Robert writes home #74 14 July 1996

14 July 1996

Dear Mother and Magdalene,

                I’m glad we were able to come and see you yesterday.

                It was surely fun to go to Richfield, to the Miller reunion. I really had a good time seeing all those folks who I hadn’t seen for so long.

                I didn’t get to talk to you, Magdalene, as much as I wanted to. I wanted to ask you about your trip to the Philippines. I had to get back to SLC to catch a plane to Fresno which left at 6:20 so we left about 3:00 PM. Janet stayed in Utah to visit. I’m going back on Wednesday after work to do another EFY.

                When Uncle LaRue Miller told those stories about my grandpa Miller (Hans Peter) it really impacted on me. I’m referring to when he was talking about how he started the farm out in Venice. There were no buildings on the land so he made adobe bricks out of straw and the red dirt and built that two room house with an 11 foot ceiling. He said, "People thought that you would smother if you didn’t have a ceiling that high." I always wondered why they built those high ceilings. It was really hard to heat that much space. Anyway, he went on to say that Grandpa didn’t have any of the materials available (mud and straw and poles). He got a chance to work in Salt Lake on a job and earn some money, so he went to Salt Lake and earned enough to buy them and then returned. Uncle LaRue said they didn’t have hardly any money. They lived off the stuff they raised and sold a little for a little bit of cash for shoes and a few things. I’m still intrigued with the fact that in that kind of poverty he could afford to have 16 kids. While most of the people I talk to today say they cant afford to have more than one or two, and we’re more affluent than people have ever been. At that rate he could have raised 160 kids on my income. If all I had to do was buy one pair of shoes a year, two pair of jeans and two shirts a year for each kid; and if they would go without all the other junk that they didn’t have back then…like computers, TV, radios, movies, videos, excessive clothing, bicycles, cars, motorcycles, junk food, etc; and if they would walk every place they had to go to…remember Uncle La Rue was telling about how he and his dad were walking to Richfield one day (that was 7 miles away. Those early pioneers walked all over the state of Utah in those days. When the Walker Indian war was on they packed up and walked 70 miles back to Mount Pleasant for 2 years before returning.) Then the average salary of today would support all kinds of kids. But there is one constant and Satan has used to negate the potential for us to use our new found wealth to further the work of preparing for the millennium and providing bodies for our spirit brothers and sisters. That constant is we all want to have what our neighbor has…to look “as good as he or she is” in the eyes of our associates. So if all the kids you know only have in pair of shoes a year, etc. then you fit right in and are one of the group and poverty is meaningless. But if everyone else in your association has two pair of shoes a year,etc. Then you’re hurting, socially, and everyone looks down on you as inferior. It is easy to become so obsessed with the disparity of possessions that you can't think of anything else and can't see down the road or remember your eternal perspective and short circuit your life into an obsessive pursuit the things you think you need to gain status among your associates.

                Now, in our day what people mean when they say they can't afford more than two kids is... I cant afford to pay for computers, radios, TVs, cars, four years at Stanford, and all the other material that they need to keep up with their associates for more than two kids. And most of them can't. And it takes a real smooth talker to make kids think that suffering social disgrace is good for them. But if they can get faith in God, the Savior and then its possible for them to see it as a spiritually strengthening and necessary experience. And I think that has to happen, if we’re going to keep on keeping the commandments, regarding having children and building families.

                Poverty is relative, once you get beyond enough stuff to keep your body temperature in the neighborhood of 98.6 and your cells intact. Wealth has back lashed on us and destroyed out ability to do what we thought we needed it to accomplish i.e provide better for our children.

                Janet and Sam and I went to Provo last Thursday night. CES provided a room for Janet and I at the Comfort Inn. We let Sam stay at her sister Deanna’s. They had a mix up about my reservations and were about out of rooms so they gave us the BYU Suite. It was really a nifty room full of old  BYU memorabilia and a beautiful view of campus and the mountain, and a four poster bed. It was fun. Pete met us and took us to his apartment then back to our room and visited. He had to go to a Retreat the next day so wouldn’t see us before we left, or be able to come with us to the reunion.

                “Especially for Parents” went really well. Janet and I did it as a team. The only problem was, the devotional before us ran over a half hour, so they had us speak right up to the time that the next speaker, Reed Benson (Pres Benson’s son) was to start, so we didn’t have time to talk to the audience afterward because the next speaker was there ready to go.

                I love doing it as a team. That way if I panic and cant remember what to say next I can just turn it over to Janet.

                I’m having so much fun with this summer getting to travel around to speak at these sessions. I am so thankful that BYU and CES has given me this chance.

                I had to speak in Atwater (high council) today so I took Charlie with me. We went to three different units…Chowchilla my assigned ward for sacrament meeting; Then Atwater 2 for priesthood meeting; then Atwater 1 for my speaking assignment.

                It’s been pretty hot while I’ve been gone. I haven’t had a chance to check out my melons yet. I was starting to see some spider mite damage. I hope they don’t kill the plants before my melons ripen. I dusted them again with sulfur before I left. Some of the melons are getting pretty close to ripe. So are some of the grapes. We’ve been picking the ripest berries off of the clusters.

Love,

Robert and Charlie