Black sheep

Black sheep
Usually a definition of a person who doesn’t follow the family traditions or expectations.

I have referred to myself as the black sheep of my family. Not in all aspects, but in the eyes of the world.

Let me explain.
Both my parents went to Ricks college. They met there and had a fulfilling experience and wanted their sons and daughter to experience what they enjoyed.

When I graduated from high school I wanted to go to college. I had already decided to be a doctor and knew that in order to go to medical school, a college education had to come first. I don’t remember how it came to pass, but as I remember, my father’s aunt Alta Lowe offered to let me stay with her and I would do her yard work and shovel snow and help her around the house. She was a widow who had just lost her husband a year and a half previously. I would attend Weber college for two years and go back to Lander during the summer. I could not go on a mission until I was 20 years old, and I was only 18 so I had two years to attend college. 

 
The other option that I had to choose from was to attend Ricks college and live with my mother’s brother Wendell Stucki. As part of that agreement I would milk the cows on my uncle’s dairy twice a day and help with the feeding. I had spent a few summers on my uncle Howard’s ranch in Eight Mile out of Soda Springs, Idaho.
I had had enough experience milking cows, so I opted to go to Ogden and attend Weber.

My parents were not happy with my choice and made me promise to attend institute and attend church meetings.

Both my brothers opted to milk cows and attend Ricks.

So I was the black sheep as far as college preference was concerned, but not as far as the gospel was concerned.

My father got his college degree in physics. Both my brothers also graduated from college in physics. So I was the black sheep as far as college major was concerned.

Both my parents and grandparents Gee were opposed to my going into medicine. They were concerned that I would lose my testimony and be an inactive member or leave the church. My Uncle Vernon became a physician and never became active. He had his temple ordinances completed 3 years after his death. The doctors that my grandparents knew in Idaho all were inactive members of the church. The doctor who we went to in Denver that was a member left the church. 

Because of their concerns I took the opportunity to ask a visiting apostle (Elder Adam S. Bennion) while on my mission in 1956. He listened to my concerns and said that I should attend my church meetings and participate in the activities. He stated that in the future there would be bishops, stake presidents, and general authorities who were doctors.

All my brothers and my father married Idaho girls. They wanted me to find either an Idaho or Lander girl for my wife. I married a Southern Belle.
So I again was a black sheep.

I do not regret my choices even though they were not what my parents wanted.

I hope I haven’t made any of my children feel like they were black sheep.

I think that this illustrates that worldly choices are not as important as the spiritual ones we make. In the eternities it is these spiritual choices that will provide happiness.

Chose the right when a choice is placed before you. 

Elder Maxwell said that we make choices of principle or preference. It does not make any difference to your spirituality if you choose a Snickers or a Milky Way.  Your eternal salvation does not depend on that.  I think you can see that I was not a black sheep as far as the gospel is concerned. My black sheep choices were choices of preferences.

A quote he used is “If you have not chosen the Kingdom of God first, it will in the end make no difference what you have chosen instead.”

Make wise choices!

 Love,

Grandpa