A special type of soldier

President Hugh B. Brown (1883-1975) served during the 1960s as a counselor in the First Presidency to President David O. McKay. He was one of my spiritual heroes in my late teen years. His teachings, among other factors, influenced my decision to serve a mission, which has influenced my life for good ever since. Recently one of the Brethren I work with now, Elder Richard G. Hinckley, shared the following account by President Brown. I had never heard this story before and was impressed with it. It is a great story.

At the request of the First Presidency, I had gone to England as coordinator for the LDS servicemen. One Saturday afternoon in 1944, I sent a telegram from London to the base chaplain near Liverpool letting him know that I would be in camp the next morning to conduct Mormon church services at 10:00 a.m.

When I arrived at the camp, there were 75 Mormon boys, all in uniform and quite a number in battle dress. The chaplain to whom I had sent the wire proved to be a Baptist minister from the southern U.S. He, too, was waiting for my arrival. As these young men ran out to greet me not because it was I, but because of what I represented, and as they literally threw their arms around me, knowing I was representing their parents as well as the Church, the minister said, "Please tell me how you do it."

"Do what?"

"Why," he said, "I did not get your wire until late this morning. I made a hurried search. I found there were 76 Mormon boys in this camp. I got word to them. 75 of them are here. The other is in the hospital. I have more than 600 Baptists in this camp, and if I gave them 6 months notice, I could not get a response like that."

And then he repeated, "How do you do it?"

I said, "Sir, if you will come inside, perhaps you will see."

We went in to the little chapel. The boys sat down. I asked, "How many here have been on missions?"  I think a full 50 percent raised their hands.

I said, "Will you and you and you, and I pointed to six of them, please come and administer the sacrament? And will you and you and you, and I pointed to six others, please come and sit here and be prepared to speak."

Then I said, "Who can lead the music?" A number of hands were raised. "Will you come and lead the music? And who can play this portable organ?" There were several more hands, and one was selected. Then I said, "What would you like to sing, fellows?" With one voice they replied, "Come, Come Ye Saints!"

We had no hymnbook. The boy sounded the chord:  they all arose. I have heard "Come, Come Ye Saints" sung in many lands and by many choirs and congregations. Without reflecting adversely on what we usually hear I think I have only heard "Come, Come Ye Saints" sung that once when every heart seemed to be bursting. They sounded every verse without books.

When they came to the last verse, they didn't mute it; they didn't sing it like a dirge but throwing back their shoulders, they sang out until I was fearful the walls would burst." And should we die before our journey's through, happy day, all is well." I looked at my minister friend and found him weeping.

Then one of the boys who had been asked to administer the sacrament knelt at the table, bowed his head, and said, "Oh, God, the Eternal Father." He paused for what seemed to be a full minute, and then he proceeded with the rest of the blessing on the bread. At the close of that meeting, I sought that boy out. I put my arm around his shoulders, and said, "Son, what's the matter? Why was it so difficult for you to ask the blessing on the bread?"

He paused for a minute and said, rather apologetically, "Well, Brother Brown, it hasn't been two hours since I was over the continent on a bombing mission. As we started to return, I discovered that my tail assembly was partly shot away, that one of my engines was out, that three of my crew were wounded, and that it appeared absolutely impossible that we could reach the shore of England.

"Brother Brown, up there I remembered Primary and Sunday School and MIA, and home and church, and up there when it seemed all hope was lost, I said, 'Oh, God the eternal Father, please support this plane until we reach a landing field.' He did just that, and when we landed, I learned of this meeting and I had to run all the way to get here. I didn't have time to change my battle dress, and when I knelt there and again addressed the Lord, I was reminded that I hadn't stopped to say thanks.

"Brother Brown, I had to pause a little while to tell God how grateful I was."

Well, we went on with the meeting. We sang. Prayers were offered, and these young men, with only a moment’s notice, each stood and spoke, preached the gospel of Jesus Christ to their comrades, bore their testimonies, and again I say with due respect to the various ones with whom I have associated and labored they were among the finest sermons I have ever heard.

Then the time was up and I said, Fellows, it's time for chow. We must dismiss now, or you will miss your dinner. With almost one voice they cried, "We can eat grub any time. Let's have a testimony meeting!"

So we stayed another hour and a half. I looked at my friend, and he was weeping unashamedly.

At the close of that meeting, this minister said, "I have been a minister for more than 21 years, and this has been the greatest spiritual experience of my life."

This story comes from a talk President Brown gave at BYU in May 1969 ("An Eternal Quest—Freedom of the Mind," May 13, 1969, Brigham Young University Speeches of the Year, 14–17), when I would have been in Brazil on my mission. The story is also quoted in “Lesson 28: Serving in the Church,” The Latter-day Saint Woman: Basic Manual for Women, Part B, 240.

A dangerous journey

My son-in-law Vince yesterday posted some comments on his blog about the talk given in the recent general conference by President Boyd K. Packer and the resulting noise in the media. I posted the following comment in response to Vince's blog.

Vince, I appreciate and endorse your sentiments. Issues such as homosexuality and same-gender marriage are clearly moral issues, and churches are supposed to speak out on moral issues. Besides the Mormons and the Catholics, where are all the other churches?

President Packer's talk was characterized in some of the media and by some homosexual advocates as hate speech. I defy anyone who actually heard the talk or has since read it to point out a single hint of hate.

I am grateful that the Lord is still willing to speak to His children through prophets, seers, and revelators. How utterly presumptuous to think we know more than the Lord or His servants! Among all the Brethren, President Packer clearly has the gift of seership; he "sees" things so many of the rest of us do not see.

Last night I started reading the book Michael referred to, The Marketing of Evil, and yes, we've been cleverly sold a bill of goods resulting in an almost wholesale shift in attitudes toward and acceptance of homosexuality (you will note that I am avoiding any use of the little three-letter politically correct word that was co-opted as a part of this sneaky advertising campaign for homosexuals to gain acceptance and then to silence any possible opposition [hence the cry of hate speech the moment anyone dares disagree with them]). They and we have been done a horrendous disservice.

Yes, we are heading down many wrong roads as a culture and a society. It is a slippery, dangerous journey that is rapidly eroding what has traditionally been admired as the American dream (and I am not talking about the economics of the American dream, but the moral and spiritual underpinnings of that way of life and the associated liberties that were once a beacon and last best hope for all the rest of mankind).

I think we are reaching the time foreseen by the prophet Isaiah: "Wo unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!" (Isaiah 5:20; and quoted in 2 Nephi 15:20). That's the only conclusion I can come to when hearing someone say that President Packer's talk was "hate speech" when clearly it was precisely the opposite.

I disagree with the objectives and the agenda of those militants who are pushing for homosexual rights. Mere disagreement does not constitute hate. I also disagree with any who would persecute or deny the rights of those who are different than they are or who believe differently than they do (whether they be Mormons, homosexuals, Jews, Hispanics, whatever the hate de jour).

I personally know some homosexuals, two of whom are fairly close family members, and I bear them no ill will, no animosity, no hatred. If anything, I feel more compassion and concern and love for them. But such compassion, concern, and love do not move me to ignore, question, or oppose the Lord's clear position as taught in the scriptures and by latter-day prophets on issues such as marriage, virtue, and fidelity. Any sexual relationship outside of marriage is sin. Marriage between a man and a woman is fundamental and basic and essential to the very plan of happiness that was put in place before the world was even formed. Indeed, it was the very reason the world was created. Compromising on or destroying that foundation can only lead to individual heartbreak and the demise of civilization.

Bleak outcomes, to be sure, but we have a sure, bright hope in knowing that the Lord's purposes in the end will prevail (see Mormon 8:22).

Taking Camilla to college

Journal excerpts from ten years ago recounting a family trip that we (Mary, Eliza, Camilla, Anna, Claudia, and I) took to Washington, D.C., and to Virginia, where we deposited Camilla at Southern Virginia College (now Southern Virginia University) in Buena Vista.

Friday, August 18, 2000
Utah, Texas, Maryland, Virginia

Our adventure began at 7:00 this morning as Cade and Michael each drove three of us to the airport. We checked Camilla's luggage, got our boarding passes, and went to the gate to wait. While there we saw Monte and Ann Stewart, who were on their way to their son's wedding reception in Atlanta and were on our same flight to Houston. We had not seen them since they returned from presiding over the Georgia Atlanta Mission in 1997 and had missed the Orem reception last Saturday evening because we had been busy with Carrie Bertasso's wedding luncheon and with getting Camilla ready to go off to school.

At 8:30 our Continental flight left on time for Houston. The ticket lady at the gate used to live in Monte and Ann's ward and had upgraded them to first class. Just as we were boarding, Monte kindly gave his seat to Claudia and came back to sit with Mary, Eliza, and me. Camilla and Anna were in other rows further back. Just before boarding, I called Rich Hogan in Houston to tell him we'd be laying over there for three hours. He said he'd try to come to the airport to visit us but either missed us or was unable to come.

We were served breakfast on our three-hour flight to Houston, bought lunch during our three-hour layover, and had dinner on our three-hour flight to Baltimore. We were late leaving Houston and late arriving in Baltimore. It was just before dark as we touched down and had been raining. Our luggage had come on an earlier flight and was already waiting for us. Too bad we hadn't come with it.

