The spot remover

 I was involved in a dry cleaning business in Lander a number of years ago. A couple of members of the church decided to open a dry cleaners in Lander. They came to me and asked for some financial backing. Alan Anderson and I had purchased some property on Main Street that had three buildings and a trailer house. Alan moved into the building with the garage with the hydraulic lift and gas pumps in front. There was a cinder block building on the property next to the garage that the individuals remodeled and installed the equipment and opened the business.

The business did well, but they decided to move and my wife and I became the owners and operators. My wife worked there as well as my daughter Rachel. We also hired some help.

I would go in and do pressing and remove spots on the clothes. We used a special fluid to spray on the items to remove the spots.

I was thinking about spot removal today and this quote came to mind from my high school English class where we had to memorize quotes from Shakespeare.

"Out damned spot" is a line spoken by Lady Macbeth in Shakespeare’s play, Macbeth.

She is walking and talking in her sleep about the assassination of King Duncan, in which she is implicated. This was the spot she wanted to get rid of.

We develop spots on our character by transgressing the laws of God and man. After we die the spots on our characters may or may not disappear. To quote Shakespeare again, “The evil that man does lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones. So let it be with Caesar. “

We all make mistakes and transgress God’s commandments or laws that will keep us from his presence after we pass from this earthly existence.

Just as we used spot remover at the dry cleaners there is a process to remove the spots on our character that come with us after we die.

We must go through the process of repenting. Only Christ can make us clean again. Only He is the spot remover. He suffered for our sins, but only if we do our part and bring our souls to the eternal dry cleaners by first washing ourselves in the waters of baptism and feeling godly sorrow for our sins.

Examine your selves and get rid of the spots in your life.

Love Grandpa

Conference messages

 Conference messages

During my life I have seen the changes in the accessibility of the messages spoken in conference. The first time I remember was that the messages were compiled and printed in a volume called the conference report. It took almost a year before they were available and most members did not avail themselves of them.

The next thing that I remember was they were included in the church magazine, Improvement Era later the Ensign and now the Liahona.

Now one can read or listen to the messages on the Internet. I have an app on my phone and iPad which has all the scriptures as well as the conference messages.

We need to have access to all the spiritual information at this time, because we will go through a period of trial and testing and we will need access to the words of the prophets even more than ever before.

 

Feast upon the messages!

 

Love.

Grandpa

My first missionary companion

 My first missionary companion 

I recently tried to find out what had happened to my first missionary companion Richard Mac Crandall. I could not find him on Find a Grave or in Family Search. I Googled his name and didn’t find a match. I did find someone who might have been his father in Family Search so I sent a message to some individuals who had added sources with the surname of Crandall.

“My first missionary companion in Germany was the son of this man. His name was Richard Mac Crandall. Are you related ? I would appreciate knowing something about him.

Laurence Gee, M.D.”

His daughter Shauna Jorgenson emailed me back and related that he was still alive and living with his second wife in Oregon. He is no longer a member of the church and does not believe.

While I was in Germany I heard that he was going to go to the Swiss temple to marry a young lady that he met in Berlin when he got released.

Apparently that didn’t happen because of the Swiss regulations. They got married in the Los Angeles temple. Her name was 

Christel Gerda Luise Brandt

They had three daughters and then they divorced. Christel moved back to Germany and raised her daughters there and eventually did come back to the United States. She married again and died in Utah in 1985.

The daughter that I talked with is a realtor here in Utah and an active member of the church.

I did not tell the daughter that I talked to about a number of times that Elder Crandall left me alone. I was assigned to Hildesheim when we met with the mission president in Hannover to receive our assignments and after three days in Hannover he left with someone else and I had to travel to Hildesheim on a train with a German sister missionary Anna Ernst who was assigned there.

After I had been in the country 20 days I took 4 Boy Scouts on a camping trip to Hamelin by bicycle and he said he was sick and sent me alone.

There were a number of other times when I was left alone to travel.

We were teaching a young lady Lillie Goetz. She was working for the British army. We had arranged to go with her to a concert at the cathedral given by the children’s chorus, the Regensberger Domspatzen. When I was ready to go he said he had some branch work to do and sent me to go to the concert alone with her.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXWXpCM8p44&list=OLAK5uy_kt359u1yRwD_rIO_2o-69ieVR2kPHsoOw

He left me to go off with a soldier friend when we were to attend the mission conference in Laboe. I was left to go by myself and missed my train to Hannover where I was to join the missionaries from the district to travel to Laboe. Fortunately the train going north was late and I was able to join them. I had only been in the country for about two months.

I did not think it necessary to share this information with his daughter.

It is not surprising that he has lost his testimony. When we do not obey the mission rules we will be tempted to disregard God’s commandments and find ourselves on shaky ground or out of the kingdom.

My counsel to my grandchildren is to keep the rules and the commandments. 

 

Love. Grandpa

The story of the chewing gum

 The story of the chewing gum

I used to like to chew gum. Initially it came in packages of five sticks. I would first only chew one stick of gum. As time went on I would add an extra stick until I ended up chewing all five sticks at the same time. They next came out with packs of 15 sticks. I followed the same procedure until I was chewing all fifteen sticks at the same time. That was quite a mouthful. I would prefer Wrigley’s spearmint or double mint gum. I also like to chew bubble gum.

When I was on my mission to Germany as a young man they did not have chewing gum. One day my companion Elder Crandall had a friend come to visit him. He brought a large pack of chewing gum. I was delighted and wanted to savor the gum, so I only used one stick at a time.

We were teaching the Jensen family the gospel and at some point we taught them the lesson on the Word of Wisdom. I was chewing gum at that lesson. At a later lesson Herr Jensen told his wife that Herr Gee didn’t keep the Word of Wisdom because I was chewing tobacco. When I found that out I had to explain about American chewing gum. I told them that I had never chewed tobacco.

