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.
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