The wintry day descending to its close

Another year dwindles to its closing hours. From my perspective, it has been a good one, and the Lord has smiled with favor upon us as individuals and as a family. I express my love and gratitude to Him, the Giver and Sustainer of all that is good, and to each of you, members of my family, who are among the delights of my life.

As the year descends to its close, I am reminded of a nostalgic poem written by Orson F. Whitney, which was later set to music and placed in our hymnal, about the settling of the Mountain West by the Mormon pioneers. I first remember this hymn from the years when I was a teenager in Idaho.

The wintry day, descending to its close,
Invites all wearied nature to repose,
And shades of night are falling dense and fast,
Like sable curtains falling o'er the past.
Pale through the gloom the newly fallen snow
Wraps in a shroud the silent earth below
As though 'twere mercy's hand had spread the pall,
A symbol of forgiveness unto all.

I cannot go to rest but linger still
In meditation at my window sill,
While, like the twinkling stars in heaven's dome,
Come one by one sweet memories of home.
And wouldst thou ask me where my fancy roves
To reproduce the happy scenes it loves,
Where hope and memory together dwell
And paint the pictured beauties that I tell?

Away beyond the prairies of the West,
Where exiled Saints in solitude were blest,
Where industry the seal of wealth has set
Amid the peaceful vales of Deseret,
Unheeding still the fiercest blasts that blow,
With tops encrusted by eternal snow,
The towering peaks that shield the tender sod
Stand, types of freedom reared by nature's God.

The wilderness, that naught before would yield,
Is now become a fertile, fruitful field.
Where roamed at will the fearless Indian band,
The templed cities of the Saints now stand.
And sweet religion in its purity
Invites all men to its security.
There is my home, the spot I love so well,
Whose worth and beauty pen nor tongue can tell.

Orson F. Whitney was born in Salt Lake City, Utah Territory, on July 1, 1855, just eight years after Brigham Young led the first band of pioneers into the valley. He was a grandson of Newel K. Whitney and Heber C. Kimball. Orson was a businessman, journalist, historian, professor, politician, and poet. He was called as an Apostle and sustained on April 9, 1906, the same day as David O. McKay, and served in the Quorum of the Twelve until he died at age 75 on May 16, 1931, some three and a half years before my parents were married.

When he was 21 years old, young Orson was called to serve a mission in Pennsylvania. During that mission, he had a remarkable dream that would surely contribute many years later to his calling as a special witness of the Savior:

"I thought I was in the garden of Gethsemane, a witness of the Savior's agony. I seemed to be standing behind a tree in the foreground of the picture, from which point I could see without being seen. The Savior, with the Apostles Peter, James and John, entered the garden through a little wicket gate at my right, where he stationed them in a group, telling them to pray. He then passed over to my left, but still in front of me, where he knelt and prayed also. His face, which was towards me, streamed with tears, as he besought the Father to let the cup pass, and added, 'not my will but thine be done.' Having finished his prayer, he arose and crossed to where the Apostles were kneeling fast asleep. He shook them gently, they awoke and he reproved them for their apathy. Again he bade them pray, and again crossed to his place and prayed, returning as before to find them sleeping. This happened three times, until I was perfectly familiar with his face, form and movements. He was much taller than ordinary men, and though meek, far more dignified than any being I had ever beheld; and he wore a look of ineffable tenderness and compassion, even while reproving His disciples. My heart went out to him as never before to anybody or to anything; I loved him with all my soul. I wept at seeing him weep, and felt for him the deepest sympathy.

"Then of a sudden the circumstances changed, though the scene remained the same. Instead of before the crucifixion, it was after. The Savior and the three Apostles, whom he had beckoned to him, now stood in a group at the left, and were about to take their departure, ascending into heaven. I could endure it no longer, but rushed out from behind the tree, fell at his feet, clasped him around the knees and begged him to take me also. With a look of infinite tenderness, as of a father or an elder brother, he stooped, lifted me up and embraced me, saying as he did so in the kindest and gentlest manner possible, while slowly shaking his head and sweetly smiling, 'No, my son, these can go with me; for they have finished their work; but you must stay and finish yours!' Still I clung to him, and the contact was so real that I felt the warmth of his bosom as I rested upon it. Gazing up into his face, I once more besought him, 'Well, promise me that I will come to you at the last.' Again he smiled sweetly, and there was a look as if he would have gladly granted my request had it been wise to do so. He then said, 'That will depend entirely upon yourself.'