We picked up our rental car, a Plymouth Voyager, and drove south on I–95, west and south on I–495 (past the Washington D.C. Temple that looms above the trees like it's floating in the air), and east on I–66 to our Comfort Inn in the Ballston area of Arlington. A long day of travel.

Saturday, August 19, 2000
Virginia, District of Columbia

We ate our continental breakfast at the motel and around 9:30 or so walked about six blocks to the Metro station (the Ballston stop on the orange line) and took the Metro into Washington D.C. We disembarked at the Smithsonian station, which put us right on the National Mall. It cost us $13.20 for six round-trip fares.

Our first stop along the Mall was the Smithsonian Museum of American History, where we saw an original sun stone from the Nauvoo Temple, the restoration project on the Star Spangled Banner (the giant flag that flew over Baltimore's Fort McHenry during the War of 1812 that inspired Francis Scott Key to write the words to what is now our national anthem), a large statue of George Washington in a Roman toga, and an extensive exhibit on our country's First Ladies.

We crossed to the other side of the Mall to catch a noon performance tour of Piano 300, celebrating the 300th anniversary of the piano. We saw the very first pianoforte built in 1700 and numerous other pianos from the intervening years. Mari Paz, a Cuban lady who in Mexico City became an accomplished pianist, was our delightful tour guide and played a variety of songs from different eras and countries on the various pianos, ending on a rhinestone-studded piano built for Liberace. We thoroughly enjoyed this exhibit.

We returned to the Main Street Cafes, the cafeteria in the basement level of the American History Museum, and ate outside in view of the Washington Monument. The weather all day was very pleasant, partly cloudy, a gentle breeze, ideal for an August day. We wandered through a little more of the museum, visiting the pop culture exhibit, where we saw the Ruby Slippers Judy Garland wore in the 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz and a quilt exhibit. We shopped in the museum bookstore.

Next we crossed the Mall again and walked clear down toward the U.S. Capitol to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, where we saw the Wright Brothers' original plane they flew at Kitty Hawk, touched a piece of the moon, viewed Mission to MIR in the IMAX theater (the first time any of us except Anna had seen an IMAX presentation), saw the Spirit of St. Louis that first crossed the Atlantic, and walked by numerous other planes and rockets and capsules that illustrate the history of flight during this past marvelous century.

We were tired of walking by now and should reasonably have called it a day but decided to walk down to the Washington Monument and then beyond clear down to the Lincoln Memorial. From the Washington Monument, you can see the U.S. Capitol to the east, the White House to the north, and the Lincoln Memorial to the west. From the Lincoln Memorial, which I personally find one of the most inspirational sites in Washington, we visited the Korean War Veterans Memorial and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

Then walk, walk, walk some more along 23rd Street to I Street, past the Department of State and George Washington University, to catch the Metro at the Foggy Bottom station and return to Virginia. Our walking was not quite through yet: we still had to walk the eight blocks from the Ballston station to our Comfort Inn. We estimate we may have walked 5 miles today. We drove in the minivan to find a place to eat and did so at a place called Diner 29.

Sunday, August 20, 2000
Virginia

We awoke early, ate breakfast in the motel, and took off for Lynchburg. It was a beautiful three-hour drive, first west along I–66 and mostly south on U.S. 29, which was marked as the Seminole Trail, the 29th Infantry Memorial Highway, and for part of the way the James Madison Highway. The only major city we passed was Charlottesville.

In Lynchburg we stopped at a Hardee's for lunch, using the occasion to teach Mary what the phrase "Ox in the mire" meant. Then we drove to church to attend meetings in the Lynchburg First Ward, where we were warmly welcomed. Larry Young's brother, Roger, is the bishop. His wife, Sue, is the gospel doctrine teacher in Sunday School. Camilla met Josh Lloyd, who will also be a freshman at Southern Virginia College.

We went to the Youngs' home afterward for dinner and spent several delightful hours visiting with them. They have five children, an older married daughter who lives in Layton and who is expecting their third grandchild, a son returning from the Brazil Recife Mission in less than three weeks, a 17-year-old Eric, a 15-year-old Brett, and an 11-year-old Jenny.

We went and found our Comfort Inn, where the four girls stayed in one room and Claudia and I in another. We called several people back home: Claudia in Bountiful (Kay was sustained today as first coun­selor in the 36th Ward bishopric), Shauna in Layton (Michael left today for a week in Boston), Rebecca in Layton (she returned home yesterday from girls camp), Rachael in Kansas City, and Talmage and Carisa's answering machine in Bountiful.

Monday, August 21, 2000
Virginia

Our Comfort Inn served a full hot breakfast, which we weren't overly impressed with. We took our time getting going and even watched most of the musical Oklahoma! on TV, which Camilla had never seen before.

We drove east from Lynchburg on U.S. 460, somewhere between 20 or 30 miles, to Appomattox Court House National Historic Park, the site where Union General Ulysses S. Grant and Confederate General Robert E. Lee ended the Civil War in April 1865.

We then drove back to Lynchburg, ate lunch at a Subway, filled the car with gas (at $1.29 a gallon, the cheapest we'd seen on the trip), and followed U.S. 501, a winding, scenic highway over the Blue Ridge Mountains to Buena Vista.

Southern Virginia College is situated in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains on a promi­nent hill overlooking the town of Buena Vista. We stopped at Main Hall, where Camilla will be living on the fourth floor. It was built in the late 1800s as a resort hotel and in 1900 was purchased by Southern Virginia Seminary, a two-year women's college. A few years ago the failing seminary was purchased by a group of eastern LDS businessmen and turned it into what is now Southern Virginia College.

We wandered around the campus and then drove up and down the streets of Buena Vista, trying to get a feel for the town of 6,000-some people.

We drove over to Lexington, about six miles away, at the intersection of I–64 and I–81, and found the Comfort Inn that will be our home for the next three nights. We ate at the Shoney's res­taurant next door.

Tuesday, August 22, 2000
Virginia

Another slow start. Breakfast at this motel is served until 10:30, and we didn't go until the final half hour.

A little before noon we headed north through the beautiful Shenandoah Valley on I–81 and east on I–64 to Shenandoah National Park. We drove about 25 miles along the Skyline Drive, penetrating maybe a fourth of the way along the 105-mile length of the park. Anna and Eliza hiked nearly two miles along the Appalachian Trail, which winds 1,000-plus miles from Georgia to Maine. The rest of us drove to the next parking area that intersected with the trail, and I hiked back toward Anna and Eliza while Claudia, Camilla, and Mary waited in the car.

At Loft Mountain Wayside we stopped for milkshakes, bought postcards and CDs, and took a bathroom break. Then we retraced our route back out of the park and continued south on the Blue Ridge Parkway until it intersected with U.S. 60, which we took the final few miles into Buena Vista. We went to the SVC bookstore, now called the Light on the Hill Bookstore, to look for sweatshirts. Eliza and Mary bought one to share.

We returned to Lexington, ate at Applebee's, and returned to our motel.

Wednesday, August 23, 2000
Virginia

Today we deposited Camilla at Southern Virginia College. She is in room 435 on the top floor of the Main Building. We checked her in starting about 10:30 and hauled all her stuff up the stairs. Then we drove back to the Walmart in Lexington to shop for stuff she still needed (pillows, garbage can, hangers, toiletries, etc.) and ate lunch at the Burger King. We took her stuff to her room and returned to the K–Mart in Lexington for the second list of stuff we thought of (a fan, laundry detergent, more hangers, etc.) before returning to the school.

We ate dinner with Camilla in the school cafeteria. We also sat with Emily, one of her room­mates, and Emily's mother. Camilla has three roommates: Emily from Tennessee, Rheanna from Iowa, and Elizabeth from Rhode Island. Emily is a sophomore; the other three are freshmen.

Camilla came back with us to the motel in Lexington to watch the final two-hour episode of Survivor on TV. After it was over, we drove her the six miles back to Buena Vista to sleep her first night in her dorm room.

Thursday, August 24, 2000
Virginia, Maryland

After three days in the same Comfort Inn, we got up, had breakfast, packed our belongings, and checked out. We drove to Buena Vista, found the post office, and mailed 15 postcards. We then drove up to Southern Virginia College to see if we could find Camilla, which we did in the ballroom. We ate lunch with her in the cafeteria, went up to her room a final time, took pictures, and said our good-byes. A few tears were shed. And we were gone.

After stopping for gas and at the Subway for Anna and Mary to get their lunch (they did not eat with us in the cafeteria), we started our return to the Washington D.C. area. We headed north on I–81 until we turned east on U.S. 211 to Shenandoah National Park. Tuesday we had driven the bottom fourth of the park. Today we drove the top fourth. Then we continued east on I–66 to the Alexandria area.

When we got to our Comfort Inn in Ballston, the same one we stayed in our first two nights, the area was without power and we were unable to check in. As we sat waiting in the car in the parking lot, we wondered what it would take to go home a day early (Friday morning instead of Saturday morning). With Camilla safely deposited and all of us beginning to feel travel weary (there is only so much gorgeous scenery and fascinating history we can assimilate in a week), we decided any­thing else was anticlimactic.

