“An enemy hath done this.” Matthew 13:28

The recent passing of Elder Marion D. Hanks brought to mind an experience that I had with Elder Hanks.

In June of 1954, I was in the mission home in Salt Lake City as a newly called missionary. The day of the departure for my mission, June 22, 1954, all the missionaries were assembled in the auditorium of the church office building and assigned to a general authority to set us apart. At 9:30 I was to meet with Elder Hanks. 

At that time all missionaries were set apart by general authorities. They read off the names of the missionaries in each group (usually 3-4) and gave them the time to go to the offices of the authorities. Elder Hanks was at that time a member of the Seven Presidents of Seventy. There were three of us assigned to meet with Elder Hanks. My parents could not be present for my setting apart, so they asked one of their friends to take down the blessing in shorthand.

I never did get that transcription and did not write down the details. What I wrote in my journal was. ”It really strengthened my testimony because he answered all my questions. I would return safely and be humble and numerous other things.” 

I remember more about the blessing of my friend Gordon. We were in the mission home together. He was assigned to go to the New England Mission and I was called to the East German Mission. We both went to Weber College together. He was in the school student and fraternity leadership at Weber. We were both in the same fraternity. We played golf together. I was sort of a loner and he was what we would term today ‘high profile’.

My friend Gordon was given a wonderful blessing. I can only paraphrase it. Elder Hanks said that Gordon was disappointed because he and not been given an overseas assignment. He was blessed that within six months he would know the reason why he was called to that mission. He was also blessed with the ability to teach the gospel with clarity and blessings of superior leadership.

This was remarkable to me because I knew Gordon’s history and Elder Hanks was not aware of the circumstances. The blessing came from the Lord by revelation.

Two days previously on the 20^th of June, Gordon had his ‘farewell’ in his ward in Ogden. His associates from Weber College, who were in the mission home with him, drove with him to Ogden to attend the sacrament meeting that evening. Gordon spoke for over thirty minutes. In essence this was the story he told.

He had received his call in the mail and was disappointed that he was called to New England. He pondered this for some time and then sat down and wrote a letter to President McKay. In the letter he stated that he was declining the call and would not serve a mission. He put a stamp on the envelope and was walking to the post box to mail it when his bishop came up to him and told him that he knew that Gordon was disappointed that he was not going foreign and said to him that he would know within six months why he was going to that mission and to accept the call. He did not mail the letter.

Within the week the stake president came to his house and said that he knew that Gordon was disappointed at receiving a call to New England and promised him that within six months time he would know why he had received a call to that particular mission.

Thus three different priesthood bearers had witnessed to him the same thing. I always remembered that and wondered what happened to my friend Gordon on his mission. At a district conference of missionaries within the first seven months of my mission, I met Elder Glissmeyer who had been at Weber College with me. He was from Ogden and so I asked if he had heard anything about my friend Gordon. He told me that Gordon had gone home. He said that Gordon had gotten into the field and found it difficult to testify that Joseph Smith was a prophet and that the Book of Mormon was true. 

The Elder told me that a psychology professor at Weber had planted the seeds of doubt in Gordon’s mind. This professor delighted in tearing down the testimonies of young Latter-Day Saints. He was an apostate from the church from a good Latter-day Saint family.

I never have known what happened to my friend Gordon.

Some years later Elder Hanks came to visit the Riverton Wyoming Stake. As it is custom, I was asked to speak first in the Sunday morning meeting. I told the story of my friend Gordon and his setting apart blessing. Elder Hanks was the concluding speaker. He referred to an early member of the church in Kirtland. His story is told in the Doctrine and Covenants Section 49 and in the introduction to Section 54. Leman Copley was called to serve a mission to the Shaker community in March of 1831 and then left the church in June of 1831.

Your grandmother and I were reading in Matthew about the wheat and the tares. Both were to grow together until the harvest. When the Lord was asked why this happened, he replied, “ An enemy had done this.”

There are many in our midst that would try and destroy our testimonies of the Lord Jesus Christ and the true restored church. We must be aware that there are indeed tares among the wheat, which if we do not obtain strength from the Lord, will choke out the spiritual nourishment, and we will die a spiritual death.

Remember, my dear grandchildren, that there is an enemy who will sow tares of discontent in the Lord’s field here in the earth. Do not neglect the spiritual nourishment.

Love,

Grandpa

Of walls, bars, rules, signs and traditions

This may be a strange title for a letter, but you will see later how the title applies. As a preamble to this little essay I will state something that Elder Neil A. Maxwell once stated. ‘The commandments of God are given to us to help us from hurting others and ourselves.’

As you know, I have been associated with missionaries in one capacity or another for fifteen years. I have taken care of them, screened their applications and followed some of their problems. I have great respect for the servants of the Lord and their missions. What I am about to relate is to illustrate the consequences of behavior.  

We do not always have to learn from our own experience. We can learn from the experiences of others.

Not every time that someone does something that is contrary to good common sense will the consequences be severe. The scenes here depicted indicate physical harm, but not having common sense has spiritual consequences as well. These spiritual consequences are not as blatantly obvious, but the results are just as damaging.

I read in the paper the other day of a young man who scaled a wall at a zoo. He was agile and had prided himself at wall climbing. He did not do this in the front of the viewing area, but behind the animal cages so that the employees could not see him. There was a door in the wall that was barred, where the employees could go to feed the animals. Through that opening the animals expected to receive their food. This was the lion cage. On top of the wall were the bars of the cage housing the lions. He backed up against the bars so that he could take a picture of himself next to the lions. He wanted his friends to take his picture as well. He stood against the bars and the lions came at him. One clawed his leg and before he could respond the other lion bit his arm.

