart until Jeanné and I were the only ones left from that
group. We tried for some time to fill in
the missing couples, and finally have three other couples, the Wrights, the
Jeffords, and recently the Caldwells.
(Sister Caldwell is a distant cousin of mine.)
In the Fall of 2008, John was made
branch president of the newly formed Sandy Midvalley 11th Branch in
his Stake, and had to stop coming to the temple on Thursdays with us. Jeannè and I still attend each week. With the opening of the Draper Temple (at which
time our shift lost 9 of our veil workers) I was asked to serve as the
‘Instructor’ for my veil workers group.
Since returning home from our New
Zealand mission Jeanne’ and I have served in the
Ward. Jeanne’ served
for 4 or 5 years as Relief Society Secretary and I served at Secretary of the
High Priests Group.
In 2009, Jeanne’ and I were asked
by Bishop Bill Shaw if we would accept a call to be Service Missionaries
working in the LDS Employment Resource Center.
We thought it over, visited with some of the service missionaries – the
office being just across the street from our condo – and decided that we would
take the calling. We were set apart and
began working on Jun 1, 2009.
It was a difficult mission.
We worked two full days each week plus additional time which was called
for in attending meetings with our other missionaries and with the Stakes we
were working with. We figure it called
for about 20 hours a week. Together with
the fact that the program the Church developed for this mission was rewritten
and in October 2009 it was made available to the entire Church. We had to therefore learn not only the former
“legacy” program, but the new “beta” program, with all the corresponding
changes that kept being made in the new program. The hardest part of the mission, however, was
the people that we had to try to help find work for and the many serious
problems they were experiencing in their lives.
It was heart-wrenching. A lot, of
course, depended on the individual, but it was heart-breaking to see members
who needed our help and because of the times, we couldn’t do as much as we
would have like to. It was a good
mission, just difficult. As usual, we
worked with some fine people, and got to know them well, but have not been as
close as we have been with our other full-time mission people. We were released on June 1, 2010, happy for
what we had been able to accomplish.
Much of our life has been spent in
serving the Lord in one way or another. All
three of our children served missions. Our
grandchildren have told us numerous times how our serving our missions had been
an inspiration to them. Three grandsons,
Seth Thorup, Russell Thorup and Andrew Thorup, and two granddaughters, Angie
LeBaron and Erin Hart, have all served missions. Four of our granddaughter’s husbands have
served missions, Jayson Preece, Bruce LeBaron, Michael Curtis, and Jason
Hamren.
At the current time, Jeanné’ and I are
serving as librarians in the ward
I testify to you that serving my missions,
as a senior missionary with my sweet companion, have been the greatest
experiences of my life. I encourage all in my family to give serious
consideration to serving part-time (Church-service) missions or full-time
missions when time and means are available.
Your families will bless you, and the Lord will bless you, and I will be
so proud of you.
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