The Greatest Love Story in the Universe

Today is Valentine's Day. It's the season of love. We spoke yesterday in our sacrament meeting at the request of the bishopric. They asked us to address the topic of eternal marriage and eternal life. 

So that started me thinking about what the greatest love stories in the universe might be. Would we think about a famous couple in history like Cleopatra and Mark Antony? Or Robin Hood and Maid Marian? Or maybe the fictional characters of Romeo and Juliet? Or Joseph and Emma Smith? Or how about John and Abigail Adams? What about Abraham and Sarah? Or even Dave and Patsy?

Then I looked a little deeper into the ramifications of love. It has to be more than platitudes in cards and candy shaped like hearts, or boxes of chocolates and dozens of roses. The greatest love of all involves a willingness to sacrifice all for the ones we love. If you're me, it could mean making a bed with way too many throw pillows on it. It means forsaking all others and focusing our affections on those for whom we have such natural affinity that we will willingly give all for them regardless of the cost.

Given those simple thoughts, I have to conclude that the greatest love story in the universe involves the love our Father in Heaven exhibits for each of His children in offering to them exaltation through the intervention and atonement of His Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ. Over the span of a lifetime it has settled on my heart that the magnitude of that gift is truly incalculable. Through Him we overcome spiritual and physical death. Would any of us like the role of being the Father and standing by as He watches His Son brutally tortured and nailed on a crude wooden cross and hung to die while bystanders ridiculed and tormented Him? Or would any of us volunteer to take the Savior’s place as the One crucified for all the sins of all the children of God? The cost seems too enormous to pay, either as the Father or the Son. But each paid that cost for us.

When we are born into mortality we come as William Wordsworth expressed it:

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;

The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,

          Hath had elsewhere its setting

               And cometh from afar;

          Not in entire forgetfulness,

          And not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of glory do we come

               From God, who is our home:

We lived as premortal spirits with our Father in Heaven. We knew Him. We spoke with Him. We were tutored by Him. Pure and innocent we were, but we yearned for a mortal experience where we could take upon ourselves a physical body and learn to distinguish for ourselves between good and evil. We knew there were risks, and we knew there would be hardships to endure, but none of that deterred us. We knew since the fall of Adam and Eve that a Savior and Redeemer would be provided to allow us to repent and do better day by day if our faith in Jesus Christ were in evidence. We knew we would be free to choose. We were among the seraphic hosts of heaven who shouted for joy when Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden of Eden into the lone and dreary world. As we grow and develop, experiencing all the challenges, trials and temptations of mortality, we can be forgiven if we wonder now what everyone in heaven was shouting for joy about.

We progress to the day of baptism, when we pass through a “gate” and enter into the covenant path that stretches out before us as far as the eye can see ahead. We hear it referred to as “the strait (or straight) and narrow path” and we are anxious to walk in light and truth. (See 2 Nephi 31:15-21).We are given the promise of a spiritual guide, even the Holy Ghost, the third member of the Godhead, as our constant companion to help us discern between truth and error. We stumble along the path in spite of our gift of the Holy Ghost, and we are surprised at how weak we are in our mortal bodies, but we get back up and continue walking in faith.

As we fail at this or that endeavor in life, we are reminded of the blessed assurance that we are redeemed in this world as soon as we repent. But the atonement is not reserved alone for sinners. We can find comfort in the days of our fears, our anxiety and our disappointments of all sorts. We are promised divinity lies ahead of us in spite of ourselves or the unkindness of others. So we struggle on, at times feeling all alone, in the hope deliverance can be obtained.

We wonder how we, so feeble and pathetic, can possibly be worthy of such heavenly intervention, but we grow and develop until we meet our eternal companion and we go to the temple of the Lord together. We are amazed at how marvelously delicious this other person is, as though he or she was the part we had been missing that now makes us complete. Truly, this is love, we think. There can be nothing better than this, we assert.

We marry in God’s temple. We are promised eternal life, or the life which God our Father lives. Indeed, “Eternal” is one of His names. We can live “Eternal’s life” if we are faithful to the gospel covenants we make. We begin this step in our progress by taking upon ourselves the new and everlasting covenant of marriage. We are “sealed” to one another. I love that word “sealed”. There is something so permanent in the word. We are sealed for time and for all eternity with power to come forth in the morning of the first resurrection, clothed in glory, immortality and eternal lives. 

We are also admonished to “cleave” unto one another in marriage and to become “one flesh.” We are commanded, “Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else.” (D&C 42:22). Jacob also promises, "Wherefore, my beloved brethren, I beseech of you in words of soberness that ye would repent, and come with full purpose of heart, and cleave unto God as he cleaveth unto you." (Jacob 6:5). “Wherefore, it is lawful that he should have one wife, and they twain shall be one flesh, and all this that the earth might answer the end of its creation.” (D&C 49:16). We are told if we are faithful we “shall inherit thrones, kingdoms, principalities, and powers, dominions, all heights and depths.” (D&C 132:19). 

But the sealing is conditional, conditioned upon being sealed by the holy spirit of promise. (D&C 132:19). None of us can deceive the Holy Ghost. When he places his seal of approval on our sealing, then it is binding. The promises in the sealing ceremony are big ideas. There is nothing small about it. There are no half-measures. What more is there beyond what God promises - that we will become in time joint-heirs with Christ possessing ALL that the Father hath.

Back in December, Patsy and I were on Temple Square. We looked down into the gaping chasm surrounding the Salt Lake Temple as it is thoroughly being renovated. The banner on the fence proclaims, "Thinking Big." I looked at the scope of the current project and I thought, "Yes, President Nelson is indeed thinking big here." Then just as quickly I had the thought that President Brigham Young must have also been thinking big back in his day. What in the world would have possessed him to consider such an enormous task of building that temple in the middle of nowhere? But Brigham had a vision. He saw that magnificent structure standing where he designated with his cane that it should stand, and they set to work. For forty years those early pioneers toiled at the task without any readily available materials, tools or engineering expertise. Brigham was thinking big, indeed!

Brigham described his vision of the Salt Lake Temple:

This I do know - there should be a Temple built here. I do know it is the duty of this people to commence to build a Temple. Now, some will want to know what kind of a building it will be. Wait patiently, brethren, until it is done, and put forth your hands willingly to finish it. I know what it will be. I am not a visionary man, neither am I given much to prophesying. When I want any of that done I call on brother Heber - he is my Prophet, he loves to prophesy, and I love to hear him. I scarcely ever say much about revelations, or visions, but suffice it to say, five years ago last July I was here, and saw in the Spirit the Temple not ten feet from where we have laid the Chief Corner Stone. I have not inquired what kind of a Temple we should build. Why? Because it was represented before me. I have never looked upon that ground, but the vision of it was there. I see it as plainly as if it was in reality before me. Wait until it is done. (Brigham Young, April 6, 1853 General Conference, Journal of Discourses, Vol.1, pp.132 - 133).

Then I recalled how details of the creation are given in each endowment session in the temples. It's not merely His prophets who are big thinkers, the God of Heaven, Jehovah and Michael were also big thinkers. There is nothing small about their plans for us. We are promised that all the blessings of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are ours if we follow the covenant path leading to exaltation and eternal life. These are all big ideas, much bigger than we are capable of obtaining on our own. The Abrahamic Covenant is summarized in the Pearl of Great Price, (Abraham 2:8-13). How many stars in the heavens, and how many sands on the shores? Big ideas if you're numbering your posterity in eternity.

And then the children begin arriving in our home. They bring joy unsullied and uncompromised. They grow and eventually they leave us behind to take up their life journeys. We are sad to see them go, but we are also exhilarated to see them take their place in the world without us. Sometimes we see them stumble and sometimes they are saddled with health challenges and they suffer often for years without relief. We see our families sometimes bruised, broken, fractured, and we wonder how any of these promises can possibly be ours to claim. And then we remember that we worship our Redeemer. He mends broken things. We must trust in Him.

