I hope I can bring some aged wisdom for you and not just the ramblings of a very old man.
First, I'll point out that I am the “Accordion Speaker.” As the last speaker, I have to compress or expand my talk so our meeting will end at the right time. I will do the best I can to accomplish this.
Now about faith. Faith is described in Hebrews, Chapter 11:1. Using a modern translation, it reads, Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.
In thinking about this definition, I realized that faith has been with me all my life. In fact, I believe that faith is what got me to where I am now.
Furthermore, I believe that we all live daily by faith. We can plan, and we should plan, but we can’t perfectly predict and our plans can change very quickly. So, indeed, we show our faith constantly.
Unfortunately, there are people who have faith and hope in wrong and even bad things, but I won’t talk about that.
So, the real questions we should ask ourselves are, What do I have faith in? What do I hope for? What is the best track for me to be on now?
The short answer is that we should live the 10 commandments and have faith in ourselves, in the restored gospel, and as Christians, in our Lord, Savior, and Redeemer, Jesus Christ.
But I will now give a longer answer and speak about the track that I took starting a “long” time ago in the 1930s, which, at my age now, I call “ancient history.”
Each one of us has an unique story to tell. As we share our stories, we can strengthen each other’s faith. So as I talk about my story, think about how you got from there to here and how your faith played an essential role in your life.
This is my story.
I grew up in Southern California in a Los Angeles County district called Altadena. This is between the City of Pasadena and the San Gabriel Mountains. A wonderful place 80 years ago--but I must say that Maine is just as good. I love Maine.
My mother was extremely active in the Church, particularly in Relief Society, serving at one time as the Stake Relief Society President.
My father was never a member of the Church, and we had zero religious activity in our home. However, my father did say, "You should go to Church to find a good wife."
I consider my father as one of the most ethical men that I've known, and he supported my mother and us three boys in our Church activities and lived as a good example for his sons.
There were few children in our Ward, so few that I was 11 years old in 1939 when Primary was first organized in the Pasadena, California Ward. I memorized the 13 Articles of Faith to graduate at age 12.
The first meetings that I remember were in the Pasadena Odd Fellows Hall. Just before WWII started, the Ward had received a permit to build its own chapel, so the permit was still valid in spite of the war.
So, the question was whether we should use that permit to start building immediately or wait until after the war. This was discussed in a special priesthood meeting. The result was that we supported our Bishopric in starting the building immediately but in a limited way.
On the property that the Ward had bought, we built a recreational hall which initially also served as our chapel. And the house on the property was turned into classrooms. After WWII, we added a real chapel on the front grounds.
When I and my two brothers each reached the age of 12, we went to Priesthood meetings. At that time, these were held early Sunday morning, followed by a break so that the brethren could go home to bring their families to Sunday School.
My brothers and I took the local trolley car from Altadena (our home) to Priesthood meetings, which were held early Sunday mornings. Our mother would then drive us all back home after we had all attended Sunday School.
At that time, the Sacrament was passed during Sunday School and also during Sacrament meetings, which were held in the evening.
Later, our Ward was divided, so there was a Pasadena Ward and an East Pasadena Ward. The two Wards met in the same building with an overlapping time schedule that was used throughout the Church when two Wards used one chapel.
My family remained in the Pasadena Ward but nearly all the younger families that still had children at home were in the new East Pasadena Ward. Among other things, this resulted in there being only a few, very few like two or three, young single adults in my Ward. So, after I attended our Sacrament meetings in the late afternoon I stayed for the East Pasadena Ward Sacrament meetings in the early evening.
After those evening meetings, we, the young single adults, would have a “fireside” inviting someone in the Stake to speak in one of our homes and then socialize afterwards.
It was at one of these “firesides” that I first met Joyce Nicholes, my future wife. She had just graduated from BYU and was invited to come to California to stay with friends she met at BYU and who lived in the East Pasadena Ward.
I was immediately impressed with her, so much so that I called her that week and asked her for a date. This was actually my first one-on-one date!
I well-remember that when I went to pick her up, she invited me in and then excused herself and came back dressed differently. I thought that she was just changing her dress she had worn to work into something simpler.
But she told me much later that she thought I would be wearing something like I wore to Church, which was a really old suit handed down from my paternal grandfather. I guess it made me look very dignified.
Not so. I showed up wearing very common street clothes.
Joyce took an art class several evenings each week. To earn money, she ran a mimeograph for a company. In those days, the mimeographs were run completely by hand. She told me later that it was so boring that she would quietly sing hymns in the mimeograph corner, which amused the janitor.
After several more dates that summer, Joyce returned to her home in Provo, Utah to get a degree at BYU in teaching as her degree in art, by itself, did not provide a living. She later gained interesting stories about teaching art to high school football players on the one hand and young Primary School kids on the other.
