I Have No Greater Joy
Time Management
In the just-past general conference Elder Gong told of his wife’s grandmother. The grandmother had a foot pedal installed on her butter churn so that she could make butter,
Read MorePumpkins or Dogs
Marjorie: “Did you read the article in Ruralite Magazine about the guy that grows giant pumpkins?”
James: “No.”
Elaine Collard Funeral Sermon
Ernie told me that Elaine requested that I speak at her funeral. I want her to know that I am deeply honored. I was shocked to learn that she had passed.
Read MoreThe Constitution By a Thread
A week ago I awoke with a series of thoughts that probably came through the Holy ghost. I don’t think that they were thoughts that I’d have generated on my own.
Read MoreGolden Anniversary
What is 50 years?
Fifty years is half a century.
Fifty years is a long time.
No One Knows
“Grampa, you got to see the new century in. You got to see the beginning of a new millennium. What was it like? Was it exciting?”
Read MoreFalsehoods Successfully Taught
As I sat in Primary opening exercises with my class, the music leader was teaching the hymn, “Come, Follow Me.” The fourth verse begins with the words,
Read MoreDiligent or Delinquent
It occurs to me that Satan is like a window. He’s easy to see through, yet he is an invisible barrier into which the unwary can crash with fatal consequences.
Read MoreEnos and His Prayers
I am on my 76th reading of the Book of Mormon. I was astounded, as I read the book of Enos, to gain a whole new perspective on that book.
Read MoreJournal Entry
Sunday 4 August 2019
Testimony
The question was asked in Sunday School, “Has there ever been a time when someone’s testimony has made a dramatic and lasting impact on you?”
Too Many Accidents
In Missouri, Mac Kerns was in charge of overseeing the work of 240 young adults in the Youth Conservation Corps.
Read MoreGas Shortage
In 1973 there was a big gas shortage. Gas was rationed, and cars made blocks-long lines at gas stations. Getting a tankful of gas often required a wait of an hour or two.
Read MoreFlatterer
After 50-plus years, Janet McCornack still remembers the name of a boy who asked to take her to their high school prom. He was in her math class.
Read MoreThoughts On Time
28 May 2019
Where in the world has May gone? Where has the year gone? Yesterday it was winter and the snow lay three feet deep.
Life Got Good at 20
I did not enjoy high school. I was miserable. For this reason I have never attended a class reunion. I used to say that I’d attend our 50th reunion
Read MoreLost and Fallen
Marjorie and I served our mission in the South Seas island nation of Vanuatu. The island on which we served had formerly been
Read MoreNot Coincidental
Yesterday (5 May 2019) Marjorie and I left early to go to stake conference in La Grande. We had been asked to arrive an hour early so that the visiting area authority
Read MoreUnaware
(Materials needed: 3 pictures and a sling).
(Display Journey to Bethlehem by Joseph Brickey).
I would like you to study this picture.
Get The Spirit
On a Saturday evening in March, Brother Quebbeman, the stake executive secretary, called to inform me that President Chadwick wanted to come see me Sunday at 3:00.
Read MoreLot’s Wife
There is a three-word verse in the New Testament wherein Jesus says simply, “Remember Lot’s wife.” (Luke 19:32).
Read MoreUnited Efforts
As I sat and listened to the April 2019 general conference President Nelson was quoted several times as saying that the gathering of Israel is the greatest work taking place in the world today,
Read MorePrinceton Field Trip
I have always wanted to see the southeast corner of Oregon. According to the map, there’s not much there other than the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.
Read MoreThe Great People I Have Known
I had the privilege of serving as counselor to Howard Perry in the presidency of this stake. That was over 20 years ago.
Read MoreOne-Upmanship
My boys are competitors. They also enjoy practical jokes. They grew up competing with one another, harassing one another, and loving one another;
Read MoreNo Funeral
I look forward to the Millennium. I look forward to the Lord’s second coming when the earth will be cleansed of all unrighteousness,
Read MoreI Wish I Had Said That
Most of us are slow on the repartee. Those of us who have that problem could benefit by storing in our minds appropriate responses to be offered when opportunities present themselves.
