Faith, Family and Farm

20 August 2006 Dear Magdalene, Thanks for remembering my birthday with that pretty home made birthday card. We are planning to come to Manti for a month from September 22 through October 22. I've asked the renter to vacate the house by Sept. 15. We're going to spend some time there and evaluate it's potential, or lack of same. I'm excited about the adventure and having a month there. We may take a trip back to see Laurie and Charlie for a few days somewhere in that month. We took a trip back to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and Nauvoo for Susie's oldest daughter, Amy's, wedding in the Nauvoo temple. It was a fun time. It was a family reunion, as well, with all the kids except the Wasatch Front dwellers there (except Charlie, who couldn't miss school, He's in Dental school in Pittsburgh, PA.) After flying home from Susie's, we drove back to Utah and Idaho to see the ones that we had missed, especially Mary, who had just had a baby girl, named Olivia Janet...

February 27, 2005 Dear Magdalene, How are you getting along? I haven't heard from you for a while and I am just wondering how you're doing. We are doing fine. We had a tough bout with the California strain of the flu in January. It took just about the whole month to recover, but we're doing well now. I think Janet brought it home from sub teaching and then I got it from her. It had an additional feature of gastritis, which kept me awake at night with discomfort for a couple of weeks after the fever subsided. The fever lasted ten days. This is the second year in a row that I've had upper respiratory problems in January. I keep remembering how much trouble mother had with pneumonia in the cold wet season when she was here and then with you in Oregon, and how moving to Utah seemed to resolve the problem. I wonder if I'm getting old enough that I may need to make the same move. Laurie's husband got a job in Morgantown, West Virginia. He's there working and ...

September 5, 1999 Dear Magdalene,                 I didn’t make it down to see you at symposium week. Did I tell you that I happened into Emma Kate in the cafeteria? That was fun.                 I’m enclosing another check for Mom’s funeral expense.                 Our stake has an 80 acre raisin grape vineyard for a welfare project. The church members all go down to pick them and lay them our on paper trays to dry each year about his time. Grape harvest was the easiest ever this year. We had a light harvest. We were done by 8:30 AM (started at 6:30). The mutual kids went down on Wednesday, after school, and did about half of the rows. It was nice and cool and we had a good time.             ...

27 March 1998 (out of order) Dear Mother, Our boy, Charlie, received his mission call to Bogota, Columbia. He enters the MTC on May 14. The only day that we have for his farewell is Mother's day. I don't know how that is going to work out. He doesn't get home from BYU until the end of April. We really had a rain storm last week. It dropped 2.5 inches of rain here in DP in 36 hours. But, in Merced it dropped 6 inches of rain. Bear Creek flooded part of the city and 1000 people had to be evacuated. That's pretty unusual for a dry place like this. We have had a wet winter...about 15-20 inches of rain...depending on where in the valley you're located. Saturday late afternoon a severe storm warning came on the TV. A thunderstorm accompanied by funnel clouds and 3/4 in. hail was reported 5 miles sout of Merced along Hwy. 99. It was headed for Chowchilla at 15 miles per hour. Chowchilla is getting to be "Tornado Alley." They were hit by a tornado about 3 we...

24 May 1998 Dear Mother,                 We had a great missionary homecoming sacrament meeting today, Justin Anderson, home from the South Dakota mission, gave a great talk. He really impressed me with his spiritual growth over the past two years.                 Only three days of seminary left for this year. I’ll be glad for the rest but I’m already excited about next year. I’m excited for the Lord to “make my weakness into strength”…after humbling me (Ether 12:27).                 We went to the temple again yesterday. The ward had a temple day involving youth doing baptisms and the adults doing initiatories for names submitted by the ward members. It was a nice day.              ...

18 May 1998 Dear Mother,                 I’ve missed a week in my letter writing. I was sick for acouple of days over the weekend 10 days ago. Yesterday, Sunday afternoon, I did a shift in the genealogy booth.                 We’ve been waiting for our first missionary letter from Charlie. We put him on the plane last Tuesday afternoon in Fresno. I've got to try to take one to the MTC once. I only have one left, Sam. The folks at church want the address and a missionary looking picture (white shirt and tie) to put on the missionary bulletin board. We also need one for the stake bulletin board. He needs to have someone take a picture and send it to us.                 We did the second genealogy booth in the Chowchilla fair this past weekend. I took a c...

