My desire to be a doctor.

 

My desire to be a doctor.

 

My first recollection of this was when I was about three or four years old. We were living in Rexburg. My parents had a wood burning stove. They took the stove pipe apart to clean it and I got one of the short pieces and put it on my head and picked up a broken magazine rack with a handle and said I am going to be a doctor. My mother was not too pleased because she had to clean all the soot out of my hair. 

 

I continued with my desire to be a doctor. When we were living in Denver my parents subscribed to  Life magazine. One issue was devoted to the process of becoming a doctor. It described the pre-medical training and what courses were required in medical school. I planned out my future to include those prerequisites. 

 

I was a newspaper carrier at this time for the Rocky Mountain News. They featured a small column featuring the carrier of the week. In that note I said I was going to BYU and planned to graduate from medical school in 1962. 

 

Before we left Denver my mother arranged for my brothers and me to get our patriarchal blessings. When I came out, I said , “I am going to be a doctor.” The patriarch said, “remember Laurence it is the sick that need the physician and not those who are well.” 

 

Through high school and at Weber college I took classes for pre-med. 

 

My parents did not want me to be a doctor. My Uncle Vernon was a doctor and was not active in the church. My grandparents Gee did not want me to be a doctor either. A doctor in Pocatello was inactive in the church. A doctor in Denver became inactive in the church. They encouraged me to become an engineer. 

 

When I was on my mission Elder Adam S. Bennion toured our mission and interviewed every missionary. In my interview I told him that I wanted to be a doctor, but my parents were reticent. He said devote your Sundays and Wednesday evenings to the Lord. He said that in the future there would be bishops, stake presidents and general authorities who would be doctors. 

 

I applied to a number of medical schools and was accepted to the University of Utah first, so I accepted. 

 

I graduated in 1962 as I had planned.

 

Of interest to note is my wife Alice’s patriarchal blessing states that her husband would have the power and great blessing of healing.  

 

Alice said that she did not want to marry a doctor.  I told her that she did not marry a doctor, but a medical student.

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The priesthood and me

 

The priesthood and me

I was recently asked to ordain my granddaughter’s husband to the office of High Priest.  I gave him a card with my line of authority and thought I would document my priesthood ordinations and ordinances for my posterity.

Baptism; 22 June 1942 performed in the font of the Cheyenne, Wyoming chapel by my father.  I was confirmed a member of the church the same day.

Deacon; ordained by my father 6 October 1946 in Denver, Colorado.

Teacher; ordained by my father 13 November 1949 in Lander, Wyoming.

Priest; ordained by my father 7 October 1951 in Lander, Wyoming.

Elder; ordained by the mission president Sylvester Broadbent 12 July 1953 in Riverton, Wyoming.

My father was the branch president and recommended me to receive the Melchizedek priesthood and be ordained to the office of an elder. In order to do that the mission president had to interview me, so arrangements were made for me to go with my parents to Riverton to the old Chapel there and meet with the mission president. He asked me to read the 84th section of the Doctrine and Covenants while he conducted some interviews. He came out of the office and invited my parents and me in and proceeded to place his hands upon my head and confer upon me the Melchizedek priesthood and ordain me to the office of an elder without even asking my father. I wanted my father to ordain me and I am sure that he was disappointed that he did not get to perform that ordinance. I was also disappointed, but I did not question the authority of this mission president.

I was given the opportunity to receive my temple endowment on the 17th of June 1954 in the Salt Lake temple prior to my going on a mission to Germany.

I was set apart as a missionary by Elder Paul Dunn a few days later. My mother had arranged for a friend of hers to transcribe that blessing. She took it down in shorthand, but I have never seen a copy of it. The only thing that I remember was that I would be safe and be a leader in the church. That day in a meeting in the auditorium in the church office building I was selected to be the leader of the group of missionaries going to the East German mission. I thought that was a fulfillment of the blessing I had just received. I had no idea they would call me to be a stake president a number of years later.

The next ordinance that I received was to be sealed to my wife Alice in the Salt Lake temple on the 8th of August 1958.

After we came back from California to Lander, Wyoming in 1968 they called me to serve on the high council of the Wind River Stake. My father was serving in the stake presidency at that time and he ordained me to the office of high priest on the 22nd of September 1968. That is my current line of authority of the priesthood. I finally got my father’s line of authority rather than that of the mission president.

 

I have since been able to ordain my son Clark to the office of the high priest when he traveled to Germany to have that ordinance performed. While we were in Moscow Joseph needed to be ordained a high priest and so he flew to Germany and we flew from Moscow to Germany to accomplish that ordinance. My son John was asked to be the secretary to the high priest quorum and so I traveled down to Utah County to ordain him to the office. Within a month he was called to be a Bishop. Phillip needed to be ordained to the office of high priest, so we traveled down to Texas to accomplish that ordination.

I want to tell you how my father got to be ordained a high priest. We were living in Denver and Bishop White ask my father to serve as a counselor to him in the bishopric. In those days general authorities were sent out to the various stakes of Zion to do that work. Joseph F. Merrill was assigned to accomplish that purpose. He was a cousin to my grandmother Gee. He ordained my father a high priest and then came to our house in Denver to dinner afterward. Thus, my father's priesthood line of authority goes directly to an apostle.

Ivin Laurence Gee was ordained a High Priest 22 September 1968 by Ivin Lafayette Gee.

Ivin Lafayette Gee was ordained a High Priest 18 October 1948 by Elder Joseph Francis Merrill.

Joseph F. Merrill was ordained as an Apostle 8 October 1931 by Heber J. Grant.

Heber J. Grant was ordained as an Apostle 16 October 1882 by George Q. Cannon.

George Q. Cannon was ordained as an Apostle 26 August 1860 by Brigham Young Brigham Young was ordained as an Apostle 14 Feb 1835 by the Three Witnesses (Oliver Cowdrey, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris)

The three witnesses were called by revelation to choose the 12 apostles and on the 14th of February 1835 were blessed by the laying on of hands of the presidency (Joseph Smith junior Sydney Rigdon and Friedrich G. Williams) to ordain the 12 apostles (history of the church volume 2 page 187-188)

Joseph Smith junior and Oliver Cowdrey received the Melchizedek priesthood in   1829 under the hands of Peter, James and John.

Peter, James, and John were ordained apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ (John 15 :16)