And we can pray for them, and we can enlist the faith of those faithful saints who attend the temples and offer prayers for their well-being. We can extend our love and affection. We often wish we could ease those burdens and erase that suffering. In short, we become more and more like our Father in Heaven as we pursue parenthood in mortality, preparing the physical bodies for the spirits created by God and Jesus Christ. (See Moses 1:39). We participate as partners in the creative process by creating the mortal bodies for the eternal spirits of our Father in Heaven to possess: “For behold, this is my work and my glory - to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.” There can be no immortality or eternal life without first obtaining a physical body from our earthly parents.

Truly, there is nothing greater as a demonstration of a Father’s love for His children, than holding out for us an inheritance that spans beyond this life. We can take nothing of this earth’s treasures with us when we die, but in the dying we step forward into the eternal realms ahead and a vast realization of blessings beyond imagination. The magnitude of our blessings is on a scale as unimaginable as staring down into the excavation around the Salt Lake Temple and wondering how any of it can ever be put back together again. Brigham Young had the vision of that building, and so does President Russell M. Nelson. 

How can there be any greater love story than this?

Happiest Time of the Year

December 19, 1969

On December 19th, 2021, Patsy and I celebrated our 52nd wedding anniversary. We chose to get married at Christmas time because there were a host of factors conspiring to set the date for us. I was awaiting orders for basic training at Fort Ord, CA, that were slow in coming. It was the height of the Vietnam War and she was in far-off Australia with her parents who were serving as President of the Melbourne Australia Mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I got weary of waiting for my orders, and I suggested to Patsy and her parents that we move up the date. They all agreed, then it was time to find out if my Grandfather's schedule would accommodate our plans. He checked his calendar, and the date was set. 

I sat in the corridor outside the sealing room with two things on my mind before the ceremony began - I had never filled out a joint tax return, and I had never cut a Thanksgiving turkey. How strange is it that after all these years, having filed numerous joint returns and cut numerous turkeys that the memory is still so vivid? 

December 19, 2021

This year our anniversary fell on Sunday, and we were on Temple Square to attend the live "Music & The Spoken Word" broadcast. Lloyd Newell, the voice of the Tabernacle Choir, referred to us as some of the "fortunate few" who were permitted to be there for the slow return to normalcy. We were treated to vocal selections by Megan Hilty, an American singer and actress, and multitalented television and screen actor Neal McDonough who provided narration. They headlined the annual Christmas Concert recorded last week destined for release next year at Christmas on PBS and BYUtv. We were there because "we know a guy" - our son-in-law Jay Warnick is the man who is responsible for the grounds at Temple Square. The lights are limited by the construction project that is all-consuming on Temple Square.

After the broadcast, we strolled around Temple Square and peered into the deep excavation going on around the temple. The building itself is shrouded in scaffolding. Seeing it up close and personal gives one a better idea of the enormity of this undertaking. The leaders of the Church then and now have always been "big thinkers" as evidenced by what they did back then and maybe even more by what they are doing now. 

Back to the Choir broadcast. There were about 4,000 of us in attendance. It was taped, along with the three performances from last week. I was impressed with the powerful soprano voice of Megan Hilty, though I don't remember being aware of her before this performance. There is something that cannot compare with the feeling of hearing the Choir and all the guest performers who fill that enormous hall with music. We got there early and were treated with some rehearsal time before the program began. The Conference Center has certainly fulfilled the ambitions of President Hinckley who first envisioned its construction. I am certain I will never tire of listening to the Choir in that setting.

Neal McDonough was instantly familiar. He's appeared in over 100 movies over the years of his career. His narration was doctrinally drenched and Christ-centered. Lloyd Newell explained after the broadcast ended that Neal is a devout Irish Catholic, and he invited Lloyd to pray with him during the week. The McDonough family, his wife and five children, were in attendance. Their concluding number with the orchestra, the bell ringers and the buglers was rattling the rafters as the recording concluded to thunderous applause.

Here's a small snippet from the concert:

Merry Christmas to all this weekend.

Thanksgiving Journal, Day 3

 It's Monday morning. I'm grateful for Monday, as it signals the beginning of a new week filled with hope and anticipation for the week to come. I'm grateful for Patsy's suggestion last night that we could put up the Christmas tree today, something I was unable to even think about last year.

So today I'm grateful for health and the restoration of strength sufficient to begin welcoming the Christmas season with lights, trees, ornaments, and all the decorations that spell "festive." Nobody does home decorations for every holiday like Patsy - especially Christmas nativities that fill our home as a reminder of "the reason for the season."

Many years ago we learned that Patsy was allergic to pine trees and aspen trees, and guess where we live? That's right, in the middle of a forest surrounded by pines and aspens. It was then we learned not to bring a fresh cut pine tree into the house every Christmas season. The Goates Kids replaced that tradition with a 9 foot artificial pre-lit pine tree that we have enjoyed each season. It's green, it's sustainable, and much better suited to Patsy's allergies. So I am grateful for an artificial Christmas tree that looks better in that corner of the living room than anything we could have cut ourselves.

I am grateful for the beauty of nature that surrounds us. At a distance, especially after fresh-fallen snow, there is nothing to exceed the exquisite and intricate patterns of creation that renew their attractions with the change of each season. I love the scent of pine in the winter, especially now that I can smell again, so I am grateful for all five senses, especially smell and sight that were restored to their full spectrum this year. In the fall yellow leaves on the aspen trees produce a gorgeous contrast to the evergreen pine needles

I love looking out my office window up the Mirror Lake highway toward the majestic peaks to the north and the east of my vantage point. At 7,333 feet above sea level, I give thanks for the ever-changing vistas. We live in a beautiful place unlike any other. We share our location with fish, deer, elk, moose, fox, rabbits, Canadian geese, sand hill cranes and ducks. 

We are visited by the occasional black bears and cubs, coyotes, mountain lions (some fans of the school down south would call them "cougars") and pot guts, rock chucks, field mice, and birds of prey in all varieties including owls, eagles and hawks year around. You won't find that array of wildlife in any subdivision anywhere. (Didn't even mention the cows and horses.)

We are blessed as a people living in Utah to also be surrounded by temples. Daughter Dianne and her Bayles crew were on a field trip yesterday to see the new Saratoga Springs temple as it is being constructed on the western slope of Utah Lake. She calculated that they live within striking distance of thirteen temples now. 

I give thanks for not only easy access to temples, but also the priesthood keys that actuate all the ordinances for all God's children who desire the hope for an eternal family. I am thankful for the glorious opportunity Patsy and I had to serve as ordinance workers in the Salt Lake Temple during the final year before it closed for renovation. We will be eager to return to the temples as they reopen.

I am also grateful for good friends this morning. I had the chance to call many of them during this summer to tell them of my brain surgery and its successful outcome. It was so great to get caught up with many of them. I give thanks today for my long-time mentor, Leon Peterson, who passed away on Saturday. I have many treasured memories of our association with him and his family. 

Many of my friends and acquaintances are now moving on from this life, and a lot of us are having "near misses." I was almost in the ranks of the newly departed this year, but I am thankful for the renewal of the lease on my physical body for perhaps a few more miles.

Meningioma: My Odyssey to Wellness

I am a reborn man. I have managed to live my entire life without much concern about my health. Until a car accident a few years ago I had never spent a night in a hospital. I certainly had never encountered the condition that is the subject of this blog post - MENINGIOMA.

A meningioma is a tumor that arises from the meninges - the protective membranes that surround the brain and spinal cord. Although it is technically not a brain tumor, it is included in this category because it may compress or squeeze the adjacent brain, nerves and vessels.

I learned recently that most meningiomas grow slowly over a period sometimes of many years without causing symptoms. However, in my case as the tumor grew there were never any headaches associated with my symptoms and the symptoms were manifested so randomly that I had dismissed them as simply signs of old age creeping up on me. The reality was so subtle to me that the effects on nearby brain tissue, nerves or vessels were beginning to cause serious disability. My wife Patsy is the true heroine in this story, since she could discern what was happening to me so much clearer than I.

