When I was a little boy, in the entire Haines area, from North Powder to Pine Creek, there were just five Latter-day Saint families.  There was the Vernon Hayhurst family.  A half-mile west was the Anderson family.  In the Bain house were the Turners.  In Haines was the Ensminger family, and north of Haines was Alice Cantrell.  That was it.

Perhaps 40 years later, one night when I couldn’t sleep, I did a census in my head.  I let my mind go up and down every road.  I was surprised to find that every 4th or 5th house was occupied by an LDS family.

Yesterday, because of severe winter weather, church meetings were canceled.  It was fast Sunday.  It didn’t seem right or feel right to not go to church.  I entertained the possibility of inviting our nearby LDS neighbors to attend a fast and testimony meeting at our house like we’d once done many years ago.  On that occasion the Church had scheduled an area meeting in Boise, and had canceled all local meetings.  We were unable to go because Marjorie was ready to have a baby.  Realizing that many or most of our neighbors wouldn’t be going either, we invited them to our house for a testimony meeting.  It was one of the best meetings I’ve ever been to.

Yesterday as I mentally listed who we might invite to our meeting (which we didn’t ultimately have), I was astonished to find 70 members of the Church—17 LDS families—living within a 2- or 3-mile radius of us.  Making a second census I discovered that those 70 members constitute almost exactly 50% of the population of this little Rock Creek area.  Furthermore, all 70 of those people, save my sister, Ellen, are active members—and she’d like to be.  If we had a Rock Creek Branch of the Church, it would be a very strong Church unit.

This discovery is hugely comforting to me.  If some disaster should happen, or if society was to break down, our neighborhood would band together to help one another.  These are all good people.

When did this happen?

How did this happen?

As I analyze these 17 families I find that six of them are the result of conversions—me, Bob Stephens, Richie Stephens, Ellen, the Brazofskys, and Marji Lind.  One family, the Thorntons, is a move-in.  The other 10 families are the children of LDS families who grew up here, and stayed to raise their own families.  These include Katie Kerns Moultrie, Adam Kerns, John Boyer, Heidi Boyer Stocks, Kari Stephens Anderson, Daisy Shaw Walden, Seth Bingham, Delbert Stephens, Ed Hayhurst, and Roy Tidwell.

I live in an LDS community!  I love it.  I just wish that the boundary between two wards didn’t run right through the center of this fine group.