Eldred G. Smith

 Recently I read an article about Eldred G. Smith who celebrated his 105th birthday.  He is an emeritus General Authority of the church at this point but served as the last Patriarch for the whole church.  After he was emeritus the Church decided not to have Patriarchs for the whole church but to have the ones assigned to Stakes throughout the world only.  If you would like to read the article I enjoyed click here.
 

This is more how I remember him looking.

The article reminded me of when I was 17 years old.  I had not yet had my patriarchal blessing and I was graduated from High School and was accepted to BYU.  My parents wanted me to have my Patriarchal Blessing before I left home so we made an appointment with the Stake Patriarch just a couple days before I left for school.  That appointment ended up getting cancelled because the Patriarch's wife got seriously ill and consequently I was unable to get my blessing.  Somehow we learned that if we presented ourselves to the Church office building in Salt Lake with my Patriarchal blessing recommend signed by my Bishop that the Church Patriarch may be able to give us the blessing.  So we did that.

Up to that point in my life I had been known as a very dependable and pretty serious young man.  I had avoided the troubles that many of my peers had gotten into and had kept my focus on doing what was right, working at jobs where I showed my dependability and being friends with lots of adults as well as youth including many of my teachers along the way, and had been preparing myself to serve a mission immediately when I was 19.  My plan was to put in my paperwork in advance of my birthday so I could be on my way when I turned 19.

Then the day arrived that we presented ourselves at the Church Office Building and Eldred G. Smith was able to provide the Patriarchal Blessing.  We talked for a few minutes and then he gave the blessing.  Aside from some important things that were said in the blessing, there was something he said after the blessing that changed my life and drastically affected my long term future.

After the blessing was completed and we were talking together he said that I might want to wait a little while to go on my mission "so you can mature" a little more.  That struck me as so strange because everyone thought I was so mature already.  But as time went by I began to feel that was the right thing to do.  So rather than going on my mission as soon as I turned 19 as planned, I went several months later when I was close to 20 years old.  The reason for that didn't make itself known until about three years later.

While being engaged to Lisa to get married we must have realized that if I had gone on my mission when I originally intended, then she and I would not have met.  Because I went a few months later things worked out just right so we met and had plenty of time to work together in the mission field, so that when it was time for me to come home, and she still had several months left of her mission, the thought occurred to me to wait and marry her when she came home.

It is funny how things work out.  But I learned that when a man of God tells you something--as a minimum you should give it great consideration and see if God doesn't lead you to do what has been recommended.  It might change your life in ways you couldn't even guess. I'm grateful to Eldred G. Smith for giving that advice from the Lord that I may not have listened to coming from anyone else.

Daaaad!

It is true that sometimes Dad's do things to embarrass their children.  Dad''s sometimes do those things on purpose.  Mom's on the other hand tend to embarrass their children by accident most.  My Dad was not a world class embarrasser.  The most embarrassing thing I can think of about my Dad was that he didn't have much to say to my friends.  I read this article about a Dad who took it to new heights in embarrassing his son.  His son was a sophmore in High school and by luck [good or bad, you decide] the bus route was changed to go by their house last year.  Dad saw his chance and nearly every day last year waved to the school bus as it passed.  Well, he did it in a different costume everyday and indeed his son was embarrassed.  Click here to see the article.  Or if you prefer click here to go to the blog to see the various costumes that were documented. 

I am grateful for men like this who make my little antics seems small in comparison.  So maybe on second thought my kids might realize that they had a less embarrassing Dad after all. 

Here are a few of my favorites:

Peg leg pirate.

Dad's outdoor office.

scary clown

Mariachi band

Pochahontis

So, pretty much whatever embarrasing memories you have of your Dad when you were a kid, or maybe still.  Just be glad that he isn't an overachiever like this fellow. 

Christmas Tradition part 9: down real late and up early

Christmas has always been an exciting time for me.  Sleeping when I was a child was difficult but eventually I would be overcome and fall asleep but would wake early Christmas morning wondering what Santa Claus, then my parents might give me for Christmas.  Later I enjoyed being Santa Claus to our children and even though they all know that my wife and I have been Santa for a long time I still find it lots of fun to plan and then put out presents and stockings on Christmas Eve. 

This is always very late at night because I want to be sure that they are asleep and that when I put out the stockings that they will be seen for the first time when they wake up and come into the family room.  Well as the kids have gotten older that has gotten harder because they are constantly staying up nowadays and doing their own Christmas surprises and that means I get to bed pretty late and the consequences are that I am tired Christmas Evening.  You'll probably hear more about that in another blog. 

So here I am Christmas Eve.  Lisa has long gone to bed because she knows I'll be up late and she prefers to be rested the next day (imagine that).  Megan has built a barricade fort like structure in the living room to wrap and finish her Christmas surprises behind.  So on the other side of her barricade I am putting together the only present that needs assembling this year.