Many visitors to this page will be aware that I have not posted for a very long hiatus. I had lost my ability to find the motivation to express my thoughts on paper. My desire to write again since my retirement has been virtually gone.

My first symptom of note was the loss of my sense of smell some seven years ago. Then I fell asleep at the wheel while driving and totaled my car against a sturdy cottonwood tree, breaking six ribs in my back. No headaches were associated with the accident so all the imaging focused on my ribs and my chest. Had they checked for brain damage in that accident with a CT scan of my brain, perhaps the tumor would have been discovered back then. But no headaches pointed to no brain involvement.

There are a number of other symptoms associated with meningioma, and I checked nearly all the boxes. At one point I was unsuccessfully treated for depression. I called on one of my dear friends who is a psychologist and we had some great conversations, but none of it was leading to a cure.

I began to experience weakness in my arms and legs. Last October as temple ordinance workers we ascended the winding staircase leading up to the Solemn Assembly Room in the Salt Lake Temple for a devotional before it closed the end of December. When I reached the top step my left knee buckled completely and I nearly fell down. Fortunately, someone reached out to catch me and steady me while I regained my balance. Again, another sign, but easily dismissed as a fluke.

Then my vision in my right eye went suddenly blurry and I had some double vision similar to the condition I had experienced before my successful intraocular lens implant surgery to remove my cataracts. A visit to the ophthalmologist and then a retinal specialist yielded no answers. They simply had no explanation for the change in vision, but at the time my optic nerve was being impacted by the meningioma tumor.

Patsy started attending my appointments with me, since she was not satisfied we were making any progress. For months she suggested to the doctors that perhaps my brain was involved somehow. But they dismissed her suggestion of a possible brain tumor since, again, I never experienced any headaches. It was a true medical mystery to most who were trying to help us unravel the meaning of the symptoms, and not seeing them tied together did not point to a single source.

By March of this year I was going downhill fast. She began keeping a log of what was really going on with me. At one point I was sleeping for twenty hours a day, eating one meal a day when she could get me up, and I failed to shower for twenty-one days in a row. Those facts, once she showed me after I was recovering from surgery appalled me. I began growing a beard, something I have rarely done in my life. I just didn't care about my personal appearance. I would learn last that loss of motivation and personality were two of the first things to go when the tumor begins taking hold.

Patsy was a model of patience and consistency throughout this long odyssey. I was unable to communicate with her on even an elemental level. Finally, in an appointment in May she insisted that the doctor order an MRI on my brain. I was becoming increasingly agitated that we didn't seem to be doing anything but experimenting with possible outcomes that were ineffective. "I am tired," I explained to the doctor, "of being treated like an experimental lab rat chasing symptoms down first this rabbit hole, then another one, and hitting dead ends." He finally relented to Patsy's demands for an MRI, and wrote the order that day.

The hospital scheduled it for Friday. We had the result on Monday. Staring back at me from the screen in the doctor's office was a large round meningioma tumor in the center of my forehead about three and a half inches in diameter. Our primary care physician apologized profusely to Patsy when he showed us the imaging. He could not be faulted, however. No one but Patsy could have thought the brain was at fault. And, remember, I never had a headache, either before surgery, during surgery or in the aftermath. I thought other people had brain tumors, certainly not me.

I was scheduled with a wonderful neurosurgeon at the University of Utah Medical Center for a consultation, and simultaneously our son Andrew, who is a resident at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, also scheduled a consult with one of his experienced neurological mentors so we could make an informed decision about how to proceed. Both doctors concurred with the diagnosis of the meningioma, and both recommended that surgery to remove the tumor as soon as possible was the right course of action. They even agreed on the methodology of how the operation should be conducted. It lasted for twelve and a half hours. When one of my old friends offered that it must have been a "minor" brain surgery since the tumor was benign, I said, "What I have learned about brain surgery is that there is no such thing as 'minor' brain surgery."

I was for three weeks afterwards in a "stupor," stumbling around blindly, unable to adequately express myself..My brain and my body refused to communicate. My son Rich was named as my personal representative for medical decisions in my advanced medical directive some years ago in the event of my incapacity. He was magnificent in his inspiration into my situation during those three weeks. Patsy, Andrew, Joe (a physical therapist son living in Washington state, who provided expert advice repeatedly), Rich and Dianne effectively helped to save my life, not to mention a cast of hundreds of medical personnel and those who fasted and prayed for our deliverance. Emily selected a surgery rehab wardrobe for me that drew rave reviews from the nurses and aides for the Hawaiian shirt she included. She also cut my hair pre-surgery and post-surgery. That's tricky when the incision extends over the top of your head from ear to ear, but she made me look presentable. My growing hair now covers the almost indiscernible scar. Allie brought pizza to Dianne's one night (which I didn't remember), and visited me every day through the window at the rehab center. To say that I had the support of my children, spouses, grandchildren and great-grandchildren would be an understatement. One of the "littles" prayed that Grandpa's brain would get fixed and that his scary face would be nice again. Those who weren't able to come to visit compiled a "scholarship fund" for Grandma and Grandpa to use for all the incidentals.

Andrew was present for both calls, and he was instrumental in helping us to decide what to do. The months and years of praying and fasting for a conclusive answer had finally arrived. "All these symptoms," explained the neurosurgeon at the U of U, "can be explained by the presence of this tumor in your brain. Once it is removed you will begin day by day to feel better. It will be some time as you regain your strength, but you will be cured." The day after surgery he declared that indeed I was cured ("We got it all"), and as he left my room after his rounding with me he thanked me for the cure. Strange, I thought, shouldn't I be thanking you for the cure?

I wanted to hug and shower him with kisses, but I didn't - you know, the COVID-19 pandemic had something to do with that. He scheduled surgery two weeks hence and May 21st was the first day of the rest of my life. There are a thousand more details, but I will spare you the drama.

Suffice it to say that I am thoroughly reborn. I have my motivation and my personality back. For those who always thought I was something of a numb skull that won't be such a good thing perhaps, but I am just now beginning to realize how wonderful life really is and how significant our relationships are. I have been talking to my friends and family, and have begun calling it "the 2020 apology tour," as I recount the withdrawn and dismissive old me who probably seemed aloof and disinterested. Some even said they thought I now hated them. But I have a ready explanation - it was the tumor talking (or not talking), not me.

I have brushed against the veil in this experience. I know that God loves all His children. I know that He is merciful, as we are reminded in Moroni's last chapter (see verse 3). I know that I have been rescued from this experience, not unlike those wonderful Book of Mormon characters like Alma and King Lamoni, who spent days in slumber, then arose to a new life. I have a renewed appreciation for our ancestors, particularly those in our immediate families who minister to our needs from the other side of the veil. I have experience with them and they are closer than you have any imagination. The atonement of Jesus Christ is real. He truly did descend below all things so He could raise us up from the depths of our sufferings in this life. All He asks is that we trade our sins for His deliverance.

As we were studying The Book of Mormon in our daughter Dianne's home during my rehab while I was working with the physical therapists, she handed me this quote from Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple:

"You can't connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future."

Elder Neal A. Maxwell said it this way: "Faith in God requires faith in His timing."

I have a greater understanding of the great plan of happiness, even the plan of salvation since this latest episode in my life. Our deceased relatives are never really gone, they are as close as the next room and they are watching over us and protecting us when needed. I believe in guardian angels. I do know these things are true. I thank God for extending the expiration date on my mortal body a little longer through the expertise of skilled surgeons and the healing of the Great Physician. I hope my experience can be instructive to others who may be walking a similar path.

Mortality - Keep Building in Faith

I have lived long enough to know something about the ironies of life. We recently celebrated my father's 93rd birthday with a quiet homemade dinner of Dad's favorites. Then he engaged with us in a light-hearted banter about what he should say to people when they ask, "How are you doing?" Does he give them a blow by blow account of all his ailments? Or is it best to answer with the usual, "Fine," which in his case is a bald-faced lie. It's a dilemma for an old man who hesitates to buy green bananas these days because he may not live long enough to enjoy them. I hasten to assure my readers there is no imminent threat to him that we know about, but at age 93 anything can happen as he searches for the exit door to mortality.

