Youth

Today at our ward meeting someone asked me if had any great grandchildren. My virtual image of myself is still young and that was a blow to it. My oldest grandson Tyler turned thirteen this week. We talked on FaceTime for a while. I said something to the effect that he would be going on a mission. And he replied something like, “Yeah Grandpa, I’ll be going in five years.” That really blew me away. Five years seemed so short. I can remember taking him to his kindergarten class and hundreds of other things that we have shared. I want so much of the best for him and he has so much of his life ahead of him.

Today a member of our ward took us to see a family where the mother had died just a couple of months ago. We met the teenage daughter on the street as walked toward the house. She warned us that her father was tomado or drunk. Then we met the father staggering around the street. It was a little after ten in the morning. He invited us into his house and I cringed thinking of some of the houses of drunks I have visited over my lifetime, expecting broken bottles and broken furniture and an unearthly smell. The house was beautiful. It reminded me of a teenager’s bedroom. Then I realized that beautiful young teenage girl we had met on way here had taken over the duties of her mother. What a heavy responsibility to put upon someone who looked like she was barely fifteen, but she took it upon herself. I suddenly felt the same way about her as I had about my grandson. I wanted the best of everything for her. My wife and I are going to pass by to see her again and see what we can do to help and encourage her.

Back at the ward, I encountered another teenage girl, gazing intently at her cell phone. I struck up a conversation with her, and, her aunt, who was standing by her, told me that the young lady had lost her father just two years ago to alcoholism and that she was staying with them. I stretched on my and shook hers saying, “I’m so impressed with you being here at Church when you have so little support at home. I know it’s not easy.” She gave me a shy smile. I wanted all of the best for her too. I was her age nearly fifty years ago.

Fifty years ago I made some disastrous decisions and some really great ones. Somehow the good far outweighed the bad. Many of my friends of that era were not so blessed. As I look back now, what mattered most was the support I received from people like my mother, grandparents, cousins, aunt, and uncle that helped me make it through that tumultuous time in my life. I had so little experience and wisdom but a lot of dreams.

Feeling Close to Our Father in Heaven

Today we were teaching a woman named Magdalena. She is matriarch of a family where two of her grown children have already accepted the gospel. We taught her the Plan of Salvation. While I was teaching her, the Spirit burned in my heart. I felt several promptings on what principles I should teach, and near the end, while we were talking about where would go after death, I felt a very strong prompting to read to her from Section 76 of the Doctrine and Covenants. As I read Joseph Smith’s description and testimony of his vision of Jesus Christ and the Celestial and Telestial Kingdoms, I saw and felt that it touched her.

This entire week as with almost every week here in the mission, I have felt that same closeness to my Heavenly Father that I felt in that discussion. I sense His presence. I feel His love for those we teach. I feel His love for me. It brings me a quiet joy, knowing that it is all true. Those I love, whom have died, yet live and I will see them again.

There is a great fog over our world created by the teachings and doctrines of men that obscures and hides the things that should matter to us most and keeps us from feeling what I feel now. I wish that there was a way that I could help you feel what I feel and know, it is so sure and real to me, but it is not in my power to do so. That is left to your own relationship with your Father. I can say that it is worth every sacrifice that you could make to do it. It is indeed the pearl of great price for which a man would sell everything he owns to have.

Endings and Beginnings

These past couple of weeks have seen some real highs and lows. One of the most significant things to happen was the death of someone very dear to me. Shirley Nadine Swensen, my great aunt, passed away at the age of 94. She and her family have had a powerful influence in my life for good. I don’t feel a great deal of sadness and this because she has lived a very rich life full of love and service, and I have knowledge of where she now is and the joy that she now feels. She yet lives, an eternal being that passed on to the realm where we must all one day go. But more than this she lives on through the lives of her wonderful children. When I talk to her daughter, Peggy, for example, I hear her voice and feel her love, as with any one of her children.  

In contrast to Shirley who was ending a rich mortal life, my wife and I went to a temple sealing this week. With the mission president and his wife, we had the opportunity to witness the beginning of a rich life for two young return missionaries. The groom’s joy was so full that tears wet his cheeks as the sealer sealed them together for all eternity. Their union felt so right and good. I have great hopes, though no delusions that it will be easy, for their future. The term ‘They lived happily ever after’ is reserved for people like Shirley and Kay who have endured faithfully to the end and now await their celestial glory.

General conference last weekend carried my thoughts and feelings high into the heavens. The afterglow of it still burns in my heart. I felt my Father’s love in a very personal and warm way. To those readers who might have doubts, let me reassure you that He loves you, completely and unconditionally. Whatever your situation, whatever you think you have done or not done, He loves you.

Today my Father in Heaven blessed me with a very rich blessing. Alain returned to church. I had not seen or heard from him for three months. despite my many attempts to contact him, and had feared the worst. But he returned to church today and we hugged in the Mexican tradition. Heavenly Father has kept him safe since his baptism because within Alain I could sense the same sweet and sincere spirit that I had grown to love. He is still my brother in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. What happiness that gives me.