Elder Carl B. Cook, of the Presidency of the Seventy, came from a broken home.  When he was six, his father left his mother with five young children.  She had to go to work, get a second job, and obtain an education.  There was little time for nurturing, but with the help of grandparents, uncles, aunts, bishops, home teachers, and Carl's priesthood quorums, she managed to raise a future general authority.

He says, "Some may have considered me a long shot and an underdog because of my family situation, (and) maybe I was."  (Ensign, May 2019, 52).

I would definitely have considered a boy such as that to be "a long shot."  The odds are not at all good that a boy coming from that background would even be successful, let alone a general authority.  I thought about that as I worked today, and was suddenly struck by the realization that I, too, had been a long shot.

I was baptized on the 4th of March 1967 with my family's approval, but with no active familial support.  Thirteen days later, on the 17th, I was off to Navy boot camp to begin four years of service in the U.S. Navy.  I had been attending Baker First Ward, but lived in Baker Second.  Baker First Ward arranged my baptism, but my membership record would have gone to Baker Second Ward.

What did the bishops see?  One didn't know me.  The other saw a young man who was being baptized because of a girl, and who was going off to become a sailor for four years.  What are the odds that the young man would stick?  It was a long shot for sure.  The young man would go off to the Navy, be thrown in with profane and immoral companions, and would not give the Church another thought.  That was the likelihood.  In the bishops' experiences few young military men were also good Church members, so how could a newly-baptized boy be expected to ever stay active?

I was baptized, but not given the Priesthood.  I can understand that.  Had I been the bishop, I'd not have given that young man the Priesthood, either.

What the bishops didn't know was that I didn't join the Church for a girl.  I was baptized because of the Book of Mormon, and because of the sure witness that the Holy Ghost had given me that the book was true, that Jesus Christ was my Savior and Redeemer, and that everything Joseph Smith had said about the coming forth of the book and of the Church was true as well.  I knew these things.  I felt them.  I was a changed person.  I never looked back.  I relished my new life, and the companionship of the Spirit.  I was happier than I'd ever been in my life.

After 11 weeks of boot camp I came home on leave.  I rather imagine that the bishop was a little surprised to find me still showing interest in the Church, otherwise he would have had me ordained a priest instead of a teacher in the Aaronic Priesthood.  I saw nothing unusual about not being ordained a priest, as a 20-year-old man should have been.  I was just delighted to have the Priesthood.  I had no idea that I was considered a long shot.  The bishop had a man whom I didn't know ordain me to the office of teacher.

The bishop and my adult Aaronic Priesthood leader at my next duty station in California had no preconceived notions about me, nor did they know anything about a girl having been involved in my conversion.  They only saw a faithful and committed young man.  I was quickly ordained  a priest and was given my first calling.  One year and six days following my baptism I was ordained an elder, and received my temple endowment six days after that.

Marjorie and I had broken off our relationship.  I wonder now why we did that, and how that came to be.  Perhaps it was a necessary step in my total conversion to show others, and to even show myself, that I had joined the Church for the right reasons, and not for a girl.

Fifty-one years later, on the same day that I was given the Melchizedek Priesthood (10 March), I was also ordained a patriarch.

The odds are that that young man shouldn't have stayed active in the Church, but if anyone had made that judgment, he was wrong.  The long shot stuck.