Letter April 24

Caleb:

I hope all is well with you and that you're being successful as a missionary.

This past week tax season ended and so it's nice to be out from under the deadline.  This tax season has been tough because I spent so much time away from Mom and the family.  I'm already planning on the next tax season as being the toughest of all.  Mitch is moving to SLC and I'm gong to transition my work back to Logan.  While the work is tough, I've enjoyed the entrepreneurial side of the business.

Yesterday I was cleaning the attic and ran across my missionary binders from my mission.  When I was a missionary we had blue planners that were used to track appointments and time.  Those planners ended up being a good journal of my mission.  Anyway, I thought of you and said a little prayer that you're finding success.

I hope you know that I'm praying for you to be successful as a missionary and that you're finding strength in your own testimony.  Missions are really pretty structured; you get up and study then you're expected to go out and find people to teach.  You're in by 9:30 and to bed by 10 every day.  It's an interesting exercise to ask yourself what you will do when things are unstructured after you get home.  How will your testimony be then?  Will the people whom you've taught and converted always be proud to all you their missionary?

I've often looked at returned missionaries and thought of the following story of Parley P. Pratt and John Taylor.  Elder Pratt was John Taylor's missionary...

In March 1837, John Taylor went to Kirtland, Ohio, and had the opportunity to meet the Prophet Joseph Smith for the first time and learn more about the principles of the newly restored gospel. At the time of John Taylor's visit to Kirtland, many Church members had become critical of the Prophet Joseph. Even some members of the Quorum of the Twelve were caught up in this dissenting spirit, including Parley P. Pratt, who had initially taught John Taylor the gospel. When Elder Pratt approached him and shared some of his doubts about the Prophet, Brother Taylor replied:

"I am surprised to hear you speak so, Brother Parley. Before you left Canada you bore a strong testimony to Joseph Smith being a Prophet of God, and to the truth of the work he has inaugurated; and you said you knew these things by revelation, and the gift of the Holy Ghost. You gave to me a strict charge to the effect that though you or an angel from heaven was to declare anything else I was not to believe it. Now Brother Parley, it is not man that I am following, but the Lord. The principles you taught me led me to Him, and I now have the same testimony that you then rejoiced in. If the work was true six months ago, it is true today; if Joseph Smith was then a prophet, he is now a prophet." To Elder Pratt's credit, he soon repented of his feelings and continued to be a valiant servant of the Lord.

Anyway, I hope that you're resolved to maintain whatever improvements you are making in your life and endure to the end.  Have a great week.

I love you,

Dad