I then realized that appearance mattered. I resolved never to chew gum again, because I didn’t want to give people a false impression. I didn’t want people to think that I did not keep the Word of Wisdom.

“Be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity” (1 Timothy 4:12). 

 

Vision

 Vision

There is a verse in the Bible that goes something like this. Where there is no vision the people perish.

This week we studied in the book of Acts about the centurion Cornelius who had a vision.

Both my wife and I have recently undergone cataract surgery. Our vision was impaired to the point that neither of us could read. We still have trouble seeing in the dark, so we don’t drive, especially after dark. So it may be that if we did drive we would perish.

Of course the scripture was not really referring to being unable to drive at night. It was referring to spiritual vision.

Two stories come to mind. My wife’s ancestor Sarah Minton McMullin Henderson was the first of her line to join the church. One night she had a dream. Some may call it a vision. She saw two men coming to her house.

The missionaries were living in a populated town and would then go out in the Florida countryside to contact people in the rural area. They would walk and visit each farmhouse along the country road. This day they walked about 26 miles without stopping at any houses as was their custom. They just kept walking. They eventually came to a farm house with a rail fence. As they approached Sarah was sitting on the porch and called to them to come in and teach her the gospel of Jesus Christ as she had been instructed in her dream. She even recognized their faces from her dream.

At about the same time in Georgia Sarah’s sister had a dream. She saw two men at the town’s railroad station. She was told that they could teach her the true gospel of Jesus Christ. The next morning she had the same vision. She asked her husband to go to the station and invite the men to come home with him. They taught her the gospel and she, like Cornelius was baptized.

We see that the Lord is no respector of persons in any age. He will touch the hearts of those who are receptive. As a result of these two visions there are many who have and are living the gospel.

 

You may ask, why don't all of us have visions or dreams like this.  All of you have the gospel of Christ. You just have to have the vision to live according to Christ's commandments.  You may be the instrument of bringing the gospel to someone that needs it.  This is the vision that you must have.  

 

Keep your eyes open!

Love,

Grandpa

 Times when I could have died 

When I was 6 months old I contracted scarlet fever. The death rate for children under one year was 50%. I did not have any complications. A number of the survivors developed heart problems that caused early death.

When I was a junior in high school I was riding with some friends in a car driven by Ronald Carey. We were on the Baldwin Creek road and the car missed a turn and rolled over two or three times and went through a fence. There were no seatbelts at that time. I was the only one injured and had a broken little finger on my right hand.

The summer after my senior year in highschool I worked for the forest service. One night they called me to join the fire fighting crew to help fight the Dishpan Butte fire. We drove up to Dickinson Park and found the trail. It was getting dark and we were soon walking in the dark. We had a Coleman lantern and flashlights to help us follow the trail. The person carrying the lantern stumbled and broke the mantle,so that source of light was gone. I was in the lead and was unsure I was on the right path. I stopped and the person with a flashlight came up and I found I was on top of a big boulder. It was about fifty feet to the ground below. I doubt that I would have survived the fall. We found the trail and spent the night putting out the fire.

The following summer I was working again for the forest service. They only had enough money to fund one person for the trail crew,so I was hired to clean the trails from Sinks canyon to Dickinson Park. I would work ten days and then I would have four days off. I would buy groceries to last that period, pack them on to the pack saddle and get the horse from the ranger station barn in Sinks canyon and lead the horse to a campsite in a meadow about halfway between Sinks and Dickinson park. I would tie up the horse and walk the trails clearing up dead branches and trees that had fallen across the trail and make sure that the fords across the streams were clear for foot tragic or had bridges. One night I was sleeping in my tent when I was awakened by a noise and a bear was in my tent. I grabbed my fishing pole and hit him on the nose and the bear ran off into the night. I could have been mauled or killed by the bear.

While I was on my mission in Berlin we lived in the Charlottenburg chapel. This was just off the big street that went straight to the Brandenberg Gate.
One day I was riding my bike and turned the corner. There was a bus parked at a stop and there was no turn signal flashing. I rode close to the bus because there was no bicycle path in order to avoid any cars coming in my direction behind me. Just as I got to the front of the bus the driver opened his door and I slammed into the door at full speed. I did not fall or hit my head and was not thrown to the ground. Thus avoiding serious injury or death.

The next incident occurred in Florida. We took our family down to Florida to visit the Clark grandparents. We went to the beach and into the water. The undertow caught me and carried me out. I tried to get back. I did not have a life jacket and fortunately Aaron came and helped us get to shore.

Time passed and Alice and I had gone down to Salt Lake to pick up some marble for our fire place and an electric typewriter of my parents that had been there for repair. We picked up doctor Whiting’s mother to bring her to Lander for a visit. As we were going through South Pass and down Beaver hill we hit a patch of snow on top of ice on the road. The car fishtailed and went off the left lane and high centered on the drop off to the canyon. A snowplow came along and seeing our plight pulled us back onto the road. Had we gone over the edge we would have been killed. 

 

There may have been other times that I was not aware of.  I thank the Lord for preserving my life. 

Stedying the ark part three

 The church and policy and procedures

Sometime in the past few years a former bishop demonstrated in front of the church headquarters because he thought that bishops should not interview young people in the ward.

There have been demonstrations at BYU trying to influence a change in policy in regards to the proclamation on the family. Some have even suggested that if the church did not allow same sex marriage in the temple and by local priesthood leaders that the tax exempt status be revoked by the government.

These people are trying to steady the ark.

We belong to the Church of Jesus Christ. He sets the policy and the procedures. Those who try to influence the church to change to their way of thinking are in danger of loosing their place in the celestial kingdom. 

 

Keep your hands off the ark.

 

Love,

Grandpa