We made various calls on the cell phone and were able to change our airplane tickets and make all the arrangements. The $75 per ticket change fee, totaling $375 for the five of us, was nearly can­celed out by our turning the car in a day earlier, a day's less food and other expenses, and canceling our motel reservations for tonight and tomorrow night. Mary Ann Holt had arranged for a friend to give us a tour of the U.S. Capitol tomorrow, and we finally reached Mary Ann on the phone to cancel that also.

We ate dinner at the International House of Pancakes (IHOP) in Ballston, drove to Baltimore, turned in our rental car, and beginning about 10:00 spent all night waiting in the airport for our 6:30 flight to Houston. It was like having a seven- or eight-hour layover. Not a good idea.

Friday, August 25, 2000
Maryland, Texas, Utah

We thought morning would never come as we waited all night in the freezing airport. We boarded our plane at about 6:00 and flew to Houston. This time we were not as scattered throughout the plane: Claudia and I were together on one row, and Anna, Eliza, and Mary were together on another. Other than eating the little breakfast they served on the plane, I think most of us pretty much slept the whole three-hour flight.

Our layover this time in Houston was only a little over an hour, and then we flew home to Utah, arriving in the Salt Lake airport just before noon. Rebecca and Shauna came in their cars to pick us up. It had been a wonderful week, but we were glad to be home. (The flight from Houston to Salt Lake was over booked, probably because of us, and they were offering a $200 travel credit plus a flight later in the afternoon for anyone who would give up his seat. I was interested, but after waiting all night in the Baltimore airport no one else would even think of it, so we all came on home.)

In the afternoon Mom and I drove Anna back to Ephraim and saw the house at 200 South Main Street, where she is living with Bethany and Rebekah Youngs. Claudia actually stayed awake the entire return trip to keep me awake.

This morning while waiting for our flight home I wrote a letter to Camilla:

Dear Camilla,

I am writing this first letter to you while sitting in the Baltimore airport. It is about 2:00 in the morning, a time of day calculated in any time zone in the country that I should be in a bed somewhere asleep.

But I'm not. Instead, we are sitting here at gate C6 a day earlier than planned waiting for our 6:30 flight to Houston. Anna, Eliza, and Mary are sacked out on the floor. I tried that earlier but decided it was too hard for my old body. Mom is sleeping while sitting in one of these uncomfortable waiting room chairs. I tried that too, but so far that hasn't worked either. I have finished reading one of the books I got for my birthday, wrote in my trip journal, and am now writing this letter to you.

After we left you, we drove through a different part of Shenandoah National Park and then back to the Washington D.C. area. We were going to stay in the same Comfort Inn in Ballston that we stayed in our first two nights. When we got there, their power was out and we couldn't check in. So as we were sitting there waiting, we got wondering what it would take to leave a day earlier (Friday morning instead of Saturday morning).

We called Continental Airlines to see if there were seats even available on Friday. There were, but it would cost us $75 per ticket to make the change. We quickly calculated the savings from turning our rental car in a day earlier, not eating expensive Washington D.C.-area food all day Fri­day, and not staying in a motel either Thursday or Friday nights would all add up to the $375 it would cost us to leave a day earlier.

So we went for it, canceling motels and our tour of the Capitol building on Friday, and so on. We were all getting a little travel weary and, frankly, after leaving you, all everyone wanted to do is get home.

We drove to Baltimore, turned in the rental car, and have been here in the airport since about 10:00 Thursday night, waiting to get on our plane sometime around 6:00 Friday morning. It didn't seem worth paying for a motel for that short of a time, so here we are waiting, waiting, waiting in a cold, empty airport. I'm not sure how good of an idea that was, but here we are. It will be an additional memory I'm sure we'll never forget.

It's now 2:30, probably three hours before the airport starts coming back to life and the ticket counter reopens.

I never did get around to giving you a father's blessing. I originally meant to do it Sunday night. And then was going to on Tuesday evening. And should have Thursday afternoon when just we were there together in your room. I feel bad about that—the fact that we didn't do it.

I am confident, however, that you will have a good school year. I pray that you will, that you will take full advantage of the opportunities that come to you, that you will study hard, that you will participate fully in your ward, that you will befriend those who are lonely, that you will bless and lift those about you, that you will have joy in the journey.

Remember that there are a lot of us back home who love you, who are praying for you, who are pulling for you, who are wanting you to succeed. And there are those also on the other side of the veil who likewise—and probably even more so—love you and are interested in your happiness and success.

Read your patriarchal blessing from time to time, such as every fast Sunday, to be reminded of what the Lord has in mind for you. Study the scriptures every day. And say your prayers. Simple things, but oh so important!

I guess that’s my prayer for you. And my blessing.

Sent with all my love, Dad.

Trip to Washington

Monday, August 2, 2010
Utah and Idaho

Rebecca, Hyrum, and Mimi came and picked me up here in Bountiful about 10:30 in the morning. We were traveling in her car. I dropped her off at Costco to pick up a few items for our travels, and I filled the car there with gas. About 11:00 we actually hit the road and headed north on I-15 and then I-84 into Idaho. As we crossed the border, we honked the horn and of course sang "Here We Have Idaho" or my best rendition of it.

It was a pleasant day for traveling and, though we hit some stretches of road construction, none of them were onerous or impeded our travel much. We stopped at the first rest stop into Idaho to stretch our legs and use the bathrooms. A few hours later we exited the freeway and drove into Twin Falls to see the impressive Snake River Canyon, the Twin Falls Idaho Temple, and to eat lunch at a Wendy's. Becca and I both had salads, although I did splurge with a chocolate milkshake for dessert.

We continued on to Boise and then to Nampa, where we found Dale and LeAnn's house and where we spent the night. Dale called other family members, and eventually Lyle; Gene, Cheryl, and Ronnie; and Rex, Jackie, and Jared joined us for the evening. When Dale first called Gene, Cheryl answered the phone and said she was on her way to see him in the hospital in Boise. There had been a combine fire, and he inhaled smoke or fumes or something and had to be hauled off in an ambulance. After a few hours they determined he was going to be okay and released him. And then they came to Dale's house to visit.

We followed Dale and LeAnn around in their car as we went to visit places from my childhood, such as Nampa High School, the final home my parents lived in just off Greenhurst Road, the first home we had south of Nampa off of Missouri Avenue, and the Scism School, where I attended parts of the fourth, fifth, and sixth grades.

Except for Lyle, everyone else arrived after our little tour of the historic sites of Nampa. It was a late night by the time everyone arrived, visited, and finally went home, but it was good to see them all.

Tuesday, August 3
Idaho, Oregon, and Washington

We woke up (not too awfully early), ate breakfast, visited a bit more with Dale, gassed up the car at the Nampa Costco, and hit the road again sometime between 10:30 and 11:00 in the morning. We had contemplated driving out through where we used to live in eastern Oregon but decided not to due to the late hour of our starting. We thought maybe we could catch it on our return trip.

We continued west on I-84, honked as we crossed into Oregon, where I pointed out that Ontario was the town I was born in, and continued, with one rest stop, across eastern Oregon, up and over the Blue Mountains, and stopped in Pendleton for gas and lunch at a Subway. We then continued west until we intersected with I-82 and followed it across the Colombia River into Washington. We stayed on I-82 until we hit I-90 and then west from there. We stopped at another rest stop just before climbing into the Cascade Mountains. As we reached the western slope of the Cascades and into the Seattle area, we took I-405 (where we endured massive traffic backups) and I-5 north to Everett. Mimi decided she really liked all the trees in this part of Washington and thinks she would like to live here.

We went first to our motel, the Best Western Navigator Inn, and then drove back to greet Camilla and Sam in their Great Harvest bakery. Our motel is about a mile from their bakery and apartment. We arrived in Everett about 6:00 Sam time (aka Pacific Daylight Time), or 7:00 Mountain time, some eight or so hours after leaving Nampa. A long but pleasant day of driving. This was Becca's first trip to Washington since Chris and Camilla had moved here, and she thought their little bakery was absolutely darling.

After Camilla closed their store at 7:00, we walked across the parking lot to a carnival/fair at the far end of the parking lot by the grocery store to meet Chris and wandered around and got some free food (Chris had a booth there giving away free bread) and watched Hyrum and Sam play on a big inflatable slide. We then went to Chris and Camilla's apartment to visit before returning to our motel.

Wednesday, August 4
Washington

Camilla and Sam came to our motel to pick us up, and Hyrum and I went with her to the free kids movie at the theaters in Everett Mall across the street from where their bakery is located on Everett Mall Way. We saw Doogie, I think the name of it was, and then returned to the Taylors' apartment.

In the afternoon, armed with a lunch from the bakery, we all went for a picnic on a beach on the Puget Sound for a couple of hours. We drove by the Boeing plant to show Becca, Mimi, and Hyrum where they make the big airplanes. The weather was absolutely delightful for a day at the beach.

In the evening Chris and Camilla and Sam came over to visit at our motel suite, and the two four-year-olds had a great time playing in the whirlpool hot tub in the room that Becca, Mimi, and Hyrum are sleeping in. I sleep on the couch in the part of the suite that is the living room and kitchen. (We are in suite 400 on the top floor of the hotel.)