"I awoke with a sob, and it was morning. This dream made a wonderful impression upon me, paving the way to my thorough conversion, which soon followed. Among the things it taught me was not to sleep at my post, and to regard first the duties of my mission, and not allow anything to interfere with them" (adapted from entry on Orson F. Whitney in LDS Biographical Encyclopedia; see also "Through Memories' Halls," 1930, 82; quoted in Bryant Hinckley, The Faith of Our Pioneer Fathers, 211-13).

Not yet, at least

In my last posting, referring to the yucky cold I've had for a week now, I concluded with the observation that it will end sometime soon. Not yet, at least. On Christmas Eve, after we returned from a lovely evening, with most of our family at Michael and Shauna's house, I noticed that my left eye was infected. So, on Christmas morning we went to Instacare, and the doctor there was surprised that after a full week I was still as sick as I was and had a fever, so she prescribed an antiobiotic, a decongestant, and some eye drops, and told me to stay home and take it easy for at least another couple days or until I started feeling up to it.

Claudia and I celebrated our 35th wedding anniversary in November of this year. And yesterday, as it turns out, was the first time in the 36 Christmases we've shared that it was just the two of us alone on Christmas morning. (Paul and Eliza, who live with us now, had slept overnight at Paul's dad's house.) And, so we decided to spend it at Instacare and the only pharmacy we knew of that was open on Christmas morning and at Albertson's, which was probably the only grocery store open in town.

Our first Christmas, just a month after we were married, was spent in California with Claudia's parents. All subsequent Christmases had one or more or all of our eight children living with us. Last year's Christmas, coming just weeks after Talmage and Louise were married, thus officially making us empty nesters, would have been our first alone together, except we camped out at Michael and Shauna's house while Michael and Shauna spent much of the night from Christmas Eve into Christmas morning at the delivery room trying to have the twins that did not actually come for another two and a half weeks.

It was a pleasant enough day if you ignore that I felt miserable and still couldn't talk much. It had snowed a lot the night before, and the sun came out, and it was a gorgeous, though cold, white Christmas.

The family gathered in the late afternoon for more eating, and final gifts, and playing games, and visiting. Representations were made of how each couple or family used what they received of the Grandpa Lange Christmas money. (We had everyone here except Rachael and Robert in Malad; he was on call for the holiday, and actually had to deliver a baby early Christmas morning; and Rebecca and Cade, who were returning home from St. George.)

I survived yesterday

Yesterday morning two of my sons-in-law, Chris and Paul, gave me a health blessing, and that blessing coupled with a lot of faith and answered prayers made it possible for me to teach the adults of our ward a special lesson on the Prophet Joseph Smith. There were several families who had visitors in town (for example, we had Rachael and her girls visiting for the weekend and Mary visited our ward to see some of her old friends who were visiting their families), so the room was packed. With the help of a microphone, I was able to make myself heard, and the Spirit was there, which is always energizing, so the experience was a good one.

After church, we had all our family (including Grandpa Lange but not Cade, Becca, and their family, who were in St. George) together for our annual Joseph Smith birthday party. We ate our traditional menu of stew (lovingly prepared by Grandma Claudia), cornbread (lovingly prepared by Louise), apple crisp (lovingly prepared by Pete), apple pie (lovingly prepared by Shauna), apple juice (prepared by the apple trees and whoever put the apples in the bottles in the form of juice), and apricot nectar (lovingly prepared by Grandma Claudia). We ate, visited, watched the video The Restoration, and otherwise had a good, noisy time.

Robert called from Malad and had Rachael turn on the speaker phone, and he shared some tender thoughts and feelings he had had today about the Prophet Joseph (he could have taught my lesson this afternoon had he been here).

In the morning, before our church, we had driven out to Murray to attend sacrament meeting in Vince and Mary's ward. They sang in the choir and also did a beautiful job singing a duet.

After all that, I felt wiped out by the end of the day. Pretty yucky. Someday this too shall pass. 

I'm back, but will the voice be?

Surprise to one and all. I am actually blogging again after a nearly nine-month hiatus.

Chalk it up, if you will, to my being sick with a very nasty cold and being tired of just resting all the time so that I am in some sort of condition to teach Sunday School tomorrow morning (more of that starting in the next paragraph). Or, alternatively, chalk it up to the new MacBook Pro computer that we just got this week as Mom's and my Christmas gift to each other. It's fun still to play around with the new computer.