Four generations removed from old age is our newest addition to our family, little Vivienne, who was admitted today to Primary Children's Hospital for closer observation. She was born prematurely at the U of U Medical Center last week at 26 weeks, and is now valiantly clinging to life in her fragile little frame and fighting an intestinal infection. We are united in our fasting and prayers on her behalf again today as a family. In her case, unlike Dad's, we pray she may stay with us on this side of the veil and not be shown the exit door quite yet. We long for a miraculous outcome, that she may rid her body of this infection and prosper so she may grow to adulthood. We believe in miracles.

Whatever the outcome in either Dad's or Vivienne's case, mortality comes in long and short versions. I have been pondering today just how imperative the constancy and consistency of our faith in God must become regardless of the details of our individual lives. We really have very little control over the outcomes in mortality. Just when it appears we have taken control of our lives and things are rolling along smoothly, it seems conditions change abruptly and sometimes unexpectedly for the worse, and our dependency on God becomes paramount. In those times when we say to ourselves, "I've got this one, God," we are brought up short and our faith in Him is put to a test not of man's devising that buckles our knees under the weight of the burden. It is all part of our mortal existence.

For some reason this morning, I was drawn to the historical record of the early pioneers who settled the Salt Lake Valley for an example of perseverance and diligence in the face of almost insurmountable opposition and long odds for a successful and happy outcome. Despite all their hardships, stout pioneers were able to sing in unison, "All is well, all is well."

President Brigham Young

On July 28, 1847, four days after his arrival in the valley of the Great Salt Lake, President Brigham Young stood upon the exact spot now occupied by the iconic Salt Lake Temple and boldly declared to his companions who had barely managed to survive the long prairie and steep mountain trek, "Here [we will build] the Temple of our God!" (James H. Anderson, "The Salt Lake Temple," Contributor 6 [April 1893]: 243).

The southeast corner of the temple grounds in Salt Lake City forms the baseline and meridian on the original plats as designed by Brigham Young. All addresses radiate outward from that point in all four directions, and Temple Square as it later came to be known covers an eighth of a square mile. At the time the pioneers were destitute, but the first thing Brigham Young said they would do is build a temple that would stand through the Millennium and beyond into eternity. There was no thought about the money they didn't have, the timbers that hadn't been located, or where the granite would come from. No thought was given just yet to how they would house themselves during the upcoming winter. They had no way of knowing crickets would descend and devour their first crops. Nor could they have known the United States Army would be dispatched to assure their destruction. Instead, they broke ground, unaware that the vision of Brigham Young would take 40 years to materialize.

So it is with us. Dad's life today stands as a testament to moving ahead in faith without knowing the end result. The ravages of World War II disrupted many millions of lives. Uncertainty about the future was rampant. Predictions of the Second Coming being imminent were pervasive. Things haven't changed much, it seems, as Vivienne's uncertain future in 2015 also hangs in the balance today. I wonder, will we shrink in fear of the unknown, or will we persist in faith and triumph over mortality's demands despite the opposition?

The work on the Salt Lake Temple seems so analogous to the work we put into our own lives. The excavation for the basement required hand digging trenches that were twenty feet wide and sixteen feet deep. The rock beneath the desert hard pan soil seemed immovable. It is estimated the digging for the foundation required nine thousand man days of labor. When they saw the magnitude of what Brother Brigham was envisioning, some must have faltered wondering why it had to be so big and if his vision of futurity were somehow faulty and over-reaching.

Salt Lake Temple

But Brigham Young had a vision. He expressed it to our rugged pioneer ancestors in these words: "I do not like to prophesy much, . . . but I will venture to guess that this day, and the work we have performed on it, will long be remembered by this people, and be sounded as with a trumpet's voice throughout the world. . . . Five years ago last July I was here, and saw in the spirit the Temple. [I stood] not ten feet from where we have laid the chief corner stone. I have not inquired what kind of a temple we should build. Why? Because it was [fully] represented before me." (Anderson, Contributor, 257-58).

As we set about to live our faithful lives in mortality, I am also reminded we come in for our share of adversity and opposition, just as Brigham Young observed, "We never began to build [any] temple without the bells of hell beginning to ring." (Discourses of Brigham Young, Deseret Book, 1973, 410). That principle is true of temples like our physical bodies of flesh, blood and bone, and temples made of granite.

When the foundation work was done, Johnston's Army set out for the Salt Lake Valley to go to war with "the Mormons." Despite all the hard work they had done to date, President Young made provisions to evacuate and, if necessary, to destroy the entire city behind them to avoid armed conflict. The hole and the footings and foundation were buried again so the temple site looked like an open field. How disheartening to make such a diligent and faith-filled beginning, only to suffer the setback because of the imposition of others. How much like that is our own lives? We chart a course, we take control, we move ahead, only to be pushed back to the starting line again and again.

Once the threat of war subsided and the Army left, the pioneers returned to their homes and then painstakingly began uncovering the foundation and removing all the material from the excavated basement structure. To their dismay they discovered the sandstone had cracked and also had to be removed. Granite was offered as the preferred building blocks, but the materials were twenty miles away in Little Cottonwood Canyon. Imagine the degree of difficulty! Precise design and dimensions of every one of the thousands of granite stones to be used had to be meticulously measured in the architect's office and then shaped individually by skilled stone cutters. Progress was excruciatingly slow and tedious. The first layer of six hundred stones took three years to complete. It seemed no one could discern any progress being made at all. Have you ever felt progress in your own life was seemingly impossible? I have likened progress in my life to watching my toenails grow. It's imperceptible. You seem to take one step forward and two steps back. Discouragement can often become our constant companion. The opposition we face tends to wilt our faith and the temptation to curse God and quit trying so hard becomes overwhelming at times.

But the persistent Saints of those early days never stopped trying and coming up with new and ingenious ideas. A canal on which to convey the massive granite blocks was begun and a great deal of labor and money expended on it, but it was finally aborted. Other ideas were tried and abandoned, but eventually using teams of oxen and reinforced wagons proved to be the preferred method. Throughout two decades, teams of oxen could be seen almost every day of the year toiling to haul one massive granite block to the temple site.

Then came the arrival of the railroad during that time. Workers abandoned the temple for three years to work for the more lucrative wages offered by the railroad companies. Twice during those years, grasshopper invasions sent the workers into full-time summer combat with the insects.

By mid-1871, fully two decades and untold misery after it had been begun, the walls of the temple were barely visible above ground. Through all those years, President Young seemed to be in no hurry. "The Temple will be built as soon as we are prepared to use it," he often said. His faith was so unwavering, and his vision of futurity so fixed in his mind that amid all the hardships they were suffering he announced plans to build temples in St. George, Manti and Logan. Who of us is left with an excuse for faltering under the weight of our burdens in the face of such faith, diligence and commitment to a dream like that?

"Can you accomplish the work, you Latter-day Saints of these several counties?" he asked. And then, not waiting for their reply, he affirmed, "Yes; that is a question I can answer readily. You are perfectly able to do it. The question is, have you the necessary faith? Have you sufficient of the Spirit of God in your hearts to say, yes, by the help of God our Father we will erect these buildings to his name? . . . Go to now, with your might and with your means and finish this Temple." (Anderson, Contributor, 267). When I look for examples of inspired leadership, I seldom have to look beyond Brigham Young. Our pioneer ancestors never flinched nor doubted. They went forward in faith with their might and put to rest their doubts and fears. And so must we.

When President Brigham Young died in 1877, the temple was not yet twenty feet above the ground. Ten years later, his successor, President John Taylor, and the temple's original architect, Truman O. Angell, were dead as well. The side walls were finally up to the square, ready for construction of the roof.