Thursday, August 5
Washington

Every morning I get up earlier than everyone else and go down to the exercise room on the main floor and walk on the treadmill for half an hour. Then I come back to the room and take Hyrum down for breakfast. He is a pretty picky eater, but I have been able to get him to eat some waffle and drink some milk, and we take some fruit (apples and oranges) and some yogurt back to the room for later snacking.

Camilla and Sam came to our motel again to pick us up, and the four of us followed in Becca's car to a park next to a little lake, where we sat on wet grass and watched a puppet musical show about pirates. We returned to the bakery for lunch. We hung out at the apartment in the afternoon until it was time to go out to a farmer's market at Lake Stephens, where Chris has a booth every Thursday evening. We wandered around the little farmer's market, ate some Mexican food for our supper, sampled bread and such, and sat on the grass by the lake and listened to the musical concert. A delightful evening.

After we returned to Everett, Camilla and Sam joined us at our motel room, and Hyrum and Sam played in the hot tub some more. They did not even need to know the place had a regular swimming pool. This was just their size anyway.

Friday, August 6
Washington

Although the weather has been lovely all week since we arrived, today was overcast and cooler and threatened rain much of the day. I tended Mimi, Hyrum, and Sam in the motel while Rebecca and Camilla went to the Seattle Washington Temple to do initiatory work. The two of them had a nice visit on the drive to and from the temple.

We decided to go down to Seattle this afternoon, so we stopped at the Everett Costco for lunch, and then all drove in one car (Becca's Mazda) to downtown to go to Pike Street Market. It was exceedingly crowded, packed with wall-to-wall people, which made it fun trying to keep track of two busy, inquisitive four-year-olds, but we enjoyed the outing. Getting to Pike Place, we drove through parts of downtown Seattle, including by the base of the famed Space Needle.

Saturday, August 7
Washington, Oregon, and Idaho

It had been a fun week, which went by all too fast. Fortunately, we did not pack it too tight with too many activities. We had nice visits with Chris, Camilla, and Sam, and it was particularly fun for the two four-year-old cousins, Hyrum and Sam, to play together. And Chris and Camilla and Sam live in a spectacularly beautiful part of the country.

We packed, checked out of the motel, and stopped by the bakery to say good-bye to Chris, Camilla, and Sam. By about 9:00 Sam time (10:00 Mountain time) we were leaving, retracing our route along I-5, I-405, I-90, I-82, and I-84 back across Washington, Oregon, and Idaho to Nampa. We stopped for gas in Yakama and ate lunch at an Arctic Circle. At a town called Prosser in south central Washington, we got off I-82 and took a little detour south and then east before rejoining I-82 just before it crosses the Colombia River back into Oregon. We also stopped at a rest stop in the Blue Mountains just east of Pendleton. Somewhere in eastern Oregon, both going and coming, we passed a sign that said, "45th Parallel, Half Way Between the Equator and the North Pole."

At Ontario we stopped to get gas again and drove by the Holy Rosary Hospital, where I was born in the summer of 1949. The hospital looks a lot different and is a lot larger than it was then. We contemplated driving to Nyssa, the Owyhee Ward chapel, Adrian, and by the old homestead where I first lived on the Oregon-Idaho state line, but we had been in the car enough today, so we passed on that little side trip.

We reached Dale and LeAnn's house in Nampa about 7:00 in the evening, where we ate, visited, and played games. He was going to try to gather more of the family together again, like he did Monday evening, but none of the rest of them could make it.

Sunday, August 8
Idaho and Utah

We left Nampa this morning and spent approximately five hours driving home to Layton. Mimi and Hyrum slept much of the first half of the trip until we stopped at a rest stop near Malta. It seemed to me that both yesterday's and today's return legs of the trip went by much quicker than when we were driving on our way to Everett earlier in the week.

And now our trip was over.

Trip to Houston

Prelude

Clouds moved in yesterday afternoon, and it rained some along the Wasatch Front, and humidity increased. The weatherman on TV talked about how humid it was and would continue to be during the coming days. Claudia and I had just returned from Houston, and this was not humid. Not even in the same ball park. Houston is humid.

Humidity in Salt Lake has never caused my glasses to fog up when I leave an air-conditioned building. That happened to me half a dozen times during the five days we were in Houston.

In fact, when we first mentioned to people that we were going to Houston, their incredulous response was always, “Houston in July? Why would you want to do that?” One person even told me that we should be able to find inexpensive lodging since no one goes to Houston in the summer.

We were able to find lodging in the MainStay Suites on Old Spanish Trail, near the hospital district, and not far from the Reliant Center (what used to be known as the Astrodome) that housed all six of us and fed us breakfast every morning and provided a place to exercise and park our two cars and was reasonably air-conditioned—all for $115 a day. Whether that was inexpensive I cannot say, but it seemed reasonable to me for housing six people (that works out to only $19.17 a day per person), especially when precious few places even allowed six people to stay together in the same room.

As to why we would go to Houston in July, that was easy enough. Eliza asked us to come play with her and two of our grandchildren (Peter, who will be four in October, and Aaron, who will be two in December) while Paul was off at class all day. He was here for a week doing a compounding seminar.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Utah, Colorado, Texas

About the time Michael was driving Claudia and me to the airport to catch our flight to Houston, Paul and Eliza were arriving in Houston by car from Atlanta. They had made the same trip in May and knew they had about a 13-hour drive in front of them. This time they left after Paul finished work on Monday and drove about five hours and stayed overnight in Mobile, Alabama, and then spent eight hours driving the rest of the way to Houston. Peter was disappointed that we were not already there.

Our plane was 15 minutes late leaving Salt Lake, and we were concerned that we had only 30 minutes in Denver before our next flight was scheduled to leave. Fortunately, the pilot flew fast enough to make up the 15 minutes we were late. There had been severe thunderstorms across Colorado, so everything was backed up in Denver. The plane we were concerned about getting on hadn’t even arrived at the gate yet to disgorge its passengers from wherever they were coming from. We waited and waited. Finally, the plane came, and we waited while the passengers filed off. We boarded the plane, and we waited inside the plane. The pilot announced that continuing thunderstorms prevented our being cleared to take off. We waited some more. We left Denver an hour late.

The first half of the flight from Denver to Houston was about as turbulent as any I’ve ever experienced. Claudia slept through most of it. She was bundled up in her sweater, which should have been a clue to me that she was not well. Even after arriving in Houston, she left her sweater on. That confirmed it. She later explained that whatever was ailing her had turned on all of a sudden while we were sitting in the Salt Lake airport waiting to begin our trip. Even though our plane arrived after midnight, it was still hot and muggy, and she was freezing.

We had arranged a rental car and were concerned the Alamo rental site would be closed before the shuttle got us there. It closed at 1:00 a.m., and we got there about 15 minutes before that. We picked up our car, an economy model, and also decided to pay extra to rent a GPS unit for the week. That was a good decision. It proved invaluable.

We found our hotel without much difficulty and tried to enter the room quietly so as not to wake everyone up. Eliza did greet us and asked if I wanted my birthday surprise right then. The previous day had been my 61st birthday. I said we could wait until morning when everyone else would be up, but she couldn’t wait. She then announced that she was pregnant. She and Paul are expecting their third child on January 7. That was a wonderful birthday surprise.

Wednesday, July 21
Texas

While the boys were still sleeping, Eliza drove Paul his class. Aaron, who by now was in the middle of the queen bed Paul and Eliza had slept in, woke up first and appeared completely bewildered. Here he was in a strange place with strange people in the bed next to him and no parents anywhere in site. He could see Peter sleeping over on the couch across the room. He kept stealing glances my way. He never did fuss or panic but looked, well, bewildered. Peter, on the other hand, was ecstatic when he woke up. He was so happy to have Grandma and Grandpa here finally.

Our room was on the fourth floor of the building and had a little balcony that looked out toward downtown. Planes approaching Hobby airport were easy to watch from the balcony. They had been watching the planes the night before, and Peter kept asking whenever there was a Southwest plane if Grandma and Grandpa were on it.

After Eliza returned from taking Paul, we all went down to breakfast. They offered a nice spread with lots of choices. We learned that Peter has become a picky eater, but Aaron will pretty much devour anything he can fit into his mouth. We were amused that the waffle maker produced waffles in the shape of Texas.

With Claudia not feeling well, we had a low-key day. She rested much of the day. Eliza and I took the boys and went shopping first at Sam's Club and then at Kroger for food for the week. Our room had a stove top (but no oven), microwave, refrigerator, small sink, and very limited counter space, so we could deal with simple meals. Both the Sam's Club and Kroger were conveniently nearby.

In the late afternoon Eliza, Peter, Aaron, and I went to pick Paul up from his class. We then went to Chuck-E-Cheese to eat and play. We were there several hours. As we walked out to the parking lot, I had the first of several instances of my glasses fogging up. (Actually the second; the first occurred when we stepped out of the airport when we first arrived in Houston at something after midnight.)

We drove back to the Alamo car rental place near the Hobby airport to sign Paul up as an additional driver on the rental car so he could take the smaller car to his class each day and leave us with their larger vehicle (which holds five of the six of us here).