Mom was called and sustained a month ago to serve as one of four Gospel Doctrine teachers in our ward. Two teachers alternate lessons in the west Relief Society room, and two teachers alternate in the east Relief Society room. We are assigned to the west crowd.

Since the final lesson in the published manual was taught last Sunday, that left the final two weeks of the year with no scheduled lessons. Mom's teaching partner was going to be out of town the final two weeks of the year, so she had the brilliant idea of asking me to teach a special lesson on the Prophet Joseph Smith tomorrow since Sunday, December 23, is the 202nd anniversary of his birth. I happily agreed, but in the meantime got this nasty cold and had laryngitis on Thursday and Friday. Today I have some voice back, and by tomorrow we are hoping to have a lot of voice back. We do believe in miracles, after all.

100 things about me

So now it's my turn

1. I was born in Ontario, Oregon
2. I lived in a farmhouse that had no indoor plumbing; we had to use an outhouse
3. I have lived in three states: Oregon, Idaho, and Utah
4. Our farmhouse was right on the border of Oregon and Idaho (supposedly most of the house was in Oregon but the front porch in Idaho)
5. Our dog in Oregon was named Red; he disappeared when we moved from Oregon to Idaho when I was nine years old
6. I nearly drowned the summer I turned six, but my brother, thinking he was grabbing at a fish, caught me by the foot and pulled me out of the river we were swimming in
7. I was the seventh son of my parents
8. I have seven brothers and one sister
9. My very earliest distinct memory is of a Sunday afternoon boating trip on Jennys Lake in Grand Teton National Park that scared me stiff because of all the water in the lake, spraying from the engine of the motorboat, falling as rain and hail from the sky [my mom’s diary places it on Sunday, July 1, 1951, eighteen days before my second birthday]
10. I was in the fourth, fifth, and sixth grades in the same room with the same teacher in a three-room country schoolhouse
11. I was a Boy Scout
12. I only reached the Life rank in Scouting
13. I was only two merit badges short of getting my Eagle: swimming and life saving
14. That was a result of my near drowning (see numbers 6 and 9 above)
15. I attended a national Scout jamboree in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, the summer I turned fifteen
16. I visited the Sacred Grove for the first time when I was fourteen, the same age Joseph was when he went there
17. I was the editor of my junior high newspaper when I was in the ninth grade and of my high school newspaper when I was a senior
18. When I was young I imagined it would be great to be the editor of a small-town weekly newspaper when I grew up
19. I have always enjoyed writing
20. We have lived in the Bountiful 20th Ward for nearly thirty years
21. For five and a half years I served as bishop of the 20th Ward
22. I met my wife on a blind date
23. I was twenty-three years old when I got married to the most fabulous person in the world
24. I studied German for three years in high school and one year in college
25. I learned Portuguese on my mission to Brazil
26. I graduated from BYU with a major in English and a minor in Portuguese
27. I went to law school after earning my bachelor’s degree but quickly concluded the adversarial nature of the legal profession and my gentle nature did not go particularly well together
28. I have baptized people in both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans
29. I am fascinated by maps and love to look at them
30. Especially road maps
31. I love to read, particularly things relating to history
32. I read on average about twelve to fourteen books a year, a little more than one book a month
33. I have published three books
34. This fall I will have been publishing a family newsletter for thirty-four years
35. This November we will celebrate our thirty-fifth wedding anniversary
36. My favorite times of year are April and October conference
37. I also like summertime
38. And spring and fall
39. And Christmastime
40. This summer is my fortieth high school reunion
41. I am not planning on going to it
42. I love to travel, especially if it’s a road trip
43. I have been in ten foreign countries: Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Ecuador, England, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, and Portugal
44. I have been in 44 of the 50 states
45. Only six more to go: Alaska, Hawaii, Maine, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and North Dakota
46. If there even is a North Dakota
47. I love ice cream, especially burnt almond fudge
48. I also like popcorn
49. And cookies, especially if they have things like raisins, nuts, or coconut in them
50. This number represents one-fourth of my current weight, which is a more than it ought to be
51. That’s because of things like numbers 47, 48, and 49 above
52. When I was growing up, I would request porcupine babies [meatballs stuffed in green peppers] for my birthday dinner every year