Joyce and I then began sending newsy letters back and forth.
The following year, my mother, my younger brother’s girlfriend (and future wife), and I drove to the Colorado School of Mines for my brother’s graduation. I invited Joyce, and we picked her up in Provo.
On our return, we had supper with Joyce’s family. Both my mother and Joyce’s father were strong extroverts, and they carried on a delightful conversion. I felt this was a very good sign: My family was approved!
However, my mother was appalled at my “slow courting,” and I admit that it didn’t amount to much. But I didn’t know how. I grew up with two brothers, no sisters, and I always played with boys since there was only one girl my age in my neighborhood that was full of boys, and I did not read romance stories.
Another challenge for me was that I didn’t know how to dance, and I avoided all Church and school dances which we had in those days during the week. I and a male friend called dancing, “A waste of lost motions.” But we both eventually changed our minds.
So, very soon after I arrived in Schenectady, New York, I signed up for dancing lessons since I wanted to be able to take Joyce dancing if the occasion arose. I got pretty good and felt competent enough to take a girl to Church dances, which I did, but dancing for me was never a natural talent.
I finished my schooling, including college and post-graduate studies, all in Pasadena, and interviewed for jobs here in the East.
I chose the East as there were good jobs here in experimental physics which I enjoyed. I accepted one with the General Electric Research Laboratory in Schenectady, New York, and it did turn out to be an excellent job.
I was the last of three boys to leave home and the only one in my family to end up in the East! But I resolved to visit my Western family at least ever other year, which I did. I would save one week of vacation so I would have 3 weeks the next year when I went West.
My mother was very concerned that I might lose the Church in--what shall I call it?--the “Church-less” East.
But it was not so. When I arrived in Schenectady, I called the Church District President. (They didn’t have Stakes and Wards yet but rather Districts and Branches under the direction of the current Mission President.)
I inquired if there was a Church family that had an extra bedroom for rent. The answer was much better then I expected. There were four Church young men and an older widower renting an upstairs flat and it was just around the corner from where I was renting a bedroom. I found that “second floor flats” were very common here in the East, the owners living on the first floor and renting out the second floor which had bedrooms, a kitchen and a small living room. This was the first time I had heard of second floor flats.
So I walked over and, yes, there would be an empty bedroom at the end of the week, and they would gladly have me. This was in 1953.
My goodness, didn’t we six bachelors live cheaply as we were sharing the cost of the rent!
And The Bachelors is what we were called by the Branch members.
We were amused that we were counted as a zero family by the women’s Relief Society, as one family by the men’s Elders group, and as five families for the small Branch budget which they had in those days.
The way we worked our suppers was that I would set up the menu and buy the food. The one who got off work the earliest, which was 4:30 PM, would do the cooking and the others would do the cleanup.
We each made our own breakfasts and lunches or bought them. For me, very good cheap lunches were served at the G.E. Research Laboratory where I worked.
So for one and a half years, I lived with four other young bachelors and an older widower, and we were all seeking the same thing: A young lady to marry in the temple!
Schenectady Branch had zero possible wives available since the Church women were only there because they were all married to men who worked for General Electric. But nevertheless, we all succeeded in our goal.
Of course I had already picked out my wife, Joyce, but she didn’t know it at that time, and she also lived 2500 miles to the west in Provo, Utah. And we did get married in the Salt Lake City, Utah Temple in 1955, but that is another story.
Schenectady Branch was wonderful. At that time, all the families, except for one or two, were from the West with the men working for General Electric. Because of World War II, many of them did not have the experience of the Mutual Improvement Association referred to as MIA. MIA was the Church’s program for social activities for single adults 12 to 27 years of age and held Tuesday evenings.
Most of us in the Branch, married and unmarried, were very anxious now to make up for that lost activity. Among them we had a number of very talented members who were especially trained in drama. We had dances, outings, a choir and plays. The scripts for the plays were created annually by the Church for the MIA program.
I love acting. Just give me a script, I would say, and I would be going strong. I was often cast as someone like Scrooge, who was a bad character in the beginning but turned good in the end. And once I was cast as a nice old man who is called to his “heavenly home,” dying in the first scene. I moved slowly off the stage, leaving my stage family in shock and near tears. We did that part so well that the director had tears in her smiling eyes when I came out to the rear of the audience after “dying”.
And we had dances, and parties, and outings, and a choir. It was a new social experience for me and I had a wonderful time.
So how does this relate to faith? I answer with the following:
By staying close to good Church members and being active in serving in the Church, we can keep ourselves on the right track, which, while challenging at times, will lead us to true happiness.
The phrase Faith, Hope, and Charity contains a great truth. Having faith in good hopes followed by charity is indeed the true path.
In the name of our Lord, Savior, and Redeemer, Jesus Christ. Amen
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