Wednesday evening I finally made phone contact with Rich and Amy Hogan. We are planning to attend church with them on Sunday, and Amy invited us to Sunday dinner afterward. While talking with Amy, she told us about the outdoor theater at a place called Miller Outdoor Theater, which I then looked up online.

A word about being online. Just before we all arrived, severe electrical storms had knocked out the hotel's telephone system, fried some of the DVD players, and completely interrupted wireless Internet service. People came into our unit at least twice checking on our phones (as if we would ever use them, since we all have cell phones). Our DVD player happened to work but only in black-and-white. No color. Our Internet service was spotty and easily interrupted.


Thursday, July 22
Texas

Claudia continues to feel sick. In the afternoon I took her to an emergency room at the Woman's Hospital of Texas to make sure she did not have a strep infection, such as was running through Michael and Shauna's family the previous week. She had a headache, sore throat, sore ears, and such. The doctor determined there was no strep but did prescribe an antibiotic just to be sure. Eliza and I went and filled the prescription at the Kroger's pharmacy.

Friday, July 23
Texas

Based on Amy Hogan's tip, this morning Eliza and I took Peter and Aaron to the Miller Outdoor Theater in Hermann Park to see a stage performance of "Jack and the Beanstalk." It was a bit of a musical, and the characters engaged the audience at various points. The theater was near the entrance to the Houston Zoo. After the little play I paid for the $3-per-person tickets for us to take a train ride around the park. We judged it was about four or five times longer than the little train ride around Salt Lake's Hogle Zoo.

Claudia had stayed in the hotel to rest. It occurred to me that she is actually getting far better, more extensive rest here than she would have back at home. Plus, there was the added benefit for her of not experiencing the oppressive humidity and heat outside.

Paul, Eliza, Peter, Aaron, and I enjoyed an evening at the ballpark watching the Cincinnati Reds beat the Houston Astros. There were fireworks after, so it was kind of like being in Utah to celebrate Pioneer Day. They were more impressive than what we would have seen this evening at Mueller Park Junior High had we been in Bountiful for Handcart Days.

Peter and Aaron are veteran game attenders, having attended several home games of the Atlanta Braves. Now they've been to one in Houston. And they did great. It's darling hearing them sing "Take me out to the ballgame . . ."

In Texas, after singing "Take me out to the ballgame" at the seventh-inning stretch, they also sing "Deep in the heart of Texas," the one that goes:

The stars at night are big and bright
Deep in the heart of Texas.
The prairie sky is wide and high
Deep in the heart of Texas.

And they sing all the verses. You have to love it.

The waffle maker in the hotel's breakfast room also makes Texas-shaped waffles, just as Eliza reported after their visit to Houston in May.

That reminds me of what a wife of a new mission president told me last month at the mission presidents' seminar. They were from Texas. She said something to the effect, "You don't really need to ask people where they are from. If they're from Texas, they'll tell you soon enough. And if they're not, you don't want to embarrass them."

Saturday, July 24
Texas

Paul and Eliza went to the temple this morning while we watched Peter and Aaron. Claudia and I get to the temple several times a month in Bountiful. The Atlanta Georgia Temple closed for major renovation shortly after Paul and Eliza moved there, so they get to a temple rarely.

Late in the afternoon we drove to the Downtown Aquarium and spent the evening seeing the fish and sharks and white Bengal tigers and such stuff. We rode the merry-go-round, Ferris wheel, and little train that went around the property. A nice evening. Claudia was feeling better and went with us. It was her first outing here, except for the trip to the hospital the other afternoon.

We watched a DVD movie back in our room after the boys went to sleep. Invictus was the story of Nelson Mandella's election as president of South Africa and his support of the nation's rugby team as it helped draw the country together by winning the 1995 rugby world cup.

Sunday, July 25
Texas

This morning we drove north to Spring, which is where the Houston Texas Temple is located, to attend church with our dear friends, Rich and Amy Hogan. Five of their six children are now married, and they have three grandchildren. Seventeen-year-old Cami still lives at home. We calculated we last visited in their home 15 years ago, in the spring of 1995, when we were driving across the southern tier of states on our way to see Rachael graduate from Peace College in Raleigh, North Carolina. Eliza was 12 years old at the time.
Church meetings were good. Laurie Harper Cole, the married daughter of Bruce and Jean Harper, also lives in the same ward. She and her family came in just as the meeting was starting and sat in the row just in front of us. Laurie really did a double take when she glanced back and saw us sitting there. We had a chance to visit briefly after sacrament meeting.

After church we drove by the temple and then to the Hogans' home for a delicious Sunday dinner that Amy prepared. We then visited for several hours and left around 8:00 p.m. to drive back to our hotel. It was a wonderful sabbath day. And Claudia was feeling much better today.

A dramatic thunderstorm moved through the area after we were back in our room.

Monday, July 26
Texas, New Mexico, Utah

We awoke early, after a fitful night wondering if we would hear the alarm and get up soon enough to get back to the airport. We got up about 6:30 (5:30 by the time we are used to), packed, said good-bye to Paul, and went downstairs to eat a final breakfast with Eliza, Peter, and Aaron. Peter particularly was sad that we had to be leaving. By now it was nearly 8:00, so we said our last good-byes, stopped to fill our rental car with gas, and then turned it in. A shuttle took us over to the airport. We stood in a long line to get through the security checkpoint, and then waited at our gate, where we boarded our plane.

I talked on the phone with Eliza, and she said she had asked the boys what was their favorite part of the whole week in Houston. They answered, "Grandma and Grandpa."

The flight left on time at 9:35 a.m. We flew to Albuquerque but stayed on the same plane while some passengers got off and new ones came on before we headed on home to Salt Lake City. We touched down in Salt Lake about 15 minutes early. Shauna, Andrew, Ethan, Marta, and Hyrum came to pick us up and drove us home to Bountiful.

It had been a good week. I talked on the phone with Eliza again to let her know we had made it safely home. She said they boys had been playing on the bed where we had slept, and Peter sweetly said, "It smells like Grandpa."

Paul's final day of his compounding class was Tuesday, after which they were hitting the road and heading on home to Atlanta.

Along the back roads of America

Journal excerpts from ten years ago recounting a 2,869-mile trip through six states, starting with a couple days at our condo in Lava Hot Springs and helping Rachael move to Kansas City to live with her friend Kathryn Kieffer

Friday, July 21, 2000
Utah, Idaho

Our adventure began about 5:00 this afternoon—just two hours after our original target—as our three cars pulled onto north­bound I–15 at Layton: Rachael and Camilla in Rachael's blue Geo Prism, Eliza and I in our green Saturn, and Michael, Meghan, and Caleb in their tan Honda Accord. Traffic thinned out somewhere north of Ogden, probably near Willard Bay, which is about where the battery failed on one of our new walkie-talkies (we hadn't been sure it was fully charged), which we were using between our car and Rachael's.

After we crossed into Idaho and Eliza had to endure my awful rendi­tion of "Here We Have Idaho," we called Mom on the cell phone to re­port we were in a new state. She and Mary were staying home in Bountiful because of Mary's dizzy spells. Shauna and Jacob were in Layton. Cade, Rebecca, and Mimi start­ing today were spend­ing a week at a condo near Eden. Talmage and Carisa were at Lake Powell. And Anna is in Ephraim working at Snow College for the summer.

By 7:00 we reached Lava Hot Springs, a little resort town ten or eleven miles east of I–15 on US 30. With two or three exceptions, we have come here every July since 1980 to stay in our condo at Hot Springs Village. This year we are only staying a couple days.

About 7:20 all of us but Rachael went swimming in the big pool. It was not crowded, and Meghan and Caleb especially enjoyed going down the slide, mostly on Eliza's lap, occasion­ally on Camilla's, never by themselves. Mean­while, Rachael had gone to Shawn's Market to buy food for supper and had macaroni and cheese, rolls, and a berry drink ready for us when we returned from swimming.

Michael and I, still in our wet swimsuits, went quickly to the store to get hotdogs and sherbet to add to Rachael's supper and also fixings for break­fast.

I slept alone in the big bed on the east end of our unit. Michael, Meghan, and Caleb, who started out in the bunk beds, ended up sleeping on the floor at the foot of my bed. Rachael and Camilla each slept on one of the hide-a-beds in the west end. Eliza slept on the bottom bunk.

Saturday, July 22, 2000
Idaho

This morning Eliza and I took Meghan and Caleb for a walk along the Portneuf River that runs through town and back along Lava's Main Street. By the end we were carrying them on our shoulders.

Knowing there was a Pioneer Day parade sometime this weekend, we tried to find out when. A kid in one of the shops on Main Street thought it was today at 4:00, 5:00, or 6:00. The lady in the grocery store thought it was tomorrow at 5:00. And Gerri in the condo office thought it was either at 10:00 this morning or 6:00 this evening, having been told those alternative times, she said, by someone who was actually going to be in the parade. It turned out to be at 6:00 this evening.

Back at the condo, after our walk, Eliza and I fixed waffles, scrambled eggs, and orange juice for breakfast. Camilla cleaned up afterward.We had a pretty lazy day, which is what Lava for us is all about. We spent time read­ing, playing pool and other games at the club house, playing on the swings and other outdoor toys with Meghan and Caleb, watching TV, and such. Caleb likes the trains that rumble by several times a day, just like his daddy did 20 years ago.

