Mowing the Lawn

I will wake up tomorrow morning, on Father’s Day, alone in Cheyenne without my family. I say this matter-of-factly. Designated days have only a light hold on me. An unexpected business trip that means being gone on Father’s Day? No problem. I'm not much for ceremony. More than once we have marked Father’s Day by splurging for a hotdog at Costco while filling up the minivan on a road trip. (Surely, Cheyenne has a Costco.) If I wake up emotional tomorrow morning, it's not because I'm alone on Father’s Day. It will be because of the cocktail of emotions I drank today. —— Driving across Wyoming was beautiful. Everything below the horizon looked groomed and green. The grass, the hills. the forests. A sea of green dusted with flecks of distant snowfields and antelope. (So many antelope.) Above the horizon, wild white and stormy black scratched across brilliant blue. The kind of sea and sky that softens your heart and tricks your mind.  I pulled off the highway at Little America f...

It was Thursday night, well past sunset. They had already partaken of the sacrament and sung a hymn when Jesus stepped out of the room and set his feet on the path that would lead first to the garden Gethsemane and before the sun set again to the cruel cross of Calvary. The garden spot was a place well known to the Savior. A place he was accustomed to visiting when in Jerusalem. I wonder if he knew the first time he visited that garden the role it would play in God’s grand design. Perhaps he did. Or perhaps he simply chose it that night because it would provide the peace and solitude he would need to bear the weighty burden that awaited him.  John, his apostle, was with him. But John wrote little about what was about to happen. Only that Jesus, with his disciples, crossed over a brook into the garden. What we do know from John is that in the hours leading up to this moment Christ’s thoughts were on us. He prayed that we would find joy in the world, that we would be with him once ou...

I have been thinking a lot about my father this week. On Monday I helped Braeden and Anna move all of their belongings out of Deleward and into a moving truck bound for Woodland, CA where Braeden starts graduate school at nearby UC Davis next month. As I walked from the truck parked on 400 East across the lawn and up the stairs, my mind flashed back to 24 years earlier when I was moving out of the same apartment building, walking across the same grass, and loading up my own moving truck with the help of my dad.  Braeden was just eight months old at the time. I can still see him sitting in the grass with my dad, Thelma, and cheap-enough-that-we-could-afford-it pizza and bread sticks from Sounds Easy. It meant everything to have my dad there with me. Looking back on it I realize that Thelma was the real star. I was working right up to the very end. As with all of our moves, she did the bulk of the packing and planning. I was just the muscle. I was nervous about moving from Provo, Uta...

Lately, I find myself reciting in my mind portions of The Living Christ: The Testimony of the Apostles . I memorized it years ago when our family was studying it at Easter. It has been a constant source of strength and perspective in my life. For all the scripture and sermon that exists about Jesus Christ, I’m not sure there is a more succinct and beautiful treatment of who he is and why it matters. There is one passage that repeats D&C 76. Referring to Jesus Christ, the Prophet Joseph wrote, “We saw him, even on the right hand of God; and we heard the voice bearing record that he is the Only Begotten of the Father— That by him, and through him, and of him, the worlds are and were created, and the inhabitants thereof are begotten sons and daughters unto God.” ( D&C 76: 23-24 ) I find in these truths evidence of Jesus Christ’s sweeping love and grace. Because of the universal atonement of Jesus Christ, he brings every inhabitant of every world he has ever created back into t...

For the past month or so my mind has been drawn to the words of a popular hymn. “So trusting my all to thy tender care, and knowing thou lovest me, I’ll do thy will with a heart sincere. I’ll be what you want me to be.” Even as I feel overwhelmed by the gap between what I am now and what he wants me to be, especially in my new calling, I also remember experiences that show me his tender care and give me a reservoir of lessons to draw upon. I’ve been thinking a lot about when I was 24 years old. Thelma and I had just moved across the country to Connecticut where I was starting graduate school. Within a few months I was called as an assistant stake clerk. I asked President Openshaw, who extended the calling, what my responsibilities would be and he said the stake presidency wasn’t sure yet. But he went on to explain the specific revelation they had received in calling me. That meant a lot to me then to know that God was mindful of me and that President Openshaw would take the time to...

A version of this talk was given in sacrament meeting on May 14, 2017.  It is based on Elder Holland’s remarks from the April 2017 General Conference titled “Songs Sung and Unsung.” Mormon, chapter 7, contains the last words Mormon wrote before he was killed.  As part of his testimony of Jesus Christ, he says this: “And [Jesus Christ] hath brought to pass the redemption of the world, whereby he that is found guiltless before him at the judgment day hath it given unto him to dwell in the presence of God in his kingdom, to sing ceaseless praises with the choirs above, unto the Father... in a state of happiness which hath no end.” (Mormon 7:7) That is how Mormon ends the Book of Mormon:  with a promise that we can join the choir in heaven if we are faithful.  It is also the same vision that begins the Book of Mormon.  In 1 Nephi, chapter 1, Lehi goes somewhere to pray for his people and as he does this a pillar of fire appears on a rock.  Nephi doesn’t t...