117 2 May 1998 Dear Mother,                 Last week I drove back to Utah to move Charlie home, pick up some of Heidi’s stuff and a piece of furniture that Janet’s stepmother left her. Also, to attend Janet’s niece’s wedding.                 I drove the hwy 50 route through Ely, Nev., where I stayed overnight. I was too tired to go further by the time I got there. I love to see the back roads and different scenery when I go back to Utah. I realized the next morning when I took off at 6:30 AM that I couldn't make it to SLC by 10:00AM for the temple ceremony, so I decided to take a side trip up to Calleo to see the Andersons(as family who used to live here in Los Banos, but moved to Calleo to take over her family’s cattle ranch). I found the turn off and took the 68 miles of dirt road up through places like Grandy and Trout Creek ...

Dear Mother, We had another rain storm yesterday. The temperature is in the 50's to 60's. The farmers are all crying disaster. They've lost alot of hay to mildew and mold. The cotton is stunted and sick and the future looks bleak for agriculture for this year. It still hasn't warmed up enough to plant my watermelons, but it is surely pleasant living weather. The yard looks so nice and green. Sunday is going to be Seminary Sacrament meeting. Sam has a little two line solo to sing in one of the songs. He was assigned to speak also. He has a good talk ready and is excited to do it. Tomorrow night is Seminary graduation at the stake center. This has been a busy week for seminary. I also spent the morning getting the year end reports in for seminary. Charlie's passport came, FED EX, today. I went to the post office and sent it on priority mail to him. That passport makes that mission to South America seem pretty real. 31 May 1998. It's taking me a little whil...

12 April 1998 Dear Mother,                  I hope this finds you doing okay.                 Our son, Charlie’s farewell will be on the 10 th of May. I think its going to be a Mother’s Day/Missionary farewell sacrament meeting. Then it will be off to Columbia.                 At Easter Sunday, we had an extra long sacrament meeting. They had a youth speaker, a special musical number, a main speaker (Janet) and the Easter cantata on the program. Then they added two confirmations and some ward business. When the speakers were done, the time was about up, so the bishop, changed the format and canceled the middle block and called 5 or 6 people from the audience to come up and bear their testimonies an say a few extemp. Words before proceeding on to th...

Dear Mother, We got a lot more rain last week. This is going on and on. I have to drive through water to get out of my lane. It's pooling at the bottom of my pasture from the run off and flooding part of the road and my lane. We went to conference this weekend. It was good. I gave my usual test for a bottle of pop to Sam and Heidi Jo. I asked them important questions like what is the favorite cereal of the MTC? (Lucky Charms...they eat tons of it per month.) And which cereal is only consumed at the rate of 16 lbs. per month. (All Bran) Did you hear that talk? It may have been in the priesthood session. Local little league baseball season is getting off to a slow start with alot of games getting rescheduled because of rain. I'm going to get two weeks off from teaching seminary. Tomorrow I start my visiting other ward's seminary classes to pickup ideas. Then the following week is spring break. I'm excited about visiting. I'd like to see how the other teachers do ...

15 March 1998 Dear Mother, We went to the temple yesterday. We had three people from the ward getting endowments or sealing ordinances performed. There were about twenty people from the ward there. From there we went to Turlock to visit our daughter, Megan, and go to her stake's performance of "From Cumorah's Hill." She and all of her husband's family were in it. It was good...It was sure a long day, though. The peach trees are blooming and the weather is getting warmer. I haven't seen many bees flying, though. I don't know how well they're getting pollinated. I went on slits with the missionaries this afternoon...Three no responses at the door, one rejection and one "I only have ten minutes, can you just leave the book.?" This was out of five scheduled appointments. It kind of gives me a little feel of what it's like out there for you guys. In seminary we've been studying Helaman and the account of Helaman Jr.'s sons, Nep...