Complicating progress in the final stages of completion was the imposition by Congress of the infamous Edmunds-Tucker Act. It had the effect of disincorporating The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and putting the Church into receivership. The U.S. Marshal, under a court order, seized the temple. The object of their blood, sweat and tears was wrested away from them and put into the hands of their enemies, the very group who had often boasted that the Latter-day Saints would never be permitted to finish the building.

But in this latter-day extremity, God was also with these modern children of Israel, as He always has been and always will be. They did all they could do and left the rest in His hands. Then the Red Sea parted before them, and they walked through on firm, dry ground.

On April 6, 1893, the Saints as a body were filled with joy. After 40 long years they had cut out of the mountain a granite temple that would become their offering, a mountain of the Lord, where He could reside. The streets that day were jammed with upwards of 50,000 people.

Inside the Tabernacle President Wilford Woodruff, visibly moved by the significance of the moment, said: "If there is any scene on the face of this earth that will attract the attention of the God of heaven and the heavenly host, it is the one before us today — the assembling of this people, the shout of 'Hosanna!' the laying of the topstone of this Temple in honor to our God." (Anderson, Contributor, 270). Then, moving outside, he laid the capstone in place exactly at high noon.

In the writing of one who was there, "The scene that followed is beyond the power of language to describe." Lorenzo Snow, beloved president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, came forward to lead the Saints in the Hosanna Shout. Every hand held a handkerchief and every eye was filled with tears. One said the very "ground seemed to tremble with the volume of the sound" which echoed off the tops of the mountains. "A grander or more imposing spectacle than this ceremony of laying the Temple capstone is not recorded in history." (Anderson, Contributor, 273). It was finally and forever finished.

The prestigious Scientific American referred to this majestic new edifice as a "monument to Mormon perseverance." And so it was. Blood, toil, tears, and sweat.

The best things in life are always worth finishing. "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God?" (1 Corinthians 3:16). You are worth finishing. As long and laborious as our efforts to build our lives may seem in mortality, may God grant us the courage of our pioneer ancestors to keep shaping and setting our stones in place to make of our faith and our diligence "a grand and imposing spectacle."

Whether we are at the end of our mortal path or the very beginning, there is life on the other side of the veil in both directions for as far as our minds can imagine. I pray we may take advantage of every opportunity to learn and grow, dream our dreams, see visions of futurity to bless our families, work toward their realization, wait patiently when we have no other choice, lean on our sword and rest a while when we must, but get up and fight again.

It is not unimaginable that like Brigham Young, we may not live in morality long enough to see the completion of all our dreams in our lifetime. But if we live well, work in faith and build something lasting, our children will, or our children's children will, until finally we, with all of them, can stand by and see the salvation of our God. He will surely crown our efforts with eternal life as he did Father Abraham who expended the last ounce of his faith after waiting 90 long years for posterity. . .

But today we wait upon God with our faith in tact for a miracle if it be His will. And we submit to yet another Abrahamic test.

Waiting Patiently On The Lord

On this Mothers Day 2012, I awoke with the title of today's blog post on my mind. No one learns patience like mothers do. First, she learns she is pregnant. Her immediate reaction is one of joy and the anticipation of holding that new little infant in her arms. Then as the months go by she waits patiently for the fulfillment of her initial reaction. She encounters dramatic but slow and unwelcome changes in her body. Then comes ample doses of discomfort and pain. The waiting becomes nearly unbearable. The signs of the baby's imminent birth are obvious, but still the waiting continues. Finally, the baby is born, all the sorrow and uncertainty is swept away in an instant when that little one is finally laid in her arms for the first time.

So it is with each of us. It seems we spend much of our mortal existence waiting. After high school, those who go on to college wait for acceptance to the college of their choice. They wait for grades to be posted at the end of every semester as though it takes eternities to learn whether they have done well. That first degree seems as if they wait forever to graduate.

Sometimes we interrupt our college education to serve a mission for the Church. We wait for months to discover which mission in all the world where we may be called to serve. Then we enter the MTC. We are overwhelmed with how unprepared we are for the task ahead. Everyone around us seems better prepared than we are. They are so smart, so mature, so accomplished, and we wonder if we will ever be good enough. Then at the end of two years (or eighteen months) of serving, loving and working through hard and difficult challenges we emerge at last as one of those finished and accomplished missionaries we first admired, and others see us as being exactly what they wish they were. Little do they realize all the patient waiting upon the Lord we did as we learned through our sorrows, fears and occasional victories exactly what went into our transformation.

Pahrump, Nevada

I remember doing some estate planning for a man who had become an "overnight" success in business. He had pioneered real estate acquistion and development in a small town in Nevada. He waited patiently for the growth of Las Vegas to spill over the mountain into their little community where he had painstakingly developed a god-forsaken desert into his own mini-empire of motels, laundromats, car washes, strip malls, an asphalt paving business, motor home parks and restaurants. He only became an "overnight" success after forty years of blood, sweat and tears, linked in the harness to a patient wife and hardworking children and grandchildren. His was an authentic American success story, and I used to tease him with the "overnight success" moniker whenever we met.

There are few successful things in life that happen only because the lightning strikes us, however. There are few lottery winners in mortality. Most of us face the necessity of doggedly believing our dreams will come true over time, and some have to forfeit temporal success and be content with what comes after this life. We are called upon to wait, to learn patience, and to exercise our faith in what often seem protracted campaigns of endurance. We sometimes weaken in the journey. Often in our extremities it seems the only thing we can do is endure.

And sometimes we do not endure our trials well. We murmur. We curse God. We blame others. We may have no vision of the future left to cling to. We may wonder why we ever undertook a certain course that proved to be an empty hole when we expected a gusher. Even when we have no idea what the final cost in suffering or sacrifice may be, we can do this much - we can determine to never give up trying. We can learn that in our simple act of "doing" whatever we choose, there is no worthy task so unreachable nor road ahead so arduous that will not yield to our perseverance. We can cling to the promise of Zion despite the ever-flowing evidence its realization seems so far-fetched in our present circumstances.

My friend the "overnight success" would tell you excellence is not achieved in a flash of brilliant lightning that just happens to strike in the right place at the right time. When he determined to open his first restaurant it was a disaster. His head chef was ordering food in the front door and selling it at a profit out the back door. His pizza oven didn't work, so he tore it out and replaced it. The fountain in the center of the dining room splashed the guests, making an unsavory dining experience for his early patrons. He couldn't find reliable help. He often worked early, long and late to perfect his menu. He went to other restaurants to study what they were doing right, then he continued to push for excellence in his offering. But it didn't happen overnight. Excellence in everything tends to be elusive, and does not yield itself to casual wishes and fleeting dreams of sweepstakes. Opportunities always come disguised as hard work. This is true of missionaries, strong and loving marriages, and rewarding personal relationships founded upon truthful interactions with one another. Nothing of lasting value - nothing - comes without significant sacrifice and effort. Intrinsic in it all is learning patience. I have observed that most of the "hoped-for" outcomes in life seem like they take a long time to be realized, including but not limited to, mortgage modifications from Bank of America/Fannie Mae.

In our urgent need to have all our prayers answered in an instant, we routinely confront delays, detours and disappointments. Nowhere is this truer than in "orange cone" season on Utah's highways and byways. We say there are two seasons in Utah - winter and orange cones. Often in our lives we are tempted to conclude no one in the history of the world has ever had problems as difficult as ours. When people tell you the world is more wicked today than ever before, you would do well to remind them this world has ALWAYS had a tendency to wickedness. It's perspective that is needed. Reject the temptations when challenges come your way to say, "This work is too hard. The burden is too heavy. The road is too treacherous." You get to decide what you will do. Your agency to act and not to be acted upon is in place because of a patient Father in Heaven. (See 2 Nephi 2:26). Do not decide to quit or give up.

We are admonished by the Lord, "Wherefore, be not weary in well-doing, for ye are laying the foundation of a great work. And out of small things proceedeth that which is great. Behold, the Lord requireth the heart and a willing mind; and the willing and obedient shall eat the good of the land of Zion in these last days." (D&C 64:33-34).