He was severely injured and was taken to the hospital. After eight surgeries he had his arm amputated, because the damage caused by the bite and the infection could not be repaired sufficiently to let him have full use of his arm. He will carry the physical and emotional scars with him for the rest of his life.

This illustrates the first two words of the title of my essay: walls and bars. Walls are there for a purpose, as are bars. If we remember that they are there for our protection, we will stay a safe distance from them and we will not be injured.

While we were in Germany there were some missionaries in a mission that was not under my jurisdiction. One elder decided that he wanted to visit a scenic attraction by the sea. He asked his mission president if he could rent a car and go to the area. The mission president said that the mission rule would not allow him out of his area. 

The disobedient elder disregarded the president’s advice. He along with his companion and another set of elders and a set of sisters went to the scenic area in a rented car. There was a sign at the place near the water, which gave warning not to pass beyond.

The missionaries went out to stand on the rocks overlooking the ocean. A huge wave came and swept two of the missionaries off into the ocean. One was the disobedient missionary. The current took them in different directions. The waves then brought the disobedient missionary back to the rock where he was caught by his companion and pulled to safety, but his rescuer slipped and was swept out to sea. The result was that two people drowned.

This illustrates the principle of rules and signs. They are not to hinder us or keep us from enjoying ourselves; they are there for our protection. How would you feel if you were the disobedient missionary and had to carry the thought that you were responsible for two deaths for the rest of your life?

We now come to the last word in our title: Tradition. There are good traditions and what the Book of Mormon calls vain traditions. Let us explore a couple of examples:

In one mission, in the northern part of Europe, a missionary had a brother who had served before him in another mission. The missionaries in his brother’s mission would gather and burn one of their shirts on hump day. Hump day was the day in which the missionary had completed one half of his mission.

Our missionary knew about the tradition and wanted to better his brother and any other missionary in the mission. He decided to set his pants on fire while they were still on his body. He carefully put on a pair of jeans and then put on the suit pants. He then poured lighter fluid on the suit pants and struck a match. The pants burned all right, and also in the process he burned his legs quite badly.  

He was so ashamed of what he had done that he would not confess the deed to his mission president. When he was in a zone conference he was uncomfortable and unable to sit down. The mission president asked the reason and he had to confess. He was so badly burned that he required extensive skin grafts.

In the Ukraine mission there is a rock that looks like a slippery slide. It was common for the missionaries to go to this place and slide down. It seemed like great fun. One missionary was an avid snowboarder. He told the other missionaries that he could go down the slide on his feet, just like snowboarding down a slope. He got part of the way down the slide, lost his footing and fell to the ground on his head. He was taken to the hospital and we tried in vain to transport him to Germany for care. He died in a hospital there in the Ukraine and the last thing that I did before I came home from Frankfurt was to make sure that his body was safely on the plane to his home in the United States.

Righteous traditions such as family prayer, family home evening and scripture reading will bring us closer to the Lord. Vain traditions bring us far from him and result in pain and death, both physical and spiritual.

Remember walls, bars, rules, signs and righteous traditions (keeping the commandments of God) help us from hurting others and ourselves.

Your grandmother thought that this little essay only pointed out the negative. As I noted in the preamble, not every one has untoward consequences as the result of his behavior. Perhaps I can relate a few examples of positive behavior and it’s consequences. There are many we can site from the scriptures: Joseph in Egypt, Daniel in the Lion’s den, Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nigo and the fiery furnace. What follows is a story about one of your ancestors, Alexander Scoby Standley, as told by his great grandson George Burton Stanley, November 8th, 1931:

"In the spring of 1847, the family went to Pottawatomie County, Iowa, and with the help of the boys, great-grandfather put up a log house, plowed several acres of ground and planted a field of corn. He let his only horse team go to help take properties and records of the Church to Salt Lake Valley.

There was a long, dry spell in the spring and summer of 1848 and the crops were drying up. In a conference at Kanesville, the Saints united in prayer for rain and one of the presiding brethren promised if they would make a fast for the poor people among them, the Lord would send rain, and before an hour had passed a heavy rain fell which saved their crops from drying up.

Soon after conference, Ezra T. Benson and George A. Smith were making preparations to go to Salt Lake, but they lacked one animal of having sufficient teams. Great-grandfather owned two cows. He gave them one to hitch in their team. Brother Smith said: "Bother Standley, I fear you are robbing your family, but the Lord will bless you ten fold." The next spring the gold fever was on and many people were going to California. This caused a great demand for corn for food. Great-grandfather got a good price for his corn. He took the money and purchased twenty cows and as many calves. Thus Apostle Smith's promise was fulfilled in less than a year.

It was considerable work to care for the cows, milk them, make cheese and butter and get it (the cheese and butter) ready for market. Early in 1852, the company began making preparations to go to the Great Salt Lake Valley, making yokes and bows for the cattle and training them to travel when hitched together. They fitted up three wagons with three or more yoke of cattle to each wagon and, having only one yoke of cattle and three yokes of steers, they had to use several cows. At Council Bluffs, Iowa, a company of 50 families were organized with Joseph Howell as captain. They started for Utah the first week in May, 1852.

Night and morning the cows had to be milked and the milk taken care of, but it added greatly to the food supply. Any milk or cream that was not used was put in a churn and carried in one of the wagons and, when they stopped for camp at night, there would be a nice lump of butter for their supper and breakfast next morning."

I can promise you that if you keep the commandments of the Lord and watch for the walls, bars, rules, and signs and keep the righteous traditions in your life, you will be blessed with blessings that will overflow your cup. You may not be able to recognize them as blessings for keeping the commandments at the time, but they will be there nevertheless and in the quite moments of reflection, you will recognize them as blessings from the Lord.

Love,

Grandpa