Dear Mother, We went back to Provo to see the kids last week end. That trip was a fiasco at the start. Pete wanted us to come back to be at his election results event (he lost) which was Friday evening. We tried to leave on Thursday, but had so many hang ups that by 7PM we were only at Turlock and Janet, who hadn't been feeling well (bronchitis,) started feeling too sick to make the trip. So we decided to come back home. I was missing a high council meeting to go on the trip, so when we decided to not go, I said let's go back through Merced and I'll go to my meeting on the way home. We did and Janet slept in the car while I was in the meeting. After a good night's sleep, she felt better, I had scheduled off Monday and rented a car...so I was feeling like I had wasted some efforts, so I said will let's go to the temple and accomplish something out of it all. Then Janet got an alternate plan and called the airlines and found a flight from Sacramento that would get h...

110 14 Feb 1998 Dear Mother,                 Janet and I were in charge of a game activity session at the stake young marrieds Valentine party last night. It was fun. We played charades where you had to draw the title with no writing or talking or acting. Then we played a variation where one person sat with his back to the drawer and directed the drawing in an attempt to depict the object with his back to the drawer and directed the drawing in an attempt to depict the object that I had given them. Then we had them cast an imaginary movie of the Book of Mormon…using contemporary celebrities, movie stars., etc.                 Janet and I have a fun Valentine season. We have been doing daily valentines since the first of Feb. I have been writing little poems and painting cards and little gifts. It’s really been fun. Today I got a b...

Dear Mother, Last night we had the ward talent show. It was pretty good. My daughters, Heidi Jo and Megan did their "Santa Baby" routine. Our weather is nice. We have had some rain, but no frost yet. I'm still loving my seminary teaching assignment. It's not that I'm doing that well, but I just feel excited about the call. It buoys me up spiritually. I know it's important. And, I like the kids. They don't seem to respond much, but I still like them. Thanksgiving morning at 7 AM the men are playing the boys in the ward "turkey bowl" football game. It's a fun ward. We have great activities. We have great leaders, bishopric, Elders quorum pres.  and UM, UW, etc. Daren Nielson (Stan and Linda's son) entered the MTC this week. He's headed for Michigan, just in time for winter. We still haven't bought a new car. I'm driving a friend's car while he fixes my Lincoln, which I plan to sell to Heidi. My BMW threw a rod through ...

3 Jan 1997 Dear Mother, Our bishop is a "peach." I like him so much. He just exudes warmth and concern when he talks from the pulpit. I am convinced in my mind that he is the major part of the success of the missionary effort in our ward. Those new converts just feel buoyed up by his love and concern for them. He talks to them and about them from the pulpit as he talks to all of us. He is about the best bishop I've ever seen. We had 35 convert baptisms in the year 1997 in our ward. Yesterday he had me accompany him to give a priesthood blessing to a non-member lady in DP who had requested it. It was such a nice experience. The lady talked for about an hour before we got around to giving the blessing. Her husband and daughter were there also. When we got ready to give the blessing the daughter, age 26, started getting nervous. They're Catholic and it looked to her daughter like a Catholic baptism. She was afraid that we were fixing to baptize her mother into the ...

18 Jan 1998 Dear Mother, I had a pretty sparse week at seminary last week. It was finals week at school. The numbers are dwindling. Yesterday I went to Sacramento to the mid year seminary workshop. It was good to be able to wsee how other teachers go about it. I really enjoyed it...all six hours of it. Plus the trip up and back. It made a long day. I left home at 4:30 AM and returned at 7:30 PM. We're getting quite abit of rain this year. I have often wondered what the Anti meant in Anti-Nephi-Lehies. I was reading in Nibley's boo, "Since Cumorah," and he explained that in some cases that word meant to mirror back or to imitate...try to be like. Thus Anti-Nephi-Lehi may have meant to be like Nephi and Lehi. When they talk about the anti-Christs, in which the meaning means to try to destroy belief in Christ and counter his teachings...to be against, they are translating a concept into an English work. In English anti means against. But the Book of Mormon nam...

10 Jan 1998 Dear Mother,                 I was listening to a symposium tape the other day which talked about he hazards of being a well liked teacher. The hazard being that the kids become converted to the teacher instead of the principles of the gospel. The speaker was decrying “the donut run practice”…sending someone out during seminary time for donuts (trying to buy their esteem by doing what they want  you to do for them). He said, you’re there to teach them the gospel and help them gain faith and testimonies…not make them like you. That made me feel a lot better.                 Heidi Jo is coming back from Kansas tomorrow, where she has been visiting her sister, Laurie, and her family.                 School starts again for Dos Palos. They’v...