Read MoreMy Father’s Day and Mine
“When my father was a young lad on the farm out west of Eugene he followed his father and four older brothers around the wheat field. Each carried a short steel sickle, and as the wheat fell from the blade, it fell onto the reaper’s left arm; and when a sizable bundle had accumulated, the reaper bound it together with a wisp of the newly cut straw, dropped it in the stubble and swung his blade to start another bundle. Around and around the field, each reaper cutting right at the heels of the man next before him.
Read MoreBlessings Unbounded
I want to tell you how the temple has blessed my life.
As a convert to the Church it has been my privilege to seek out my ancestors and to see that their temple work is done.
Temples and Ordinances
I don’t believe that any of us can appreciate or begin to comprehend the full significance of the monumental blessing that it is to have temples.
Read More100 Goals
When he was a young man, a BYU professor named Stacy T. Taniguchi made a list of 100 things that he wanted to accomplish in life.
Read MoreWorshiping the Lord
What does it mean to worship the Lord?
The shepherds came seeking and to adore Him.
The Old Headlight
I just awoke from a dream which has a good enough moral that it deserves recording. In the dream I was given a last-minute assignment to give a talk to a group of people.
Read MoreJoseph Smith, The Prophet
I was born in 1947, just over 100 years after the martyrdom of the Prophet Joseph Smith. I didn’t know him in life, and I never knew anything about him for the first 20 years of my life
Read MoreMis-hearing and Mis-speaking
Mis-speaking and mis-hearing are two problems that everyone has, but especially so when you get older.
Read MoreThoughts Upon a Grandchild
Life and creation are miracles
That I have contemplated
School Bus
“Marjorie, look! There’s a sign that says that the Middleton School District wants to hire you to be a school bus driver.”
Read MoreWrought Upon
Some people get “wrought up” about things. As I started another reading of the Book of Mormon several days ago, I noticed a related phrase I’d never tuned into before,
Read MoreWhy Did We Go?
Journal entry, Sunday, 28 October 2018
Friday morning we suddenly decided to go to Rexburg to see Eli, Isaac, Ila, and Briton.
Pay Attention!
My mother once went into a car dealership to buy a pickup. She had the money in her purse and was ready to pay in full for the vehicle.
Read MoreSalamanders
Marjorie went out to feed the cat yesterday, and immediately came back in to tell me to go look at what was in Aspen’s dish.
Read MoreA Drop In Eternity
“Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.” (James 4:14)
Read MorePresident Nelson
We were privileged on 16 September 2018 to attend a special gathering of Latter-day Saints in the Safeco Stadium in Seattle where President Henry B. Eyring
Read MoreSwallows
Yesterday we drove down to Haines looking for swallows. We found just two dozen down at Delepierre’s corner. Here at our house there is one pair left.
Read MoreThe Art of Bucking Bales
Boyd Hill is my good friend. I’ve worked with him at both the Boise and the Meridian Temples. He is a retired Idaho legislator and farmer.
Read MoreAbraham Lincoln and the Civil War
Brother Giles asked me to prepare a lesson on Abraham Lincoln, obviously a follow-up to the lesson he gave on George Washington.
Read MoreIf I Had It To Do Over Again
I am a retired cattle rancher. I miss my cows. I don’t miss making the hay to feed them, and I don’t miss broken-down hay equipment, and I don’t miss irrigating, but I miss my cows.
Read MoreJames’ Fables – The Turtle on the Post
There was once a turtle perched upon a post. He thought it the grandest thing ever. He could see for miles, and was above the mud and the sordid things where he’d spent his life.
Read MoreThe Plan of Deliverance
Alma, interestingly, in just two chapters of his book, uses five different names for God’s plan. He calls it “the plan of restoration” in Alma 41:2
Read MoreInflation
Three or four stories about real estate and inflation: In 1967 Jim Hunt bought a 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom house in Boise for $16,500.
Read MoreBorn Again
As a new member of the Church I had just come from darkness to light, from depression to joy, from ignorance to knowledge,
Read More