Interstate 50

A mountainous journey

2011-12-03T18:09:00.098-07:00

The wife and I were driving along a winding scenic road in the rugged high mountains of southern Utah. The ride through forests of juniper, punctuated with red-rock ridges, bluffs, towers, and canyons carved through time by wind and water, was breathtaking. The brilliant blue sky, interrupted with an occasional white cloud, the fluffy kind, arched overhead. Judging from the sun approaching its zenith, it was late morning. The air at this elevation was delightfully cool. A beautiful day.

The narrow blacktop snaked its way through the landscape. This was pristine country. Except for the road we were traveling on, there were no obvious signs of civilization to be seen for miles in any direction. We did not pass any other vehicles. The road through this stretch had no signs, no pavement markings, no guardrails. The guardrails, in retrospect, would have seemed to be a desirable nicety if not an outright necessity.

My wife was driving the car. That was an odd curiosity because on road trips I was always the driver.

Her father was in the back seat. I remember that fact simply because he cautioned her to slow down as we began our descent from the relatively flat plateau we had been driving on. The road started to become treacherous as it headed down the mountainside, but she seemed not to heed his warning.

We rounded curves that hugged the side of the mountain. Just beyond the side of the road, the terrain in places fell away for thousands of feet. At times we were climbing steep hills. Once crested, the car picked up speed as we descended the other side. More curves. Switchbacks. More ups and downs. For whatever reason, she seemed bent on getting us to our destination in somewhat of a hurry. A ride on a roller coaster would have seemed tame in comparison.

She headed a bit too fast into a lengthy curve to the right, and the rear wheels were sliding dangerously close to the precipitous edge. She gunned the engine to help the front wheels pull the vehicle back onto the pavement. The outcome appeared dubious.

And that's when I awoke, safe in my comfortable bed, and realized that it had all been a dream.

"We're back in the saddle again"

2011-11-30T11:30:00.001-07:00

More than a year has passed since I last posted here. There are a variety of reasons, I suppose. For nearly six months during the first part of the year, I devoted much of my discretionary time to compiling the book Diary of a Boy, which I gave to my children on my 62nd birthday in July. It chronicles the first 16 years of my journey through life.

In the months since then, I have been working on the next two volumes of that journey, my final two years of high school (the gift for my 63rd birthday) and my first year of college (for my 64th birthday). And doing various other things.

Our out-of-state travel diminished this year compared to last year. In the fall of 2010 Claudia and I completed the marathon Primary sacrament meeting tour, including being there for grandchildren in the Eldorado Branch in Illinois, the Mulkiteo Ward in Washington state, the Brockett Ward in Georgia, and a couple wards here in Layton. Five separate Primary programs.

This year we were as committed to such programs but attended only one out of state. We caught some here in Utah and one in Illinois. Chris and Camilla moved from Everett back to Bountiful, so we didn't need to go to Washington. We very likely would have flown to Atlanta to see Peter say his few words, but that program was the day after Paul and Eliza returned home after visiting us here in Utah for a whole month. And what a wonderful month it was!

This year's road trips have been relatively short ones: to southern Utah a couple times to visit Kay and Karen (including an August trip to see him sustained as bishop of the Hurricane 11th Ward), to Lava Hot Springs (including a scenic drive home on a road less traveled), and to Nampa/Boise a couple times to see family there, attend a weddings, and participate in a Cleverly family reunion.

A special type of soldier

2010-10-22T13:40:00.000-06:00

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

2010-10-09T10:56:00.000-06:00

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

2010-08-18T13:47:00.007-06:00

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

2010-08-15T11:34:00.004-06:00

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

2010-07-27T19:27:00.003-06:00

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

2010-07-21T10:23:00.011-06:00

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!

2010-03-21T21:19:00.001-06:00

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

2010-01-31T10:20:00.002-07:00

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

2010-01-30T09:12:00.052-07:00

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

2010-01-08T17:24:00.003-07:00

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~

Isaiah class 9

2009-12-15T19:07:00.000-07:00

Thoughts from the ninth of ten classes, Thursday, December 10, 2009

For the first time since this series of classes started, Avraham Gileadi provided us an actual handout with scriptural references from Isaiah and the Book of Mormon concerning the major points he has been making. He titled his compilation "The Book of Mormon's Endtime Scenario of Concurrent Events Based on the Prophecies of Isaiah."

These are the 14 endtime events he listed, which taken all together constitutes Israel's restoration:

The Lord sets His hand the second time: 2 Nephi 6:14; 25:17; 29:1; Jacob 6:2 (Isaiah 11:11).

The Lord makes bare His arm: 1 Nephi 22:10–11; 3 Nephi 16:20; 20:35 (Isaiah 51:9; 52:10).

The Lord's servant fulfills his mission: 3 Nephi 20:43–45; 21:8–11 (Isaiah 11:10–12; 41:2, 25, 27; 42:1–7; 44:26–28; 45:1–6, 13; 46:11–13; 48:14–16; 49:1–9; 50:4–10; 51:7–9; 52:13–15; 53:11–12; 55:3–5).

The Lord performs a great and marvelous work: 1 Nephi 14:7, 17; 22:8; 2 Nephi 25:17; 29:1; 30:8; 3 Nephi 21:9, 26–29 (Isaiah 29:14).

The gentiles reject the gospel after receiving it: 2 Nephi 28:24–32; 3 Nephi 16:10; 20:15, 28; 21:11 (Isaiah 28:7–29; 29:9–16; 41:21–29; 42:18–25; 50:1–11; 56:9–12; 48:1–7; 59:1–16; 66:5–6).

Many fight against Zion: 1 Nephi 22:14, 19; 2 Nephi 6:12–13; 10:13, 16; 29:14 (Isaiah 29:7–8).

Kings and queens of the gentiles nourish the house of Israel: 1 Nephi 22:6–8; 2 Nephi 6:6–7; 10:8–9, 18; 3 Nephi 16:4 (Isaiah 43:3–8; 49:22–23; 60:1–16).

Israel receives a knowledge of the gospel: 1 Nephi 15:13–16; 22:9, 11; 2 Nephi 6:11, 14; 10:7; 25:16, 18; 29:13; 3 Nephi 16:4, 11–12; 20:13, 30–32, 40; 21:7–8, 26–27 (Isaiah 48:6–8; 52:6–8).

The saints and covenant people of the Lord are endowed with power: 1 Nephi 14:14; 22:17; 2 Nephi 6:14; 3 Nephi 16:15; 20:16–17, 19, 22, 36; 21:11–13, 25 (Isaiah 41:8–16; 51:9–10; 52:1–3).

Israel returns from dispersion: 1 Nephi 22:12; 2 Nephi 6:6, 11; 10:8–9; 29:14; 3 Nephi 16:5; 20:13, 18, 29, 33, 41–42; 21:1, 23–29 (Isaiah 11:10–12; 43:5–8; 49:8–12, 22; 51:11; 52:11–12).

The wicked are destroyed: 1 Nephi 14:5–7, 15–17; 22:13–19; 2 Nephi 6:14–18; 30:9–10; 3 Nephi 16:15; 20:16–20; 21:12–21 (Isaiah 41:2, 11–16; 43:14–17; 47:1–15; 49:24–26; 54:5–17).

The righteous are delivered: 1 Nephi 14:5, 14; 22:17, 19; 2 Nephi 6:16–17; 30:10; 3 Nephi 20:36–38 (Isaiah 42:7; 43:1–4; 45:13–17; 48:20–21; 49:24–25; 51:11, 21–23; 52:1–12; 55:12).

Israel receives lands of inheritance: 1 Nephi 22:12; 2 Nephi 6:11; 10:7, 10, 19; 29:14; 3 Nephi 16:5, 16; 20:14, 21–22, 29, 33–34, 46; 21:22–24 (Isaiah 44:26, 28; 49:8; 51:3; 54:2–3, 11–12).

God fulfills His covenants with the house of Israel: 1 Nephi 14:5, 8, 17; 15:18; 22:6, 9, 11; 2 Nephi 6:12; 10:7, 15, 17; 29:1, 14; 3 Nephi 16:5, 11–12; 20:12, 22, 25–27, 29, 46; 21:4, 7 (Isaiah 54:10; 55:3).

Brother Gileadi's contention is that if we as Latter-day Saints read the Book of Mormon thinking we are Israel, we will get it all wrong. In Book of Mormon terms, we are identified with the gentiles. Although, having made covenants with the Lord, we are numbered among Israel.

His conclusion: "When carefully researched, analyzed, and compared, the foregoing scriptural references demonstrate how the Book of Mormon's endtime scenario consists of a series of concurrent events predicted by the prophet Isaiah. Drawing on different parts of the Book of Isaiah—as if all depict a single scenario—Nephi, Jacob, and Jesus provide variations on one theme: the restoration of the house of Israel, which house of Israel they identify as Jews, Lehi's descendants, and [the] Ten Tribes.

"Israel's restoration involves the Lord's 'setting his hand the second time' to restore his people; the Lord's 'baring his arm' to all nations; the Lord's servant fulfilling his mission to the nations; the Gentiles rejecting the fulness of the gospel after having received it; the Lord's performing his 'great and marvelous work' among the nations; many people, including former believers, fighting against Zion; the (spiritual) kings and queens of the Gentiles nourishing the house of Israel; the house of Israel accepting the fulness of the gospel; the saints and covenant people of the Lord being endowed with power over their enemies; the house of Israel returning from dispersion in an exodus from the four directions of the earth; the destruction of the wicked of the world and the deliverance of the righteous; the house of Israel and those numbered among them receiving lands of inheritance; and the Father's fulfilling his covenant with the house of Israel and with Israel's ancestors.

"By the Book of Mormon's own definition, this synchronized series of events constitutes the Lord's 'great and marvelous work' and defines God's fulfilling his covenant. Employing a literary device familiar from the Book of Isaiah, the Book of Mormon ties the above events together domino fashion within the scriptural passages cited above to establish a single endtime scenario that is still future. Only by taking all such passages together, not separately, therefore, does this complete scenario clearly appear. The chapters of Isaiah from which the above events are drawn comprise principally the Book of Isaiah's high point in the vicinity of Chapter 52, but include also others such as Chapters 11 and 29. As with the Book of Mormon passages, however, these chapters cannot be isolated from others in the Book of Isaiah—to which they are linked by linguistic, typological, and thematic interconnections—without distorting the message of both Isaiah and the Book of Mormon.

"The part played by Latter-day Saints, who are identified with the Gentiles in the Book of Mormon (D&C 109:60), is to facilitate Israel's restoration through seven phases, the first two of which precede the Book of Mormon's endtime scenario while the remainder comprise it: 1. the restoration of the gospel to the Gentiles; 2. the completion of the scattering of the house of Israel by the Gentiles; 3. the Lord's servant bringing forth the words of Christ to the Gentiles; 4. many Gentiles rejecting the fulness of the gospel after receiving it, resulting in their being 'cut off from among my people who are of the covenant'; 5. the kings of the Gentiles hearkening to the words of Christ that the servant brings forth and ministering to the house of Israel; 6. the gospel turning away from the Gentiles back to the house of Israel; and 7. the house of Israel's restoration. Just as Israel's ancient apostasy caused its scattering, so Israel's endtime receiving the gospel leads to its gathering.

"Auxiliary events to this scenario, based on prophecies of Isaiah that are not delineated explicitly in the Book of Mormon, include a 'great division' that occurs when many who are at ease in Zion cling to 'precepts of men' and reject the further word of God that comes forth. We may thus conclude that searching the words of Isaiah on which the Book of Mormon's endtime scenario is based, and searching the Book of Mormon's own words for what they say, not what we assume they say, may prove critical to our salvation when the Lord sees fit to unfold the next phase of these prophesied events."

With that foregoing conclusion you have a fair summary of what we have spent the past nine weeks learning. (And I thus saved you $100 and ten trips to Provo.) I wonder what is left for us to cover in the tenth class this Thursday.

Isaiah class 7

2009-11-30T21:06:00.002-07:00

Thoughts from the seventh of ten classes, Thursday, November 19, 2009

I took fewer notes this week than in any of the previous classes, partly because I was busy looking up other references as the discussion moved along, a lot of it question-and-answer stuff that I gather was not exactly what Brother Gileadi had originally intended to cover. And partly because we were just reading selections from various chapters of 1 and 2 Nephi that quote or paraphrase Isaiah's teachings on the events at the end of the last days.

Some of the Book of Mormon passages we specifically looked at all describe or refer to the same latter-day scenario:

1 Nephi 22:8–19 Correlated with other passages of scripture, particularly as presented throughout Isaiah, these latter-day events are all presented as a part of a single scenario.
2 Nephi 6:4–13
2 Nephi 10: 7–19
2 Nephi 25:1–8
2 Nephi 28:26–29 It is a most damnable attitude to say "we have received enough and need no more." Intelligence is not just acquiring information but what we do with it.
2 Nephi 29:1 This single verse contains three events from the list we began constructing last week of things that will happen at the last day: a marvelous work, the covenants of the Lord, and the Lord setting His hand a second time to recover His people.

Isaiah class 6

2009-11-15T20:22:00.002-07:00

Thoughts from the sixth of ten classes, Thursday, November 12, 2009

The passages from Isaiah most quoted in the Book of Mormon (primarily by Nephi, Jacob, and the Savior) are chapters 48–55. They all refer to events in the last days. Interestingly, Isaiah 53, the one chapter that is clearly about the Savior, is not quoted (except as paraphrased by Abinadi) because that chapter has nothing to do with the last days. Book of Mormon writers, knowing that their writings would come forth in the last days, actually talk a lot about the last days.

Isaiah is pretty much the only Old Testament frame of reference to the last days that the Book of Mormon writers had.

There are relatively few Messianic prophecies in the Old Testament as we have it today. The Book of Mormon at least is pretty much silent on them. Given that the Book of Mormon is another testament of Christ, and that one of its central purposes is "to the convincing of the Jew and Gentile that Jesus is the Christ, the Eternal God, manifesting himself unto all nations" (Book of Mormon title page), then it is curious that it would not have quoted more Messianic prophecies unless they were pretty much absent from the record. Some Messianic prophecies that are quoted, such as by Zenock and Zenos, do not appear in our current Old Testament.

It is important, however, to remember that another one of the Book of Mormon's central purposes is "that they [the house of Israel] may know the covenants of the Lord, that they are not cast off forever" (Book of Mormon title page). The Isaiah passages, together with prophetic commentary on them by Nephi, Jacob, and the Savior, speak much about the covenants of the Lord with His people and that because of those covenants they will not be cast off forever. That is what the prophecies concerning the last days are all about. And why they figure so prominently in their writings.

The Prophet Joseph Smith understood that he was just laying a foundation, the beginning of restoration. The Lord's latter-day servant, still yet to come, is also a restorer. The Savior's quoting of Isaiah in 3 Nephi 21 makes clear that this all comes at the end of the last days. We need to tie down to what scriptures actually say.

In a revelation the Lord gave in September 1832, the Lord spoke of a condemnation resting upon His people for treating lightly the things they had received, particularly the Book of Mormon (see D&C 84:54–58). President Ezra Taft Benson applied the same warning against the Latter-day Saints in the day that he presided over the Church. Perhaps a part of our condemnation for treating these things lightly is our ignoring Isaiah, whose teachings figure so prominently in the Book of Mormon.

Isaiah, given the way it is constructed, is a whole tapestry; all the threads run together. We cannot take bits and pieces out of context. One remarkable things the Book of Mormon writers do is to take different parts of Isaiah and treat them as one single scenario. That is a key to understanding Isaiah.

We started on a list of events that all happen together, that are all a part of one scenario, that occur in the last days.

A great and marvelous work (Isaiah 29: 14 / 1 Nephi 14:7)
Covenants of the Lord (Isaiah 54:10 / 1 Nephi 14: 5, 8, 17)
Fighting against Zion (Isaiah 29:8 / 1 Nephi 22:14, 19; 2 Nephi 6:12–13; 2 Nephi 27:3)
The house of Israel being nourished by the gentiles (Isaiah 49:22–23 / 1 Nephi 22:8)
The Lord making bare His arm (Isaiah 52:10 / 1 Nephi 22:10–11) ["Arm" signifies divine intervention, the revealing of the Lord's servant]
An endowment of power (Isaiah 52:1; Isaiah 51:9 / 1 Nephi 14:14 and 22:17)
Conversion of the house of Israel to the gospel (Isaiah 52:7–8)

We did not finish our list because we ran out of time.

Isaiah class 5

2009-11-12T10:00:00.000-07:00

Thoughts from the fifth of ten classes, Thursday, November 5, 2009

This past week has been like no other we have experienced in a long, long time, if ever, so I am very tardy in reporting on last Thursday's session with Brother Avraham Gileadi, but I thought I should do so before going off to the sixth class tonight.

Although we are studying Isaiah, we spent much of the two hours in our fifth class reading and discussing parts of five chapters from two other Old Testament prophets: Ezekiel and Jeremiah. The intent, as I understood it, was to illustrate that Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Jeremiah were all on the same page, as prophets of the Lord were all teaching the same message, and were all seeing down to the end of times, our dispensation, and prophseying of the Lord's latter-day servant who would assist in the gathering of Jacob or Israel.

We need a foundation in the Old Testament, Brother Gileadi affirmed, in order to understand the rest of the scriptures.

Old Testament > Book of Mormon > New Testament > Doctrine and Covenants

The Book of Mormon, for example, as the above little diagram illustrates, begins in and grows out of an Old Testament setting and culture. It assumes a deep familiarity with the Old Testament. Then as a premier witness of Christ and His mission, the Book of Mormon prepares us for and helps us really understand what the New Testament is about. And so forth.

We read from Ezekiel 34. Sheep are a metaphor for the Lord's people. Beasts are a metaphor for Satan's people. The word "meat," as translated in the King James Version of the Bible, signifies "food." Mountains and hills signify nations.

The Lord is always looking out for the poor. The Lord will search for and deliver them from all the places "where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day" (see verse 12). Causing them to "lie down," as in verses 14 and 15, signifies rest, peace, and security. The "deep waters" mentioned in verse 18 refers to the deep things of God. Joseph Smith once wrote that he was wont to swim in deep waters (see D&C 127:2). The shepherds of the people were privy to the deep doctrines, the deep things of God, but muddied it up for others.

The Lord is always gathering. Verses 23 and 24 reference the latter-day servant of the Lord, who will be called David. Verse 25 and beyond describe the Millennial era, when evil will be gone from the earth, when there will be no more telestial people around, and the Lord's people will be safe in the land (see verse 27).

We then turned to Ezekiel 37 and, beginning with verse 15 to the end of the chapter, talked about the uniting of the tribes of Israel into one nation. The sticks, although we commonly in the Church refer to them as the records of the two nations, in the actual context of this chapter refers to the two nations or kingdoms. The Lord is speaking of making the two nations into one. The reference in verse 23 that they shall "be my people and I will be their God" is covenant language (see also verses 26 and 27 and also Ezekiel 34:24).

A latter-day reference to the stick of Ephraim makes it clear that the stick actually refers to the house or tribe or nation of Ephraim (see D&C 27:5). Otherwise, the passage would be redundant, and the Lord would be saying that He had committed the keys of the record of the record of Ephraim.

Next we read from Jeremiah 23, where it opens with the same woe pronounced against the leaders of the people (the "pastors" referred to by Jeremiah comes from the same word in Hebrew as the "shepherds" in Ezekiel). The rise of the latter-day servant always comes on the heels of the abuse by the shepherds or pastors of the Lord's people. We see the same scenario in Isaiah, in Ezekiel, and in Jeremiah.

We then turned to Jeremiah 30, where it speaks of the latter-day servant David. The chapter heading interprets David as Christ, but it is clear from other passages in Isaiah and Ezekiel and Jeremiah that the David mentioned in verse 9 is the latter-day servant of Christ. Jesus Christ or Jehovah is the Lord their God, and David is a king who serves under Him. The Prophet Joseph Smith seems to assert the same thing: "The throne and kingdom of David is to be taken from him and given to another by the name of David in the last days, raised out of his lineage" (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 339).

Compare also Jeremiah 33:14-16. And Doctrine and Covenants 113:1-6, which is a revealed commentary on certain verses in Isaiah 11 that speak of Christ as the Stem of Jesse and the rod of Jesse and the root of Jesse as a servant in the hands of Christ and who will hold "the keys of the kingdom, for an ensign, and for the gathering of my people in the last days" (D&C 113:6).

In Jeremiah 30:11 the Lord declares that in the last days He will make a full end of the nations but not of thee, meaning Jacob or Israel.

The Old Testament prophets know that what they are writing is ambiguous, and they seem to do it on purpose, as a test, to weed people out who are not spiritually attuned to understand and receive the message. From that vantage point, it is a merciful thing they do.

Isaiah class 4

2009-11-01T22:00:00.000-07:00

Thoughts from the fourth of ten classes, Thursday, October 29, 2009

The most important lesson I took from this evening's class with Avraham Gileadi was that we have to fit all scriptures together, not just focus on one passage in isolation. Otherwise we will get into trouble and wander off course. We have to connect all the dots, put all the pieces of the puzzle together, and rely on the safety that comes from the scriptures' own internal checks and balances.

Among all holy writ, the book of Isaiah is remarkable in its exquisite use of literary devices and structure to ensure that every truth is presented in more than one way in more than one place, often in multiple ways, to keep us from getting off base. There is hardly a thing in Isaiah that does not repeat itself somewhere else. The book has its own internal checks and balances.

The scriptures all cohere. There are not contradictions. Apparent contradictions are there to weed out the insincere or lazy who really don't want to invest the effort, time, and energy to ferret out the truth. (He didn't say this, but I suppose there could be contradictions resulting from faulty transmission of the original text.)

Isaiah class 3

2009-10-24T16:00:00.003-06:00

Thoughts from the third of ten classes, Thursday, October 22, 2009

We spent our two hours this week on Isaiah 49 (which Nephi quotes in 1 Nephi 21 in the Book of Mormon). After some review of chapter 48 and other preliminaries, and the discussion of pertinent questions along the way, we spent the rest of the time dealing with only the first six verses of chapter 49. If we were to continue analyzing Isaiah at the same rate we've started, I calculate it would take us another 128 weeks to complete our study. And we actually have only seven sessions remaining. (Although I perceive that one thing Avraham Gileadi is trying to teach us is how to study Isaiah and other scriptures.)

Preliminaries

For the sake of his latter-day servant, the Lord promises (in Isaiah 48:9) that He will not entirely destroy His people in the last days: "I have shown restraint toward you by not entirely destroying you." But that means He will mostly destroy them.

An idol is anything that diverts our attention from the true and living God. It is possible to veer off course and to let a lesser law become the whole law. It happened to Judaism. It happened to early Christianity. It has even happened, Brother Gileadi contended, to Latter-day Saints. We do not do and hear all that the Prophet Joseph Smith taught us.

Moses, at the foot of the mount, told Israel to both hear and do the word of the Lord (see Deuteronomy 5:1, 25, 27). Replace the word "hear" with "understand." Adam offered sacrifice for many days before he was taught to understand why (see Moses 5:6–8). But, as we seek to hear or understand, who has time to spend hours a day studying about God and His ways?

We live in a very materialistic and idolatrous world, which we take for granted because we are products of that very world. Recognizing Babylon, let alone fleeing it, is not necessarily an easy thing to do.

The Book of Mormon peoples did not have rabbinic Judaism; they had the law of Moses. Rabbinic Judaism developed after the Jews' return from Babylonian exile, and Lehi and his family left Jerusalem just before the exile. Book of Mormon prophets were very aware that the law of Moses was a foreshadowing of a higher law. They did not let the lesser law become the whole law.

How grateful we should be to have the book of Isaiah, Brother Gileadi exulted. It is such a gold mine, a systematic theology, a paradigm of life, a guidepost. If we read only Isaiah, we would be well off. Can you imagine what our scriptures would be like without the book of Isaiah? Frankly, some people would not even notice.

In Isaiah 57:1 the righteous disappear, and no man gives it a thought.

Throughout the book of Isaiah are various things the Lord is going to do: set His hand a second time (see Isaiah 11:11), do a marvelous work and a wonder (see Isaiah 29:14), reveal the arm of the Lord (see Isaiah 53:1), and those who fight against Zion (see Isaiah 29:8). The Book of Mormon brings these diverse elements together into a single concept that are all to occur in the last days at the end of times (such as in 1 Nephi 22).

It is no mere coincidence that Isaiah 48:22 and Isaiah 57:21 say the same thing: there is no peace for the wicked. They are the final verse in their respective chapters. Both chapters are talking about the Lord's latter-day servant. Healing occurs for both the servant and for all Israel (what is for one is for the many who depend on him).

In Isaiah 6:10 the Lord's servant receives a commission to harden hearts. The reverse of what this verse says is the very formula for healing: see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand in their heart, and repent. Only God can bring about healing and peace. It is a form of covenant reversal. Healing comes over time. The gospel has the power to heal all wounds, not just effect forgiveness of sins. Only God can reserve covenant curses. Doing those things listed in verse 10 will eventually bring healing.

And in Isaiah 53:5 we learn that peace and healing are synonymous. If there is no peace for the wicked, then there is no healing for them either (or vice versa).

Our examination of the first six verses of chapter 49

When Nephi quotes Isaiah 49 in 1 Nephi 21, it includes the things Nephi wants to tell us. There are probably at least two reasons why Nephi waits for several chapters after he tells us he cannot write more of the end-from-the-beginning vision before he quotes Isaiah: One, he wants to put some space between the two. And two, he lays a foundation for what he quotes; he tells their own exodus story.

This exodus story is not unique. Ancient Israel did it out of Egypt. Lehi and his colony did it out of Jerusalem. The Lord has led people out from time to time (as we learn in 2 Nephi 10:22). The Latter-day Saints have done it. And it will occur again in the last days, Isaiah tells us, under the direction of the Lord's servant.

1 Hear me, O isles; listen, you distant peoples:
The Lord called me before I was in the belly;
before I was in my mother's womb,
he mentioned me by name.

The mission of the Lord's latter-day servant is to be worldwide—to the isles of the sea, to distant peoples.

Here, as with Jeremiah (see Jeremiah 1:5), is a plain reference to the premortal call or foreordination of this servant. The sense is clearer here in Gileadi's translation than the same verse in the King James translation, where it reads, "The Lord hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name" (Isaiah 49:1).

The Lord's mentioning this servant by name before he was in his mother's womb is a reference to a premortal calling and election, a foreordination.

2 He has made my mouth like a sharp sword—
in the shadow of his hand he hid me.
He has made me into a polished arrow—
in his quiver he kept me secret.

"Hand" is a name for the Lord's servant. We know this from a similar passage in Isaiah 11:11–12, where the Lord's servant is an ensign who rallies the people to come to the latter-day exodus and delivers them. He recovers a remnant of the Lord's people from the nations, assembles the outcasts of Israel, and gathers the dispersed of His people from the four corners of the earth.

This servant is the Lord's secret weapon ("in his quiver he kept me secret"). He is not previously well known, like David, the youngest son of Jesse, at the time he was selected, was not known. Similarly, Christ was an upstart in his time, Joseph Smith in his, neither of them previously known to the establishment. The fact that he is "a polished arrow" suggests he has already gone through a refiner's fire. Arrow is not a friendly symbol; it goes straight to the heart.

Like the word hand, "arm" is also a metaphor of the Lord's servant, such as in Isaiah 52:10, where the baring of the arm is a revealing of the servant, setting everything in motion, bringing about the Lord's great and marvelous work, and bringing about the destruction of the people. "Arm" also symbolizes the power and intervention of God.

Why does the Lord do this now? What setting calls it forth? He will preserve a remnant of Abraham's posterity, which He is required to do by covenant. The Lord has made unconditional covenants with various prophets. (The Sinai covenant, on the other hand, is a conditional covenant: if Israel will do thus and such, the blessings will follow.) The Davidic covenant was also unconditional, a paradigm for anyone who is a king or priest. In the last days, when the servant comes forth, the Lord has all these covenants He has to respond to.

Returning to the notion of proxies discussed in previous weeks, Lot was saved for Abraham's sake, and Lot's daughters were saved for Lot's sake. Hezekiah interceded in behalf of all the people in Jerusalem in his day. Alma's prayer in behalf of Alma the younger is answered because of covenants already made to Alma the elder. That is why some equally as earnest parental prayers are not immediately answered with the appearance of an angel to the wayward child. It all has to do with covenants and associated promises.

All that the Lord does is because of covenants the Lord has made in the past, including in premortality. Each person has an individualized path laid out for him or her. All terms of covenants that God has made will be met. Our lives are patterns, foreshadowed. We need to accomplish what the Lord wants us to do—only God knows the ins and outs of these things, we cannot judge, but all happens within the context of covenant relationships.

3 He said to me, You are my servant,
Israel, in whom I will be glorified.

The servant is a parallel with the Jacob scenario: his name was changed to Israel after he wrestled with an angel and saw the face of God. Jacob, being given a new name, was raised to the next level, to a higher spiritual state, where he received a greater spiritual inheritance and a higher commission.

"Servant" denotes a vassal relationship (the emperor-vassal relationship). "Son" also terms a vassal relationship. "Israel," as used in this verse, is probably a code name. We do not know what the servant's new name is. "Israel" can also refer to God's servants collectively.

All of us can glorify God by fulfilling our calling here on the earth.

4 I had thought, I have labored in vain,
I have spent my strength for nothing
and to no purpose!
Yet my cause rested with the Lord,
my recompense with my God.

The servant had few or seemingly no results, ye he still had faith in the Lord.

5 For now the Lord has said—
he who formed me from the womb
to be his servant, to restore Jacob to him,
Israel having been gathered to him;
for I won honor in the eyes of the Lord
when my God became my strength—

The phrase "from the womb" in Hebrew has the sense of "before the womb," this notion again of premortal existence and appointment.

The servant's mission is to what? To restore Jacob. "Restore" is a key word. We speak of the restoration of all things.

Jacob/Israel represent a telestial level, but there is a difference between Jacob and Israel (some on the right hand, some on the left hand). Zion/Jerusalem represent a higher spiritual level, a terrestrial level.

"Israel having been gathered to him": the Latter-day Saints have been gathered. Isaiah is here using "Israel" as a spiritual level.

Nephi, the son of Helaman, is an example in the Book of Mormon of "God became my strength." He attained to the power of Elijah and was given the sealing power.

6 he said: It is too small a thing
for you to be my servant
to raise up the tribes of Jacob
and to restore those preserved of Israel.
I will also appoint you to be a light to the nations [or to the gentiles],
that my salvation may be to the end of the earth.

The servant's mission is not just to Jacob and Israel but to all the nations, to the end of the earth. The scattering of Israel was all a part of God's plan to bring salvation to all in the latter days because the seed of Israel is scattered among all nations, and thus the Lord's covenants previously made can reach out to embrace people among all nations.

The servant is to be a light to the nations that the Lord's salvation may be to the end of the earth. There are two lights: the Lord is a light, and the servant is a light, a greater light and a lesser light. The servant is like the dawning, the early morning, the beginning of the Millennium. He prepares for the coming of the greater light, the full blaze of the sun, who is the Son, the Lord Himself.

Isaiah class 2

2009-10-18T21:34:00.006-06:00

Thoughts from the second of ten classes, Thursday, October 15, 2009

In this week's class we spent the entire two hours reading and discussing a single chapter of Isaiah, chapter 48, the first of many quoted by Nephi in the Book of Mormon (see 1 Nephi 20). With only eight sessions remaining, it is clear we will not cover many of the 66 chapters in the book of Isaiah.

Although Avraham Gileadi led an interesting, stimulating discussion, it was challenging for Michael and me to take detailed notes while trying to keep up with what he was saying. There were moments when I did not even try. There was a lot more class discussion this week, a lot of questions about what we were reading or what Avraham was teaching, and some of the time we were clearly sidetracked on tangents. Compounding the problem was his reading from his translation of Isaiah while I was trying to follow along in my King James Bible. The sense was clearly similar, but the wording differed significantly between the two versions. (My take on the two, after further reflection, is that the King James translation is far more poetic, while the Gileadi translation from Hebrew is actually easier to understand in contemporary English.)

Throughout the rest of this report, whenever I quote from Isaiah, I quote from the Gileadi translation and show it in italics. There were comments at pretty much each verse we read from this chapter, but I did not take notes in each case.

1 Hear this, O house of Jacob,

you who are named Israel--

though you stem from the lineage of Judah--

who take oaths in the name of the Lord

and invoke the God of Israel,

though not in truth or in righteousness,

The following chapter of Isaiah, chapter 49, begins with similar invocation, except in that chapter it is: "Hear me, O isles; listen, you distant peoples." The translation of that verse in the Book of Mormon adds a preface to that invitation to those upon the isles and in distant places: "And again, Hearken, O ye house of Israel, all ye that are broken off and are driven out because of the wickedness of the pastors of my people; yea, all ye that are broken off, that are scattered abroad, who are of my people, O house of Israel" (1 Nephi 21:1).

The reference to "the pastors of my people" is reminiscent of both Ezekiel and Jeremiah, who refer to the pastors as shepherds.

In other chapters, Isaiah refers to the Lord raising up "righteousness from the east" (Isaiah 41:2; or "the righteous man from the east" in the King James Version). This is the Lord's latter-day servant, a person who is perfect on the seraph level, who keeps all the commandments required for that level. He exemplifies righteousness on the level of translated beings. In other places, the same person is referred to as "a bird of prey from the east, from a distant land the man who performs my counsel" (Isaiah 46:11; or "a ravenous bird from the east, the man that executeth my counsel from a far country" in the King James Version). John the Apostle refers to the same person as the "angel ascending from the east" (Revelation 7:2; see also D&C 77:9).

This righteousness (or righteous servant) prepares a righteous people who can be ready to receive the Lord. The Redeemer, on the other hand, is referred to as Salvation (see Isaiah 62:11).

2 who call yourselves of the holy city,

upheld by the God of Israel,

whose name is the Lord of Hosts:

3 The prophecies of the events of the past

I made known long beforehand;

no sooner did they issue from my mouth,

than I caused them to be announced.

Then, suddenly, I acted and they came about.

How does the Lord tell the end from the beginning? Well, he tells it through prophets ("the prophecies of the events of the past . . . made known long beforehand"). But it is because He orchestrates the end from the beginning. Ancient history becomes an allegory of the last days. Isaiah, Nephi, and numerous other prophets use a selective selection of events from the past to foretell the future. (See, for example, the comment about Moses and the yet-to-occur latter-day exodus back to Jackson County, Missouri, that appears following verse 21 below.)

Everything that happens in the latter days is a shadow of what happened in the past.

The previous Saturday evening Avraham Gileadi had held a public Feast of the Tabernacles celebration, which apparently many in the class had participated in. He said that it is good to be familiar with what that and other ancient feasts teach us because the events, or similar events, will occur again. History is going to repeat itself. We need to be wholly familiar with the prophetic milieu.

4 For I knew how stubborn you were--

your neck was an iron sinew, your brow brazen--

5 therefore I told you them beforehand;

I announced them to you before they transpired,

lest you should say, My idols did it;

my graven and wrought images caused it!

We are so full of pride. We do not realize how nothing we are in God's sight. We put a lot of stock in "our idols," the technology and images and toys that define our modern world, that keep us tightly tethered to Babylon.

6 But you have heard 'the whole vision';

how is it you do not proclaim it?

Yet as of now, I announce to you new things,

things withheld and unknown to you,

Where is "the whole vision," the seeing of the end from the beginning, recorded? Well, in a couple of places that we know of: in the book of Isaiah and the in the book of Revelation. But it is all in code. We have to search it out, diligently, like learning a new language. It won't come with casual or cursory reading.

And there are other places, not currently available to us, where the end from the beginning is written, as Nephi reminds us: "And also others who have been, to them hath he shown all things, and they have written them; and they are sealed up to come forth in their purity, according to the truth which is in the Lamb, in the own due time of the Lord, unto the house of Israel" (1 Nephi 14:26).

7 things now coming into being, not hitherto,

things you have not heard of before,

lest you should say, Indeed I knew them!

And why does He spring these new things on us? Individually to try us, test us, and prove us. And collectively, to cause a division among the people.

8 You have not heard them,

nor have you known them;

before this your ears have not been open to them.

For I knew you would turn treacherous;

you were called a transgressor from the womb.

9 For my own name's sake I have bridled my wrath;

on account of my renown

I have shown restraint toward you

by not entirely destroying you.

Isaiah here refers to the occasion, which we mentioned last week, when the Lord God Jehovah wanted to destroy the children of Israel and make of Moses a great nation (see Exodus 32:7–14). Moses on this occasion stood as a mediator between God and rebellious Israel. He served a proxy role, the clue being the reference to "my own name's sake."

10 See, I am refining you, though not as silver;

I am testing you in the crucible of affliction.

Again the notion of trying, testing, proving. Seeing what we are made of. Refining us, etc. And it seems to happen best, or perhaps only, through affliction.

11 For my own sake, on my own account, I do it,

that my name be not dishonored,

nor my glory, which I give to no other.

12 Hear me, O Jacob, and Israel, my elect:

I am he who was at the first,

and I am he who is at the last.

The Lord God Jehovah is the same member of the Godhead that we know as Jesus Christ, the Savior, the Redeemer, Alpha and Omega, the first and the last (see Revelation 1:11, 17).

13 It was my hand that founded the earth,

my right hand that stretched out the heavens;

when I call them, they arise at once.

Scriptural references to the Lord's hand (in verse 13) or to His arm (in verse 14) refer to those who help Him, those who are His servants. When the Lord was creating the earth, we were surely there helping out, because that is the way He does things. What flower or plant might we have designed?

14 All of you, assemble and hear:

Who among you foretold these things?

It is him the Lord loves,

who shall perform his will in Babylon;

his arm shall be against the Chaldeans.

15 I myself have spoke it, and also called him;

I have brought him, and I will prosper his way.

16 Come near me and hear this:

I have not made predictions in secret;

at their coming to pass, I have been present.

Now my Lord the Lord has sent me;

his Spirit is in me.

17 Thus says the Lord, the Holy One of Israel,

your Redeemer:

I the Lord your God instruct you to your good,

guiding you in the way you should go.

18 Had you but obeyed my commandments,

your peace would have been as a river,

your righteousness like the waves of the sea;

Unconditional covenants start at the celestial level. Covenants at every level below that are conditional covenants.

19 your offspring would have been

as the sands in numbers,

your descendants as many as their grains.

Their names would not have been cut off

and obliterated from my presence.

The promise of posterity was the first covenant blessing. A lack of posterity was a covenant curse.

20 Go forth out of Babylon, flee from Chaldea!

Make this announcement with resounding voice;

broadcast it to the end of the earth.

Say, The Lord has redeemed his servant Jacob.

21 They thirsted not when he led them through arid places;

he caused water to flow for them from the rock;

he cleaved the rock and water gushed out.

Although Isaiah is speaking of the latter-day going forth out of Babylon, of our exodus out of the world, of the redemption of Zion, he holds up Moses as a type and refers to events from the exodus out of Egypt. Moses is a type. The latter-day servant of the Lord is like unto Moses.

Through the Prophet Joseph Smith, the Lord revealed concerning the latter-day redemption of Zion, an event yet future to us, "Behold, I way unto you, the redemption of Zion must needs come by power;

"Therefore, I will raise up unto my people a man, who shall lead them like as Moses led the children of Israel. . . .

"And as your fathers were led at the first, even so shall the redemption of Zion be" (D&C 103:15-16, 18).

22 But there is no peace, says the Lord,

for the wicked.

Reminiscent of Alma's teaching to his son Corianton in the Book of Mormon: "Wickedness never was happiness" (Alma 41:10).

The rest of my notes undoubtedly refer to thoughts Brother Gileadi expressed in response to questions that were raised, or tangents we were on, and do not fit neatly under any of the verses from chapter 48 quoted above:

Concerning the notion of individuals serving as types, an idea we explored the previous week, Cyrus serves as a type. He was the Persian conqueror of Babylon. David, Moses, and Enoch are also types.

One of things Enoch did was to get his people up to the level of the elect. Enoch did it, and Melchizedek did it. David, unfortunately, did not attain to that level. His sin against Uriah and his wife caused him to fall from his exaltation (see D&C 136:39).

The Prophet Joseph Smith taught, "A murderer, for instance, one that sheds innocent blood, cannot have forgiveness. David sought repentance at the hand of God carefully with tears, for the murder of Uriah; but he could only get it through hell: he got a promise that his soul should not be left in hell.

"Although David was a king, he never did obtain the spirit and power of Elijah and the fullness of the Priesthood; and the Priesthood that he received, and the throne and kingdom of David is to be taken from him and given to another by the name of David in the last days, raised up out of his lineage" (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 339).

The Prophet Joseph Smith continued receiving revelations throughout his entire life because he had an open mind and always wanted to know more. Joseph cautioned us not to set up bounds and stakes (or limits) to what the Almighty can do or can teach us. When we do that, we damn ourselves. We stop our own progress.

Real numbers are important in the Lord's scheme of things. Numbers such as three, seven, twelve, twenty-four, etc. often have particular significance. Fourteen is the numerical value of the name "David" in Hebrew. "So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David until the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen generations; and from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are fourteen generations" (Matthew 1:17).

Isaiah class 1

2009-10-12T18:00:00.005-06:00

Thoughts from the first of ten classes, Thursday, October 8, 2009

Somewhere about 45 minutes into our class, the teacher looked up at the clock, and it was already five minutes after nine. Time to quit. And we had actually been at it for two hours, since seven o'clock.

Based on this first session last Thursday, this is going to be a good class that my oldest son, Michael, and I are taking in Provo every Thursday night over the next few months. We paid $90 apiece to go hear Avraham Gileadi, a religious historian and Hebrew scholar, who also happens to be a Mormon, teach a ten-week course on Isaiah.

What follows in this blog post is my attempt, from the meager notes I took, to make sense of what he was teaching and what I was learning. I am fulfilling requests from at least two of my daughters who live in opposite corners of the country. Eliza asked from Atlanta, "Are you going to blog everything you learn?" And Camilla added from Everett, "I like Eliza's idea. Best way to learn something is to teach it!"

The book of Isaiah holds the key to reconcile the Old and New Testaments. If you had a great tapestry of all the scriptures, Isaiah would be at the center.

The Ben Asher Codex, dating from about 800 A.D., is the earliest, best manuscript of Isaiah that exists. (There is an Isaiah manuscript among the Dead Sea Scrolls, dating from approximately 200 A.D., which is some 600 years earlier, but it is somewhat corrupted.) "The plain and precious parts" and "the covenants of the Lord" were both lost when the text passed through the gentiles.

The Book of Mormon throws a lot of light on Isaiah and bridges a lot of gaps between the Old and New Testaments. Hebrew literary structures, such as chiasmus, are very prevalent in the Book of Mormon, which was one of the things that intrigued Avraham, when he first read it in Israel as he was converting from Catholicism to Mormonism.

Isaiah was one of those who saw the end from the beginning. We are aware of some other prophets who did also, such as Moses, Nephi, the brother of Jared, John the Revelator, and Joseph Smith.

Studying Isaiah is like learning a new language. It takes two years of diligent study to become fluent, for the book to become plain. Two things, according to Nephi, help us to understand Isaiah: the spirit of prophecy (see 2 Nephi 25:4) and the manner of the Jews (see 2 Nephi 25:1–2, 5–6). Searching diligently is a necessity. In fact, other than general commands to study the scriptures, Isaiah is the only one the Savior singled out by name as a prophet we are to study (see, for example, 3 Nephi 20:11 and 3 Nephi 23:1).

After such introductory discussion as above, we spent much of the two hours reading from and discussing three chapters of 1 Nephi in the Book of Mormon: chapter 14 (which is "a very informative chapter"), chapter 20 (in which Nephi quotes Isaiah chapter 48), and chapter 21 (in which he quotes Isaiah chapter 49).

What exactly is the "great and marvelous work" that Nephi refers to in 1 Nephi 14:7? We have to put together all the pieces of the puzzle—from different places in the scriptures. For example, Nephi speaks of the church of the devil, which is the great and abominable church, the mother of abominations, the whore of all the earth. Isaiah equates all of this with Babylon.

It is good to have a clear idea about what the various labels used (such as Zion, Israel, Babylon, etc.) actually mean. It is also important to know who you are so you can understand and properly fulfill your role.

Near the end of chapter 14, remembering that both Nephi and John had seen the end from the beginning, Nephi says that he was stopped from writing more, that he cannot tell us what John will later write, that John is commissioned to reveal the final part of the story (see 1 Nephi 14:19–28). So, Nephi spends the next five chapters finishing his journey narrative, telling of Lehi's people leaving their homeland and traveling to the promised land. He then quotes Isaiah 48 and 49, which also constitutes a journey narrative out of Babylon. Nephi knows full well that Isaiah saw the whole thing too, so why not quote someone else who is already published to tell more of the ending of the story. John won't be published for another 600 years or so.

Israel's latter-day restoration is a theme of everything Nephi quotes from Isaiah. Indeed, that theme is a preoccupation of all Book of Mormon writers.

Brother Gileadi referred to, but did not particularly elaborate on (or at least I did not take notes on), the Abrahamic covenant, the Sinai covenant, and the Davidic covenant, except to say that each of these covenants were permanent and would continue to the end of time. We speak a lot in the Church concerning the Abrahamic covenant, less so about the other two.

I suspect the Sinai covenant has to do with what is related in the book of Exodus, wherein the Lord says: "Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people. And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and an holy nation" (Exodus 19:5–6). And a little later when He says: "And I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will be their God. And they shall know that I am the Lord their God, that brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, that I may dwell among them: I am the Lord their God" (Exodus 29:45–46).

In relation to the Davidic covenant, a proxy role is involved. David stood in for his people. Well, I guess Moses did too when he interceded with the Lord in their behalf when Jehovah wanted to destroy the children of Israel and make of Moses a great nation (see Exodus 32:7–14). Moses on this occasion stood as a mediator between God and rebellious Israel.

I hope in future classes we explore this path (the notion of proxy roles) further. Just as class was ending, Brother Gileadi observed that whenever we encounter the word "sake," such as occurs in 1 Nephi 20:9, a proxy role is involved. And then he noticed the time was gone, and the class ended, and nothing more was said.

No holier place

2009-10-10T18:03:00.015-06:00

Thursday at work it was my turn to give the spiritual thought in our Executive Directors' meeting. I mentioned that I had recently been called to teach gospel doctrine in our ward and that this Sunday I was teaching a lesson on the 1856 rescue of the Willie and Martin handcart companies. I shared a couple of scriptures and this bit of testimony from a man who had crossed the plains with the Martin handcart company:

"One day he was in a group of people who began sharply criticizing the Church leaders for ever allowing the Saints to cross the plains with no more supplies or protection than a handcart company provided. The old man listened until he could stand it no more; then he arose and said with great emotion:

"'I was in that company and my wife was in it. . . . We suffered beyond anything you can imagine and many died of exposure and starvation, but did you ever hear a survivor of that company utter a word of criticism? . . . [We] came through with the absolute knowledge that God lives for we became acquainted with him in our extremities.

"'I have pulled my handcart when I was so weak and weary from illness and lack of food that I could hardly put one foot ahead of the other. I have looked ahead and seen a patch of sand or a hill slope and I have said, I can go only that far and there I must give up, for I cannot pull the load through it. . . . I have gone on to that sand and when I reached it, the cart began pushing me. I have looked back many times to see who was pushing my cart, but my eyes saw no one. I knew then that the angels of God were there.

"'Was I sorry that I chose to come by handcart? No. Neither then nor any minute of my life since. The price we paid to become acquainted with God was a privilege to pay, and I am thankful that I was privileged to come in the Martin Handcart Company'" (quoted in Our Heritage: A Brief History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints [1996], 78).

At the conclusion of my thought, Elder Richard G. Hinckley shared an experience from his family that he said I was free to use, if I wanted, in my lesson Sunday. A few years ago his father, President Gordon B. Hinckley, took all of his family, his children and their children, to the area along the Sweetwater River in south central Wyoming known as Martin's Cove, where the handcart pioneers sought refuge from the early winter storms that descended upon them. As they were walking along the trail, the Prophet stopped and talked to them about what had happened here.

"You have all been in holy places," President Hinckley said in essence, "some of you in the Holy Land, all of you in temples." And then with some emotion he added that they would never stand in any holier place than here.

Claudia and I and some of our children have been to these same sites on the wind-swept highlands of Wyoming, where the handcart pioneers became acquainted with God in their extremities and where a prophet-directed rescue took place. And I feel the same as President Hinckley. It is a holy place.

Across four time zones

2009-10-03T08:37:00.004-06:00

I read something in a supplement to this morning's paper that caught my attention. "Apparently," it said, "one of the inescapable rules of life is that children won't stay put" (Roger Aylworth, in Mormon Times, Oct. 3, 2009, 8). It's true when they're little. And it's true when they're grown up and start moving all about the country.

Our family is now spread across all four time zones of the lower 48 states. A daughter and her family live in Georgia (in the eastern time zone), where our son-in-law is in his second year of pharmacy school. Another daughter and her family live in southern Illinois (in the central time zone), where our son-in-law has become the head of the emergency room in the hospital of his boyhood home town. Five of our children, together with their families, still live near us in Utah (mountain time zone), where they keep busy with the routines of daily living. And a daughter and her family live in Washington (Pacific time zone), where they own and operate a Great Harvest bakery.

No one lives in Alaska or Hawaii yet, although our oldest daughter and her family are leaving in a couple weeks to go visit Hawaii. They have gone there every fall for the past several years to attend a conference on the island of Maui. This past weekend, when I mentioned my plan to go with them next year, they advised me that this year was their last time to go off to that tropical paradise. Bummer. And I've never been to Hawaii. Others of my children have. And some of my grandchildren.

Hawaii is one of four remaining states I have yet to visit, along with Alaska, Wisconsin, and Maine. So, with those four states still to visit—along with children living in Georgia, Illinois, and Washington—there are still some good road trips out there beckoning to me.

The birth of our eighth child

2009-10-01T08:31:00.002-06:00

Twenty-five years ago today I made a simple, one-sentence entry in my journal: "Our eighth child and sixth daughter was born today." No other details or explanations.

"Since the birth of our eighth child," I observed two weeks later, "I have thought a lot about the importance of names. Interestingly, for the first time in our career as parents, we didn't have a name ready for this new little one, so she was named by committee."

A couple more weeks beyond that—on the next fast Sunday, November 4, 1984—I elaborated a little in the father's blessing I gave her: "Mary Elizabeth, you have recently been in the presence of our Father in heaven and now come very welcomed into your family and help to fulfill that scriptural teaching that children are an heritage of the Lord and happy is that man or woman who has his quiver full of them.

"You have been given two special and sacred names: Mary, after that handmaiden who was described as highly favored of the Lord, who had the great and unique privilege of bearing and rearing and teaching and nurturing the very Son of the Most High God; and Elizabeth, after her cousin who, in her advanced age, was privileged to bear and rear and teach and nurture that prophet who prepared the way before the Lord and whom the Master Himself declared there was no greater born among women. These women were good and were full of faith and kept the commandments of God and are saved with an everlasting salvation in His kingdom. You are given their names that you might remember them, and in remembering them be like them: that you too may be good and full of faith and keep the commandments and be saved in the celestial kingdom of God."

Fortunately, the historical record is not entirely silent on Mary's arrival into this world. I published at the time a quarterly newsletter for the descendants and relatives of John Marvin Lange and Barbara Jean Fraughton entitled Die Lange Zeit. The Family Bulletin Board in that fall 1984 issue reported:

"Mary Elizabeth Cleverly, Dean and Claudia's eighth child and sixth daughter, was born at 10:37 on Monday morning, October 1, in Bountiful's Lakeview Hospital. She weighed in at 7 pounds 1 ounce, was 19 1/2 inches long, and had lots of dark hair. She is Grandma and Grandpa's eleventh grandchild and ninth granddaughter.

"Claudia had gone to the hospital that morning by appointment to have the baby induced. Though she feared the labor would be longer and harder, it only took a little over an hour and a half.

"Mother and baby came home on Wednesday, October 3, to greet all the eagerly awaiting older brothers and sisters. Grandma and Grandpa had generously come from California to help out for a week and were able to stay until Mary Elizabeth's first week birthday the following Monday, October 8. Their timely assistance was much appreciated."

The writer's almanac

2009-09-28T21:26:00.003-06:00

This evening I happened across a delightful little site on the Internet entitled The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor. Yes, the same Garrison Keillor of Prairie Home Companion fame.

According to Wikipedia, "The Writer's Almanac is a daily radio and on-line program and podcast of poetry and historical interest pieces, usually of literary significance. It is hosted by Garrison Keillor and is produced and distributed by American Public Media. Program sponsors include, among others, The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry Magazine and The Mosaic Foundation of Rita and Peter Heydon.

"Each program is five minutes long and begins with the phrase 'And here is the Writer's Almanac. . . .' Each daily program includes vignettes about authors and other noteworthy people whose birthdays coincide with the date of the particular program, as well as excerpts of important events in history. The program continues with one or more poems usually chosen by Keillor, and ends with Keillor's traditional sign-off, 'Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.'"

Not bad counsel: Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.

The birth of our first child

2009-09-02T07:00:00.000-06:00

This is my 100th post on Interstate 50 since I first began blogging back on Christmas Day 2005. This post chronicles the arrival of our firstborn child.

September 2, 1973, was a fast Sunday. We had been to church on campus, where I served as a counselor in the presidency of a BYU branch. Fall was beginning, students were returning to school, it was the first Sunday of the new school year, it was a holiday weekend, and we were about to become parents. It was an exciting time.

Claudia was eight months along, expecting our first child on October 5, and everything seemed to be progressing as it should. She looked cute being so very pregnant. Two weeks earlier—on Friday, August 17—she had graduated cum laude from Brigham Young University with a bachelor's degree in elementary education. Following her graduation, we rode back to California as her parents' guests for a week at Laguna Beach. Our apartment there perched on top of a cliff overlooking the vastness of the mighty ocean.

But now we were back in Utah and looking forward to a new school year. We were both out of school, but our ties to the university continued through my employment on campus and through our associations in the branch. Just the day before, on Saturday, I had completed and mailed the first issue of the Cleverly Newsletter, a quarterly newsletter for my parents' family that I would continue to publish over the coming decades in quarterly, monthly, even weekly formats.

Sunday afternoon we were home from church, and Claudia had prepared our Sunday dinner. We sat down to eat around four o'clock in the afternoon. I noticed her squirming in her chair and asked what the problem was.

"Oh, just constipation," she replied. A bit later she was feeling worse and called her doctor.

His first question was, "Are you in labor?"

"Of course not. I'm not due for another month." From the way she described how she was feeling he couldn't tell what was wrong.

"Maybe it is constipation," he concluded. He prescribed some medicine, but before we could even think about finding a drug store that was open, she was feeling so bad that I called the doctor again. He told me to take her straight to the hospital and he would meet us there. We drove over to the hospital in Marshmallow, our little white Volkswagen. It was only a few blocks from where we lived.

At 5:17 Claudia was wheeled into the labor room with contractions at eighty seconds. Not bad for not knowing she was having contractions. I was sent down to admit her to the hospital, and when I returned she was in the delivery room having a baby. I was allowed to be with her, even though we'd had only three of the six required prenatal classes.

Our son was born at 6:30 in the evening. Michael Adam was seventeen and a half inches, six pounds seven ounces. A month and three days early. Claudia's labor had been extremely short—two and a half hours from start to finish.

The instant the doctor laid the baby on her stomach, Claudia said, "Let's do it again!"

For a few hours I was allowed to stay with her in the recovery room. There was little sleep for either of us that night.

Nineteen years later, as Michael was preparing to leave for his mission to Brazil, I spoke in his missionary farewell of that first night: "Nineteen years ago . . . Claudia lay in a hospital bed in Provo with her firstborn son in her arms, just hours old, counting his fingers and toes, as I suppose new mothers do, but even more importantly thinking ahead, among other things, to this very day. She was planning in her mind the future course of his life, envisioning his serving a mission, looking forward with an eye of faith. And so what does she spend the next nineteen years doing? The kinds of things the Lord's prophets have told parents to do to get their sons ready and worthy to serve missions. She has acted in faith, seeing with her eyes the things which she had beheld with the eye of faith."

The next day was Labor Day, even though Claudia had done her laboring on the Sabbath day. On Tuesday her mom flew in from southern California to help out for a week and a half. Our new little son was the Langes' first grandchild. Claudia and Michael Adam came home from the hospital on Wednesday.

My recent medical journey

2009-08-26T14:30:00.005-06:00

Nearly two weeks ago—on Friday morning, August 14—I went for my twice-a-year visit with my rheumatologist. Normally our conversation goes something like this:

Doctor: "How have you been doing?"
Me: "Pretty much about the same. Nothing new to report."
Doctor: "That's great. See you again in six months."

Now, that's a bit oversimplified, I'll admit, but it pretty much summarizes the extent of our semiannual visits over the past few years. I have been very fortunate that my autoimmune disorder has been a relatively mild version of scleroderma—primarily affecting my hands and feet, my esophagus, and my lungs—and has not been progressing significantly since it was first diagnosed in the early 1990s.

This time I decided to lay out everything I've been dealing with lately, whether or not the symptoms seemed to have any bearing on the disorder he's been seeing me for. I discussed with him the three main symptoms I've been dealing with lately: extremely painful feet, a sensation that I'm having a difficult time breathing coupled with a lingering pressure or tightness in my chest, and the episode of gout I experienced the previous week in Illinois.

He focused mostly on the breathing issue and said it could be heart disease (which in my case is most likely), pulmonary hypertension, or lung disease. He called my cardiologist's office and arranged a heart echo and then the lung center and arranged pulmonary function tests.

On Monday of this week I went for the echocardiogram and the pulmonary function tests. A part of the lung tests was an update on my diffusion capacity, a measure of how well gases are passing from the air sacs of the lungs into the bloodstream. The technician who performed the latter test told me that my lung diffusion capacity had decreased to 40 percent, down from the 46 percent the previous time it was tested. By way of perspective, it has hovered around 50 percent over the past decade or so.

After the tests on Monday, I returned to work for the rest of the day, exercised at the gym with my trainer, and in the evening went with Claudia to "Lucky Stiff," a play at Rodgers Memorial Theatre. Near the end of the play, without any prior warning, I blanked out for perhaps a few seconds, we're not sure how long, although enough for Claudia to notice there in the dark theater. She wondered if I had fallen asleep. I felt terrible as the play ended, so she drove us home. As we were returning home and after we were home, I had the sensation that I needed to throw up, although I cannot technically do that because of surgery I had many years ago to repair a hiatal hernia. But my body kept trying to throw up. A most unpleasant feeling.

On Tuesday morning I went to visit my cardiologist. I still felt crappy from whatever was going on the night before, so I decided not to go to work at all that day. The doctor reviewed with me the test results from the previous day. I do not have pulmonary hypertension, which is good news, but he did confirm the 40 percent diffusion capacity rate. I had been doing some research on pulmonary hypertension, ever since my rheumatologist mentioned it as a possibility, and I am glad, quite frankly, not to be going down that road.

My cardiologist then decided to interrogate the heart monitor that was implanted in my chest a little over a year ago. The previous evening, along about 9:13, which would have been when I passed out at the theater, my heart quit beating for a full 15 seconds. Several episodes since that one showed my heart skipping beats for 3 to 5 seconds at a time. That is a new concern. He hooked me up to an external Holter monitor that I was to wear for the next 24 hours and to record any unusual symptoms.

I returned the Holter monitor midday Wednesday. I was feeling a lot better, pretty much back to normal, but had also taken the day as sick leave from work. A week from Friday I go back to see my cardiologist, and I guess we will talk about what happens next. I may now need to have a pace maker implanted. Stay tuned for further developments.

And through all this, the bottoms of my feet still hurt.

The birth of our second child

2009-08-26T12:55:00.001-06:00

In honor of Rebecca's birth more than a third of a century ago, we share this account of her arrival in 1974. Happy birthday, Becca!

In late July 1974, the day after I had a wisdom tooth pulled, Claudia's parents came from southern California to visit us in Provo. Her father came to attend the ninth annual priesthood genealogy seminar at BYU. But the real reason was that their only grandchild, Michael Adam, happened to live at our house. Claudia was great with child. We were not venturing far from home, not knowing whether our second child, like the first, might come five weeks earlier than expected.

At her weekly doctor visit, about three weeks before the August 19 due date, the doctor told Claudia the baby could come at any time. Based on that comment and our experience the previous fall when Michael Adam was born, Claudia's mother decided to stay for the birth of the baby. Her father drove home. He had to return to work.

And so we all waited. And waited. And waited. August 19 came and still no baby. We tried all the old tricks—taking castor oil, driving across railroad tracks—none of them worked. Claudia's dad, alone in California, was probably tiring of peanut butter sandwiches every day.

On Sunday evening, August 25, we went to church in the campus branch where I was serving as a counselor in the branch presidency. I was conducting sacrament meeting. As part of the service, we were inviting members from the congregation to speak impromptu. I called on Claudia, and she came forward and started by saying she thought I had done it just to get the baby coming. Unknown to me then, she was already feeling slight contractions. She shared a beautiful experience from her semester in Europe when her group held a sacrament service on the beaches of Thessalonica, Greece, on the Sunday of April conference.

Anyway, back at home after the meeting, Claudia let us know she thought she was finally having a baby. That was good news to her mother, who by now was anxious to return home after four weeks at our house.

We walked around the block—Claudia, Michael Adam, and me—and then she came home to take a hot bath. I guess the walking and the bath help it along. We started timing contractions at four minutes, but soon they were only two minutes apart, lasting about 30–40 seconds each. Then sometime around 10:15 at night we went to the hospital.

We had pretty much concluded that this second baby would also be a boy. This was in the day before ultrasounds were used to give parents advance notice of what flavor was coming. After a not too difficult labor, Rebecca was born at 2:24 in the morning of Monday, August 26, exactly one week short of her older brother's first birthday. She weighed in at seven pounds fifteen ounces—almost eight pounds—and was twenty inches long.

I wrote in my journal: "Our first daughter and second child was born this morning at 2:24. She is healthy and her wonderful mother—my beloved Claudja—pulled through it all in fine form. The experience of having a child born, and being there to see it happen, always arrests my thoughts and arouses deep emotions that I cannot express. Once again, life seems a miracle so sacred, so divine that I'm amazed that our loving Father so freely shared its powers with us, especially as we see its abuse all around.

"Rebecca comes very welcomed into our home. Just as surely as Michael Adam came to us a week short of a year ago, her coming was also planned and prayed for this time."

With the doctor's having said three weeks before the due date that the baby could come at any moment, and then Claudia's going a full week after the due date, she felt like she had had a ten-month pregnancy. Her poor mother had had to wait six weeks before she could return home to California after Rebecca was born and established.

The birth of our third child

2009-08-07T09:00:00.003-06:00

In honor of Rachael's birth more than a third of a century ago, we share this account of her arrival in 1975. Happy birthday, Rachael!

Nearly a month short of Michael's second birthday and a few weeks short of Rebecca's first birthday, our third child and second daughter was born in Provo's Utah Valley Hospital. Rachael arrived at noon on Thursday, August 7, 1975. She was a big one—7 pounds 15 ounces, almost eight pounds. She was 20 inches long.

"All is well with Claudia and the baby," I wrote the next day in my journal. "Since I returned to work today, Claudia was not expecting me to visit during the afternoon visiting hours. But I took off work and surprised her. She was so happy."

On Saturday evening, August 9, we went to the Dixon family reunion in the Payson Park. Even though she wasn't there, Claudia was the talk of the reunion for having just had a baby. We'd had two since the previous year's reunion. At that reunion, Rebecca hadn't been born yet.

"Claudia and Rachael came home from the hospital today," I wrote on Sunday, August 10. Home was a little brick house on 300 West in Provo, where we occupied the main floor and rented the basement level to four single college students. "Michael Adam seemed pleased; Rebecca less so, which surprised me. I thought she'd be too little to even know what was going on. It is good to have Claudia back."

Claudia's parents were visiting from southern California, her mom to help out with the new baby. Or, more accurately, to help out with not-quite-two-year-old Michael and not-quite-one-year-old Rebecca.

On Monday I had gone to work in Salt Lake City. Late that afternoon, August 11, a brief thunderstorm hit Provo and moved north along the Wasatch Front. Claudia was sitting in our front room nursing four-day-old Rachael. Michael Adam was next to her patting the baby. Rebecca was on her way to the kitchen looking for her grandma, who was putting clothes into the dryer. That's when the lightning struck a tree overhanging our driveway, only ten feet from where Claudia was sitting. It sounded like a tremendous explosion. The sound was deafening. In the kitchen the dryer and stove sizzled before the power went out.

When I arrived home from work, there was evidence of shattered tree all over our driveway. For about three days, until the huge tree was completely removed, we had the most popular tree in the neighborhood.

Meeting the neighbors

2009-07-27T13:50:00.004-06:00

Our daughter who lives in Georgia is in the process of moving to a new apartment, one that is far closer to where her husband goes to pharmacy school. I think she would not mind my sharing this post from her private blog:

Our new neighbor Terry came over to introduce herself and this was how our conversation began . . .

Terry: "Are you Roman Catholic because you have a lot of children?"

Me: "Actually I'm a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints."

Terry: Blank stare

Me: "Sometimes people call us 'Mormons.'"

Terry: "Oooh, so does your husband have more than one wife?"

Me: "Nope, he's stuck with just me."

Did we mention that our daughter and her husband have two children? Apparently in some circles that is "a lot of children."

Change of address

2009-07-25T19:34:00.008-06:00

Keith J. Beazer used to live in the house we now live in. He moved four years before we bought the home. And we have lived here going on 32 years.

Periodically, a couple times a year, we still get mail addressed to him at our address. Always from the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. Because they've had to do with insurance, I always hand delivered the unopened envelopes to his married daughter who works at the same place I do. I naively assumed that the family at some point would change the address or otherwise put a stop to the letters coming our way.

Another one came today, a postcard notifying Keith of a class action suit for something that occurred in the year 2000. Did I happen to mention that Keith Beazer died something like 20 years ago? Or more?

And his life insurance company doesn't even seem to know about it. Scary.

One small step for a man

2009-07-20T06:00:00.001-06:00

Forty years ago today—on July 20, 1969—man first stepped onto the moon.

Three astronauts were a part of the Apollo 11 mission to the moon: Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins. Armstrong was the first to set foot on the moon. Aldrin was second. As Armstrong stepped onto the surface of the moon, he uttered the words, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." After a couple hours on the lunar surface, the two rejoined their third companion, who had been orbiting above in the spacecraft. And then they returned home to earth.

It had been a mere 66 years since Orville Wright flew the first powered airplane at a wind-swept beach at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, on December 17, 1903. The first flight lasted only 12 seconds and covered 120 feet. Three more flights were made that day with Orville's brother Wilbur piloting a flight that lasted 59 seconds and covered 852 feet. Americans consider the Wright brothers the fathers of aviation.

Brazilians, those dear people among whom I served my mission, consider one of their own countrymen as the father of aviation. Santos Dumont [Alberto Santos Dumont, 1873–1932, born in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais] designed, built, and flew the first controllable airship, a small blimp, around the Eiffel Tower in Paris on October 19, 1901. Five years later, on October 23, 1906, he flew a fixed-wing airplane, the first such aircraft to be publicly witnessed to take off, fly, and land in Europe. He was one of the most famous people in the world in the early years of the twentieth century.

Even though he died in 1932, he was still very famous and very revered in Brazil when I was there serving my mission in 1969 and 1970. The smaller of two airports in Rio de Janeiro was named after him, and while I was serving in the mission office I went there at least once to meet someone flying in from São Paulo. Arriving and departing missionaries flew into and out of the larger, newer Galeão International Airport. The smaller, older Santos Dumont Airport primarily handled domestic flights to and from other Brazilian cities.

And so I guess it was appropriate that I was in Brazil for one of the most significant events in the history of mankind: man's first steps on the moon. And although the Apollo 11 spacecraft actually reached the moon on my 20th birthday, Saturday, July 19, 1969, the space module Eagle did not actually land on the surface of the moon until what in the western hemisphere of our planet was Sunday, July 20. But that seemed appropriate: July 20 was the 96th anniversary of Santos Dumont's birth.

"A dream of ages was fulfilled tonight," I wrote in my missionary journal for Sunday, July 20, 1969, "as man stepped onto the moon. Ever since the project was given the final go-ahead a few days ago, I have prayed for the mission's success and for the safety of the astronauts. But the moon is no longer virgin soil. The two Americans stepped onto the moon just a few moments before midnight Brazilian time, about 40 minutes after we gave up the vigil and went to bed. Probably every television set in the world was tuned to the coverage of the moon shot. Part of the goal set back in 1961 by John F. Kennedy has been realized: having a man on the moon before 1970. The other part? To bring them safely back to earth."

The next day, Monday, July 21, I wrote in a letter to my family back home in Idaho: "Yesterday, July 20, man first stepped onto the moon. A dream of centuries has been realized within 66 years after man’s first heavier-than-air flight at Kitty Hawk on that December morning in 1903. In just a lifetime fantasy has become reality. What will that many more years bring? We are living in an exciting age, in adventurous times."

It was a heady time. For days afterward we missionaries, being Americans, were hailed on the streets as heroes, as though we had played some personal part in the historic drama that played out before the eyes of all the world.

On Thursday, July 24, which was being celebrated back home as Pioneer Day, I made one final journal entry: "Appropriately America's modern pioneers, the three astronauts, safely returned from their journey to the moon. Although they went into incubation confinement immediately after leaving the space capsule, President Richard M. Nixon was aboard the naval carrier that picked them up to give them an appropriate heroes welcome."

I am 60 years old

2009-07-19T14:30:00.007-06:00

Today I am 60 years old. It has been an incredible journey. Who would have thought a farm boy from Idaho would have witnessed such remarkable changes, participated in such historic events, and associated with such wonderful people all along the way? Hopefully I have made some useful contributions to the world during the six decades I have been here.

Gordon B. Hinckley (1910–2008), one of the wisest men I have ever known and with whom my life intersected a few times, said many years ago: "Anyone who imagines that bliss is normal is going to waste a lot of time running around shouting that he's been robbed. The fact is that most putts don't drop. Most beef is tough. . . . Life is like an old-time rail journey—delays, sidetracks, smoke, dust, cinders, and jolts, interspersed only occasionally by beautiful vistas and thrilling bursts of speed. The trick is to thank the Lord for letting you have the ride" (from a BYU devotional address in December 1973).

That rings true to me. Throughout life's journey I have loved and been loved, I have known both joy and sorrow, I have enjoyed both health and sickness, I have had a reasonable share of life's ups and downs.

I also like what his wife, Marjorie Pay Hinckley (1911–2004), once said: "The only way to get through life is to laugh your way through it. You either have to laugh or cry. I prefer to laugh. Crying gives me a headache."

Good counsel indeed.

And, above all, I have tasted of the sweet fruits of the Lord's Spirit. I have basked in God's love. I have had glimpses of the glories that await if I remain true and faithful all the remaining days of my life, however many or few they may be.

America's choir

2009-07-19T07:00:00.014-06:00

Eighty years ago—on July 15, 1929—the Mormon Tabernacle Choir began broadcasting a weekly radio program, "Music and the Spoken Word," that continues to this day, making it the longest running live broadcast in history. Today, nearly 4,200 broadcasts later, the weekly program is carried on more than 2,000 radio, television, cable and satellite stations, as well as on the Internet. This morning the choir is celebrating its 80th birthday and officially launches its ninth decade of broadcasting.

Technology has changed dramatically during the eight decades since that first July broadcast. The first network radio broadcast featured a single microphone hanging from the ceiling of the Salt Lake Tabernacle. An engineer received his starting "on air" signal by telegraph. And the announcer perched on top of a ladder during the half-hour program to speak into the hanging mike.

Dating from August 1847, just one month after the Mormon pioneers first entered the Salt Lake Valley, the choir is one of the largest and oldest choirs in the world. It has performed before at least ten U.S. presidents, won scores of awards, sold millions of records, and sung before delighted audiences in many countries, including taking part in the opening ceremonies of the 2002 Winter Olympics. The choir's annual Christmas concert, taped each Christmas season and shown the following year during the holidays, is one of the most-watched broadcasts on PBS television stations across the country. President Ronald Regan (1911–2004) dubbed the choir "America's Choir" when it sang at his first presidential inauguration in 1981.

I have long admired the Tabernacle Choir. Though many years have passed, I still have vivid memories of the first time I heard the choir in person. It was Easter Sunday in April 1966. I was 16 years old. An older brother and I had traveled from Idaho to Utah for the annual conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

At the closing session of the conference that afternoon, David O. McKay (1873–1970), who was the ninth president of the Church, delivered his own final address and left his blessing upon the Church. He was advanced in age, and it proved to be the last sermon he ever personally gave in a general conference. We loved and sustained him as our prophet.

As he finished speaking, the mighty organ and choir joined together in "The Hallelujah Chorus" from Handel's Messiah. As is the tradition with this Easter anthem, the congregation stood. After the last powerful strains had filled the air, the choir softly and reverently intoned President McKay's favorite hymn:

I need thee every hour,
Most gracious Lord;
No tender voice like thine
Can peace afford.

I need thee;
O I need thee;
Every hour I need thee!
O bless me now, my Savior;
I come unto thee!

It was an electrifying moment. I doubt there was a dry eye or an untouched soul in the entire Tabernacle.

I worked in the garden this morning

2009-07-18T20:08:00.000-06:00

Along with a score of neighbors, I worked in the neighborhood garden this morning. I weeded one and a half rows of corn before going off to other commitments. The sun was up, and it was getting awfully warm before I finished. I was pretty sweaty. I was thinking we should have begun at six o'clock rather than eight.

"It was a lot easier to do this when I was 14," I said to my good wife after I came home. A bit later, in fact, I went to the gym to work out with my trainer and by then noticed I had used some muscles I was not used to using in my regular workouts.

Some of our neighbors have already been enjoying some of the fresh produce from the garden. The zucchinis are plentiful right now. The corn and beans and a variety of other vegetables are coming along.

We haven't been into gardening much over the years. Our focus has been on fruit trees, which tend to behave themselves and not get into too much mischief. We have four trees in our front yard: an apple, a cherry, a pear, and an apricot. This year birds ate most of the cherries, and the apricots are a lot thinner than in most years, probably because of the massive pruning of the tree early in the spring.

We pay neighbor boys to care for our lawn and flower gardens. Their mom grew up on a farm in northern Utah and wants her three sons to learn how to work. And to earn money for when they grow up and go away at their own expense to serve as Mormon missionaries. They still have a ways to go on learning how to work, but we're happy to contribute toward her goal. Last year they planted a row of green beans along our back fence. This year potatoes. In recent years that's pretty much been the extent of our vegetable gardening.

A retro gadget

2009-07-18T07:00:00.003-06:00

I drive a 1998 Ford Ranger pickup. Going soon on twelve years old. It does have air conditioning, but otherwise nothing fancy. No power windows or door locks. Your basic model.

And, oh, did I mention it's entirely paid for?

A couple months ago I had a date with my oldest granddaughter. We call them nights out with Grandpa. She is twelve years old, and never before in her life had she ever ridden in my pickup. She was intrigued by the handle used to crank the window up or down. She had never seen such a thing. She was used to pushing a button to open or close a car window.

"This is a handy little gadget," she observed, as she cranked the handle to roll the window up. What will they think of next?

I love summer mornings

2009-07-17T09:20:00.007-06:00

Early this morning, before the sun peered over the mountains to the east of us, I was waiting at the bus stop to catch my ride to work. It was a gorgeous day. Traffic along Orchard Drive, never busy at this time of day, seemed lighter than normal. Perhaps people were off on summer vacations.

A jogger happened by. He was running in the street, reverting to the sidewalk only when an occasional car approached, and then he was back into the street. We exchanged good mornings.

The temperatures were pleasant, the morning quiet, and I was in a relective mood.

I thought of the words of the Lord recorded by the prophet Isaiah in the Old Testament: "I have made the earth, and created man upon it" (Isaiah 45:12). It is a remarkable place God has prepared for us. And yes, there is much of ugliness and misery across the face of the earth, far too much of it in fact, but the earth itself is a remarkably diverse and interesting and beautiful home for His children.

And then this further insight from the prophet Nephi in the Book of Mormon: "Behold, the Lord hath created the earth that is should be inhabited; and he hath created his children that they should possess it" (1 Nephi 17:36).

Just earlier in the week I had read of extreme environmentalists who share the notion that the earth would be better off if humans were not around, if people did not inhabit the planet. Or others, not going quite that far, urging that humans are simply one species among all the other life forms on our little globe and that we deserve no particular status or consideration beyond the whales or snails or whatever is the cause de jour.

Now don't start plastering me with comments about the environment. I firmly believe we should be good stewards of planet earth. I believe we need to be responsible citizens of the world. We need to treat our home with respect. But I view the world from a perspective of faith, seeing "with an eye of faith," to borrow an insightful phrase used throughout the Book of Mormon (see, for example, Alma 5:15; Alma 32:40; Ether 12:19). And that perspective is that there is a God, that He created the world, that He placed His children upon it, and that it exists for them to inhabit it. That's what it's all about.

When we don't see it that way, we get it all backward and screw up our public discourse and our public policy in horrible ways that can lead to no good.

And so, I guess that's why we need summer mornings. Outside and quiet and alone. Not in our homes or cars. And not with televisions or radio or iPods blaring in our ears. We occasionally need time and circumstances to be reminded of the truth penned by the poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861):

Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes—
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.

Marriage and divorce

2009-07-16T14:41:00.001-06:00

This is worth watching.

A trip to Washington

2009-07-15T07:41:00.020-06:00

Thursday, July 2, 2009
Utah, Idaho

At 11:00 I left in our pickup and drove the the 100 miles to Rachael's house in Malad. Robert was there and had someone there preparing an estimate on moving them at the end of the month to Illinois. After he left and Robert returned to the hospital, Rachael finished getting ready and packed her minivan while I kept track of little Margaret.

At 1:15, after asking a blessing on our trip, we left Malad, heading north on I-15 to Pocatello, west on I-86 and then I-84 to Nampa. We reached Boise at 5:15 and about half an hour later Dale and LeAnn's house in Nampa. Other than the persistent "Are we there yet?" the girls were reasonable travelers for a six-year-old, a four-year-old, and a 21-month-old.

Dale had arranged the Idaho family to get together to see us: Lyle and a lady friend named Doris, Jackie and Jared, and Cheryl and four of her children (LaWanda and her husband Terry, Bobbie, Gena, and Ronnie and his baby Roxie). Gene was up in the mountains working on their cabin. There were 17 of us who went out to eat at a Mexican restaurant. Dale told the server that we were celebrating my birthday, so at the end of the meal she brought me a free dessert (fried ice cream), and the workers and other patrons sang "Happy Birthday" to me.

We returned home to Dale and LeAnn's house, and everyone else left except Jackie and Jared, and we played six rounds of a card game called Skip Bo, then went to bed.

Friday, July 3
Idaho, Oregon, Washington

LeAnn fixed us breakfast, and we ate, packed, and hit the road a little after 9:00. Kind of. We actually drove around the Nampa area to take pictures of where I went to high school, the farm house we lived in 50 years ago when my family first moved to Idaho, Scism School (where I attended fourth, fifth, and sixth grades), and the final house we lived in on Ventura Drive. We then drove through downtown Nampa and got on the freeway but exited a few exits later toward Greenleaf, Roswell, and Adrian. We saw the farm where I lived the first decade of my life, the school I attended in Adrian, the Owyhee Ward building, and the stake center in Nyssa where I was baptized. We drove past Ontario, where I was born, and got on I-84 again and headed west.

It was the first time Claudia, Esther, and Margaret had been to Oregon.

We stopped two or three times at rest stops, traveled through the beautiful Blue Mountains, and stopped in Pendleton for gas and lunch. We ate at a local restaurant called Roosters. While at the restaurant we talked on the phone to Camilla and to Mom, then the battery died on my phone. Rachael's battery also died. We were traveling just like in the olden days without any contact with the rest of the world.

We left I-84 and took I-82 crossing the Columba River at Umatilla, and headed north and west through Washington until we joined I-90 and headed due west. It was the first time the girls had been to Washington.

We did a few more rest stops before leaving the Cascades and coming into the Seattle area. We headed north on I-405 and then I-5 to Everett. We wondered how we'd contact Chris and Camilla to get into their apartment complex, but we saw their bakery was still open and stopped there. I had forgotten that during the summer they extended their store hours from 6:00 to 8:00 in the evening. Chris, Camilla, and Sam were there and fed us sandwiches for dinner as they were getting ready to close their store at 8:00. We, the girls especially, were glad to be through traveling. After closing the store, we went over to the apartment and then Chris took Rachael to the motel on Evergreen Way that she and the girls are staying at. I stayed with Chris, Camilla, and Sam.

Saturday, July 4
Washington

Today is the birthday of our country. Late this morning Camilla, Sam, Rachael, Claudia Sue, Esther, Margaret, and I went to the Everett Station and took a free shuttle bus from there to watch an 11:00 Fourth of July parade. Chris isn't much into parades and stayed home. The parade was much more diverse, ethnically and otherwise, than we might have seen in Utah. I don't think we'll anytime soon see belly dancers, for example, in the Handcart Days parade. At the end of the parade, as we were walking back to catch our shuttle, I bought ice cream for the children. We returned to the apartment, ate lunch, and rested.

This afternoon Camilla took all of us but Chris and Margaret, who was still sleeping, to a beach on the Puget Sound. We went through a beautiful, dense forest to get to it. The tide was in so there was actually not much beach, but the children all had fun playing in the surf. It was the first time Claudia and Esther had seen the ocean. They collected a number of seashells.

Chris had dinner nearly ready when we returned, and Margaret had just awakened a bit before.

In the evening we drove to Lake Stephens to watch fireworks. The light of a nearly full moon shimmering across the lake presented a picturesque setting, and fireworks were being set off all around the lake for the more than an hour and a half we were there. It was impressive, something like watching twenty different fireworks displays all at once. I had never seen anything quite like it.

Sunday, July 5
Washington

This morning, beginning at 10:50, we attended church in the Mukilteo Ward. Sunday School was first, followed by a combined priesthood/Relief Society opening exercises of the two wards that share the building (something to do, they explained, with a part of the building being remodeled), followed by Chris going to elders quorum, Rachael to Relief Society, and me to high priests group. We then concluded with fast and testimony meeting.

We returned to Chris and Camilla's to visit, nap, play games, and such. Late in the afternoon all of us but Chris and sleeping Margaret went on a walk around the neighborhood and ended by dropping by the bakery (what Sam calls "Daddy's work") to pick up some mayonnaise for dinner and chocolate chips to make cookies afterward. After dinner Claudia and Esther helped clean up the kitchen and table and load the dishwasher so they could help Chris make chocolate chip cookies. After playing games, Rachael and the girls returned to their motel.

Monday, July 6
Washington

Around noon Chris took Rachael, Claudia Sue, Esther, Margaret, Sam, and me to the Forest Park petting zoo. The children enjoyed the animals. It was an overcast day and tried raining on us a couple times. In the evening Camilla took Rachael and her girls swimming in an indoor swimming pool in another apartment complex owned by the same company as hers. I went along to take pictures with Rachael's camera. The water was cold, but everyone had fun.

Tuesday, July 7
Washington

We took the children to a free movie at the mall, Kung Fu Panda. Rachael bought us popcorn. I made arrangements to go visit Dana Blackham and his wife Wednesday evening in their home in Edmonds. Dane and I had been missionary companions in Brazil, roommates back at BYU, and he was the bestman at our wedding. His wife Linda had died some years ago, and he married Becky, much to the opposition of his children and family. It has been many years since we have seen each other.

In the afternoon Rachael and I took the children on a drive to Snoqualmie Falls. We took a scenic route to get there (along U.S. 2 and state highways 202 and 203), and the children all fell asleep. The falls were very impressive. We bought ice cream to eat, and Rachael bought Robert a hat and a very expensive $42 T-shirt. She did not know how much it would cost until after it was rung up by the cashier. We took a different scenic route back to Everett. Washington is certainly a beautiful place.

It was Vince's birthday back in Utah. This evening we called to wish him a happy birthday and got only his answering machine, so we all sang a voice message to him.

We then bought sandwiches at Chris and Camilla's bakery and had a picnic at the park by Silver Lake. After eating and playing on the playground equipment, we fed ducks in the lake.

Wednesday, July 8
Washington

I left around 7:00 to drive to the airport to pick Claudia up. Her plane from Salt Lake City arrived earlier than scheduled, but I was still there in time to park and greet her as she came out of the gate area. It was good to have her join us.

We drove back to Everett and took the children to another free movie at the mall, The Tale of Despereaux. Rachael again bought us popcorn. Southwest Airlines is having a sale, and in the afternoon Claudia and I arranged a trip in September to go visit Paul, Eliza, Peter, and Aaron in Atlanta. Just after I had purchased the tickets, Claudia realized it would be right around the time when Anna's baby is due, and she was regretting our decision to go the weekend she had selected.

In the evening Claudia and I drove to Edmonds to have dinner with Dana and Becky Blackham. It was a wonderful evening catching up on twenty or so years of not being in touch. We did not return to Chris and Camilla's until midnight. Rachael, Camilla, and the children had gone bowling while we were gone.

Thursday, July 9
Washington

Camilla had the day off work, and she went with us to a free children's concert in the park at Silver Lake featuring a group called Recess Monkeys. We enjoyed that, and Rachael bought their DVD which Claudia Sue and Esther enjoyed watching over and over the whole rest of the week. We bought lunch from the bakery.

In the evening we drove out to Lake Stephens, where Chris and Camilla were participating in the farmer's market there and where a bluegrass concert was being held. We bought and ate our supper at the farmer's market. It was a delightful evening.

Friday, July 10
Washington

Claudia and I went to exercise at the Gold's Gym in Everett. Later Claudia, Rachael, and I took the children on a long car ride. We headed up I-5 past Mount Vernon and exited the freeway at Burlington and headed west on highway 20 toward Anacortes and Deception Pass, where we crossed a bridge onto the north end of Whidbey Island. It was very scenic, but all of the children were alseep at that point, so we didn't actually stop and get out of the car. We drove down the length of Whidbey Island and took a ferry from Clinton to Mukilteo.

We bought a late lunch at a Wendy's and returned to Chris and Camilla's apartment. Rachael took Claudia Sue and Esther to Mountlake Terrace to visit with one of her online mothers' group friends. Margaret was sick and stayed with the rest of us.

Claudia and I bought a loaf of Dakota bread from the bakery and took it as a thank-you gift to Dana and Becky Blackham. Becky had mentioned Wednesday night it was her favorite bread from Great Harvest.

Saturday, July 11
Washington

Sam's third birthday. Before Sam woke up and before Rachael and her girls came over, Claudia and I went to exercise at the Gold's Gym in Mukilteo. It was a much nicer facility. After breakfast Sam opened his presents, one of which was a little aquarium and a Beta fish that he named Bruce.

In the late morning and into the afternoon we went to Jettey Island. It is a small manmade island that is accessible only by a free passenger ferry. There are no roads on the island. We ate a picnic lunch while we were waiting for our turn to go on the ferry over to the island. The tide was way out as we played on the beach. We saw a lot of wind surfers. I counted over twenty at one point. Little Margaret seemed to have the most fun playing in the little puddles of water on the sandy beach. Claudia Sue and Sam took naps, and Esther rested but never actually fell asleep. Rachael's girls were feeling sick and had fevers by tonight.

Sunday, July 12
Washington, Oregon, Idaho

This morning Rachael, Claudia Sue, Esther, Margaret, and I left for home. This was likely the last time Rachael and Camilla will see each other for a very long time, unless they both happen to be visiting Utah at the same time. Chris and Camilla will probably not get to southern Illinois anytime soon, and Robert and Rachael will probably not visit western Washington anytime soon.
Claudia stayed for the rest of the day, went to church with Chris and Camilla, and caught an evening flight home to Salt Lake. Both she and Camilla reported that Sam was very sad when he got up and found that Grandpa and his cousins/friends were gone. (Throughout the week Sam had variously referred to Claudia Sue, Esther, and Margaret as his cousins and his new friends.) He had enjoyed the week immensely.

After asking a blessing on our return trip, we left Everett at 7:00 (8:00 Mountain time) and reached Malad about 9:40 in the evening. A long day of driving.

It rained on us as we crossed through the Cascade Mountains in Washington and again from about the Oregon-Idaho border until past Boise, where it came down very hard. We were buffeted by strong winds all across eastern Oregon. We saw rainbows—always a good omen—as we drove across southern Idaho approaching Pocatello. We had stopped for lunch at a beautiful rest stop in the Blue Mountains and took breaks at a couple of rest stops elsewhere along the way. The girls were good travelers. Because they were sick, they slept a lot of the way. We didn't hear a single "Are we there yet?" until we were half way across the state of Idaho.

It was late enough when we reached Malad that I decided to spend the night rather than driving alone the remaining hour and a half back to Bountiful.

We had been recording license plates throughout our trip and had seen cars from 39 states and 5 Canadian provinces during the 1,700-plus miles we had driven from Malad up into the Pacific Northwest. (According to Google Maps, it is 813 miles from Rachael's house in Malad to Camilla's house in Everett.)

Monday, July 13
Idaho, Utah

This morning, after Rachael fixed me some breakfast, I left her house about 9:30 and reached Bountiful at 11:00, the same hour I had left Bountiful eleven days earlier to begin the trip.

The birth of our sixth child

2009-06-15T07:00:00.005-06:00

In honor of Camilla's 28th birthday, we share this account of her birth those nearly three decades ago. Happy birthday, Camilla.

On Wednesday, January 7, 1981, I wrote in my journal, "Claudia finished reading Camilla, the biography of Sister Kimball, which we received as a Christmas gift. I finished the book during the holidays while I was sick. If our new baby is a girl, we will probably name her Camilla."

We had actually made that decision a month earlier. During December Claudia and I had been at the Missionary Department Christmas dinner on the 26th Floor of the Church Office Building. President Spencer W. Kimball and his wife Camilla also attended, and we sat at the same table with them. Claudia was expecting our sixth child. She was about three months along, and we decided that evening if our baby was a boy we would name him Spencer and if a girl we would name her Camilla.

It would be another six months before we knew which one was coming.

Monday, June 15, 1981, was Claudia's parents' 32nd wedding anniversary. It was also three days after the due date of our sixth child. Early that day, about 3:30 in the morning, Claudia woke me up to say she was going to have a baby. Her contractions had started about 2:45, so she got up, washed two loads of clothes, showered, and washed her hair so she'd be ready to go to the hospital. We arrived there about 5:00, and Dr. Lewis delivered our sixth child and fourth daughter at 5:37. She weighed 8 pounds 8 ounces and was 21 inches long—our biggest baby thus far.

Dr. Lewis, who was leaving at 7:00 for a fishing trip in Alaska, said it was fortunate the delivery was fast. The baby was posterior, which made the very end of labor harder for Claudia. Also, because of the little one's position, the cord was pinched every time Claudia had a contraction. When Camilla was born, she was all purple and initially had a hard time getting her breathing started. Claudia was put on an IV before delivery but still bled heavily afterward. We were grateful for the blessings of modern medicine which the Lord has provided.

Claudia and Camilla were in the hospital until Thursday morning, June 18. I went to visit her early each morning, and the rest of the family came to see her and the baby each afternoon and evening. On one of those visits, six-year-old Rebecca gave Claudia a note:

I love you Mom. And Camilla. I like both of you. I think both of you are sweet. Here is a poem:

I like
Being in the hospital
With a babby.
The end.

Grandma and Grandpa Lange were in town visiting from California when Camilla was born. Grandpa and I were putting a new roof on our house.

The morning Camilla came home from Lakeview Hospital, all of the children were quite excited. We had a birthday party with gifts for each of the children: a soccer ball for Michael, roller skates for Rebecca, a dump truck for Talmage, and a doll for Anna.

Oh, what songs of the heart

2009-06-08T13:19:00.003-06:00

This morning in our staff devotional I was assigned to give the spiritual thought. We sang the hymn "Oh, What Songs of the Heart" (Hymns [1985], no. 286), which was written by Joseph L. Townsend (1849–1942). I then gave a brief history of Brother Townsend's life, his conversion to the Church, a remarkable vision of the Savior he had after joining the Church, and quoted briefly from the nine other well-known hymns he wrote that are in our current hymnal:

"The Day Dawn Is Breaking" (52)
"Nearer, Dear Savior, to Thee (99)
"Reverently and Meekly Now" (185)
"Let Us Oft Speak Kind Words" (232)
"Choose the Right" (239)
"O Thou Rock of Our Salvation" (258)
"Hope of Israel" (259)
"Oh, Holy Words of Truth and Love" (271)
"The Iron Rod" (274)

And, of course, "Oh, What Songs of the Heart," which I want sung at my funeral. This is probably the least known of the ten hymns. I asked by a show of hands how many in our department devotional had known of the hymn before today, and fewer than half the hands went up. It is an upbeat, comforting testimony of what happens after we die:

Oh, what songs of the heart
We shall sing all the day,
When again we assemble at home,
When we meet ne'er to part
With the blest o'er the way,
There no more from our loved ones to roam!
When we meet ne'er to part,
Oh, what songs of the heart
We shall sing in our beautiful home.

Tho our rapture and bliss
There's no song can express,
We will shout, we will sing o'er and o'er,
As we greet with a kiss,
And with joy we carress
All our loved ones that passed on before;
As we greet with a kiss,
In our rapture and bliss,
All our loved ones that passed on before.

Oh, the visions we'll see
In that home of the blest,
There's no word, there's no thought can impart,
But our rapture will be
All the soul can attest,
In the heavenly songs of the heart;
But our rapture will be
In the vision we'll see
Best expressed in the songs of the heart.

Oh, what songs we'll employ!
Oh, what welcome we'll hear!
While our transports of love are complete,
As the heart swells with joy
In embraces most dear
When our heavenly parents we meet!
As the heart swells with joy,
Oh, what songs we'll employ,
When our heavenly parents we meet.

The hymn and the thought were timely. Just after our devotional we learned that the nineteen-year-old daughter of one of our coworkers had been killed earlier this morning in a car accident near Sugar City, Idaho. She was a student at BYU-Idaho.

The birth of our fourth child

2009-06-02T22:36:00.003-06:00

In honor of Talmage's 32nd birthday, we share this account of his birth those three decades ago. Happy birthday, Talmage.

Talmage was born on Thursday, June 2, 1977. It was a beautiful summer morning. Grandma and Grandpa Lange were visiting us from California. Grandpa had helped us build a brick-and-picket fence in front of our house in Rose Park to help keep nearly-two-year-old Rachael from wandering all over the neighborhood.

I was at work at the Church Office Building, and Claudia had gone to her doctor for her weekly visit. He thought she would be having a baby very soon.

Sometime between 10:00 and 10:30 that morning, she called me at work to say she was beginning to feel something, she thought. She was never sure about these things. I had the car and agreed to come home at lunchtime.

A little after 11:00 she called me again to say she thought I should come home right then. I excitedly hopped in the car and hurried home in less than ten minutes. No one was there.

The neighbor lady from across the street yelled that everyone had gone in Grandpa's car to the hospital in Bountiful. It was an exciting ride for the children as Grandpa slipped in and out of traffic trying to get to the hospital as quick as he could. Claudia was busy doing her panting exercise to try to keep something from happening in the car.

When I got to Lakeview Hospital, probably not many minutes afterward, I went racing into the hospital, tearing down the hallway, when it occurred to me that I didn't have the foggiest notion of where the delivery area was.

After helpful hospital people kindly directed me where to go, I scrubbed up and was coming into the delivery room through one door just as the doctor was entering through another. A nurse was preparing to deliver our baby and I guess would have done so had the doctor not arrived just in the nick.

In a special Christmas issue of the Cleverly Newsletter sent to non-family members in December, I recounted the official conclusion of the story:

"Talmage John Cleverly was born at noon on Thursday, June 2, 1977, in the Lakeview Hospital in Bountiful, Utah—about forty minutes after Mama decided she was in labor, about ten minutes after she arrived at the hospital, about three minutes after the doctor reached the delivery room, and about a minute and a half after Daddy arrived from work. He was a healthy 3580 grams, 52 cm long, with lots of dark hair which is now a little lighter."

Talmage was our fourth child, our second son.

When I brought Claudia and Talmage home from the hospital on Sunday morning, there were Michael, Rebecca, and Rachael standing in the front yard to greet us. Rachael, of course, was on the outside of the closed new fence we had just built to keep her in.

And here we have Idaho again

2009-05-18T13:03:00.005-06:00

A month ago I posted about my learning the Idaho state song in elementary school and singing it every time I enter the Gem State. I am not alone in that ritual. I was intrigued by this Family History Moment, written by Alaura Ramsey of Eagle, Idaho, on the back page of last weekend's Church News:

"My sister Debbie and I picked up my father from the airport. He was coming to town to attend his extended Mink family reunion. As he walked out the doors into the open air he began to sing loudly, 'And Here We Have Idaho!' It is the state song he learned in elementary school. I smiled. I turned my head, looked at him and thought, 'I love you.' . . . (Church News, May 16, 2009, 16).

Brrrrr . . .

2009-05-17T14:07:00.004-06:00

It's springtime. The temperatures are rising. The air-conditioner is on. And I'm freezing. Time to get out the sweaters and mittens.

Ben makes front page of newspaper

2009-05-16T14:21:00.005-06:00

Splashed across the front page of this morning's Deseret News [May 16] is a picture of Ben and his mom. It accompanies an article on online schooling.

The picture was taken by Kristin Murphy of the Deseret News. The caption read: "Ben Cleverly, 8, cuts out a drawing of a horse to make a jigsaw puzzle as his mom, Carisa Holden, watches in their Lehi home."

And here we have Idaho

2009-04-20T08:51:00.002-06:00

I learned the Idaho state song during the spring of 1959. We had moved from Oregon to Idaho in the end of February, and I was a fourth grader at Scism School, a three-room country school south of Nampa. The fourth, fifth, and sixth grades were all in the same classroom with the same teacher. I learned the song in this classroom as we studied the history of Idaho.

And here we have Idaho
Winning her way to fame.
Silver and gold in the sunlight blaze,
And romance lies in her name.
Singing, we're singing of you,
Ah, proudly too,
All our lives through, we'll go
Singing, singing of you,
Singing of Idaho.

That is the chorus of the song. I never lived in the Gem State after I became an adult, but like a true Idahoan, I always sang the chorus as we crossed the state line into Idaho on various visits through the years. As I sang it, the words gradually morphed into this slightly alternative version:

And here we have Idaho
Wending her way to fame.
Silver and gold in the sunlit plain,
And romance lies in her name.
Singing, singing of you,
All proudly too,
All our lives through, we'll go
Singing, singing of you,
Singing of Idaho.

My family heard me sing my garbled version of the song enough times, almost as a rite of passage into the state, as it were, that some of them can sing some of the lines. I'm sorry that I taught them the wrong words.

I vaguely remember the lyrics of the first verse, although my singing the song as we entered the state did not include the verse:

You've heard of the wonders our land does possess,
Its beautiful valleys and hills,
The majestic forests where nature abounds,
We love every nook and rill.

I did not even remember, if ever I knew, that it had a second verse:

There's truly one state in this great land of ours
Where ideals can be realized.
The pioneers made it so for you and me,
A legacy we'll always prize.

Interestingly, I never learned the Oregon state song during the nearly four years of school I attended in the Beaver State.

The great depression

2009-03-28T19:59:00.002-06:00

Yesterday I finished reading The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression, by Amity Shlaes. The policies of the New Deal, which Franklin D. Roosevelt pursued throughout the 1930s, never did bring unemployment down or otherwise resolve the Great Depression, and yet it is scary to observe the parallels between what was tried and failed then and what is being proposed in our own time.

Several weeks earlier I finished reading FDR's Folly: How Roosevelt and His New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression, by Jim Powell. "In the minds of historians and the American public alike, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was one of our greatest presidents, not least because he supposedly saved America from the Great Depression," explains the back cover of the book. "But as historian Jim Powell reveals in this groundbreaking book, Roosevelt's New Deal policies actually prolonged and exacerbated the economic disaster, swelled the federal government, and prevented the country from turning around quickly."

"The next time economic cataclysm looms," wrote the National Review when this book was first published in 2003, "leaders should read Jim Powell's book." Well, the economic cataclysm is upon us again. I really hope President Obama and his advisers, along with our elected officials in Congress, have read the book. And heed its message. Or the days ahead could be nastier than they really need to be.

As George Santayana (1863-1952) wrote in 1905, more than a century ago: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" (Life of Reason, Or The Phases of Human Progress: Introduction and Reason in Common Sense, 1:284).

Swimming

2009-03-18T19:09:00.001-06:00

When I was a boy we lived within a mile of the Snake River, which curved to the south and west of our farm in a great bend that gave the area its name, Big Bend. We never went swimming in the river. Mama always warned us of its treacherous undertows and currents. Plus I always secretly knew it had snakes swimming in it, and snakes and I respectfully kept our distance, thank you.

We did swim, however, in a swimming hole a quarter or a half a mile south of the farm house. The swimming hole was at the junction of a couple of drain ditches and had a culvert, a small, moss-covered cement thing, we used to slide down into the water, a welcomed relief on a hot summer afternoon. (I visited the spot after I was a grown-up and was utterly amazed at how much smaller it was than when I was little.)

At other times we would drive to a place called White Rock, located somewhere on the Owyhee River, a much smaller and evidently less treacherous stream, since Mama let us swim there.

Sometime in the summer of 1955, just after I turned six, I nearly drowned at White Rock. (Mama mentioned in her diary our going to White Rock three times during the summer of 1955: July 23, July 25, and July 28. She did not mention my near-drowning, but she did record on July 28 that while up swimming she shut her little finger in the car door and "it sure hurt.")

Anyway, back to drowning. I was wading along the side of the river in shallow water, stepping among the rocks that covered the bottom in the spot where I was. Some of my older brothers, swimming farther out in the stream, had seen some fish and were trying to catch them with their hands.

The next thing I remember was standing or sitting on a rock that was slippery, with my body mostly under the water, when a fish splashed right in front of my face, just inches away. It startled me enough that I lost my balance, and I slipped out into the water, my head underwater, and I started drifting downstream. I didn’t know how to swim, and I don’t think anyone had noticed me go under. It seemed like I floated along underwater for the longest time, as my brief little life passed by, although I was probably under only a few seconds.

As I floated by my brother Kay, who was thirteen, he saw my foot in the water. As he grabbed for it I remember his yelling something like, "Hey, here's that fish!" And he pulled a coughing, sputtering little brother foot first out of the water.

The whole experience scared me terribly. For years I had a great fear of any water I couldn’t see the bottom of, such as a lake or a river. A few years later, when I was a teenager, this fear kept me from earning the Eagle rank in Scouting. By the time I quit Scouting, I was only two merit badges short of Eagle—swimming and lifesaving.

By the summer of 1967, just after I graduated from high school, I finally worked up the courage to try water skiing for the first time. And I actually survived.

My earliest memory

2009-03-17T12:24:00.004-06:00

Water is a part of my very earliest memory. We were out on a lake in a small motorboat. It started raining, and I must have been absolutely terrified. All I can remember is water. Water everywhere—water in the vast lake, water falling out of the gray sky, water spraying on me from the noisy motor. And, most likely, water streaming out of my bawling two-year-old eyes.

According to my mother's diary for July 1, 1951, we were with my grandparents on an outing at Jenny Lake in Wyoming's Teton National Park. That would have been two and a half weeks before I turned two.

Move from Oregon to Idaho

2009-02-26T07:59:00.001-07:00

Fifty years ago today my family moved from Oregon to Idaho. Dale and I, who were seven and nine years old respectively, actually moved a day later. We stayed overnight at our old house on the Oregon-Idaho border so we could finish out the week at our grade school in Adrian. Dale was a first grader. I was in the fourth grade.

Our older brother Gene, who was fifteen, came sometime in the middle of the night, after returning from a basketball tournament in Baker, Oregon, to also be with us. Gene and Kay, who were both in high school at Adrian, would actually not move with us. They stayed with a ward member in the Adrian area, Ad Salter, to finish out the school year.

Say what you mean, mean what you say

2009-02-25T07:33:00.010-07:00

People who are in the business of communicating with the public ought, it seems to me, to be able to communicate. They ought to be able to say what they mean and mean what they say.

A recent example from one of the weather forecasters on a local television station. Commenting last night on the unusual 69-degree high for the day, she affirmed that we would not be seeing 69 degrees again. Never? Are we in for perennial winter? What about global warming? Where is Al Gore when we need him?

Surely she meant there were no 69-degree temperatures in the immediate forecast. None in the five- or ten-day forecast. But never?

Now, of course, we are all human and are surely entitled to an occasional misspeak here and there, but I observe little such inaccuracies all the time in the broadcast media. The broadcasters should be somewhat masters of the language—it is their business after all—they are supposed to be professionals—but too often, painfully so at times, they speak without precision, without really saying what they mean, sometimes without being consistent.

Another recent example. A week ago a newscaster was doing a little feature on increasing car thefts in the area. She observed that it didn't really matter what make or model or year of car you happened to own, pretty much all were at risk. And then not more than two or three sentences later, she said that recent-year Hondas were most at risk. The two affirmations didn't seem to match. So, do I need to worry at all about someone breaking into or stealing my eleven-year-old Ford Ranger pickup or my eleven-year-old Ford Windstar minivan? I would not if I were any sort of self-respecting car burglar. Certainly not the Windstar. The Ranger perhaps.

Another of my favorites is the misplaced modifier—words or phrases that modify or describe or give meaning to what is being talked about. Yet, if misplaced (and we're not talking here about losing our modifiers but placing them in the wrong part of the sentence, making them seem to modify something other than what they were meant to), they can create quite a different meaning than the one intended. Sometimes the result is humorous. Sometimes confusing. Sometimes misleading.

My trip into cyberspace

2009-02-16T12:46:00.004-07:00

Now that all of the children are grown and married, Claudia and I have appreciated reading everyone's blogs as a means of keeping up with what everybody is doing and thinking. Claudia doesn't blog herself, but she is an avid reader.

My blogs rather exploded once I expanded beyond this initial one, although a majority of them (15 of the 23 I currently have) are devoted to various bits of family history (my mother's diaries, my missionary journal, family newletters, historical sketches of ancestors, and collections of stuff from our own thirty-six years of family history). Blogging seemed a reasonable way of organizing and disseminating a lot of historical information, of making sure any of you who wanted the various pieces of history would have access to it if our house burned down or I were hit by a bus on my way home from work or any of a number of other things that could happen.

A few of my other blogs are private (such as my current journal, my planner, and my random info keeper, for example). Doing them as blogs gives me immediate access to the information from any computer anywhere I can connect to the Internet. It's pretty handy.

And now, as of last night, I've taken the next step. Thanks to Rebecca's help and the encouragement of several others, I now have a Facebook account. And more friends already than a person should ever expect to have. Is this great or what!

Happy birthday, Claudia

2009-02-06T13:56:00.004-07:00

In honor of Claudia's birthday today, I share this tribute that originally appeared as a part of the preface to the book Claudia: An Elect Lady, which we published in May 2005. The sentiments expressed then are still every bit as true today.

The Lord blesses us, collectively and individually, with many gifts. The scriptures affirm that every person is given at least one spiritual gift (see D&C 46:11). Some receive many.

Some years ago Claudia gave a sacrament meeting talk on gifts of the Spirit. She quoted Elder Marvin J. Ashton of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (1915–1994), who pointed out some less conspicuous spiritual gifts that we may enjoy: "The gift of asking; the gift of listening; the gift of hearing and using a still, small voice; the gift of being able to weep; the gift of avoiding contention; the gift of being agreeable; the gift of avoiding vain repetition; the gift of seeking that which is righteous; the gift of not passing judgment; the gift of looking to God for guidance; the gift of being a disciple; the gift of caring for others; the gift of being able to ponder; the gift of offering prayer; the gift of bearing mighty testimony; and the gift of receiving the Holy Ghost" ("There Are Many Gifts," Ensign, Nov. 1987, 20). Just consider how many of these gifts Claudia enjoys.

Claudia is a genuinely gifted person. Chief among all her many spiritual gifts is the gift of charity. I have known few, if any, people who have more consistently felt for, reached out to, lifted up, and blessed the lives of those about her. She has been generous in sharing her means. She has been tireless in serving others, particularly her family, neighbors in the ward, children and adults who have been in classes she has taught, the numerous children she has tended through the years. It has been a blessing indeed to be the beneficiary of such Christlike love through so many years.

Just a single illustration of her Christlike thoughtfulness and charity. Last Saturday, between the morning and afternoon sessions of general conference, we learned that Pope John Paul II had died after leading the Catholic Church for some 26 years. She had plenty to do that afternoon, after the afternoon session of conference was over and before the family gathering she was putting together for after the priesthood session, but she took the time to go out and buy a nice picture book on the Pope, wrote a little note, and walked it down to express her sympathies to Stephanie Smith, our Catholic neighbor down the street. And spent an hour talking, crying, laughing with her.

Another illustration. There is a couple in a neighboring ward in our stake who are mildly handicapped. They are the nicest people and do what they can to keep body and soul together. They sell Fuller products, brushes and cleaning supplies, things like that. Claudia tries single-handedly to keep them in business by regularly buying all sorts of products she’ll never be able to use in a dozen years.

It's the same with cub scouts selling Scout-o-Rama tickets. Or the girl scouts selling their high-priced cookies. Or the neighborhood school children selling their wrapping paper or greeting cards or tulip bulbs or whatever is the fund-raiser de jour.

"Charity," Mormon taught, "suffereth long, and is kind, and envieth not, and is not puffed up, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, and rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

"Wherefore, my beloved brethren, if ye have not charity, ye are nothing, for charity never faileth. Wherefore, cleave unto charity, which is the greatest of all, for all things must fail—

"But charity is the pure love of Christ, and it endureth forever; and whoso is found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with him" (Moroni 7: 45–47).

Inauguration day

2009-01-20T21:09:00.002-07:00

I am grateful today to be an American.

On the little TV in my office most of my staff and I watched the historic inauguration of our 44th President. Aside from the miracle of such a peaceful, seamless transition of power from President George W. Bush to President Barack Obama, and aside from the historical significance of the first African American now occupying the White House, I was impressed with the sense of hope and courage and optimism and willingness to tackle the hard issues facing our nation that President Obama verbalized in his inaugural address.

Claudia and I prayed for our new President and his family and associates in our family prayer this morning. He will need all our prayers on a continuing basis as we seek to work through the problems facing our country.

A merry Christmas from Dixie

2008-12-26T18:28:00.004-07:00

It sounds like we made it out of town in just the nick of time, if news reports are to be believed about a major winter storm that slammed most of the state of Utah on Christmas day and evening. We had a nice visit with Chris, Camilla, and Sam inside the airport. They had arrived from Seattle just before 10:15 Christmas morning, and our flight was scheduled to leave at 12:45. They had not expected to get out of Seattle, whose airport had been closed a couple times earlier in the week, because it was snowing heavily in Everett as they left home. As they headed south the snow turned to rain and, by the time they reached the airport, the rain had stopped altogether.

Mom and I flew out of Salt Lake International at a little after 1:00 Christmas afternoon and made good time to Chicago's Midway Airport before immediately boarding our second flight from there to Birmingham, Alabama. Conditions in Chicago had been terrible both before and after Christmas Day, so our window of opportunity was particularly narrow and fortunate. We then drove a rental car from Birmingham the 165 miles to Paul and Eliza's place in Duluth, Georgia, where we greeted them and saw our new little grandson for the first time. We encountered a little rain, but our trip east on I-20 and then northeast on I-85 was without incident, precisely what you want a road trip to be.

Season's greetings from the land of Dixie.

Aaron arrives

2008-12-08T07:49:00.002-07:00

A new little one begins his journey through mortality. Aaron Marvin Challis was born a little after 7:00 this morning (Georgia time) to Paul and Eliza. Today was his actual due date. We understand he weighed 8 pounds 4 ounces. In her initial call this morning, Eliza did not know how long he was.

We anticipate that either Paul or Eliza will post more details, including pictures, concerning the arrival of their new child. Our congratulations to them all.

Elder Wirthlin's funeral

2008-12-03T11:38:00.002-07:00

For those of you who may be interested, the funeral services for Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin will be held in the Tabernacle on Friday, December 2, at 12:00 noon. The services will be broadcast live on KSL, BYU-TV, and lds.org.

The Church Office Building and all other downtown Salt Lake City Church facilities will close at 11:00 a.m. on Friday and will be closed for the rest of the day.

Elder Wirthlin dies

2008-12-02T07:40:00.006-07:00

Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin, a member of the Twelve since 1986, passed away during the night. I had the privilege of working closely with him for many years when he served as a member of the Missionary Executive Council. A great and honorable man.

As he taught us at this last conference, "come what may, and love it."

What's in a name?

2008-11-25T12:45:00.000-07:00

There has been recent chatter on some blogs I happen to read concerning which school qualifies to be called the Lord's university. It seems to me the issue really has little to do with who has attended which school. It clearly has nothing to do with athletic prowess in any particular sport.

Both schools were established under the direction of a prophet of God. Both schools employ faithful members of the Church among faculty and staff. Both schools enroll faithful members of the Church as students. Both schools boast talented, faithful, distinguished alumni. And both schools have areas of academic excellence that are worthy of serious institutions of higher learning.

And, unfortunately, both schools have their share of those among students and alumni who bring discredit to their institutions and tarnish the good reputation each enjoys.

But only one of the schools is sponsored by the Church. Only one of the schools receives any of its financial support from tithing funds. Only one of the schools has prophets and apostles serving as its board of education. And only one of the schools has a currently serving General Authority as its president.

Hmm. Perhaps only one of the schools qualifies for the title.

A historic moment

2008-11-05T13:02:00.002-07:00

A historic moment for our country. Last night enough of my fellow Americans (including some of my children) voted for Barack Obama to make him the first African American president of the United States. We've come a long way since the civil rights struggles I remember from the 1960s. And that is good. Very good. I had no problems with Obama's race but had grave concerns about his liberal record and promises. But now, or at least on inaugural day in January, he is our president, and I pray for him and all the other leaders elected yesterday.

Of course, had John McCain won instead, we would have had our first female vice-president, Sarah Palin. I thought she was the best thing about the Republican ticket. But that was not to be. She goes back to serve as governor of Alaska. Perhaps we will hear more of her in the future.

By nine o'clock Mountain time the race had been decided, and Senator McCain gave an impressive concession speech that was full of class and reconciliation. Too bad many of his supporters who were gathered there in Phoenix did not have similar levels of class.

Is this a great country or what?

Go Utes! / Go Cougars!

2008-10-12T10:15:00.003-06:00

I was happy to see that both Utah and BYU won their games again this week. I hope they both continue undefeated until they meet each other in late November. Though that will be a great game, I will not watch it because I do not want to jinx the Cougars' chance of winning.

(Historically BYU loses football games that I happen to watch. When they won what came to be known as the Miracle Bowl back in the 1980s, I had been watching on our little black-and-white TV until Grandma and Grandpa Lange showed up from southern California and I quit watching and the final-quarter miracle happened and the Y emerged victorious.)

What is all that white stuff?

2008-10-12T10:05:00.003-06:00

A headline in this morning's Deseret News proclaimed "Snow falls on N. Utah - more skiff than blanket." The skiff in our backyard at 10:00 this morning measured 6 inches deep. Given the relative warmth of the ground still, a lot more than that had to fall to result in an accumulation of 6 inches.

What was that again?

2008-10-12T09:55:00.003-06:00

I guess I need to pay better attention to the news. Somehow I totally missed the little fact this past week that Iceland has gone bankrupt. Oops!

A quick trip to Washington

2008-10-06T09:15:00.004-06:00

Friday evening, October 3, Claudia and I flew from Salt Lake to Seattle. Becca had kindly driven Mom to the airport. (I had driven to work and went to the airport straight from there and parked our pickup in long-term parking, since our return would be near midnight on Sunday, and it didn't seem right to ask anyone to come get us at such an hour.)

Our flight was uneventful, which is precisely what you want when you're in an airplane.

It was raining when we landed in Seattle, apparently the first time it had done so in quite a while. The freeway traffic was heavier and slower than Camilla had expected, so we had to wait 20 or more minutes for her and Sam to pick us up. We were happy to see them again, and we drove from the airport (which is south of Seattle) to their home in Everett (which is north of Seattle), listening over and over and over to Sam's favorite song about a happy elephant.

Sam, who is now two, seems so much more grown up and talks a lot, although not always in the same intelligible English we are used to. He is a happy little boy. And was very excited to see his grandma and grandpa.

Chris had finished Camilla's shift at their Great Harvest bakery so she could come get us, but he was home by the time we reached their apartment in Everett. We visited and ate and went to bed.

Chris worked early Saturday morning. Camilla fixed us breakfast. We called to wish Peter a happy second birthday. He was having a great day. Then, before the morning session of conference began, we walked over to the bakery so Mom could be taken on the grand tour. (Although it rained much of the day, it was not raining when we walked over to see the bakery.) We returned to their apartment and somewhat listened to the first half of the morning session of conference, but the Internet connection kept dropping, so we went to their stake center to listen to the final hour of the opening session.

We got sandwiches from the bakery for lunch. Chris stayed with Sam while he took his nap, and Camilla, Mom, and I went to the stake center again to watch the afternoon session. Their stake center, far closer to the apartment than the building where their ward meets, is just on the other side of I-5, so it only takes about 5 or 10 minutes (depending on how you hit the lights) to get there.

Reference was made in the afternoon session to five new temples announced in the morning session. We had not heard the announcement, so we called Michael (actually we called Eliza first, but she didn't answer her phone) to find out where they were. He told us they were in Calgary, Cordoba (Argentina), somewhere in the Kansas City area, Philadelphia, and Rome (Italy).

Chris and I went to the priesthood session together. Afterward I took everyone out to dinner. Originally we were going to try the Olive Garden, but the 45-minute anticipated wait seemed too long, so we went to Red Robin instead. Their wait was only supposed to be 5 or 10 minutes, but actually it was much longer. And then it seemed to take a long time for our food to come after we had ordered it, and Chris's and Camilla's burgers were actually cold, and they complained about that, so the waiter took theirs back and brought hot ones the second time, and then the manager came out to apologize, and Chris told him he was the owner of the Great Harvest next door, and the manager said he'd never been over there but meant to, and they invited him to come, and he didn't charge us at all for their two meals, and it was all so wonderful.

We tried calling Margaret for her first birthday, not that she would really have known we were calling, but Rachael did not answer her phone. So we hope little Margaret had a wonderful day. Vince and Mary had gone up to help them all celebrate.

Sunday morning we participated in the Taylor family tradition of having breakfast burritos for the Sunday morning of general conference. Then we listened to the morning session streaming over the computer. It worked fine for the morning session, but it deteriorated again for the afternoon session and, though we talked about going to the stake center again, we just toughed it out at home and heard much but not all of the session.

Sam was still taking his afternoon nap, so Camilla took Mom and me on a little driving tour of the Everett and Mukilteo area. Chris and Camilla fixed us a delicious dinner that consisted of Parmesan chicken, mashed potatoes, salad, and fruit. And cookie dough ice cream for dessert. Yummy. Then around 6:30 we all left for the airport. It was raining some, but the traffic was good, and we got to the airport a little earlier than we actually needed to. And then our plane left about a half hour later than its scheduled 8:30 departure. They must have flown faster than they would have otherwise, because we landed in Salt Lake pretty close to our scheduled 11:25 arrival. We were home by about midnight.

It had been a delightful weekend. We appreciated visiting with Chris, Camilla, and Sam. We were grateful for the spiritual uplift from general conference. And, as always, it all went by so quickly.

So I repent already

2008-09-30T22:08:00.002-06:00

In my last, hasty post, I reported that my Congressman (Rob Bishop) had voted for the bailout package. I was in error. He actually voted against it. According to the Salt Lake Tribune on September 29,

Bishop believes the government needs to take some action, but he thought the approach was misguided and unnecessarily rushed.

"The solution needs to be more market-driven rather than based on taxpayer liability." Bishop said, "We are in a tough financial spot, and things could get worse fast, but Congress is acting too quickly based on what you've really got to admit is an artificial deadline." Bishop wants the amount of taxpayer money lowered from its current $700 billion cap, and he also wants Congress to bolster a provision that encourages Wall Street to buy government insurance instead of taking taxpayer cash.

I can live with that sort of thinking. So, I guess I'll have to vote for him after all.

Enough foolishness already

2008-09-30T21:04:00.002-06:00

I have not used this blog before now to comment on political/economic stuff, but there seems to be far too much misinformation and fear and outright nonsense floating around out there, particularly in the news media, for me to forebear on this occasion. I do not begin to presume that I understand what is going on (does anyone really?), but it seems increasingly clear that many economists and politicians and media commentators do not.

Something President Franklin D. Roosevelt said in his first inaugural address in 1933 seems appropriate today: "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

AARP, which I happen to be a member of, invited me to comment on their blog about how terrible it was that Congress did not pass the bailout package yesterday. I respectfully disagree with the position implied in the question they posted: "Is failure to take action on the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression really an option?" This is what I posted:

"Let's be profoundly grateful that the bill did not pass yesterday. It was a very bad idea. There are saner ways to stabilize the markets without saddling taxpayers (that means us and our kids and grandkids) with such horrendous debt. My Republican representative voted for the bill, and he therefore does not get my vote this November.

"This is a great time to be investing. And it's simple really, something my parents taught me years ago: buy low, sell high. Stocks happen to be on sale right now. I wish I could afford to invest even more than I am right now."

A new house

2008-09-27T16:28:00.003-06:00

Mom and I, accompanied by Rachael and her girls, went this morning to see Pete and Anna's new house in the Sugarhouse area of Salt Lake. The house dates from 1940. It is one of those sturdy, well-built homes with some measure of actual character, such as were built in this area in the waning years of the Great Depression just before the United States became engulfed in World War II.

It appears to be in a lovely, well-kept neighborhood along 1700 East, not too awfully far from Sugarhouse Park. (If you visit the Family Address Book, you can see their actual new address, their new ward and stake, and new Church meeting times.)

They have a deep back yard, a separate one-car garage, and a covered back patio area next to the garage. The three-bedroom house has a finished basement (two bedrooms on the main level, one in the basement) and two somewhat recently renovated bathrooms. The small kitchen has been completely redone in a style that is either reminiscent of (or actually from) Ikea. So totally Pete and Anna.

Mom thoughtfully took them as house-warming gifts some fresh-cut flowers and a large package of toilet paper (always a necessity at any house, especially when things from a previous residence are still being found and unpacked).

They closed on the house on Thursday, moved much of their stuff yesterday, and were finishing moving this morning. Today is Pete and Anna's second wedding anniversary.

I hope either Pete or Anna posts some pictures of their new home because no amount of verbal description would do it sufficient justice.

The circle of life

2008-09-19T15:59:00.003-06:00

Just outside my office window I have watched a pine tree grow to maturity through the years I have worked here. In earlier times the tree was much shorter, and the top barely reached my third-floor window. In later years it pretty much filled the window and blocked the view.

Today during lunch hour we watched in fascination as a young lumberjack climbed the tree and with a chainsaw eliminated branches and cut off the top and worked his way back down, cutting sections of the remaining trunk as he descended. It was both fascinating and sad.

The tree is now gone, but we now have an unobstructed view of Temple Square and its magnificent temple.

I remember years ago when Claudia grieved over a large pine tree our neighbors removed. Were that tree still there, we would not enjoy the view out our kitchen window that we have of the Bountiful Temple on the foothills to our east.

A journey through medieval Europe

2008-09-06T10:55:00.012-06:00

I just took an interesting journey through medieval times, beginning with the period we commonly refer to as the dark ages and on through the centuries of European history up through the Renaissance and the Reformation and Ferdinand Magellan's incredible journey to circumnavigate the world. It was not a pretty place to live. Over and over I felt grateful that our turn on earth came in an age of enlightenment and advancement and Restoration and freedom, although I recognize that many on our planet still live in impoverished circumstances or under totalitarian regimes that echo the bondage of past ages.

My journey was through the pages of a remarkable book that I finished last night entitled A World Lit Only by Fire: The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance: Portrait of an Age, by William Manchester, a professor of history emeritus at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. (The book was published by Bay Back Books / Little, Brown and Company: New York, 1993.) It was a compelling read that kept me engaged through all 296 pages of the text.

An apostate Christianity dominated the landscape throughout all these centuries, and from my perspective it seemed clear that a great apostasy, as the prophets and apostles abundantly foretold in the biblical record (such as in 2 Thessalonians 2:3; Acts 20:28-31; Galatians 1:6-12; 2 Thessalonians 2:7-8; 1 Timothy 4:1-3; 2 Timothy 3:1-7; 2 Timothy 4:3-4; and Jude 1:3-4), had indeed occurred. The church that emerged in both eastern and western factions bore little semblance to what the humble Galilean, the Son of God, had introduced among His disciples. The doctrines were changed, the covenants and ordinances were adulterated and then lost, the authority of heaven was clearly withdrawn, and the institution that survived resorted to corruption and force to control the minds and souls of its adherents in satanic and barbaric forms of unrighteous dominion. Falsehoods were proclaimed as truth. Freedom of conscience and expression were suppressed. Spiritual wickedness reigned in high places.

The medieval church was no friend to liberty, justice, or truth. It was no friend of heaven. I am absolutely not making any of this up (nor was William Manchester as he wrote his book). This is the church that burned people at the stake for presuming to make the holy scriptures available to people in their own tongue. This is the institution that banned or excommunicated or killed people for presuming to teach that the world was round rather than flat as the ecclesiastical hierarchy insisted. Magellan's voyage around the world changed that old flat notion, although incredibly the church would not accept that the earth was actually a sphere until after a couple more centuries had passed.

The Reformation, beginning in the early years of the sixteenth century, was a response to all the accumulated evil that masqueraded in the name of religion and was an attempt, as the very name suggests, to reform the church. But the new Protestants, as they quickly came to be called, proved every bit as ruthless and dogmatic and controlling as the old regime had been. The excesses continued. The consciences of men were still abused. The government of heaven was still missing from the earth.

It is small wonder then (and this is now not technically a part of my little book report here but a requisite postscript), that the God of heaven had to start afresh, after carefully preparing a place where freedom of thought and religion were finally available, with a new revelation from the heavens. The nature and character and attributes of God had become so confused and lost, dating from the early centuries of Christianity and canonized in confusing and false creeds that by force of sword became mainstream, orthodox belief, that the Father and the Son chose to appear again to reveal Their true nature and to begin anew the Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ with its simple truths and ordinances and covenants and authority.

So, after centuries of apostasy and darkness, the heavens were opened once again on a spring morning in 1820 on the western frontier of the fledgling United States, in a marvelous theophany that verified the actual existence of God and that taught that God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ are actual, distinct, separate personages as the Bible clearly taught before its truths were obscured by the wrangling councils and creeds of later centuries.

Sadly, the philosophies of uninspired men had hijacked traditional Christianity from the simple scriptural truths taught by the Savior and His apostles. Things had gone badly wrong. A mere reformation was insufficient. A complete and total restitution or restoration of divine light and power and authority was necessary to get things back on track and to gather scattered Israel from all corners of the earth and to prepare a people, saints of the Most High God, for the imminent return of the Son of God, who this time will reign in glorious splendor as Lord of lords and King of kings. This coming millennial reign will differ in every respect from what prevailed during the dark and medieval ages portrayed by Professor Manchester in this book.

What a saint would look like

2008-08-24T14:49:00.005-06:00

This afternoon in sacrament meeting, after my dear wife had returned to her seat on the stand, having just delivered a masterful discourse on forsaking sin and coming unto Christ, I kept trying to catch her eye from my unobstructed view on the second row of the chapel to give her a thumbs up on a job well done. She had had the Holy Spirit with her in obvious abundance as she spoke of truths central to the gospel and central to our purpose here on the earth.

As I sat looking at her, as a soloist sang a medley of sacrament hymns and during the concluding speaker, she looked positively angelic in her bright pink dress and with her head crowned with its silvery hair, and I thought to myself that that is precisely what a saint would look like. She is clearly the epitome of what a faithful Latter-day Saint woman should be, filled as she is with charity, or the pure love of Christ, and with her genuine, heart-felt and all-inclusive, all-embracing concern for the welfare and happiness of others.

Did I happen to mention that I love her very much? As our instructor in priesthood meeting observed earlier in our meetings today, when he said he had clearly married above himself, I too am humbled, grateful, and happy to be yoked to such an one as her.

The grandest journey

2008-08-24T10:11:00.006-06:00

Forty years ago today (on Saturday, August 24, 1968) I received my mission call. The letter was signed by President David O. McKay, ninth President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It called me to the Brazilian North Mission, which had just been newly created during the month before that, and I was to report for service exactly one month later (on Monday, September 23, 1968).

In honor of the fortieth anniversary of my mission, the grandest journey of my life up to that point, I have started another new blog, this one entitled Dean's Missionary Journal, in which I will post entries from my missionary journal exactly forty years after they were originally written. A preface and an introduction have already been posted. I hope you enjoy.

Visit to Georgia (the final day)

2008-08-15T17:27:00.006-06:00

Thursday was our last full day in the Atlanta area, and it turned into a long, full day. Before Claudia and I left the Kieffers' house this morning, we said good-bye to Kathryn and her mother in anticipation of not seeing them before the day was over. We gave Momma Lue a copy of Mormon's Book as a sort of thank-you gift for all the Kieffers' many kindnesses to us during this week we have been in Georgia.

In the afternoon we left for Mercer University to attend the White Coat Ceremony in which Paul, along with the 146 other entering students, officially became a pharmacy student and began his graduate school career. There were six of us (Claudia and I, Paul's dad and sister, and Eliza and Peter) there cheering him on. We are all so proud of Paul and wish him every best wish as he begins the four-year journey toward his doctor of pharmacy degree. The campus of his school is very beautiful.

We returned to Paul and Eliza's apartment, changed from our Sunday dress, and ate a delicious pot roast and carrots that Eliza had been cooking since morning in the crock pot.

Then all of us except Claudia (who spent a quiet evening alone working on her gospel doctrine lesson for Sunday) drove to Doraville, caught the Marta train (we think that stands for Metro Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority) to downtown Atlanta, and got off at the Five Points station. From there we walked through Underground Atlanta and caught a Marta shuttle bus to Turner Field to attend the game between the Atlanta Braves and the Chicago Cubs. Ken Kieffer had arranged tickets for us through some acquaintance at work, and they were wonderful tickets, in the center of the lower section just behind the pitcher. We had a great time. And Peter loved the experience and, at times, was proving very entertaining to people sitting all around us and again on the train ride home. The final score, by the way, was Braves 7 Cubs 11.

We got back home a little before midnight. It was after one in the morning by the time Claudia and I said our good-byes, filled Kathryn's car with gas, and returned to the Kieffers' house. We just slept in our clothes since we had to leave for the airport at four in the morning to catch our six o'clock flight home. We flew on United from Atlanta to Chicago and, after a nearly three-hour layover, from Chicago to Salt Lake City. Our final flight left Chicago about fifteen minutes early and arrived in Salt Lake more than half an hour early.

Camilla and Sam picked us up at the airport. They and Chris arrived late Thursday night from Seattle to attend Chris's sister's wedding Friday afternoon here in the Bountiful Temple. They will be here until Monday.

Visit to Georgia (continued yet again)

2008-08-14T06:20:00.003-06:00

We spent the entire morning Wednesday at the Kieffers' house: Claudia working on her gospel doctrine lesson for Sunday School this coming Sunday, me checking stuff on the Internet, posting an account of our trip, dealing with work-related e-mails, ordering a birthday gift for Michael, etc. We visited with Mama Lue, who was in and out. Eliza had called and said she and Paul had to run a number of errands and were taking Peter with them, so we waited until after they returned.

We drove over to Paul and Eliza's apartment and ate some lunch. We had planned to go this evening to see the laser show at Stone Mountain, but Paul discovered that as of last weekend they discontinued nightly shows and only do it on weekends now that school has resumed. We considered other options and in the end, after Peter awoke from his nap, decided to go find where the temple is located. We spent some time walking around the temple grounds. We arrived probably not long after Kathryn left work. She works in the Distribution Center just behind the temple.

We returned home, fixed the hoagie sandwiches that were originally intended as our picnic supper at Stone Mountain, watched more of the Olympics, and played a board game. It was late when we finished, after ten o'clock, and drove back to Kieffers' to sleep.

Visit to Georgia (continued)

2008-08-13T09:12:00.004-06:00

Monday came and went and still no Paul Sr. or Ashley. They were stranded still in southern California. Fortunately, they caught a nine-thirty Monday night flight (12:30 a.m. Atlanta time) and arrived here in Atlanta at about five o'clock Tuesday morning. They were very tired of having waited in airports since Sunday morning.

On Monday, after Claudia and I were up and ready for the day, we drove over to Paul and Eliza's apartment and spent the rest of the day with them. Their washing machine had apparently been damaged in the move from Utah, but Eliza did not discover that little fact until after a load of clothes had filled up with water and would not then agitate. Not good. So Paul took the machine apart and discovered that one of the springs that holds up the whole interior part of the washing machine had come off. We spent a good part of the next few hours trying to lift and reconnect it. Finally our endurance gave out and we went out to eat at a nearby Waffle House. Adeaquate to refuel us. Nothing to write home about.

We then returned and finished working on the washer, which we finally repaired, put back together, and tried to resume washing the load of clothes. Nothing happened. Some other problem keeps it from working. So we reassembled the crib in Peter's room instead.

Originally we had planned to go to a laser light show at Stone Mountain for our family home evening, but since Paul's dad and sister were not yet here we decided to postpone that and watched more of the Beijing Olympics instead. Claudia and I then drove back to Kieffers' house. We visited a little while with Kathryn and then went to bed.

On Tuesday, after Claudia and I were up for the day, we drove back over to Paul and Eliza's place (15 miles from where the Kieffers live as I clocked it on the odometer of Kathryn's car that we are using for the week). We had visited a little with Kathryn after her seminary class (which she teaches each school day from six to seven in the morning) and before she left before eight for work at the Distribution Center near the Atlanta Temple. School started here yesterday, and the first day of seminary was this morning.

We helped watch Peter while Paul and Eliza went to their ten-thirty appointment to get Georgia driver licenses and register to vote. By now Paul's dad and sister were here, recovering still from their having flown through the night and having endured waiting at airports since Sunday morning. We watched more of the televised coverage of the Olympics.

In the afternoon we all went shopping at Wal-Mart to help fill up Paul and Eliza's pantry and refrigerator. We filled three shopping carts. As our little way of helping the kids get a start here in their new home, Paul Sr. paid for what was in his cart, Claudia and I paid for what was in our cart, and Paul and Eliza paid for what was in their cart. We brought everything home, put it away, fixed a late lunch, and Claudia and I took Eliza to Sam's Club to get the few more things that were still needed.

Originally we had planned to go to a laser light show at Stone Mountain, but it started raining, so that plan was postponed once again. Apparently the rain is good, since the whole region here is in a prolonged drought.

After watching more of the Olympics, Paul and Eliza generously took us all to dinner at Tanner's, a restaurant in Suwanee, not far from Kieffers' house, for a late dinner. We got there at eight o'clock, and the restaurant closed at nine. We went there to try the fried pickles that Eliza (and Peter) love so much. They were good, as was the rest of the food we all had. The portions were huge, and we thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience. Claudia had chicken and ribs with mashed potatoes and gravy and apples and cinnamon as her two sides. I had chicken with apples served on a bed of rice with baked beans and grilled corn on the cob as sides. It was all very delicious.

We then went to Kieffers' house. Paul and Eliza came too, so they could introduce Paul Sr. and Ashley to the Kieffers and check on the tickets to the Atlanta Braves games on Thursday night that Ken can get through someone he knows at work and so Peter could play with Mattie (the Kieffers' dog). Mama Lue was back from her visit to Kansas City, and we all had a delightful visit. The Kieffers, who we consider practically as family, are so incredibly nice and helpful and generous.

Visit to Georgia

2008-08-11T07:54:00.003-06:00

Claudia and I flew Saturday morning from Salt Lake City on a United flight to Denver. Michael kindly picked us up and dropped us off at the airport. In Denver we changed planes and continued on to Atlanta. Both flights were uneventful, which is basically what you want when you're tens of thousands of feet above the ground.

Ken Kieffer met us at the airport in Atlanta and took us to his home in Sugar Hill, which is located northeast of Atlanta. We so appreciate the Kieffers' generosity. Mary Lou is visiting in Kansas City and will be back on Tuesday. Kathryn was still at work. We waited awhile for her return, but she was delayed, so we drove over to see Paul, Eliza, and Peter, who live in nearby Duluth, about 25 minutes by car from the Kieffers' house. They have a nice two-bedroom, two-bath apartment with a generous amount of storage space in a large gated apartment community that is just off I-85. They are on the ground floor of a three-story building and are right near the rear gate that comes into the complex.

We are basically sleeping at the Kieffers' house, but Saturday night we stayed with Paul and Eliza so that we could go to their early church meetings Sunday morning. They are in the Lawrenceville First Ward with meetings from 8:30 to 11:30 in the morning. Shortly after we found their place and were given a little tour of their apartment, we went with them to their church to attend an ice cream social. They seem to live in a very friendly ward. After returning from that, we stopped at a grocery store to buy some stuff for the salad we are contributing to Sunday afternoon's meal with the Kieffers. Then we watched some of the Olympics on the new HD TV that Paul and Eliza had bought just that afternoon. Their old TV got broken during the move from Utah.

Sunday morning we attended church. Their ward has sacrament meeting first. Peter successfully went to the nursery, allowing all of us to attend Sunday School without his cute distraction, and allowing Claudia and Eliza to attend Relief Society and Paul and me to attend priesthood meeting. The previous week, Peter's first in the ward, did not go as well.

After church we returned to Paul and Eliza's place, ate sandwiches for lunch, read, took naps, took a walk through the apartment complex to feed bread crumbs to the ducks in the little lake and to see the swimming pool, the exercise room, where the garbage is compacted, etc.

The reason we were able to sleep at Paul and Eliza's on Saturday night is that Paul's dad and sister have not arrived yet. They spent all day Sunday trying (they are coming standby) and ended up at John Wayne airport in Orange County, California, based on the advice that they might have a better shot getting to Atlanta from California than from Utah, where it appears every single flight was filled. We have not heard as of this writing on Monday morning whether they made the final flight last night at 9:30 California time (12:30 a.m. Atlanta time), which would have put them arriving here sometime around 5:30 or so this morning.

Sunday evening we went to Kieffers and enjoyed a delicious chicken and salsa meal Ken had cooked in the crock pot, served with rice and corn and the salad we provided. An enjoyable meal. Even more enjoyable company. We watched some more of the Olympics. After Paul, Eliza, and Peter left to return home, we visited more with Ken and Kathryn, talked on the phone with Camilla and Sam in Everett, watched more of the Olympics, and finally went to bed.

Northwest adventure (day 9)

2008-08-08T08:27:00.005-06:00

Thursday, August 7, 2008
Oregon, Idaho, Utah

The final day of our adventure. Our motel offered a full continental breakfast, which we ate before packing and leaving. We stopped to get stamps canceled at the Ontario post office and took pictures of the Holy Rosary Hospital where I was born nearly six decades ago.

We then drove to Nyssa, where we saw the stake center where I was baptized fifty-one years ago this week. We drove by and took pictures of the Owyhee Ward chapel, where I went to church until I was nearly ten years old. We stopped in Adrian (current population about 140 people) and took pictures of the school I attended through most of the fourth grade, had stamps canceled in our trip books, and otherwise toured the little town.

We crossed the Snake River just south of Adrian and drove the six miles to where our farm was located in the Big Bend area of eastern Oregon bordering on the State Line Road. The farm is still there, but the house, the barn, the trees are all gone. The foundation of the little house is still visible. While we were stopped taking pictures, a pickup came down the hill and stopped to see if we were having car trouble (why otherwise would a car be stopped out here in the middle of nowhere?), and when the couple in the pickup saw the camera concluded we were not having car trouble. I mentioned we were taking pictures of the place I had moved from when I was nearly ten years old. The lady in the pickup said, "Oh, the Cleverlys." I was utterly amazed that someone would remember the family from nearly fifty years ago. They said their name was Adams, I think, and that they had lived just up over the hill for many years.

I also showed them the little swimming hole just down the road where we used to swim in the drain ditch. We then continued on through Wilder and Greenleaf to Caldwell. I pointed out where my mother used to work at Simplot's. We then went to Nampa, had some stamps canceled there, and drove by the site of the old Nampa Fifth Ward building (which is no longer there), where I attended church from age ten until after my mission more than a decade later. We drove by and took pictures of Central Junior High, where I attended school when I was in the seventh, eighth, and ninth grades. We drove by the site of the Dairy Queen I worked at in high school, now occupied by a Subway, so we stopped there to eat. We drove by and took pictures of Nampa High School, where I attended school in the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grades. We drove out south of town to see the house we moved to in 1959 when we came from Oregon. We drove by and took pictures of Scism School, where I attended the three-room school for parts of the fourth, fifth, and sixth grades. We drove by where our next house in Nampa was located on Colorado Avenue (which is no longer there). And we drove by the final house I lived in in Nampa on Ventura Drive (it is still there and looks very much the same as I remember it). Michael can remember going to that house to visit his grandparents.

We then got on I-84 and headed toward home. With a couple of rest stops, a stop in Bliss to buy gas, and a stop in Snowville, Utah, to find its post office (which had closed an hour earlier than we arrived), we reached Layton about seven-thirty. We were glad to be home.

I unloaded my stuff from Michael's minivan and put it in our minivan (which Shauna had borrowed from us while we were gone; she also filled it with gas and washed it). I ate supper with Michael and Shauna's family, spaghetti that Shauna had made, and then drove home to Bountiful. It was wonderful to see Claudia again. We called Rachael to wish her a happy birthday. She and Robert and the girls are in Illinois visiting Robert's parents and had just returned from spending a couple of days in Kentucky. Today is her thirty-third birthday.

Northwest adventure (day 8)

2008-08-08T08:26:00.004-06:00

Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Oregon, Washington

I should mention that although I love all the trees that infest this forest we have been in, Meghan does not. She thinks there are too many trees. She has thought that ever since we arrived in western Washington last Friday afternoon. So she was glad as we left the forests of western Oregon and traveled into the more desolate parts of central and eastern Oregon.

We ate, packed, swept our yurt, checked out, and left Fort Stevens State Park and returned along U.S. 101 to Astoria and then U.S. 30 to where we crossed the Columbia River back to Longview, Washington, and then traveled down I-5 on the Washington side of the river. As we approached the Vancouver-Portland area, we took I-205, a shortcut toward I-84, crossed the Columbia River a final time, and were back in Oregon again. We then headed east along I-84 up through the scenic Colombia River Gorge with a short stop at Multnomah Falls. At The Dalles we stopped and had lunch at a KFC. It is a particular challenge finding a place to eat that will satisfy all the picky eaters in our traveling party. At Pendleton we stopped for gas. Oregon, as far as we know, is the only state in the country, where by law you cannot pump your own gas. We continued east on I-84, mile after mile after mile, entering the Mountain Time Zone again, and finally reached our destination in Ontario, the final city in Oregon.

We stayed in a Super 8 Motel, which our review panel rated as far better than the EconoLodge we had stayed in Wednesday and Thursday nights in Boise but not quite as nice as the Best Western we had stayed in Friday and Saturday nights in Everett. The yurts, which we stayed in Monday and Tuesday nights in Fort Stevens State Park, were in a different category and were a universal favorite also.

Just before going to dinner, Jacob had jumped on one of the three beds in our large room and bonked his head against Meghan's. It hurt terribly, and she was very sad. When she finally recovered we started walking over to a pizza buffet within walking distance of the motel. We stood for five or ten minutes in the parking lot waiting for Caleb to join us (Michael and Andrew were going to stay in the motel room because Michael was not hungry, and he was tired of paying for Andrew to eat when he typically would not).

While waiting for Caleb, a guy drove by us three times in a car, finally parked and got out, and asked us if everything was okay. Meghan's face was still red and puffy from her earlier crying. He wanted to know why everyone looked so unhappy and if they were okay. He asked me if I were their father. It was kind of creepy, but I guess we were glad he was tuned in to whether a couple of kids standing in a parking lot were not being held there against their will or were being abducted or some such awful thing. I wondered if he were an off-duty policeman or something.

We went on to the pizza/pasta/salad buffet and learned that on Wednesdays children eat free, so I called Michael and said he could safely bring Andrew if they wanted to come join us, which they did. Caleb proudly ate nine pieces of pizza.

After eating we returned to the motel and went swimming in their pool until it closed at ten o'clock. We then went to bed.

Northwest adventure (day 7)

2008-08-08T08:24:00.005-06:00

Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Oregon

Our yurt is situated in a dense forest that is absolutely gorgeous and peaceful. We are somewhere between a half and three quarters of a mile from the Pacific Ocean. It is cool, damp, and foggy in the mornings. Although it is cool, it is not as cold as I anticipated it might be, and my new Malad City hooded sweatshirt that Robert and Rachael gave me for my birthday was entirely adequate. We fixed breakfast at the yurt, cold cereal and milk and orange juice for Michael and the children, a hard-boiled egg and protein shake and orange juice for me.

We drove over to the beach where the remains of the shipwrecked Peter Iredale are located. It was the first time that any of the children (except Caleb, who had been to Hawaii with Cade, Rebecca, and Mimi) had seen the ocean. We played on the beach a little, and the kids all got their shoes and socks thoroughly muddy.

The children, with Michael and I accompanying them, participated in a scavenger hunt as a part of the junior ranger program.

Next we drove over to the part of Fort Stevens State Park that included the old military installation (which started during the Civil War and was closed right after World War II) and learned about a guided tour we could take in the afternoon. Fort Stevens is the only military installation in the continental United States that has been shelled by a foreign power since the War of 1812. A Japanese submarine fired nine shots at the fort in April 1942 but caused no significant damage other than psychological among the civilian population along the west coast.

We left the park, driving toward U.S. 101 (the Pacific Coast highway) and found a Dairy Queen, where we ate lunch. We then returned for the 2:30 tour of the military installation. We rode in a 1952 military truck. Caleb and Jacob got to sit up front with the driver and got to honk the horn when we crossed bicycle paths a couple times. The rest of us sat in the covered bed in the back of the truck with the other tour participants. The tour lasted a little over an hour and was most interesting.

We then went exploring throughout the park on our own. We visited a large military bunker, visited a spot along the beach of the Pacific Ocean and a spot along the Columbia River just before it empties into the ocean. The road there took us to the very northwestern-most point of the state of Oregon. We learned that the actual coastline here is about a mile further west than when the Lewis and Clark expedition visited here in 1805-1806. That is because jetties have been constructed to control the changing currents and sandbars at the mouth of the Columbia. The Colombia River bar is particularly treacherous. That and the rocky Oregon coastline have resulted in over 2,000 ship wrecks in this area in the last couple of centuries, earning the mouth of the Columbia the nickname as the graveyard of the Pacific.

In the evening we drove south along U.S. 101 to Seaside to find a place to eat. We ate at a little Italian restaurant.

We returned to the park and were there in time for the nine o'clock campfire program at the amphitheater. Tonight's program, presented again by Ranger Matt, was on Roosevelt Elk, which are common in this corner of Oregon. We all wished we could be here for the program scheduled for tomorrow night entitled the Graveyard of the Pacific, but we will be in Ontario on the opposite side of the state by then.

We returned to the yurt and retired for the night.

Northwest adventure (day 6)

2008-08-08T08:23:00.002-06:00

Monday, August 4, 2008
Oregon, Washington

Dani left for work (or school, I am not sure which) just as I was waking up for the day, which was earlier than any of the others were up. We got up, had some breakfast, packed our things, and headed out for the day. First we went looking for a post office to buy stamps and have them hand canceled in our travel books. We then drove into downtown Portland and went to Powell's, which is billed as the largest independent seller of new and used books, and spent a couple hours there. Michael and the children each bought books. I just browsed.

We then went to lunch at a Burgerville, a local chain here in the Portland area. Dani had recommended it as a place with to-die-for onion rings and in-season fresh raspberry shakes. We tried both and were very pleased.

We then met Dani at OMSI (the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry), which is located along the south bank of the Willamette River, and spent a couple hours there. It was similar to what we had seen at the Discovery Center of Idaho in Boise.

We said good-bye to Dani and, at her recommendation, headed toward Astoria in the very northwest corner of the state by taking I-5 back into Washington and traveling up the Washington side of the Columbia to Longview, where we crossed the river back into Oregon and continued along U.S. 30 on the south side of the river to Astoria. We stopped there to buy food at a Safeway store and then drove on to Fort Stevens State Park, our home for the next couple days. We found the ranger station and checked in. We are staying in yurt number 11 both Monday and Tuesday nights.

The yurt is just the right size for our group of six people. Caleb and Jacob will sleep in their sleeping bags on the top bunk. Michael, Meghan, and Caleb will sleep on the wider bottom bunk. And I will sleep on the futon couch. After we got settled in, we went to the nine o'clock campfire program at the amphitheater on lighthouses on the Oregon coast. That was an enjoyable half hour program.

Northwest adventure (day 5)

2008-08-08T08:21:00.005-06:00

Sunday, August 3, 2008
Washington, Oregon

Today is fast Sunday. Our motel provides a full continental breakfast. Michael's children, who fast one meal on fast Sunday, decided to eat breakfast and skip their midday meal. That way we wouldn't have to stop somewhere on the road to buy a meal on the sabbath.

Chris and Camilla stopped by our motel about nine o'clock, and we followed them to their meetinghouse, where we attended the meetings of the Mukilteo Ward. Sacrament meeting was first, followed by Primary for the children and by Sunday School and priesthood meeting for Michael and me. The children felt more comfortable going to Primary because Camilla was there as the music leader. Chris accompanied Michael and me to Sunday School and Michael to elders quorum while I joined the high priests group.

After church we returned to Chris and Camilla's apartment to visit for a few hours. Sam has had a great time having some of his cousins here to play with, particularly Andrew, who is closest to his age.

Around four o'clock we said good-bye to Chris, Camilla, and Sam (we will be seeing them again in two weeks when they come to Utah for the wedding of Chris's sister) and left Everett, heading south on I-5 past Seattle, Tacoma, Olympia (the capital of Washington), and on south to Vancouver. We continued across the Columbia River into Oregon and on through Portland to Lake Oswego, where Michael's friend Dani lives. She used to work with him at Deseret Book. On the way to her house we passed the Portland Oregon Temple, which can be seen just off the east side of the freeway just south of Portland. (On Friday, as we were arriving in the Seattle area, we passed the Seattle Washington Temple on the north side of I-90 just before it intersects with I-405 in Bellevue.) It had taken us between three and three and a half hours to travel from Everett to Lake Oswego.

We spent the evening visiting with Dani. Michael, Meghan, Caleb, and Jacob slept in sleeping bags in a tent in the backyard. Andrew and I slept in sleeping bags on the floor of the living room.

Northwest adventure (day 4)

2008-08-02T18:07:00.005-06:00

Saturday, August 2, 2008
Washington

The motel we are staying in here in Everett is by everyone's count much nicer than the one we stayed in in Boise. This morning we went to breakfast and found they had a full range of foods available. I had a hard-boiled egg, some oatmeal, a peach-flavored yogurt, and a drink of orange juice.

After we ate breakfast and got ready for the day, we went over to Camilla's apartment to plan the rest of the day. It had been raining and was overcast, with clearing later in the day, but we never did see any actual rain. Meghan took a bag of dirty clothes to launder in Camilla's washer and dryer. First, before going to Camilla's, we went looking for a post office. We found the one Camilla directed us to, but it is not open on Saturdays. So we went to Camilla's.

We left after a little while and went to downtown Everett to find the main post office. It was open. Then Camilla took us to a petting zoo, followed by a scenic tour through parts of Everett and Mukilteo because we were lost. We saw the Puget Sound, our first view of the Pacific Ocean on this trip. We also saw the Boeing plant where they make airplanes. It is supposed to be the biggest building ever built. We then drove to the Great Harvest bakery, bought sandwiches for lunch, and took them back to Chris and Camilla's apartment to eat. In the afternoon we went to the very interesting Future of Travel museum out by the Boeing plant in Mukilteo.

We returned to the apartment, and Chris made us spaghetti for supper. We also watched a DVD of the movie Second-Hand Lion, a touching story of a young boy who gets left with two old uncles who live on a remote farm in Texas or somewhere and who are reportedly very rich. I had seen the movie once before, also when we were on a family trip, the time when Talmage and Louise, Chris and Camilla, and Paul and Eliza went with Mom and me to Nauvoo more than a year ago.

After the movie ended, Chris, Camilla, and Sam went with us over to our Best Western motel, and everyone except Chris and I went swimming. Sam, who apparently had not been swimming in a very long time, seemed to particularly enjoy it.

It had been a pleasant day. We heard from Shauna, who arrived safely home from Boise and rescued the twins from Grandma Claudia. And we heard from Grandma, who had just been talking with Eliza in Georgia. This afternoon Eliza and Paul found a place to live, and they bought a new computer and printer and accompanying software. It sounds like a good day for everyone.

Northwest adventure (day 3)

2008-08-02T09:09:00.003-06:00

Friday, August 1, 2008

Idaho, Oregon, Washington

We dropped Shauna off at the hotel where she will be staying for the final night of her Scentsy convention. We then took pictures of the Hoff Building for Rebecca. It is an art-deco office building built early in the last century that is one of the taller buildings in downtown Boise and located just a block west from the state capitol. We went inside the building and rode the elevator up as high as it would take us (11 floors). From the elevator we could see out two sides (west and north, I believe) of the Boise landscape. We then went to the main post office, which is just southwest of the capitol, to buy our postage stamps and have them hand cancelled in our travel books. The post office opened at 8:30, and by 8:45 or so we were on the road again.

We traveled west along I-84 past Meridian in Ada County and Nampa and Caldwell in Canyon County. I grew up in Nampa, from the spring of 1959 when I was nine years old until 1968 when I left on my mission to Brazil. My brothers Gene and Dale still live in Nampa.

The children were all asleep by the time we crossed the Snake River a final time and entered Oregon. Ontario, the first Oregon town we passed, was where I was born all those so many years ago. We continued along I-84 past Baker City, La Grande, and over the Blue Mountains to Pendleton. Along our way, which roughly follows the route of the Oregon Trail, we crossed into the Pacific Time Zone (and changed our clocks from 10:00 to 9:00) and crossed the 45th Parallel, the halfway point between the equator and the North Pole.

We stopped to eat in Pendleton. We stopped at a local place, Roosters restaurant. The food was good and reasonably priced. Most of us had some kind of breakfast fare, except Andrew, who had his obligatory mac and cheese. We also found the post office and bought more stamps and had them cancelled.

We continued further along I-84 until it intersected with I-82. We took that route north into Washington, crossing the Columbia River at Umatilla. We continued along I-82 past the Tri Cities, Yakima, and finally to Ellensberg, where the freeway joined I-90. Interstate 90 is the longest freeway in the United States, covering the 3,000+ miles from Boston, Massachusetts, to Seattle, Washington. We only traveled along the 100-mile stretch up and over the Cascade Range into the Seattle area, a beautiful ride by the way. When we reached the Seattle area, we turned north on I-405 and inched our way in rush-hour traffic toward Everett.

We were hoping to reach Everett before six o'clock so we could visit Camilla at her Great Harvest bakery store. We got there about fifteen or twenty minutes before closing time. Chris, Sam, and Chris's sister Kirsten came over and helped Camilla clean up and close the store. Chris gave us a little tour of his bakery. It was fun to see Sam again. He turned two last month.

We went to Chris and Camilla's apartment, which is only a block or so away from the bakery, and visited awhile and ate. Then we went to find our motel, the Best Western Navigator Inn, which was located on Evergreen, less than two miles from Camilla's house. Everyone was in agreement that it was way better than the Econo Lodge we stayed in in Boise. In this motel all six of us are able to stay in the same room. We checked in, and I went with Meghan, Caleb, Jacob, and Andrew to watch them swim during the final hour the swimming pool was open. It closed at ten o'clock.

Northwest adventure (day 2)

2008-07-31T22:58:00.007-06:00

Thursday, July 31, 2008

Idaho

I awoke this morning about 6:30 and used the time while others in our room were still sleeping to read five chapters from the Book of Mormon and to finish Are We There Yet?, one of the books I received for my recent birthday. A little before eight o'clock I drove Shauna to the place in downtown Boise where her Scentsy convention began.

When we were all up and fed and ready for the day, somewhere around ten, we headed out for our day's adventures. We drove through downtown and then along Warm Springs Avenue to visit the site of the old penitentiary, which operated from 1870 (seven years after Idaho was organized as a territory) until 1973 (when the facility was replaced by a new state prison built at another location). After we paid our entry fee, we joined a tour group that was already in process. The older gentleman who conducted the tour was a wealth of information and stories about what had happened at the penitentiary during the century of its operation. He was fascinating to listen to, and we didn't mind that his tour lasted far longer than it was supposed to. (During the evening, after Shauna was back with us, the children were recounting some of the stories to her in great detail.)

Also housed at the penitentiary site, not because they had anything to do with the prison but because space was available, were museums relating to early transportation and to the development of electricity in the state of Idaho. There was also a firearms museum, but we did not go into that.

Michael called a friend of his (TJ Eardley), who used to work with him at Deseret Book and who now lives here in Meridian, just west of Boise. They agreed to meet for lunch at 1:00 at a place on Broadway across from Julia Davis Park called The Ram. I called my brother Jerry, and he and his roommate Jim were already in downtown Boise, just minutes away from The Ram, so I invited them to lunch as my guests. When we got to the restaurant, the three of them (TJ, Jerry, and Jim) were sitting in front visiting with each other. They had already figured out that they were waiting for the same people.

The food was good (I had a garlic swiss burger that TJ recommended as being good, and it was), and the visit even nicer.

After lunch and good-byes, we found the Discovery Center of Idaho and spent the rest of the afternoon there. The children participated in a tower building contest using plastic straws and masking tape. Caleb tied for second place in the most creative category. We then spent a couple of hours with the numerous hands-on exhibits throughout the center. It was both enjoyable and educational.

The center closed at five o-clock, and we were supposed to pick Shauna up thirty minutes later. Since the Discovery Center, located just at the edge of Julia Davis Park, was only a couple blocks from where we were to meet Shauna, we decided to use the half hour we had to drive up to the freeway to show the kids the Boise Idaho Temple and then back into downtown to find Shauna. She had had a thoroughly enjoyable day at her convention.

We returned to the motel for about an hour, then headed again through downtown and along Warm Springs Avenue to the Municipal Park along Walnut Street and the Boise River to attend the family picnic being held in conjunction with Shauna's Scentsy convention. Boise has a lot of urban park space and an impressive greenbelt through much (perhaps all) of the town along both sides of the Boise River. We ate our picnic dinner, which consisted of green salad, potato salad, coleslaw, baked beans, corn-on-the-cob, beef or chicken barbecue, and drinks. There were ice cream, popsicles, or watermelon for dessert. We met another person Michael knew from Intermountain Healthcare, Ryan Day, whose wife is also involved in Scentsy, and they were up for the convention from Herriman, Utah. We ate at the same picnic table, just a stone's throw from the Boise River, and visited with the Days. After eating, Caleb, Jacob, and Andrew went and played on the big inflated bouncy toys that had been set up throughout the park.

After we left the park, we drove a little further along Warm Springs Avenue and showed Shauna where the penitentiary was that we had visited this morning. The children shared their stories from the guide we had there. We then went looking for a Wal-Mart, somewhere on Overland Road, filled the car with gas, which is cheaper here in Idaho than in Utah, and returned after dark to the motel. It had been a fun and memorable day.

Northwest adventure (day 1)

2008-07-31T08:21:00.011-06:00

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Utah, Idaho

Our trip to Boise and beyond began this morning a little after ten o'clock as we pulled out of our driveway in Bountiful. Michael and Shauna had come from Layton to Bountiful to drop the twins off with Grandma, who bravely agreed to tend the 18-month-olds for the next four days. That left seven of us in our traveling party: Michael, Shauna, Meghan, Caleb, Jacob, Andrew, and me.

Our first stop was at the post office in Bountiful, where we stopped to buy first-class stamps, pasted them in the travel books Michael had published for this trip, and had them hand cancelled with a Bountiful postmark.

Then we headed north on I-15 until it was joined just south of Ogden by I-84 and continued on through Weber and Box Elder counties until we reached the Idaho border. The children were busy looking for various things: the air museum just off the freeway near Hill Air Force Base, cows, horses, sheep (for which they substituted llamas), airplanes, busses, letters of the alphabet on signs, old barns, etc. as a part of travel packets their aunt had prepared for them. As they completed various items they could open little gifts she had prepared for them.

We stopped at the first rest stop we came to in Idaho, about five miles after we left Utah, and then continued along I-84 toward Twin Falls. Michael had driven until we came to the rest stop. I drove until we came to Twin Falls.

Our purpose in stopping at Twin Falls was to attend the open house for the newly completed Twin Falls Idaho Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. New temples are opened up for public tours before they are dedicated to their sacred purposes of ordinance work and instruction. We were scheduled for a 1:30 tour, which we were about ten minutes late for, not bad for having driven all the way from northern Utah.

At the open house we started in the adjacent stake center, where we received a brief orientation and watched a short video about the purpose of temples and the history of the Church in the Twin Falls area. Then tour guides took us through the temple. At the front entrance into the temple they had us put plastic foot coverings over our shoes (so as not to unduly soil the carpets throughout the temple). We proceeded through the entry and waiting areas to the baptistry in the rear part of the temple. We explained to the children why the baptismal font is placed on the backs of twelve oxen, following the pattern used in Solomon's Temple anciently as recorded in the Old Testament, the oxen representing the twelve tribes of Israel. We then walked up a staircase to the upper level, where we walked through the women's dressing room, the bride's dressing room, the ordinance rooms used for the endowment (the one we were in had a gorgeous mural showing the Shoshone Falls on the Snake River), the celestial room, and a sealing room. One of the nice touches was use of a symbolized version of the Idaho state flower, the syringa or mock orange, throughout the temple in the woodwork, the windows, in designs in the carpets, etc. We then left the temple and returned to the cultural hall of the stake center for light refreshments (cookies and water).

While in the temple one of the ushers asked me if I were Dean Cleverly, and it turned out that I was. And the thought popped into my head that his last name was Jensen, and it turned out that it was. He was Gary Jensen, who had served with me in Brazil nearly forty years ago when we were missionaries in the Brazil North Mission. He now lives here in Twin Falls. A small world.

After leaving the temple, we stopped to eat a late lunch/early dinner at the Perkins restaurant. We then found the Twin Falls post office and bought postage stamps, affixed them to our travel books, and had them hand cancelled with a Twin Falls postmark.

We had talked about taking the scenic drive through the Snake River Canyon but decided to continue along I-84 toward Boise. Michael was driving again. We stopped at the Malad River Gorge State Park, just off the freeway near the town of Bliss, for about ten or fifteen minutes, our version of scenic lite. The deep chasm carved into the lava rock was impressive, even a little erie as we stood on the foot bridge that spans the chasm. The kids were not sure they liked that feeling.

We stopped at the rest stop just before the freeway exit to King Hill and just before the highway crosses the Snake River again. I resumed driving from there to Boise.

We reached Boise a little before seven o'clock and dropped Shauna off to pick up the registration materials for the Scentsy convention she is attending the next three days. We went and found our motel, a low-end EconoLodge not far from the downtown site where the convention is being held. When Shauna called, I drove over and picked her up. The only challenge with navigating downtown Boise are all the one-way streets that we are not particularly familiar with.

We had two adjoining rooms at the motel, numbers 316 and 318 on the top floor of the motel. Michael, Caleb, Jacob, and I stayed in room 318, which had two queen-sized beds. Shauna, Meghan, and Andrew stayed in room 316, which had one king-sized bed. Each room had a microwave and a refrigerator and was adequate for our needs, clean, but definitely not spacious or fancy or very up-to-date. Our idea of roughing it.

A bit of ingenuity

2008-07-30T09:29:00.004-06:00

Paul and Eliza and their little Peter are currently making their way across the country from Utah to Georgia. Two days ago they called from Sidney, Nebraska, to report they had successfully completed their first day of travel. Last night they called from St. Joseph, Missouri, to report completion of their second day.

They were planning to have Hot Pockets for dinner, but the motel where they were staying had no microwaves or toasters in the room or even in the lobby area. So, in a burst of creative ingenuity, Paul took out the iron and ironed their dinner. Eliza said it worked. And thus the hungry travelers were filled.

Bryce Canyon half marathon

2008-07-19T18:43:00.005-06:00

Over the course of our lives Claudia and I have made the drive along I-15 from northern to southern Utah many, many times—some of them before there even was an I-15. Most were a part of the regular trips to southern California when Grandma and Grandpa Lange still lived there. Nowadays a trip to California is more likely to be by airplane, particularly since there are just the two of us and not a whole carload of kids too.

In more recent years trips to southern Utah were exactly that: trips to southern Utah, for such things as visiting our daughter and hubby when they lived in Hurricane, or watching various of our children run in the St. George Marathon a couple different times, or more recently visiting my brother and his wife first in St. George and now in Hurricane.

The past two days took us to southern Utah again, this time to the Bryce Canyon area, where our youngest daughter was running a half marathon. We left midday on Friday and headed south through the various familiar counties—Davis, Salt Lake, Utah, Juab, Millard, Beaver, Iron—that I-15 runs through. We took a short break at Scipio and continued on until we exited the freeway south of Beaver on Utah highway 20, which happens to be just twenty miles long as it heads east from I-15, through some mountains, and ends at U.S. 89 of the other side. A pleasant, scenic drive.

With the high price of gasoline (at now over $4.00 a gallon), I decided to employ some of the elements of hypermiling that our younger son uses so effectively to boost his gas mileage in his ten-year-old Saturn. I decided to drive only 65 miles per hour while still on the freeway, even after the speed limit increases to 75 south of Spanish Fork. Most cars were going faster, but I was surprised to encounter an occasional fellow traveler who was driving slower like we were.

Once we were on U.S. 89 we continued south to Panguitch. About seven miles south of there, we intersected with Utah highway 12, the route that runs toward Bryce Canyon. We turned east onto highway 12, and near the intersection of 89 and 12, perhaps a third or half a mile east of the intersection, we found our motel, Harold's Place Inn, and checked in. The entire drive from Bountiful to our motel had taken only four hours and fifteen minutes, including our brief stop in Scipio.

After we had made our original reservation at Harold's Place, my assistant at work (whose grandparents live in nearby Tropic) told me that there were many places much closer to Bryce Canyon and gave me a list of ten other motels to try. I called every single one of them, and none had vacancies for this particular weekend. That is not surprising, given that July has to be the normal height of the tourist season for the Bryce area, not to mention all the additional people in town for the half marathon.

We then drove the seventeen miles or so on to Bryce Canyon. The road goes through the very scenic Red Canyon, and we greatly enjoyed the drive, which incidentally only took us about fifteen minutes rather than the half hour my assistant had suggested.

Near Bryce Canyon we called Mary on her cell phone, and she directed us to where they were camping in the large campground just south of Ruby's Inn. She and Vince had driven down this morning to make sure they were early enough to find a suitable campsite before the campground filled up. There were two other couples staying with them. The husbands were friends that grew up with Vince.

After visiting a while, Claudia and I went to eat dinner at the Ruby's Inn restaurant. We had the cowboy buffet. The restaurant was very crowded, and we heard a lot of tourists speaking German, but the whole arrangement was very efficient, and we did not have to wait long to be seated. After we ate, we looked through the general store and some other little shops trying to find some balloons for the race Saturday morning, but apparently balloons don't sell well in such touristy places.

We returned to the campground, and Peter and Anna had also arrived, and we visited briefly with them before driving back to our motel. The drive through Red Canyon at dusk was also very pretty.

We watched the first episode of the new season of Monk on the TV in our motel room. It was followed by the first episode of Psych, but I fell asleep and did not see much of that.

The alarm on my cell phone went off at 5:00 Saturday morning, way too early for anyone to be up, except that we had to pack up our things, check out of the motel, and drive back through Red Canyon to Ruby's Inn for the 6:00 start of the half marathon. Mary was running with the wives of Vince's two friends. The elevation is above 7,000 feet, and it was downright cold at 6:00 in the morning. (On the drive between Red Canyon and Ruby's Inn we passed a sign saying "Summit 7,777 feet.")

We watched the race start, and then drove part way along the race route and parked to wait for the three girls to come by, and held out our signs that Claudia made many years ago when we watched Anna and Eliza run in the Lake Tahoe Marathon. It was in a gorgeous setting as we watched the sun come up and spread across the intricate red rock formations. We listened to a new Tabernacle Choir CD, "Called to Serve," that Claudia had given me before we left the motel as my birthday present. We were somewhere between miles 4 and 5 of the 13.1-mile course when Mary and her two friends passed.

When the traffic was allowed to continue in an eastbound direction along highway 12 (police officers alternatively piloted east- and then westbound traffic along the half of the road the runners were not using), we continued down through Tropic and beyond to Cannonville, where the finish line was. I say down because the elevation drop from the start to the finish of the race was some 2,000 feet. It's hard to image a marathon route with more breath-taking scenery than this one had.

We parked within a block of the finish line in Cannonville and waited for Mary to come in. Pete and Anna had joined us, and Vince and his two friends were there too.

After Mary finished the race, Mary and Vince, Peter and Anna, and Claudia and I went to breakfast at a restaurant back in Tropic. Pete and Anna treated Claudia and me for my birthday. We all had some sort of omelet, except Anna who had pancakes and scrambled eggs on the side. The service was exceedingly slow; it appeared they were severely understaffed. So it was late morning by the time we finished eating.

We drove Vince and Mary back to their campground, said our good-byes, and we headed for home, a final time through the beautiful Red Canyon, and back to Panguitch, where we stopped to fill the minivan with gas. Rather than travel back along the familiar I-15, we decided to stay on the more scenic (and for us different) U.S. 89. I was glad we did. This route took us through parts of Garfield, Piute, and Sevier counties.

Around Marysville (and just before the battery on my cell phone died) Camilla, Chris, and Sam called from Everett to wish me a happy birthday. Camilla had just returned herself from a week of training at the Great Harvest headquarters in Dillon, Montana. She finished Friday afternoon and drove to Spokane, where she stayed overnight, before waking up early Saturday morning and continuing on home to Everett.

We traveled north on U.S. 89, Claudia sleeping much of the way, until it merged with I-70 heading eastbound. We exited at Salina and continued northward on U.S. 50 until we came to Scipio and rejoined I-15 northbound.

And then on home, with a brief rest stop in Nephi, continuing at our 65 miles per hour. I was very tired by the time we reached home. Claudia felt it took us forever to drive just through Utah Valley.

Interestingly, our return trip from Panguitch to Bountiful took only four hours and five minutes. So, both routes—our more conventional I-15 and the more scenic combination of U.S. 89, I-70, and U.S. 50—were fairly comparable in terms of distance and time.

Trip to California

2008-06-30T12:22:00.006-06:00

On Friday evening, June 27, Grandpa Lange, Claudia, and I took a Southwest flight from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles. Paul, Eliza, and Peter kindly drove us to the airport.

Our flight arrived nearly a half hour early in Los Angeles, which was fortunate because it took us as long to drive from the airport to our destination in La Crescenta as it had taken to drive from our home in Bountiful and then fly to California. We had to catch the airport shuttle to the Alamo car rental place, pick up a rental car (and then pick up a second one because the plates on the first one expired in May), and then find the right freeway (which happened to be south on I-405, east on I-105, north on I-110 through downtown Los Angeles, north on I-5, north on California 2, and finally west on I-210). At that late hour we did not expect traffic to be so heavy, but it was nearly a parking lot at times as we approached downtown and just beyond.

We were spending the night with Janice's parents, Wally and Ann Anderson, who generously offer their home for us to stay in whenever we come down to visit David and Janice. We arrived there at 11:30 p.m. California time (or 12:30 our time), and Ann was dutifully waiting up for us so she could lock up the house after we were safely in.

The purpose for our weekend trip was to celebrate Stuart's return after two years as a missionary in the Illinois Peoria Mission. He had arrived home on Thursday of the week before, the same day his younger sister Rachel graduated from high school. The next day David and Janice took Stuart through a session in the Los Angeles Temple and then David and Stuart went surfing.

We spent much of Saturday visiting first with Wally and Ann, who kindly fixed us breakfast, and then much of the rest of the day with David and Janice and their family. Tony and Jessica came up from San Diego, where they live with their two boys (Tanner and Ben) about two hours south of David and Janice. Adam and Joanna were there from Glendale, Arizona, a five-to-six-hour drive away, with their little two-year-old Kate. They are expecting their second child, a boy, sometime in August. Drew and Erica live nearby in La Crescenta, perhaps ten minutes away, and they are expecting their first child in early December. Stuart and Rachel will both be going to BYU this fall, and Heather, Brooke, and Annee are still at home.

On Sunday morning we attended church in the Verdugo Hills Ward and heard Stuart report his mission in sacrament meeting. He did a fine job. Just before he spoke, Jessica and Rachel sang "Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing," one of my favorite hymns.

We spent the rest of Sunday, after the three-hour block of meetings, visiting with David, Janice, and their family. When David, Janice, Stuart, and Rachel left to go to another sacrament meeting, we drove back up to Ann and Wally's to take a nap but ended up helping them set up for the family dinner that was scheduled for four o'clock. It was a delightfully pleasant day, a little too warm if you had to be out in the sun for any period of time, just right if you were in the shade. It was good to see some of Janice's side of the family again.

In the evening the crowds faded away, and we visited some more with Wally and Ann and a little later with David and Janice, who came back over to the Andersons' house for some final visiting and farewells.

David is going through a tough time right now. He has been unemployed for the past five weeks and has now lived through the month's severance pay he received when he was let go. He has a lot of feelers out, and a couple of leads, but nothing concrete yet in the troubled times that the construction sector is now going through in California. Many days look bleak. In addition to looking for work, he plans to spend the coming months sprucing up his home in the event he needs to relocate. If he can actually sell it in a slow market, he thinks it is probably worth something approaching three-quarters of a million dollars. Incredible.

We went to bed a little earlier so we could wake up before four o'clock Monday morning to drive back to the airport, return the rental car, and catch our 6:30 flight home to Utah. When we got in the lengthy line of passengers trying to make their way through the security checks, we wondered if we would actually catch our plane, but we did. (Interestingly, my newly implanted heart monitor set off the machines in Salt Lake as we were leaving there Friday evening, but it did not cause any beeping this morning as I went through security in Los Angeles.)

Shauna and the three youngest of her six children (Andrew, Ethan, and Marta) picked us up at the airport after we arrived in Salt Lake. It had been a quick but delightful reunion with Claudia's side of the family.

And the verdict is . . .

2008-06-21T10:56:00.004-06:00

I guess for the record I should mention what's been happening lately. Thursday morning, a little more than an hour after I arrived at work, I started feeling very sick, starting first with nausea, then feeling light-headed, weak, sweaty, disoriented. I had the thought that I might pass out, so I actually sat on the floor of my office so that when I toppled over I wouldn't have as far to go.

I had the presence of mind to activate the heart monitor that had been implanted in my chest two weeks earlier.

This is stupid, I thought, so I got up from off the floor and called in my assistant and told her I did not feel well. She could tell I did not. I was probably pale at the time and disoriented. She wanted to know if I wanted to go down to the nurse's station, but I said I didn't think I could make it. So she called down, and within seconds it seemed the nurse arrived with a wheelchair. I can remember getting in the wheelchair, being pushed to the elevator, and getting on the elevator, but not much after that.

The next thing I remember was lying on a cot in the nurse's station with paramedics working all around me, asking questions, taking blood pressure, poking, proding. I remember hearing the nurse tell them that I was unresponsive for a while although my eyes were open. So I do not know if that means I actually passed out or not.

The paramedics wheeled me out to an ambulance in front of the Church Office Building. I was amazed that in addition to the ambulance there were also two fire engines there. That seemed an extravagant bit of overkill. It was the first time in my life I had ever ridden in an ambulance, and as they took me up to LDS Hospital it seemed to be an awfully bumpy ride. They had me eat a glucose stick on the way up and inserted an IV line into my left hand. Once in the emergency room, I was asked a lot of questions again (just as I had been in the nurse's station back at work and in the ambulance on the way to the hospital), and was hooked up to various medical devices and had a chest X-ray taken and such procedures.

My work had kindly called Claudia and told her I was being transported up to LDS Hospital, so she arrived at some point. Eliza starting spreading the word to other family members.

At some point a man came from Medtronic (he said he had been up in Ogden when they called him) to interrogate my heart monitor (I had naively assumed that they just read it, but no, they interrogate it). Apparently it served its function because it showed no unusual heart activity during the whole episode. That is good news.

My blood sugar level, even after eating the glucose in the ambulance, was only 48 after I arrived at the hospital. The normal range for a non-diabetic, I discovered from subsequent research on the Internet, is between 70 and 120. I had had a severe case of hypoglycemia, which is apparently unusual for someone who is not also diabetic.

Also, my white blood cell count was extremely elevated, something like 21,000, which the ER doctor said could be caused by one of three things (although afterward Claudia and I could only remember two of them): a response to the trauma my body had just been through, a serious infection going on in my body, or something else. I told the doctor I had had a cold and sore throat for the past week, but he said that would not be sufficient to account for such a high level.

Talmage came from work to join us just moments before they were going to release me to go home, which was about five or six hours after the whole ordeal started. When we exited the ER, Rebecca, Louise, Meghan, and Mimi were also there in the waiting room. Louise, who had come with Rebecca from Layton, kindly drove Claudia and me home. Talmage came to our house to pick her up, but they stayed the rest of the afternoon visiting. Louise fixed us lunch and called my primary care doctor to make an appointment for Friday afternoon and was generally a great help.

I was feeling pretty worn out and tired and just rested much of the rest of the day. I was also having chills even though everyone else thought it was a warm day.

What I had just been through reminded me of how I felt on the second day of our North Dakota trip when I got so sick as we were driving across eastern Montana (see journal entry for Thursday, May 15). I must have been experiencing hypoglycemia that morning also. And in much milder forms several other times in the past couple of months when I have felt light-headed.

Friday morning I had a follow-up visit with my regular cardiologist that had already been scheduled for some time. He said that one of the heart medications I have been taking, Metoprolol tartrate, could cause my blood sugar level to be low and told me to discontinue it.

Friday afternoon I went to see my primary care doctor, but his receptionist had no record that I even had an appointment (even though they had told us just the day before to come at 1:40 Friday afternoon). We did talk her into having the doctor review the record from what happened at the hospital yesterday. He did and ordered a lab test, after which I had a shot of something, and then had to come back an hour later and have another blood test. My appointment with him will now be next Thursday afternoon.

In addition to the hypoglycemia episode, I have had a fever and chills and an unsettled stomach and continued to pretty much rest most of the day Friday. We were planning to go to Hyrum early this morning, up in Cache Valley, to watch Anna participate in a triathlon, but I called her this evening and said we had decided not to come. She thought that made sense. My boss had called me from work Friday morning and said not to worry about the mission presidents' seminar that begins Sunday morning, if I didn't feel up to coming. I'll play that one by ear still.

The day freedom died

2008-06-15T15:52:00.001-06:00

This afternoon I finished reading of a disturbing chapter from our nation's troubled history following the Civil War in a well written, engaging book by Charles Lane entitled The Day Freedom Died: The Colfax Massacre, the Supreme Court, and the Betrayal of Reconstruction. The summary on the inside leaves of the book's cover gives a fair summary of what the book was about (interspersed with my own comments prompted by that summary):

"America after the Civil War was a land of shattered promises and entrenched hatreds. In the explosive South, danger took many forms: white extremists loyal to a defeated world terrorized former slaves, while in the halls of government, bitter and byzantine political warfare raged between Republicans and Democrats."

Much has been said and written in our own time about the impasse between modern-day Republicans and Democrats, together with a resulting lack of any leadership in confronting the problems that beset us, because of the partisan nature of today's politics. Today's wrangling between the two parties seems mild when compared to the warfare that raged between them in the decade or so following the Civil War.

History thus provides a sense of perspective and balance in understanding and interpreting the events of our own day.

"In The Day Freedom Died, Charles Lane draws us vividly into this war-torn world with a true story whose larger dimensions have never been fully explored. Here is the epic tale of the Colfax Massacre, the mass murder of more than sixty black men on Easter Sunday 1873 that propelled a small Louisiana town into the center of the nation's consciousness. As the smoke cleared, the perpetrators created a falsified version of events to justify their crimes. But a tenacious northern-born lawyer rejected the lies. Convinced that the Colfax murderers must be punished lest the suffering of the Civil War be in vain, U.S. Attorney James Beckwith of New Orleans pursued the killers despite death threats and bureaucratic intrigue—until the final showdown at the Supreme Court of the United States. The ruling that decided the case influenced race relations in the United States for decades."

Like the author, I had never heard of the events of that long-ago Easter Sunday in Colfax, Louisiana, and the resulting constitutional issues and political fallout that concerned the country at that time, until I read this book. I would heartily recommend it to any serious student of American history.

"An electrifying piece of historical detective work, The Day Freedom Died brings to life a gallary of memorable characters in addition to Beckwith: Willey Calhoun, the iconoclastic Southerner who dreamed of building a bastion of equal rights on his Louisiana plantation; Christopher Columbus Nash, the white supremacist avenger who organized the Colfax Massacre; William Ward, the black Union Army veteran who took up arms against white terrorists; Ulysses S. Grant, the well-intentioned but beleaguered president; and Joseph P. Bradley, the brilliant justice of the Supreme Court whose political and legal calculations would shape the drama's troubling final act."

The pervasive fraud and rampant violence associated with elections in Louisiana (and indeed in much of the South) during this period makes our little hiccup with the 2000 George Bush election, ultimately decided by the U.S. Supreme Court over irregularities in Florida, seem pale in comparison.

In many respects, we have come a long way since the difficult days of Reconstruction and its aftermath. We now have a black candidate of a major American political party—ironically the Democrats, which in that distant day was the party of white supremacists—running for the presidency of our country. I liked the concluding paragraph in Bret Schulte's editorial in this week's issue of U.S. News & World Report:

"As much as the Obama campaign trafficked in hope, the racial undercurrent is enough to make many Americans despair, regardless of political stripe. Still, most Americans are proud to live in a country that gave a self-proclaimed skinny kid with a funny name and few advantages the chance to be president. Whether or not Obama is the best candidate for the job is up to voters, who have plenty of issues to weigh. It's too bad that some voters have decided that race is one of them" (U.S. News & World Report, June 16, 2008, "One Week," 10).

I personally think there are a lot of issues against Senator Barak Obama's becoming our next president, but I do not think race should be one of them. By now we should have outgrown that.