We must choose here and now not to give up, "for [we] are laying the foundation of a great work." That "great work" is us — our lives, our honor, our posterity, their future, the very achievement of the dreams and goals we set for ourselves. Remember, we chose our here and now, and we are choosing our future every day in our determination to see them through to fruition no matter what the pain. Our "great work" is the essence of our existence. It is what, with effort and patience and God's help, we can become. We are temples of the eternal spirit creation that dwells within us, and we are in the temple building business every day of our lives. When the days are long and difficult, when our problems seem insurmountable, we must do as my friend did - stay in the harness with our spouse and children and keep pulling. We are all promised we will someday "eat the good of the land of Zion in these last days," but it will require our whole heart invested in the work of salvation and a willing mind. It will require that we keep trying.

Sir Winston Churchill

I am frequently reminded about a man I once called "the Bulldog of Britain." On May 10, 1940, with the Nazi war machine moving steadily toward the English Channel, Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was summoned by his people to become the head of government as prime minister of England. He hastily formed a government and on May 13 (I was reminded of the anniversary today) went before the House of Commons with his maiden speech. He declared:

"I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this Government: 'I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat.'

"We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land, and air, with all our might and with all our strength that God can give us. . . That is our policy. You ask, What is our aim? I can answer in one word: Victory — victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror; victory, however long and hard the road may be." (Churchill: The Life Triumphant, American Heritage, 1965).

Six days later he took to the radio airwaves and spoke to the whole world. He said: "This is one of the most awe-striking periods in the long history of France and Britain. . . Behind us. . . gather a group of shattered States and bludgeoned races: the Czechs, the Poles, the Norwegians, the Danes, the Dutch, the Belgians — upon all of whom the long night of barbarism will descend, unbroken even by a star of hope, unless we conquer, as conquer we must; as conquer we shall." (Churchill, 91).

In what seemed like a role only this one man on earth could fill, two weeks later he was back before his own Parliament. "We shall not flag or fail," he fiercely declared. When life itself seemed to hang in the balance, "We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender." (Churchill, 91).

I love the audacity of those lines spoken under duress with little more than a vision of what might be if he could rally the people he was destined to lead. In Churchill I have found an unfailing source of inspiration and hope, courage and grit, determination and persistence. Few will ever utter again such lofty words in the English language. His is a matchless example upon which we can rely for our own moments of doubt and fear.

In our Mormon history we need look no further than that luminous visionary, Brigham Young. From the writings of Elder Jeffrey R. Holland we glean this valuable lesson of persistence and faith:

President Brigham Young

On July 28, 1847, four days after his arrival in that valley, Brigham Young stood upon the spot where now rises the magnificent Salt Lake Temple and exclaimed to his companions: "Here [we will build] the Temple of our God!" (James H. Anderson, "The Salt Lake Temple," Contributor 6 [April 1893]: 243).

The temple, whose grounds would cover an eighth of a square mile, would be built to stand through eternity. Who cares about the money or stone or timber or glass or gold they didn't have? So what that seeds were not even planted and the Saints were yet without homes? Why worry that crickets would soon be coming — and so would the United States Army? The Saints just marched forth and broke ground for the most massive, permanent, inspiring edifice they could conceive. And they would spend forty years of their lives trying to complete it.

The work seemed ill-fated from the start. The excavation for the basement required trenches twenty feet wide and sixteen feet deep, much of it through solid gravel. Just digging for the foundation alone required nine thousand man days of labor. Surely someone must have said, "A temple would be fine, but do we really need one this big?" But they kept on digging. Maybe they believed they were "laying the foundation of a great work." In any case they worked on, "not weary in well-doing."

And through it all Brigham Young had dreamed the dream and seen the vision. With the excavation complete and the cornerstone ceremony concluded, he said to the Saints assembled: "I do not like to prophesy much, . . . but I will venture to guess that this day, and the work we have performed on it, will long be remembered by this people, and be sounded as with a trumpet's voice throughout the world. . . . Five years ago last July I was here, and saw in the spirit the Temple. [I stood] not ten feet from where we have laid the chief corner stone. I have not inquired what kind of a temple we should build. Why? Because it was [fully] represented before me." (Anderson, Contributor, 257-58).

But as Brigham Young also said, "We never began to build [any] temple without the bells of hell beginning to ring." (Discourses of Brigham Young, Deseret Book, 1973, 410). No sooner was the foundation work finished than Albert Sidney Johnston and his United States troops set out for the Salt Lake Valley intent on war with "the Mormons." In response, President Young made elaborate plans to evacuate and, if necessary, destroy the entire city behind them. But what to do about the temple whose massive excavation was already completed and its 8' x 16' foundational walls firmly in place? They did the only thing they could do — they filled it all back in again. Every shovelful. All that soil and gravel that had been so painstakingly removed with those nine thousand man days of labor was filled back in. When they finished, those acres looked like nothing more interesting than a field that had been plowed up and left unplanted.

When the threat of war had been removed, the Saints returned to their homes and painfully worked again at uncovering the foundation and removing the material from the excavated basement structure. But then the apparent masochism of all this seemed most evident when not adobe or sandstone but massive granite boulders were selected for the basic construction material. And they were twenty miles away in Little Cottonwood Canyon. Furthermore the precise design and dimensions of every one of the thousands of stones to be used in that massive structure had to be marked out individually in the architect's office and shaped accordingly. This was a suffocatingly slow process. Just to put one layer of the six hundred hand-sketched, individually squared, and precisely cut stones around the building took nearly three years. That progress was so slow that virtually no one walking by the temple block could ever see any progress at all.

And, of course, getting the stone from mountain to city center was a nightmare. A canal on which to convey the stone was begun and a great deal of labor and money expended on it, but it was finally aborted. Other means were tried, but oxen proved to be the only viable means of transportation. In the 1860s and '70s always four and often six oxen in a team could be seen almost any working day of the year, toiling and tugging and struggling to pull from the quarry one monstrous block of granite, or at most two of medium size.

Salt Lake Temple, 1877

During that time, as if the United States Army hadn't been enough, the Saints had plenty of other interruptions. The arrival of the railroad pulled almost all of the working force off the temple for nearly three years, and twice grasshopper invasions sent the workers into full-time summer combat with the pests. By mid-1871, fully two decades and untold misery after it had been begun, the walls of the temple were barely visible above ground. Far more visible was the teamsters' route from Cottonwood, strewn with the wreckage of wagons — and dreams — unable to bear the load placed on them. The journals and histories of these teamsters are filled with accounts of broken axles, mud-mired animals, shattered sprockets, and shattered hopes. I do not have any evidence that these men swore, though surely they might have been seen turning a rather steely eye toward heaven. But they believed and kept pulling. And through all of this President Young seemed in no hurry. "The Temple will be built as soon as we are prepared to use it," he said. Indeed, his vision was so lofty and his hope so broad that right in the middle of this staggering effort requiring virtually all that the Saints could seem to bear, he announced the construction of the St. George, Manti, and Logan Temples.

"Can you accomplish the work, you Latter-day Saints of these several counties?" he asked. And then in his own inimitable way he answered: "Yes; that is a question I can answer readily. You are perfectly able to do it. The question is, have you the necessary faith? Have you sufficient of the Spirit of God in your hearts to say, yes, by the help of God our Father we will erect these buildings to his name? . . . Go to now, with your might and with your means and finish this Temple." (Anderson, Contributor, 267).

So they squared their shoulders and stiffened their backs and went forward with their might.