15 Dec. 1997 Dear Mother, I hope this finds you well. Today I went to sacrament meeting in the Chowchilla branch. AS the high counselor assigned to that unit and I try to attend twice a month so as to keep in touch and fulfill the duties of my assignment. Today, they had two new sister missionaries assigned to them to replace the elders who were transferred. The Branch Pres. asked them to introduce themselves and bear their testimonies in sacrament meeting. I talked to them afterward and asked them where they were from. One said she was from Pennsylvania. When she talked, she sounded like friend of Megan's from Penn. that she met at Ricks, who came for her wedding and then went directly to the MTC, I asked her if she knew Meg's friend...thinking she wouldn't. She said, "Yes...she is from my stake. Our families used to get together and play basketball together." I explained how I came to be acquainted through Megan and told her about her being on a mission in ...

21 Dec 1997 Dear Mother, I picked up Carrie and Charlie at the Oakland airport yesterday, after a session at the temple. Christmas is almost here. We won't have any little kids here but we'll have our college kids home. Pete and Jessie are coming the day after and Meg and Travis are coming Christmas afternoon. We are really having nice weather. It isn't even foggy today, which is rare for the Christmas vacation here. I picked my last pomegranates. They still haven't frozen, but the birds have eaten most of them. They are peak for flavor right now. The oranges are also coming on now. My tomato plant just got froze 2 nights ago. Friday was my last day of seminary until the kids go back to school. I was reading in Hugh Nibley's book, "Since Cumorah, today. He talks about the composition of the Book of Mormon and says when it was first published, critics ridiculed it as an example of illiteracy and outrageous English. They made fun of the way monotonou...

"How I Got My Testimony"  by Sam Miller Outline: 1. Intro. My earliest Mormon pioneer ancestors.                2. Brain tumor diagnosis                3. How I got faith...JS quote on Faith                4. Hospital stay                5. My testimony and statement of faith After the Mormon pioneers were driven out of Missouri, they went back east to Illinois. First city they hit after crossing the Mississippi river was Commerce, Illinois. There, the Mormons bought land where they built Nauvoo.  Isaac Gallant sold the land to the Mormons for nothing down. Mary Galland Casto, Isaac's sister, and my great, great, great grandmother, was converted and later went with the saints when they left Nauvoo and went to Utah. She was one of the first converts after the saints came to Commerce Illinois. A...

15 Nov 1997 Dear Mother, I hope you'er doing well. I talked with Jeanene today and she said that she had visited you acouple of weeks ago. We've been having a car crisis lately. Heidi Jo has been stranded twice in the last 12 days. First my Lincoln caught fire while she was coming home from the temple on the freeway, twelve days ago. Then today she took Sam to Fresno and my BMW broke down about 7 miles from home on the way back. We're down to the Toyota pick up and a loaner we're using while the Lincoln is getting fixed. Fortunately, someone with a cell phone stopped and let her call for help on both occasions. We had a good series of rain storms this past week ending our long dry period. The crops are about all harvested so it's good. Sam is giving a talk in our sesquicentennial fireside tomorrow night. I'm enclosing a copy of it for you to read. I'm enjoying my seminary teaching experience. It's exciting, but my experience teaching seminary h...

103 Dear Mother,             We had the stake barn dance out here at our barn last night again last night. It went well. Good weather, few mosquitoes. They seemed to like it. We’re flattered that they like to come out here. This is about he 5 th or 6 th time over the past 15 years. Love, Robert, Janet, Sam, and Heidi Jo PS Another essay: (prompted by my seminary study of the Book of Mormon) I think that the Laman-Nephi conflict is about maturation. When a baby is born it is a totally selfish creature. It doesn’t care that it inconveniences anyone with its demands. It just wants personal gratification. When it’s at church and feels some kind of discomfort it doesn’t stop to think “will it distract everyone from hearing the speaker or worshipping if I cry? Maybe I should just stifle it until after the meeting”. It just lets it all out and cries until someone assuages it’s discomfort. But mothers can be glad that the baby...