For the past 46 years I’ve been playing catch-up.  That’s how long I’ve been a member of the Church.  I was baptized and became a member just 20 days before my 20th birthday.  Consequently I missed out on Primary, Young Men’s, Aaronic Priesthood ordinations, scouting, seminary, and a mission.

I’m afraid that we’re all too prone to take our blessings and our Church advantages for granted.  Think of the advantage it is to be a child attending Primary.  That child periodically has to give talks in front of large groups.  He grows up knowing he can do that.  It’s no big deal.

I didn’t have that.  As a teenager I was terrified whenever I had to open my mouth when more than three people were present.  If I knew I had to give a talk in class the next day, I’d skip school.  I was so nervous and agitated when I spoke that one LDS boy said, “When Kerns gets up to speak, I find something else to do.”  He was our high school student body president.  The student body president year after year at my high school was always LDS.  It was no accident.  Because of their training in Primary, LDS young people are not afraid to be in front of large groups.

It required a huge effort for me to overcome my shyness.  The first calling I had in the Church was as a Primary teacher.  I taught Guide Patrol, the eleven-year-old boys.  I loved them.  They taught me.  I’ve served many times as a Primary teacher.  I’ve been through the lessons.  After many years of adulthood, I finally caught up with the eleven-year-old boys that I taught as a 20-year-old.

I never once got to attend Mutual and Young Men’s.  I’ve since served in every advisory capacity in the Young Men’s organization from deacon’s quorum advisor and scoutmaster to Young Men’s president.

I’ve never been a Boy Scout.  I can never make the rank of Eagle.  The time is past.  All six of my sons are Eagle Scouts, though.  I’m proud of them for that.  Their achievements lighten my regrets.

I’ll never be ordained a deacon.  I was a 20-year-old teacher, priest, and elder, having been successively ordained to all three offices in the same year.

Missing out on seminary was huge.  The knowledge possessed by a graduate of seminary far surpasses that of any minister, pastor, or pope in any other church.  I read every Church book I could get my hands on.  I read all of the scriptures many times.  I taught early morning seminary for seven years.  As I completed my 4th year I asked if I might receive a diploma and graduate with my students.  It was allowed.  I was in my mid-forties when I finally graduated from seminary.

I was baptized just 13 days before I was inducted into the U.S. Navy for a 4-year stint.  I was married before I was discharged.  Consequently I never got to serve a mission.  I’m 66 years old now.  In a little over three months I’ll be in Vanuatu serving my first full-time mission.  It’s been a long time coming, but I’ll have the advantage of doing it with the perfect companion.

All my life I’ve been playing catch-up.  A few things I’ll never be able to do.  The journey has been glorious.  I’m grateful that I’ve been able to learn, to serve, to repent, and to get to where I need to be.  I’m most grateful that I’ve been in a position to see to it that each of my 10 children has been able to do at the proper times the things that I didn’t have the opportunity to do.  Each of them is far ahead of me when I was their age.  What a huge blessing that is.

The only advantage I have over my children is a perspective that makes me less likely to take all of this for granted.  I hope that none of them ever do.