This afternoon we went to the ice cream parlor on Main Street, Smitty's Sweet Shop. Caleb, who had the smallest cone possible, was a dripping mess by the time he had eaten all he wanted of his. Sitting in the air-condition­ed shop, eating our ice cream, was a welcome break from the oppressive heat outside. It was a hot one (97 degrees we heard on the news tonight, 103 degrees down in Salt Lake, where poor Mom was tending house with a broken air conditioner that won't get fixed until next Wednesday at soonest).

Michael, Meghan, and Caleb left for home at 3:15, as soon as we had finished at the ice cream store. Shauna had called earlier to see how everyone was doing and to mention her dad had driven up this morning in a minivan and took away their old red car. Wow!

The four of us remaining—Rachael, Camilla, Eliza, and I—played pool, fixed shred­ded potatoes and hot dogs for supper, went to the little parade (actually just Eliza and I went to the 10-minute parade), and drove out to historic Chesterfield, now a ghost town with some of its buildings well preserved. It was founded in 1880 by settlers from Davis County who were finding Utah getting too crowded. We walked through the cemetery, which is well kept, and looked at headstones. Many of the same surnames seen in the Bountiful cemetery were here: Call, Hatch, Holbrook, Sessions, Muir. The earliest birth date we could find was 1822. The earliest death date 1888. The most recent burial 1998.

Back in Lava, we stopped at Shawn's Mar­ket to buy ice and provisions for our travels tomorrow.

Several times during the day we talked with Mom on our cell phone. This way she gets to share in the journey without having to ride in the car or endure the summer heat (except she is doing that at home anyway with a brok­en air conditioner). She doesn't do heat well.

Sunday, July 23, 2000
Idaho, Wyoming

We awoke, ate breakfast, got ready for church, and at 10:00 attended sacrament meeting in the Lava Hot Springs Ward. We re­turned to our condo, packed and cleaned up, ate lunch, and at 1:15 headed east on US 30 toward Soda Springs.

We decided we wanted to see Star Valley, which we'd never been to before, so we headed north out of Soda Springs on state highway 34, a scenic drive that took us north and east into Wyoming near Freedom. We headed south on US 89 through Thayne, Grover, Afton, and Smoot. We reached an elevation of 7,630 feet crossing the Salt River Pass before slipping back into Idaho briefly and then back into Wyoming for the rest of the day.

At Border, Wyoming, we rejoined US 30 and followed it south to Cokeville, east to Kemmerer (the home of J.C. Penney), and southeast to I–80, which we then traveled along past Little America, Green River, and Rock Springs to Rawlins, where we spent the might at the Sleep Inn. The air conditioning had been knocked out by a lightening storm a couple days earlier, so we were given an additional discount off our room. We ate sand­wiches, Jell-o, pop, and cookies in our room. Eliza and I went for a walk at sunset.

We arrived in Rawlins about 7:30, a little over six hours after leaving Lava. Camilla and Rachael drove in one car, Eliza and I in the other. We used our walkie-talkies to communi­cate with each other. Eliza read me chapters from Ray Bradbury's Dandelion Wine as we traveled. Anna called us from Michael and Shauna's house just as we were approaching the tunnel by Green River. We talked to Mom a couple of times. She informed us that Uncle Irv, my dad's twin brother, had died Friday. He was 85.

Monday, July 24, 2000
Wyoming, Nebraska

Pioneer Day, which we spent at Martin's Cove, Devils Gate, Independence Rock, and Scotts Bluff—all important landmarks along the Oregon, California, and Mormon pioneer trails.

We ate breakfast at the Sleep Inn, filled the cars with expensive gas ($1.65 a gallon), and headed north out of Rawlins on US 287. Not far out of town we waited for about 20 minutes because of road construction. At Lamont we stopped to take pictures of the sign saying "Lamont, Population 3."

Camilla, Eliza, and I had been to Martin's Cove with Mom and Mary three years ago, during the pioneer sesquicentennial. This was Rachael’s first visit. We went through the visitor center, watched a brief film about the experiences of a boy in the Martin Handcart Company of 1856, pulled a handcart out to the Veil Crossing, walked over to Devils Gate, and returned the handcart (with my riding while the three girls pulled me) back to the parking lot.

Next we drove 10 miles or so further east to Independence Rock. Rachael and Camilla waited at the rest stop at the bottom while Eliza and I climbed to the top. (Eliza had been on top of Ensign Peak on Independence Day and now Independence Rock on Pioneer Day.) From the top we called Mom at home and used our walkie-talkies to communicate with Rachael and Camilla at the bottom.

We then continued on to Casper, the second largest city in Wyoming, where we stopped to eat at a Pizza Hut and where Rachael made comments in front of our wait­ress about how ugly Wyoming was. We then head­ed south on I–25 until US 26 took off east toward Nebraska. We arrived in Scotts­bluff a little before 6:00 and checked into our room at the Comfort Inn.

This evening we drove out to Scotts Bluff National Monument, where Donna Davey, one of the park rangers, was very kind in helping us. She let us drive the mile and a half to the top, although it was nearly time to close the road for the evening, and was most helpful when we returned back to the visitor center. She even gave us helpful hints on where to eat and how best to drive back to our motel.

On the way back, as we were driving through Gering, we stopped to eat at a Runza restaurant, famous throughout Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, and Colorado for its Runza sand­wich, which has German–Russian roots stretching back to the 18th century. The unique blend of fresh ground beef, cabbage, onions, and special spices baked inside home-made bread has been passed down for genera­tions and debuted commercially in Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1949, the year I was born. Rachael had a Swiss and mushroom Runza sandwich, I had a tossed salad, and Camilla and Eliza had cheese and broccoli soup and milk­shakes.

Hyde Frederickson called tonight to re­port that Jack White in our ward died this evening. He had lain down for a nap and was gone by two hours later when Helen went in to wake him up for dinner. [I was serving as bishop at the time and felt bad I was not there to assist Helen and her family and even contemplated ways I could abort the trip and get back to Utah. I also wanted to be home for my Uncle Irv's funeral, but in the end I missed both funerals.]

Tuesday, July 25, 2000
Nebraska

This morn­ing, after get­ting ready for the day and eat­ing our standard continental breakfast, we were on our way again. Just east of Scottsbluff we stopped alongside the Bur­lington Northern tracks to see the grave site of Rebecca Winters, a pioneer woman who died at age 50 from cholera as she was travel­ing with her family along the Mormon Pioneer Trail. I believe she is an ancestor of my uncle, Dean Winters.

We continued a few miles more until reaching Chimney Rock, probably the most famous landmark along the pioneer trails. We had our National Park passport, which we had purchased the night before, stamped and saw a film in the visitor center and bought post­cards.

We then turned north on US 385 toward Alliance, where we went to Carhenge a few miles north of town. Thirteen years ago the people who owned the farm decided at a family reunion to build an exact replica (as to size, dimensions, and orientation) of England's famous Stonehenge but out of cars instead of stones. Interesting.

We took pictures, returned to Alliance, ate lunch at McDonald's, and headed east along Nebraska highway 2 through the beaut­iful and isolated Sand Hills country. We passed successively through or by little towns represented by dots on the map: Antioch, Lakeside, Ellsworth, Bingham, Ashby, Hyannis, Whitman, Mullen, Seneca, Thedford, Halsey, Dunning, Anselmo, Merna—many of them so small they didn't even have the water towers or grain elevators common to Midwestern towns.

Mullen, one of the larger towns with 500-some people, located near the Middle Loup River at the intersection of highways 2 and 97, is the only town in all of Hooker County. Another 200 people live scattered on farms throughout the rest of the county. Just east of Mullen, at the county line, we crossed from the mountain into the central time zone.

At Broken Bow we stopped for gas and a snack. Less than 20 miles further, at Ansley, we turned off highway 2 onto 92, with a clear shot east (through half a dozen more coun­ties) to Omaha. This portion of the trip was through lovely rolling farm country rather than the rolling grasslands of the Sand Hills region. Loup City, Ashton, Farewell, St. Paul, Osceola, Shelby, Rising City, Wahoo were the towns we passed. A gorgeous sunset was at our backs at Wahoo.

It was dark by the time we reached our Comfort Inn in Omaha. We had spent the entire day traveling the back roads of Nebraska, not once coming anywhere near an Interstate, and it had been a wonder­ful day. We ate a late supper in our motel room with take-out from an Arby's restaurant.

Wednesday, July 26, 2000
Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri

Every other day the girls switch cars: Eliza rode with me on Friday, Sunday, and Tuesday; Camilla rode with me on Monday and again today.

This morning we visited the Mormon Trail Center at Winter Quarters, a lovely new visitor center built since our last visit here seven years ago when we were taking Rachael to Peace College in North Carolina. In the center we met a Sister Wakefield, a niece of Garth Wakefield, who works with me in the Missionary Department. We also met an Elder and Sister Ross Williams, whom we knew in Rose Park 24 years ago. After taking the tour of the center and watching a film about the Saints' stay at Winter Quarters in 1846–47, we walked through the peaceful pioneer ceme­tery and saw the new temple under construc­tion next to the cemetery. It is supposed to be completed by the end of the year.