When the kids were young I sometimes had to assemble some Christmas presents after they went to bed and that would keep me up a little late.  And this time it wasn't anything that was real complicated or had a lot of parts but was something that just took time.  I was putting together the new piano bench that I was giving to Lisa for Christmas.  It is extra long and padded and has adjustable height.  I had noticed in recent months that the current or as I write this the 'old piano bench' was getting pretty rickety and it seemed likely at some point it might collapse entirely.  So a new upgraded bench seemed like a good gift idea.  So there I was attaching the legs to it.  It had come in the mail in a largish box and to my chagrin had printed in five inch letters on each side of the box "piano bench".  I lucked out though because it had arrived while we were in Washington DC and was sitting on the front porch when we got back with the porch light off at night.  So I was able to get it in the house and covered by my coat before anyone else saw what it was.  Success!  Surprise is still possible although after years of trying to do surprises I knew it was not assured. 

So there we are in our living room with Megan on one side wrapping presents and me on the other side of this barricade of furniture putting together the bench.  We are carrying on a good conversation and I am finding it enjoyable having this conversation while doing this assembly work rather than by myself as usual. 

I decide this year that I'll put Lisa's stocking on the new bench so she can get her big present right from the start rather than save it to the end.  My decision to do this is influenced largely by a Christmas a couple years ago when my brother Jim was visiting.  In my effort for the big surprise that year I had come across what I figured would be the perfect gift for my wife and one that surely she could not anticipate that I would give her.  It was large and when I brought it out from it's hiding place at the end of the gift opening with everyone sworn to keep their eyes closed as I am triumphantly bringing it in the room my brother (who was visiting that year) blurts out "that looks like a..." and of course names the gift.  At the time I found it less than pleasurable but nowadays it has become such a great joke and fun memory for us all I am sure that it will live on in family lore much longer than if my surprise had been successful.   

So after completing the bench and getting everything set up with help from a couple of elves all is ready for tomorrow and I can go to sleep. So all is set for Christmas morning! 

I know I won't get much sleep because a certain daughter who has a tradition of her own--that of being the first to get up and come in to our bed room suggesting it is time to get up and go down stairs to open presents.  That daughter used to beg, whine and cajole us in that early Christmas hour to get up and let them go open the presents.  In those days the kids were little and so we would tell them it was too early but they could pile in our bed and sleep until it was time to get up.  Her goal and tradition was to always be the first one in our room.  It is a point of pride for her now to continue that.  There have been a couple of attempts by other daughters to wake up first but as all attempts have fallen short and they now sleep until the appointed time sometimes needing to be awakened by us!  Things do change.     

Surprise indoor frozen snow face

My wife had been telling me for a while that she had a surprise planned for me the Monday of the week before Christmas.  You have to understand that in our family surprises rein supreme.  We try hard to surprise members of the family.  This desire for surprises has led to a number of memorable things over the years  Since it is Christmas time I will share one family policy that this parent lives by.  If you tell me what you want for Christmas without my asking (which is hardly ever) then you won't get it for sure.  That policy has really helped over the years to minimize any 'Christmas lists' or asking for certain gifts.  Rather the art of surprise is at work and must be used to determine what someone wants or needs.  In it's perfect form this happens without them knowing that they wanted it themselves until they moment they unwrap it on Christmas morning or afternoon. 
This year my wife was working on a surprise to give me for a special celebration.  She had done well.  I don't try to figure out surprises because it is no fun to figure out a surprise in advance so when my natural curiosity wants to gear up I simply..."look the other way" or in this case think about something else.  ["Look the other way" is a famous quote in our family that comes from the book Henry's Terrible Mistake by Robert Quakenbush--it teaches some good lessons I recommend it to parents.] 

She took me to a place that I had never been before it is called the The Gaylord National hotel and convention center in Maryland.  It was probably the largest hotel I had ever seen and was really a neat place.  She took our family to the ICE! exhibit which is an exhibit of carved ice sculptures--this year celebrating the Grinch that stole Christmas.  The ice sculptures were nice--especially the bigger than life size nativity one at the end of the exhibit--but the real attraction for me was the COLD.  In order for the sculptures to keep from melting they keep the large room they are in cooled down to 9 degrees.  People come dressed in their winter attire and then before you enter the sealed room you are given a very large blue parka and that keeps you warm.  However since your face is out in the cold as you walk through the exhibit your face freezes!  It was great! 

After that we went into the Gaylord National hotel which was huge.  Hotel rooms go up several stories on each side and in between are streets from a small town village.  But the last part of the surprise was that at 6:15 it started snowing indoors!  Lisa knows I love the cold and love the snow.  I was thinking I new what the last part of the surprise was going to be, I thought there were going to be Christmas carolers coming down the streets but when it started snowing it was awesome!  So I enjoyed the surprise and we had a great time.  All the family seemed to enjoy it.  Wish you could have been there.