When President Brigham Young died in 1877, the temple was still scarcely twenty feet above the ground. Ten years later, his successor, President John Taylor, and the temple's original architect, Truman O. Angell, were dead as well. The side walls were just up to the square. And now the infamous Edmunds-Tucker Act had already been passed by Congress disincorporating The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. One of the effects of this law was to put the Church into receivership, whereby the U.S. Marshal, under a court order, seized this temple the Saints had now spent just under forty years of their lives dreaming of, working for, and praying fervently to enjoy. To all appearances, the still unfinished but increasingly magnificent structure was to be wrested at this last hour from its rightful owners and put into the hands of aliens and enemies, the very group who had often boasted that the Latter-day Saints would never be permitted to finish the building. It seemed that those boasts were certain to be fulfilled. Schemes were immediately put forward to divert the intended use of the temple in ways that would desecrate its holy purpose and mock the staggering sacrifice of the Saints who had so faithfully tried to build it.

Salt Lake Temple, 1893

But God was with these modern children of Israel, as he always has been and always will be. They did all they could do and left the rest in his hands. Then the Red Sea parted before them, and they walked through on firm, dry ground. On April 6, 1893, the Saints as a body were nearly delirious. Now, finally, here in their own valley with their own hands they had cut out of the mountains a granite monument that was to mark, after all they had gone through, the safety of the Saints and the permanence of Christ's true church on earth for this one last dispensation. The central symbol of all that was the completed house of their God. The streets were literally jammed with people. Forty thousand of them fought their way on to the temple grounds. Ten thousand more, unable to gain entrance, scrambled to the tops of nearby buildings in hopes that some glimpse of the activities might be had.

President Wilford W. Woodruff

Inside the Tabernacle President Wilford Woodruff, visibly moved by the significance of the moment, said: "If there is any scene on the face of this earth that will attract the attention of the God of heaven and the heavenly host, it is the one before us today—the assembling of this people, the shout of 'Hosanna!' the laying of the topstone of this Temple in honor to our God." (Anderson, Contributor, 270). Then, moving outside, he laid the capstone in place exactly at high noon.

In the writing of one who was there, "The scene that followed is beyond the power of language to describe." Lorenzo Snow, beloved president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, came forward leading forty thousand Latter-day Saints in the Hosanna Shout. Every hand held a handkerchief and every eye was filled with tears. One said the very "ground seemed to tremble with the volume of the sound" which echoed off the tops of the mountains." A grander or more imposing spectacle than this ceremony of laying the Temple capstone is not recorded in history." (Anderson, Contributor, 273). It was finally and forever finished.

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland

The prestigious Scientific American referred to this majestic new edifice as a "monument to Mormon perseverance." And so it was. Blood, toil, tears, and sweat. The best things are always worth finishing. "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God?" (1 Corinthians 3:16). Most assuredly we are. As long and laborious as the effort may seem, we must keep shaping and setting the stones that will make our accomplishments "a grand and imposing spectacle." We must take advantage of every opportunity to learn and grow, dream dreams and see visions, work toward their realization, wait patiently when we have no other choice, lean on our sword and rest a while, but get up and fight again. Perhaps we will not see the full meaning of our effort in our own lifetime. But our children will, or our children's children will, until finally we, with all of them, can give the Hosanna Shout. (Jeffrey R. Holland, However Long and Hard the Road, 122-127).

In each of us there is a "great work" to be accomplished. Have you undertaken it yet? Do you know who you are? Have you made the determination to start and to never quit until it is a finished piece of magnificent artwork you can present without apology to the God who gave you life?

It will take time. It will not happen overnight. Like my friend, you will not become an "overnight success" without arduous and consistent effort. But with enough patience and perserverance you will inevitably see it come to pass. Remember this stunning promise as it applies to Zion, and remember it applies to you as one of its inhabitants in time:

Therefore, let your hearts be comforted concerning Zion; for all flesh is in mine hands; be still and know that I am God.

Zion shall not be moved out of her place, notwithstanding her children are scattered.

They that remain, and are pure in heart, shall return, and come to their inheritances, they and their children, with songs of everlasting joy, to build up the waste places of Zion —

And all these things that the prophets might be fulfilled. (D&C 101:16-19).

And it is in the "waiting patiently" upon the Lord's promises to be fulfilled that we are sanctified day by day.

Connections and Reflections: From Mormon Missionary to Husband

Missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints now dot the globe spreading the word of God everywhere. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) is one of the most active modern practitioners of missionary work, with over fifty thousand full-time missionaries worldwide, as of the end of 2010. Commonly referred to as "Mormon missionaries," most LDS Church missionaries are single young men and women in their late teens and early twenties and are assigned to a mission which is usually far from the missionary's home. LDS missionaries serve voluntarily. They do not receive a salary for the work they undertake, and most are financially supported by themselves or their families. 

Throughout the history of the Church, over one million missionaries have been sent on missions. They learn many lessons to prepare them for their future lives as husbands, wives and eventually fathers and mothers during their two-year voluntary service. 

Today’s guest blogger shares his insights:

Missionaries learn about human relationships

A mission offers multiple opportunities to spend large amounts of time with many different personalities. Periodically assignments change, but in a two-year mission one will have worked with perhaps a dozen or more different companions in a 24/7 relationship. Each must work with the other through a myriad of life situations. Not only did my mission help me to understand my spouse better, but when she comes to me for advice about someone she’s having a conflict with I can offer advice about what I’ve seen before.

Communication resolution with companions

I learned a lot about myself on my mission. When conflict arose between missionaries (hold your breath, it happens), I learned how I preferred to be approached by someone else who was attempting to resolve whatever gap we were experiencing in clear communication. That’s usually where most conflict happens – not understanding one another. It’s true among missionaries, and it’s a model for world conflict too.

I had important, open, honest relationships with companions stemming from our ability to help each other to do our best. At the time, I know I did not fully appreciate how much that sounds to me like what it takes to make a successful marriage.

A mission gives unique perspective into families and family life

 Daily, missionaries can observe many different families; how they live, how they interact, what’s important to them, what they are doing that works and even their philosophy about raising children. It’s a laboratory of observation, rich with lessons for the “student” missionary. I was able to see great examples and “less than ideal” ones too. I observed in others the way they treated their spouses, raised their children, taught their children, magnified their Church callings, and balanced the demands of life between home, work and Church.

These encounters clarified my vision for my future home, and how I wanted to raise a righteous posterity.

Missionaries defer dating and relationships with girls

One of my first areas where I served was the campus at Ohio State University. As I served on the OSU campus, many were shocked to learn we weren’t allowed to date, kiss, or spend any time with girls for social reasons. Many times, when other students learned of this requirement we were openly ridiculed. Now as a married man, I am very grateful for the ability to avoid “the second glance,” as my mission president called it. There is temptation everywhere. As a missionary, I learned the lesson to fight temptation to retain the spirit. Sacrificing the ways and the praise of the world in a successful marriage is what true discipleship is all about.

Missionaries learn to value symbols

Missionaries who understand and value the symbol of wearing their name tag will understand and value the symbol of a wedding ring. As I put on my name tag everyday, I thought about whom I was representing (the Lord, the Church, my family) and it changed the way I approached my day. Now as I put on my wedding ring, I realize it represents my commitment to to my wife, and I strive to act in a way that would make her happy.

Life in general is all about understanding symbols. If we can learn to understand and appreciate the symbols of the temple, it will give us strength and power to live the covenants we make. President Jensen, my mission president, taught me so much about temple symbolism, and that has served me well as I take my wife to the temple and we learn together.

All young men are accountable to their future wives

All men will one day have to look their sweetheart in the eyes and be accountable to them for their past. A righteous wife (especially if she is a returned missionary) will want to know all about your mission, and she will know instantly if you were effective or not. My future wife while we were dating wanted to meet my mission parents, but they were still serving so we “Skyped” a video call on a Sunday afternoon and she was able to hear it right from the horse’s mouth. There’s absolutely no chance I would have even been a possibility in her mind if my mission president had told her I was a slacker.

Issues with pornography will be reported. Rightfully so, your wife will expect accountability for experiences, and struggles with pornography. If it’s hard to grasp that you’ll be accountable before God, picture how devastating it will be as you have to tell your girlfriend/fiancee/wife about issues with pornography. We are free to choose, it is true, and that is a great blessing, but what is also true is accountability always follows for those choices.