Back on I–680, we drove across the Mormon Memorial Bridge into Iowa, joined I–29 and headed south into Council Bluffs, where we found the reconstructed Kanes­ville Taber­nacle, where Brigham Young was first sus­tained as the second President of the Church, with Heber C. Kimball and Willard Richards as his counselors in the First Presi­dency, at a special confer­ence on December 27, 1847. Elder Williams, whom we had seen over in Winter Quarters, was our tour guide. He let Camilla and me play an old organ—over a hundred years old, he said—in the tabernacle.

We ate lunch at a Blimpie res­taurant up the street, got gas, found I–80, and headed back across the Missouri River into Nebraska. Back in Omaha, we headed south on US 75 down the eastern edge of Nebraska rather than driving on I–29 down the western edge of Iowa. The Missouri River forms the boun­dary between the two states.

South of Nebraska City, we turned off US 75 onto state highways 128, then 67, to find the little town of Talmage, population 246, and took pictures. (There is also a Tal­mage in Kansas that has only 126 people living in it.)

We returned to US 75 and at Auburn turned east on US 136, crossed the river into Missouri, and headed south another 100 miles or so on I–29 to Kansas City. From our visit here last summer, we were able to drive straight to the Kieffers' house at NW Adrian Terrace, which is just off I–29 at exit 5. Mom and Dad Kieffer are in Utah this week, Kenny had left for work at 3:30, and Kathryn was supposed to have been home from work by 5:00. It was about 6:45 when we arrived, and Rachael went through the garage, which was not locked, and peeked her head in the door into the house, which was not locked, calling for Kathryn, who was not home, and set off the burglar alarm, which was not turned off.

So we waited outside. Half an hour later two policemen showed up in a squad car to see if everything was OK. We explained the situa­tion and apparently looked honest, and they were nice about it, but had we been actual burglars we could have hauled away a lot of the house before they arrived. We waited some more. A friend of Kathryn's came by and knew how to turn the alarm off, so we were able to wait inside the house. She said Kathryn had gone shopping with a friend. We waited some more. Still no Kathryn, so finally we wrote her a note with our cell number on it, and we went to eat dinner at an Applebee's. Kathryn was home when we got back, and we sat up visiting until midnight.

Severe thunder­storms moved across the Kansas City metro area and put on quite a spectacular light show, reminiscent of our visit here last year when lightening knocked down their neighbor's tree. (This afternoon, when we were still in south­eastern Nebraska, we had heard on the radio tornado watches for southeastern Nebraska and southwestern Iowa, although the weather looked fine to us at the time.)

Uncle Irv's funeral was held today in Woods Cross.

Thursday, July 27, 2000
Missouri

Tonight, sitting in the Kieffers' living room in Kansas City, I finished reading one of my birthday books, Larry McMurtry's Roads: Driving America's Great Highways. I share McMurtry's passions for books and the road (he lists a third: women) and have enjoyed both during this week's foray into middle America. Not only did I read Roads, but Eliza has been reading aloud from Ray Bradbury's Dandelion Wine as we made our way across the back roads of Wyo­ming and Nebraska.

In his final chapter, McMurtry writes, "Some years ago I had a sobering realization about women, which was that there are just too many nice ones. . . .

"As it is with women, so it is with roads. There are too many nice ones. I could go on for a long time, driving America's roads. I could see the sandhills of Nebraska, follow the old Oregon Trail along the North Platte, see the Tetons, dodge moose in Maine, slip down to Salt Lake City and remind myself what an inspired city planner Brigham Young had been.

"But I can't drive all the roads. On even the narrowest highways that I've driven on these trips, and in even the smallest towns, there are signs pointing down even narrower highways to even smaller towns, many of which I will never see."

Something like that thought occurred to me yesterday afternoon as we were pushing south along US 75 in eastern Nebraska. Our fourth child and second son is named Talmage. We knew from our road atlas that a little town named Talmage, population 246, was in these parts.

As we were looking for Talmage, we over­shot our intended turn off by a few miles, so turned instead onto a little paved road that after a half mile turned into "a rock road," so called by the friendly farmer from Talmage who stopped to see if we needed help as we sat at roadside studying the atlas. He won­dered who we were visiting in Talmage and, after explaining our purpose in visiting there, explained that we could indeed arrive there along the rock road (what I would call a dirt or gravel road) that his tractor was planning to follow but suggested we go back and take the regular road instead. "Maybe I'll see you there," was his parting comment. He seemed so helpful, I was almost surprised we weren't invited for supper.

We backtracked to state highway 128, one of those narrower roads that lead to even smaller towns that McMurtry referred to, and I thought of all the myriads of little roads like this that crisscross the places people call home. After a few miles heading west, we turned south on state highway 67 and after another couple miles had to take an even nar­rower road, a half-mile spur that led to the little town. Talmage. Like so many other towns we've seen here in the Midwest, the name was proudly emblazoned on the town's water tower, as if water towers wandered off or were misplaced and had to be returned from time to time to their rightful owners.

Today was a rest day. It was afternoon by the time we were ready to go find the Liberty Jail visitor center and deliver a package of pam­phlets from Winter Quarters. We took the tour at Liberty Jail, where Joseph Smith and his companions were in prison during the cold winter of 1838–39 and where some of the most sublime revelations were given to the Prophet.

We then drove back to Independence in Jackson County and visited the home of Harry S. Truman, the 33rd President of the United States. He was the president when I was born in 1949 and Claudia in 1951. The guided tours through the home are limited to only eight people at a time. We were the last tour of the day.

Afterward we drove by the Truman Library eight blocks away, the temple and other world headquarters sites of the RLDS Church, the LDS visitor center, and the National Historic Trails site (which had just closed for the day).

We drove back to the Kieffers' house in Platte County, and Kathryn had dinner ready for us. Rachael and Kathryn went off to an Institute class this evening. Camilla, Eliza, and I caught up on journals, read, and such. I finished reading Roads: Driving America's Great Highways.

Friday, July 28, 2000
Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming

Today we headed home. We told Rachael good-bye and took off. She was standing in the Kieffers' driveway as we left, looking pretty sad, reminding us of an August after­noon seven years ago when we left her bawling in a parking lot at Peace College.

It rained on us pretty much all the way up I–29 to the Iowa border. During the 13 miles we were in Iowa before crossing the river at Nebraska City, it did not rain. At Lincoln, where we stopped for lunch at a Runza restaurant, it started raining again and did for a while as we headed west along I–80.

Originally we had a motel reservation at Ogallala in the western part of Nebraska, but we were reaching there by mid-afternoon, so we called and canceled that room and made a reservation for Rawlins, Wyoming, the same motel we had stayed in last Sunday. All they had available, unfortunately, was a smoking room, which we took but later regretted.

We stopped for supper at a Wendy's in Laramie, Wyoming. As we were pulling onto the highway again, I observed that we were now 700 miles away from Rachael and was overtaken by such a sense of sadness, an emptiness, that she was now so far away from home. We will miss her a lot.

It was about 9:00, thirteen hours after we left Kansas City, when we pulled into our Sleep Inn in Rawlins. The stench in the smok­ing room we were put in was pretty bad and caused everything we took into the room to smell. Eliza had a hard time sleeping because of it.

Saturday, July 29, 2000
Wyoming, Utah

We awoke right at 6:00, ate our break­fast, and were on the road toward home by 6:40. At Little America we stopped to buy 35¢ ice cream cones and fill the car with gas. After we reached Utah, we took I–84 down Weber Canyon, then south on US 89, and then I–15 to Bountiful. Mom called us on the cell phone as we were passing Farmington, and Camilla and I each talked to her until we were on 500 West in Bountiful. Our intent was to surprise her; she wasn't expecting us until this evening. Finally, she asked where we were, and I gave a vague enough answer that she was totally surprised when we walked in the door only moments later. It was 11:00 and our trip was over.

According to our odometer, our house is 1,100 miles from the Kieffers' house in Kansas City by the route we took home. During the 2,869 miles of our trip, we saw license plates from 40 states (we were miss­ing Delaware, Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Vermont, and West Virginia) and 4 Canadian provinces (we saw Alberta, British Colombia, Ontario, and Saskatchewan). Our highest elevation was 8,640 feet on I–80 at Laramie Pass in Wyoming. Our lowest was probably when we crossed the Missouri River at Kansas City. We stayed in four different motels (in Rawlins, Scottsbluff, Omaha, and again in Rawlins) and spent $245.70 for lodging. We stopped 10 times for gas and spent $123.38 for fuel. We spent about $165 on food and about $30 on other stuff. We traveled through parts of six states (Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, and Missouri). And Eliza read aloud all but 30 pages of Ray Bradbury's Dandelion Wine. It was a wonder­ful trip.

123,456 miles!

Sunday evening, after we had returned from church and ate our dinner, Claudia and I went for a ride in our old 1998 Ford Windstar minivan. We took the back roads through Bountiful and Centerville to Farmington and drove by the house where Chris and Camilla lived for a while when they were house sitting for a missionary couple. We also drove by the historic rock home on the corner of 100 East and 500 North where my grandmother used to live after she married Harry Pledger. And by the old rock church where the first Primary was organized.

