Monday 3 October 2022

The just-completed general conference was most impressive.  President Russell M. Nelson ended the conference by exhorting Church members to follow through with the impressions that they had.  This article is to help me do that.

The last impression I received was that in his closing remarks 98-year-old President Nelson was telling us goodbye.  This is surprising and upsetting.  He has been so vital and energetic and such a wonderful leader that we have all expected and hoped that he'd be leading the Church well past his 100^th birthday.

President Nelson announced 18 new temples to be constructed.  That will bring the total temples to 295.  This is astonishing.  When I joined the Church 55 years ago in 1967, there were 13 temples in the world.  I could name them all.  People actually set goals back then to attend every temple.  How times are changing!  How time is flying!  How rapidly the Lord's Second Coming is approaching.

Similarly, as we listened to speaker after speaker with whom we were not previously acquainted, Marjorie wonderingly commented, “I can remember when I knew all the general authorities.”  When she was a girl the authorities of the Church were constituted solely by the First Presidency, the Quorum of the Twelve, and the Church Patriarch.  Church membership reached the one million mark the year I was born (1947).  Marjorie was baptized in 1956.  She was the 1.5 millionth member.  Church membership reached the two million mark in 1963.  I was baptized in 1967.  I was the 2.5 millionth member.

Thirteen days after my baptism found me in San Diego, California in Navy boot camp.  I was put in a company of 60 men.  I was on fire about the Church.  I was scared to death about being where I was, but I was also hugely excited about my new-found happiness and direction.  I had the gift of the Holy Ghost.  I had the Comforter as my companion, and was having prayers answered on a daily basis.  My life was new.  I was happy.  I knew that I could do anything that was required of me.  I knew that I would be successful and even excel.

I wasn't shy about letting my companions know why I was so happy.  The other 59 men in my company were miserable, griping, and wondering how they'd allowed themselves to get into the hole they were in.

I let them know that I was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

“You're the people that wear black, aren't you?” one man said.

“You're the people that practice polygamy, aren't you?” another commented.

I fielded four such questions when I announced my church affiliation.  I was able to correct their perceptions.

As I look back on these memories I'm sure that I was something of a light and a stand-out to those men.  I was the only “Mormon” among them.  I was different.  I went to church each Sunday.  I was happy.  I stood by my corner bunk and read the New Testament while they all sat around the center tables smoking, complaining, and being profane.  They came to respect me.  They voted me the outstanding recruit of the company.  Twenty seven of them approached me on the last Sunday in boot camp asking if they could go to church with me.  Their choice that day was to either go to church, or to give the barracks a deep cleaning.  I was proud to be able to call cadence, and to march 27 men to the outdoor bleachers that served as our meeting place.

Similarly a year later I found myself boarding the U.S.S. Banner in Japan.  As I went up the gangplank and requested permission to come aboard, the sailor on duty there greeted me with the words, “You're the Mormon!”

The next man I met said, “You're the guy from Oregon who doesn't drink!”

The next two men to whom I was handed had similar greetings and comments about the Church.  Very apparently my arrival had been anticipated and much talked about.  It probably stemmed from my service record preceding me, and being perused by the medical corpsman on board.  He gleefully put out the news and sounded the warning.

This was OK.  This was good.  This made me watched.  This made me admired.  This made men ask why I was different.  This made men confide things to me, and to ask for help and advice.

I write these memories because of Elder Gary E. Stevenson's talk where he told of Kevin, a student leader, who attended a conference where he was the only church member, and where he learned that he could be an influence for good if he was not ashamed to bear his testimony.  I have been in similar situations.

In the conference Elder Hugo Montoya exhorted men to use the priesthood to bless their children.  Elder Kevin W. Pearson used the term “intentional parents.”  I like that.  All of our lives Marjorie and I have tried to be intentional parents.  My children are all adults now, but I am still striving to be an intentional parent.  As such I felt that I should offer each of my children a father's blessing.  As they read this, they should consider this my offer.

My nephew, Randy Griffith, came into my mind during conference.  I am to send him a Book of Mormon with my testimony.  On her own Marjorie brought up his name yesterday with the thought that I should send him a copy of our Articles of Faith.  I will do that, too.  I had not mentioned his name to her.

Gerrit W. Gong told of a woman who had no desire to be sealed to her deceased father because of the person he'd been in life.  He later came to her in a dream, dressed in white, and declared that he was a changed and different person.  The woman's heart was turned, and she was ready to have the sealing performed.

My sister, Jean, came into my own mind then, and I felt that she was ready for her temple work to be done.  Since her death I have stated that I would not do her temple work until she instructed me to do so.  When that time should arrive I have felt that Ellen should be the one to act as proxy.  I have always assumed that Ellen, when that time came, would be an endowed person and able to do all of Jean's ordinances at once.  But as Jean and Ellen came into my mind it dawned upon me that Ellen could obtain a limited-use temple recommend right now, and do Jean's baptism and confirmation.  For some reason that had never before occurred to me.  I mentioned my thoughts to Ellen, and she informed me that she was already planning on asking for a recommend.  I don't think, though, that she had realized that she could use it to be baptized for Jean.

Jean's baptism would release her from spirit prison.  She could begin her progression.  Perhaps she could influence her son, Randy.  Her endowment and sealing can wait until Ellen is able to do those ordinances, too.