My wife asked me after dating for about two weeks if it was an issue for me in the past. I was filled with gratitude because I was able to look directly into her beautiful eyes and answer with confidence about my personal purity. A whole lifetime of “putting off the natural man,” paid off in that single instant. I was accountable, I knew it, she knew it, and now together we are still accountable before God as a partner in our marriage.

A mission teaches how to prioritize and plan time and money

Time management is an important skill for many aspects of life. Balancing school, work, church, dates, volunteering, and everything else becomes much less daunting if you’ve had a planner full of appointments, and busy days going to meetings, appointments, baptisms and interviews.

A mission is an important time to learn how a budget works. Missionaries are on a fixed budget. It provides a perfect opportunity to develop a working budget. Missionaries who consistently delve into “personal funds” lose this valuable opportunity to learn how to govern their money rather than the other way around.

In the words of President Jensen: “If you make $5 and spend $6, you’ll never be happy. If you don’t know where your money is going, you’ll never make enough. ALWAYS PAY YOUR TITHING!”

Companionship study

When missionary companions study together early each morning, they learn how to effectively testify and to discuss the content of the scriptures. How do you approach scripture study with your wife and family? How do you bear testimony to family, friends or acquaintances in a natural, conversational way? These questions are easily addressed after two years of effective companionship studies. Unfortunately, many missionaries waste this precious time and never get it back.

Studying, testifying, and learning with my missionary companion helped to make gospel discussion and family scripture study a natural, fulfilling and deeply rewarding mutual experience with my wife.

Missionaries learn to love through service

Serving my companions, investigators, and strangers taught me how to love the way Christ loved people. Success in marriage requires charity, the pure love of Christ.

Many missionaries come home from their missions and flounder, as if they don’t know what steps come next in their eternal progression. My journey continued after my mission and was filled with many frustrating experiences. Most of it, however, related only to my desire to take the next logical step in my life of service as a missionary, and that was finding my eternal companion.

Conclusion

My mission was the perfect preparation for my marriage in all the ways cited above. I can’t imagine even knowing where to begin in a marriage relationship without all the valuable lessons learned as a missionary. Young men who are wondering if they should serve would be well advised to step forward and upward. Be faithful and prayerful. Make the decision to go. Serve well, work hard, and prepare yourselves for marriage to the girl of your dreams later on.

She’s out there wondering where in the world she’s going to find a returned missionary who can fulfill all her dreams and expectations.

Free to Choose Eternal Life

Last week we were in the Salt Lake Temple for a stake temple day.  We have many ordinance workers from our stake who volunteer their time, most of whom are elderly and not in the best of health.  They arise early in the morning, even the middle of the night for most of them, to perform that sacred service for the patrons who come to do the work of saving souls.

In all of this they are agents on an errand from the Lord.  No one compels anyone to do anything in this Church.  We are free to choose.  There is no way God at this late stage in the earth's temporal existence, having put in place the plan of life to include the gift of agency, can reverse course and do it some other way.   

Lehi said it well:  "Men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself." (2 Nephi 2:27).

The plan ensures even God must bow before the immutable effects of agency, but we also have the assurance that despite the rigors and demands of the law there will be mercy as well.  It was President J. Reuben Clark Jr. who reminded us:

"I believe that in his justice and mercy [God] will give us the maximum reward for our acts, give us all that he can give, and in the reverse, I believe that he will impose upon us the minimum penalty which it is possible for him to impose" (Conference Report, October 1953, 84).

In our stake temple day session I was taught a profound truth about the Father.  

We read the verse about how Lucifer does not understand "the mind of God."  (Moses 4:6).  Because it is true, there was no way Lucifer could comprehend or accept the way agency and joy would someday intertwine in the hearts and minds of the believers who would embrace Jesus Christ as their Savior and Redeemer.

There is no such thing as "avoiding" agency.  Even choosing no decision is a decision. Delay is a delusion. Procrastination is joy deferred, but it is still a decision.

Conversely, actively choosing to be obedient is a choice.  Obedient Jesus, for example, chose to let His will be "swallowed up in the will of the Father."  (Mosiah 15:7).  It was His deliberate choice — a choice on this Thanksgiving Day for which we all became immensely blessed everlastingly and eternally.  Our gratitude extends beyond this life into the eternities up ahead because of His choice.  

Elder Neal A. Maxwell once wrote:  "Being obedient is a way of life, but it is also the way to eternal life."  (Moving in His Majesty and Power, "Free to Choose").

Without being able to choose among many alternatives, wouldn't "life" really be no life at all?  We are told things would "remain as dead," having "neither sense nor insensibility."  (2 Nephi 2:11).  Only agency and the freedom to choose activates life before, here and hereafter.

We are informed further by Father Lehi that God's creation would have been wasted and would have served "no purpose," but for the freedom to choose.  (2 Nephi 2:12).  What if?  What if there were no agency?  I wonder if we know what might have been in the absence of agency.

The lesson from Lehi continues:  God wants us to have joy, which is the purpose of His creation (see 2 Nephi 2:25).  We cannot do that if we "remain as dead."  (2 Nephi 2:11).   We must be free to choose to become like Him.

Now for the temple lesson the other night.  I was reminded in the endowment drama of just how hard the lessons of the Gods must be.  There is such a profound profusion of doctrine associated with what it means to be the parent of a rebellious son who abuses his agency.  In two verses we learn so much:  "And it came to pass that Adam, being tempted of the devil -- for, behold, the devil was before Adam, for he rebelled against me, saying, Give me thine honor, which is my power; and also a third part of the hosts of heaven turned he away from me because of their agency; and they were thrust down, and thus came the devil and his angels."  (D&C 29:36-37).  

Note the word rebelled.  Lucifer "rebelled against me" (Moses 4:3; italics mine).  Maybe it was just a foretaste of that which was to come on this earth -- all the unresolved father-and-son differences and angst.  One-third of Heavenly Father's children were turned away from Him!  Parents often lament the rebellious children who reject their teachings.  But all must do as the Father did to become as He is.  We must embrace agency in spite of the pain and anguish it often evokes.  There is a common misperception among us that there were two plans presented in what gave rise ultimately to the "war in heaven."  However, Lucifer wasn't putting forth a plan.  Instead he was rejecting and rebelling against the established plan of the Gods, the very same plan under which our God achieved his godhood.  

The other night I was reminded again this was an agonizing personal loss to the Father.  The "heavens wept over" Lucifer, His "son of the morning" (D&C 76:26), who rejected the Father and turned away from Him a third of His children "because of their agency."  I caught a brief glimpse of the agony in one word:  "Depart!"  (D&C 29:36).

It's the irony that is so inescapable.  Lucifer used the very agency he was given (see Moses 4:3).  The bitter pill is part and parcel of parenting, then, now and forever.  It is godlike in every dimension.  Were it possible, Lucifer really would have destroyed our agency as part of achieving his ascendancy, all the while using the agency God had given him.

I saw the agony even for a brief instant the other night.  Imagine the personal rejection the Father must have known in that moment when the plan was rejected!  What did the Father experience that is so crucial to our individual growth into godhood?  Wouldn't most of us shrink in the fellowship of that suffering?  Becoming like God is so euphemistic it is almost axiomatic.  But did we really comprehend the suffering to get there?  And later would come the ultimate parenting agony of standing aside when His Firstborn Son suffered for all in Gethsemane and at Golgotha.

Much later in the recorded scriptural record, we are reminded that Enoch saw the God of heaven weep.  Why all the tears?  Because of human suffering resulting from man's failure to keep His commandments to love Him and one another (see Moses 7:24, 28).  When Enoch saw the heavens weep, they reflected the same agony of the Father (see Moses 7:29, 33).

Still, even in the agony of such ultimate rejection, we see "God moving in his majesty and power."  (D&C 88:47).

He is still moving in that direction for all of us today.  For that we may be truly grateful on this day of gratitude and thanksgiving.