Tomorrow and next Sunday are the two most important dates on the calendar.  They're better and more important than Christmas or my birthday.

Tomorrow (4 March 2024) is the 57th anniversary of my baptism.  On that day all of my sins were remitted and off the books.  On that day I received the gift of the Holy Ghost.  My girl friend took me to her house after the baptism where I broke down and sobbed like a baby.  I was clean!  I was happy!  Life was suddenly good and exciting despite the fact that I was to report for active duty in the U.S. Navy just 13 days later.

Normally when a young man is baptized who would be turning 20 years old that very month, it is customary to give him the Aaronic Priesthood and to ordain him a priest.  They didn't do that for me.  They sent me off to boot camp without the Priesthood--and I understand that.  What are the chances that a just-baptized 20-year-old would go off to the military and come back active in the Church?  I wouldn't have given that young man the Priesthood, either.

Those priesthood leaders only saw an infatuated young man joining the Church because of a girl.    Ten years after the fact my parents admitted that was what they saw, too.  They said, "But now we know that wasn't so.  If we were to join a church, it would be yours, because it has more of the signs of the true church than any of the others."

Two days before leaving for boot camp I received my patriarchal blessing.  A person should normally wait a year after baptism to receive his patriarchal blessing, but I didn't know that.  I wanted it now!  I reread it this morning.  That patriarch knew things about me that my priesthood leaders didn't.  He said that I would hold a fullness of the Priesthood, and that I would sit in council with men in high places.

I went off to boot camp without the Priesthood.  When I returned on leave 11 weeks later, the bishop apparently still didn't think I would stick, so he had me ordained a teacher in the Aaronic Priesthood.  I've never been ordained a deacon.

At my first duty station I was ordained a priest.  I was given my first calling.  I was given a class of seven 11-year-olds to teach in Primary, and to prepare them to receive the Priesthood.  They were a problem for the female teachers who had preceded me, but those boys and I loved each other, and we all cried when I got transferred the next March.

It was on March 10th, one year after my baptism that I was given the Melchizedek Priesthood and was ordained an elder.  Next Sunday will be the 56th anniversary of that event.

What is really, really significant and important is that March 10th will also be the 5th anniversary of my ordination as a patriarch.

My whole life hinges upon those two important dates:  March 4th and March 10th.  On March 4th I was reborn, became clean, became happy, and received the Holy Ghost.  On March 10th I received the authority which opened the doors of the temple to me, which I entered just six days later.  The Priesthood that I received that day gave me my family and opportunities to serve and be useful to the Lord.  The Priesthood changed me from being shy and scared, to knowing that with the Lord's help I can do anything.

March 4th and March 10th are the most important days on the calendar.  They are only exceeded in importance by September 23rd, the date of my wedding.  Without March 4th and March 10th, September 23rd wouldn't have happened.  And none of that would have happened without Marjorie.