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