Less than a mile later, while still in Farmington, we pulled over to the side of the street we were on and took this picture of our odometer showing that our car had traveled 123,456 miles.

Not quite as far as the 222,222 miles Talmage's Saturn has traveled, but just as classy.

Isaiah class: My view

My view on some of the ideas concerning the last of the last days in response to what was discussed by Avraham Gileadi during the ten-week Isaiah class Michael and I attended in Provo last fall. I wrote this little piece in early December, near the end of the series.

The Lord's way of keeping time does not correspond to the way we measure the passing of days and weeks and months and years. There are hints of that fact throughout the scriptures. In a revelation through the Prophet Joseph Smith on September 11, 1831, the Lord declared, "Behold, now it is called today until the coming of the Son of Man" (D&C 64:23). Apparently the period of time from 1831 until the Second Coming, however soon that might be, is as a single day to the Lord.

The Lord expects us to study the scriptures (see, for example, John 5:39; 2 Timothy 3:14–17; 3 Nephi 10:14; D&C 26:1; and D&C 33:16), with particular command to search the words of Isaiah (see 3 Nephi 20:11; 3 Nephi 23:1; and Mormon 8:23). However, do we need to exercise a little caution before making too fine a distinction about sequences and timing that were prophesied millennia ago concerning events that will occur during this "day" we are in—particularly when that "day" extends for at least a couple hundred of years according to our present reckoning?

To say that Isaiah, confirmed by Book of Mormon prophets, talks about certain events as a single end-of-time scenario, happening all at once or in short succession, all of it yet future to us, may not correspond precisely to what the Lord Himself has revealed in our day. Additionally, there are examples of prophecies that have multiple fulfillments.

Let's consider some specific examples:

The Lord performs a great and marvelous work.  In at least five separate revelations given through the Prophet Joseph Smith, the Lord declares that "a great and marvelous work is about to come forth among the children of men" (see D&C 4:1; 6:1; 11:1; 12:1; 14:1). All five of these revelations came in a five-month period from February to June 1829, at about the time the priesthood was being restored and less than a year before the Book of Mormon would be published and the church of Christ would be officially organized. It seems from the context of these latter-day revelations that the Lord expected us to understand that the "great and marvelous work" was then beginning in the early decades of the nineteenth century, not at some point yet future to us in the opening years of the twenty-first century.

In confirmation of that fact, the Lord told Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, and David Whitmer in June 1829 that "by your hands I will work a marvelous work among the children of men" (D&C 18:44; see also D&C 121:12). If we believe the revelations, there will be a great and marvelous work yet to happen in this dispensation, greater and more marvelous than anything we have yet seen, but it does not seem accurate to say that the great and marvelous work does not also refer to what the Lord has already been accomplishing in the earth over the past 180 years.

The Lord sets His hand the second time.  In a vision given to the Prophet Joseph in January 1836, the Prophet used this very phrase to describe the restoration of the gospel when he referred to the death of his brother Alvin in November 1823, which occurred some six years before the restoration of the priesthood and reestablishment of the Church: "And [I] marveled how it was that he had obtained  an inheritance in that kingdom, seeing that he had departed this life before the Lord set his hand to gather Israel the second time" (D&C 137:6). In January 1833 the Prophet wrote, "The time has at last arrived when the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has set his hand again the second time to recover the remnants of his people" (Teachings, 14).

Gentiles reject the gospel after receiving it.  In the same January 1833 letter, the Prophet wrote of the gospel going to the gentiles in the meridian dispensation: "And the Gentiles received the covenant, and were grafted in from whence the chosen family were broken off; but the Gentiles have not continued in the goodness of God, but have departed from the faith that was once delivered to the Saints, and have broken the covenant in which their fathers were established (see Isaiah 24:5); and have become high-minded, and have not feared; therefore, but few of them will be gathered with the chosen family. Have not the pride, high-mindedness, and unbelief of the Gentiles, provoked the Holy One of Israel to withdraw His Holy Spirit from them, and send forth His judgments to scourge them for their wickedness? This is certainly the case" (Teachings, 15).

The Prophet in this missive clearly refers to a rejection of the gospel by the gentiles as an already accomplished fact in that day, either an instance of the prophecy already being fulfilled or an instance of multiple fulfillments of the prophecy. He says that not many gentiles will be gathered, suggesting that the millions of Latter-day Saints gathered over the past 180 years have been primarily from scattered Israel.

Israel receives the gospel.  Isaiah and the prophets in the Book of Mormon may preserve the distinction that Latter-day Saints are those "who are identified with the Gentiles" (D&C 109:60), as the Prophet Joseph prayed in the dedicatory prayer of the Kirtland Temple, but the Lord apparently does not always maintain that distinction in the latter-day revelations: "For ye are the children of Israel, and of the seed of Abraham" (D&C 103:17), the Lord said of the Saints in Missouri in February 1834. A few months later, in June 1834, the Lord refers to the Latter-day Saints as "the army of Israel" (D&C 105: 26, 30).

"Thou shalt preach the fulness of my gospel," the Lord said in a January 1831 revelation, "which I have sent forth in these last days, the covenant which I have sent forth to recover my people, which are of the house of Israel" (D&C 39:11). In another revelation, in August 1831, the Lord spoke of Edward Partridge as "a judge in Israel" (D&C 58:17; see also D&C 107:72, 76).

In the revelation through President Brigham Young, the Lord declared "the word and will of the Lord concerning the Camp of Israel in their journeying to the West" (D&C 136:1). In that revelation the Lord declares, "I am the Lord your God, even the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob. . . . and my arm is stretched out in the last days, to save my people Israel" (D&C 136:21–22). In context, the Lord is clearly referring in this revelation to saving the Latter-day Saints, whom He calls "my people Israel," who were heading toward the Great Basin in the West.

Latter-day prophets, from the days of Joseph Smith down to our present day, have consistently referred to the gathering that has been going on for the past nearly two centuries as the gathering of Israel despite the fact that certain identifiable portions of the house of Israel (such as the Jews and the Ten Tribes) are yet to be gathered.

Many fight against Zion.  This has been the lot of the Latter-day Saints since the beginning of the Restoration. The fight may well intensify in the very end of times, before the Savior returns, but opposition and persecution has been characteristic of the entire latter-day dispensation, beginning as soon as Joseph walked out of the Sacred Grove and continuing in Missouri and later in Illinois and in Utah and on down to our present day, in some seasons more intense than others.

When the Saints were being driven from their lands in Missouri in the 1830s, the Lord referred to the enemies of the Church who were fighting against Zion and said concerning His people, "I do not require at their hands to fight the battles of Zion; for, as I said in a former commandment, even so I will fulfill—I will fight your battles" (D&C 105:14). Once again, the fighting against Zion appears to be one of those prophecies with multiple (or even ongoing) fulfillments.

Isaiah class concluded

The last of our ten weekly classes with Brother Avraham Gileadi on the book of Isaiah was held on Thursday evening, December 17, in Provo. With the rush of the holidays, my catching a cold that has persisted since the beginning of the new year, its morphing into a sinus infection this past week, and incredible busyness at work, I have never taken an opportunity to craft a final report on the experience.

In previous posts I have reported on specific content from eight of the weekly classes. Those posts, particularly the summary from the ninth class, offer a reasonable overview of what we covered.

There were also intangible benefits from our enrollment in the class. I greatly appreciated spending five or so hours every Thursday evening driving to and from Provo and attending the class with my first-born son Michael, together with the time the two of us spent at the end of the evening, by which time it was way past my normal bedtime, discussing some of what we learned with his mother and my wife, Claudia. I also greatly appreciated sitting at the feet of such an eminent Isaiah scholar seeking to understand and comprehend his various insights concerning Isaiah's teachings about the end of times. A good way to increase understanding is to come at a topic from fresh approaches and to consider viewpoints that lift you out of the routine ruts that you are accustomed to traveling in.

It was a good class. And I am grateful that we chose to participate.

Meghan Reporting

Hello Cleverly Family! This is Meghan writing. Let me fill you in on some things that have been happening lately. Well if you haven't heard my dad (Michael) has been shaking, thirsty, and unexplained sudden weight loss. They thought that he might have diabetes but we have determined that he doesn't. He went in 2 days at LDS Hospital. He had to drink radioactive iodine. It has been discovered that he has Graves Disease as well as a hyper active thyroid.

And today we got a call saying that while Jacob was in gym playing fishy fishy cross the sea he went from standing up to on the ground. We think that he slipped because he doesn't have good tread on his shoes. He hit his head really hard. My mom and I were in Bountiful about to take the twins to the dentist for the first time. A really nice neighbor picked Jacob up from school and was going to take him down to Bountiful where my mom would then take him to the doctor. So, Grandpa Dean had to talk to the people at the dentist, so he, my mom, the twins, and I were there. Then my mom left to go take Jacob to the doctor. At first he couldn't remember his name but then he did. But didn't remember anything that happened. So after the dentist Grandpa Dean took us to his  house. My mom and Jacob had to go to Primary Children's Medical Hospital. We just got a call from my mom saying that they were in the E.R. there and Jacob was going to have a Cat Scan. Poor Jacob. We are waiting for more details.

Thanks for everyone's help!!!! What an exciting time!
~meghan~