53. Except that I did not like green peppers when I was growing up; I just ate the meatballs
54. Now I like green peppers, either raw or cooked
55. I would never eat shrimp or avocados when I was growing up, but now I like both
56. My wife is a good cook and makes all kinds of things I like to eat
57. Right now I am 57 years old
58. In July I will be 58 years old
59. You can see how desperate we are getting here
60. I’m currently into four television shows that I watch with any sort of regularity: Monk, Psych, Numbers, and Medium
61. I have lots of favorite hymns
62. I could use the rest of the numbers available listing some of them
63. But there’s one I definitely want sung at my funeral: “Oh, What Songs of the Heart” by Joseph L. Townsend
64. I can vividly remember the day when President John F. Kennedy was shot
65. The same day, but hardly noticed at the time, C.S. Lewis also died in England
66. C.S. Lewis is one of my favorite authors
67. Our first car was a white 1967 Volkswagen
68. We named it Marshmallow
69. When I was a very little boy (say, in about first grade or younger), I thought it would be cool to be a beaver
70. My best friend is my wife
71. Other best friends are my eight children and their spouses
72. Our family started in 1972 when I married my best friend
73. We were married in the Provo Utah Temple
74. I was endowed in the Salt Lake Temple
75. I have been in the actual presence of the last seven Presidents of the Church: David O. McKay, Joseph Fielding Smith, Harold B. Lee, Spencer W. Kimball, Ezra Taft Benson, Howard W. Hunter, and Gordon B. Hinckley
76. I was alive when George Albert Smith was still the President of the Church
77. When I was in high school, my brother and I visited President Joseph Fielding Smith and Sister Jessie Evans Smith in their Eagle Gate apart­ment
78. I was interviewed a couple of times by Gordon B. Hinckley when I was a missionary
79. My wife and I had dinner one time with President Spencer W. Kimball and Sister Camilla Eyring Kimball; we sat at the same table as the Prophet and his wife
80. According to my best count, I have been in 25 temples (Atlanta, Boise, Idaho Falls, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Lubbock, Nauvoo, Oakland, Reno, St. Louis, San Diego, Sao Paulo, Washington D.C., Winter Quarters, and the 11 currently open temples in Utah)
81. I have seen at least four additional temples from the outside but have not been inside them (Cardston, Denver, Mesa, and Portland)
82. I have also been in the Kirtland Temple
83. And at the temple sites in Independence and Far West in Missouri
84. Another of my favorite authors is David McCullough
85. I have read four of his books: 1776, John Adams, Truman, and Path across the Seas: The Making of the Panama Canal
86. I have toured Harry S Truman’s house in Independence, Missouri (it is now a national historic site)
87. I first read The Lord of the Rings when I was a freshman in college
88. It had a great impact on me
89. I cried when the story ended
90. And I have reread the three-volume work twice since then
91. But the book that has by far had greater impact on my life than any other is the Book of Mormon
92. I first read it all the way through when I was twelve years old
93. My mission lasted twenty-seven months, three months in the Language Training Mission in Provo and twenty-four months in Brazil
94. I returned to Brazil for the first time twenty-four years after I came home from my mission
95. I have visited two of the great waterfalls in the world: Niagara on the border of the United States and Canada, and Iguaçu on the border of Brazil and Argentina
96. Iguaçu is far more impressive
97. I have a weird autoimmune disorder (scleroderma) that most people have never heard of and that took years and years to actually diagnose
98. I have caught a piranha while fishing in the Amazon River
99. I remember seeing the Northern Lights as a kid growing up in Idaho but only once as an adult: one October evening a few years ago while we were driving across Wyoming to go visit our daughter in Kansas City
100. My favorite person in all the world is my wife
101. And I love the Savior

Books I have been reading

So, it's been nearly a year since I posted a blog on this site.

I last wrote (in March 2006) about a great biography I had read on the life of Harry Truman. Since then I have also read the following books:

• 1421: The Year China Discovered America (by Gavin Menzies)
• Qualities That Count: Heber J. Grant as Businessman, Missionary, and Apostle (Ronald W. Walker)
• The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
• His Excellency: George Washington (Joseph J. Ellis)
• Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (Doris Kearns Goodwin)
• Wedding of the Waters: The Erie Canal and the Making of a Great Nation (Peter L. Bernestein)
• Book of Mormon
• Presidential Doodles (David Greenberg)
• Pearl of Great Price
• Journals of Lewis & Clark (ed. John Bakeless)
• The Form of the Book: Essays on the Morality of Good Design (Jan Tschichold)

I am currently reading Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson.