Dear Family,                                        Tuesday 6 October 2020

At 2:20 I sat bolt upright in bed when a bull elk bugled right above the house.  I wasn't able to see him in the dark, but he bugled eight times before resting for a while.  Periodically he'd tune up again.  After 4:00 I put my sweat suit on, wrapped my blanket around me, and went out into the back yard and stood under the aspen tree.  By the light of the three-quarter moon I imagined that I could see two cow elk eating potatoes about 50 yards away, and two more above them.  The bull was over by where the old barn stood.  He bugled about once every minute for the 15 minutes that I stood there.  In the morning light, the cow elk turned out to be the wheels to Adam's pivot.

Everything was so beautiful.  The moon, stars, and planets were bright.  Our resident great horned owl was hooting up at Willow Creek.  The aspen leaves above my head were gently rustling.  It was magical.

The Allens finished harvesting the potatoes above the house yesterday.  I'm assuming that those were the last of their harvest.  They would have left this field until last because the potatoes were still green and growing until they beat the vines down last week.

It still hasn't frosted up here on the hill.  I took David Farber to Baker for seminary last week.  I was interested to note that the temperature as we left was 47-degrees.  The thermometer in the car dropped degree by degree until it hit 31-degrees just south of Haines.  That's a 16-degree drop.  Cold air is heavier than warm air, so it settles in the valley.  We're always warmer up here on the hill.  I love where I live.

David stayed with us for five days while Katie went to see her kids in Idaho, and her grandkids in Ogden.  Gideon went with her.  David had too much schoolwork to worry about, so he stayed home.  Steve was at Boardman or in Washington working.

The big family weight loss competition is ended.  Steve's 44-pound loss was tops.  He looks super.  Ori was second.  Every day I see her run out her driveway and up the road.  She looks like, and is, a genuine runner.  She doesn't stop or slow down to walk.  She runs up above the Mountain Place or up Shaeffer Creek until she hits a gate before she turns around.

The Sunday before last I learned that my good friend, Lyle Defrees, has been staying with his daughter, Nancy Boyer, since the first of August.  I went to see him.  He doesn't have diabetes, but has poor circulation in his legs and feet.  Half of his left foot had been amputated.

He and my brother, Mac, were high school classmates.  Mac is in poor health, has no energy, is forbidden to drive, and is taken to therapy every day.  Except Tuesdays.  He wanted to go see Lyle.  I called Nancy yesterday evening to see if we could come see Lyle today.  She informed me that she'd taken him to the emergency room Saturday, and that he's now in Boise awaiting Thursday's amputation of both legs just below the knee.

I'm just sick about that.  Lyle is one of the best men I know.  He and I were sustained as bishops on the same day, he as bishop of Baker First Ward, and I of Baker Second.  Lyle lived at Sumpter.  Garn Brady observed that, "Now we have bishops from Dan to Beersheba."  (Those were the most northern and most southern cities of ancient Israel).  For six years and three months Lyle and I drove to La Grande together to our monthly meetings with the stake presidency and other bishops and became fast friends.

Lyle is 86.  Mac is 86.  Ralph Brazofsky died July 4th.  He was 86.  Dave Bean, our previous stake patriarch called me yesterday.  He's 86, I think.  He's doing well, but his wife isn't.  I've thought that I'd like to live to be 87 so that I could see the Second Coming while still on this side of the veil, but now I think that I'll revise that goal.

Dave called to inquire about the temple that President Nelson just announced for Vanuatu.  I am so excited about that news.  Carolyn Leggett called just after the closing prayer to inquire about the same thing.  Next to call was Alan Pace who was the missionary who taught me the discussions back in 1967.  I told him that I used him as an excuse to give away a Book of Mormon this week.  Ivy Nelson, one of our faithful raspberry customers now lives in the house where the missionaries lived back then.  I told her that I'd knocked on that door back in January 1967 and had delivered a little speech to the missionaries that I'd prepared.  Elders Pace and Sullivan came to the door, and I said, "Hi.  My name is James Kerns, and I'd like to hear your missionary discussions.  I've read the Book of Mormon, and I know that it's true, so I promise not to give you any trouble."  I said that because I'd heard how some people treated missionaries, and I didn't want them to worry about me.

They came once a week and taught me their flannel board discussions.  Mom and Dad happily welcomed them, and would then shut themselves in the kitchen, leaving us in the living room.  I didn't learn one thing from those discussions.  I was all on fire about the Book of Mormon, and was anxious to talk about it, but we never got around to it.  The discussions back then were all memorized, directed at "Brother Brown," and were designed to prove from the Bible that the Church was true.  And it was all done on flannel boards.  It's a wonder that anyone joined the Church.  Things have vastly improved.  I already had a testimony, and was just enduring the missionary discussions so that I could be baptized.  I was baptized 13 days before leaving for Navy boot camp in San Diego.  The bishop probably didn't think I'd stick with the Church because I wasn't given the Priesthood before I left, but Alan Pace said Sunday that he knew I would.

When I returned on leave from boot camp three months later, the bishop had me ordained a teacher in the Aaronic Priesthood.  A 20-year-old man should have been ordained a priest, but the bishop probably still didn't think this sailor would stick.  I don't blame him.  I'd have thought the same.  I was ordained by a Brother Bascom, who I didn't know, but who owned Ivy Nelson's house.

Ivy Nelson said that she would definitely read the book.