Long Letter Alert! If you are going to gloss over this email, it then don't read it at all... The story I am sharing has made me emotional as I've read it...
Two weeks ago I had to give a talk on fasting in church. In the process of preparing, I really started to study the subject. The scriptures have a lot of stuff but one early morning, I went on Youtube and started listening to Dr. Jason Kung on the subject. He is brilliant and after listening to multiple discussions on the subject, I decided to fast for an extended period of time. So, Monday morning I ate breakfast and then didn't eat again until Thursday night. It was a great experience for me and I intend to fast many more times during my life.
Tuesday was Halloween and I took the girls trick-or-treating to Grandma and Grandpa Winkel. We talked for several minutes and in the course of the conversation, Grandma Winkel asked me if there was a spiritual purpose to my fast. I this case, there wasn't. I simply was interested in the experiment. Grandma then suggested that I consider adding a spiritual element to my fast and even suggested a subject; that I fast for the two of you to make great decisions when you get home from your missions and start your life's pursuits. I appreciated her suggestion and followed her advice.
I hope you realize it, but if you don't, you are blessed with a rich heritage, both on the Gibbons and on the Winkel side. I love your grandparents on both sides of the family so much. They have seen much of life, and as relating to important decisions, they get it. Both grandparents have children who they hurt for and hope for better days ahead. Some of their children are in great situations and they feel blessed to simply observe and enjoy. The state that each person exists within can be largely traced to the ability to make good decisions when it really matters.
In my own life, it is increasing apparent that it is easy to get into situations and difficult to get out of them. So, it is best to give proper care and consideration toward the critical decisions in life. Both of you are standing on the doorstep of these decisions.
I really don't know enough about Mom's ancestors and Grandma Winkel pointed me to the journal of her father and his experience with a major decision in his life, that of getting an education. The story is well written and beautifully done. You both share scriptures every week and I/we read them faithfully. I invite you to read and consider the following story. I should first note that the Stevens family had followed Great-Grandpa Stevens' father to New Zealand where while he was a mission president. During the time in New Zealand, his father got sick and died. This is a sacred story, please give it proper consideration...
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Excerpt from Kenneth R. Stevens Life Story - 1898 - 1971; pgs. 41-43
Interest had materialized into action towards the building of a Utah state road from Castle Dale to Green River in Emery County, and work got underway in the spring of 1916. After school let out in May, I obtained employment as a single hand on the project, and soon became toughened to pick, shovel, crowbar and other hard work in the building of the roadway and dugways across the desert ravines and through the rocky canyons and mountains of that desert region. Pay was good at $2.50 a day for single hands, "and you pay for your board."
I soon realized that I was in a non-academic and secular environment; typical conversation indicated as much. There were no vacation teachers or other students on the job. The married men had families to support; the single men, mostly drop outs from schooling, had dreams and big talk about spending their money for good times; and it really seemed and sounded enticing—for some of them it would be a repeat. Talk and general conversation were rather rough and tough; stories and anecdotes were shady and of doubtful quality. Thus the environment was established and ruled over by those who were the most clamorous. I was not a participant in such language, but I was a greenhorn at seventeen years of age, and many of the things that I heard became registered in my thinking. This was a new type of world philosophy to me and it influenced me indirectly to some extent in my thinking and planning. Basically, I knew what good character standards were and I remained temperate while living in an environment which permitted smoking, drinking, cursing and profaning.
This was a most important time in my life, earning and saving, and I didn't mind the strenuous nature of those seemingly long days under the desert heat of the summer's sun. Meals were mostly out of the can, but nourishing and with fair variety. The nights were cool, refreshing and long enough to restore tired muscles for another day's labors. We worked hard and our accomplishments were accepted favorably. Periodically, someone would go to town with a team and wagon to obtain food for horses and men. Thus, we worked on until autumn time, when the foreman said that we'd all take time off and go home for a brief rest, get clothes for colder weather, and more "grub."
On the way back to Ferron, I rode on the wagon spring seat beside a temperate and friendly family man, as he drove a team for a sub-boss. In the course of our conversation, he asked me what my future plans were. With some show of a certain presumed sureness, I told him I was going back on the desert for more work and money.
"We won't be working all winter, not after winter really sets in about Christmas time," he said, "and then what're you going to do?"
"I'll have to wait and see, I guess," I answered.
Then he ventured to inquire, "Just what are your future plans?"
"Keep working and find me a wife, I suppose," was my answer, feeling big, with some money in the bank.
"I'd think you would be interested in going back to school and in getting more education," he said.
"I guess I was once, but that was before I could get a job and earn money," I felt assured in answering him; and I began to wonder why he kept pestering me with his questions,
Silence reigned for a few minutes as we both had individual thoughts.
Then, in all seriousness and looking off towards the western horizon of the clearcut Wasatch Mountains and speaking as it were from some past experiences, he said, "Kenneth, you are in a most crucial period of your life—new and questionable temptations are before you, and you lack experience in meeting them. I know because I'm older and I've lived through such times. I wish I had it to do over again. When I was about your age, I had a chance to have gone to school and get an education, and I was considering it. Then a sheepman offered me a job to go out on the desert and herd his sheep for good wages. There was sure and ready money promised to me, and I would get an advance payment on wages. I took the job and the money and decided to postpone schooling for a little while. It wasn't long until I met a wonderful and pretty girl; she's my wife now and the mother of my dear children. I spent my money and needed more, so I kept on herding sheep. That's about all I've ever known since, except for short time jobs like we have been doing this summer, now and then.
"I've been watching you this summer and you don't seem to me like the kind of fellow that ought to be tied up with this kind of work, perhaps all his life. You should have a future goal ahead of you and strive to achieve it. You know, I've about decided that anyone can be a pick and shovel man, if he puts his mind to it and never looks up and ahead. It takes desire, determination and just plain gumption, though, to get an education. If you have the talent and capacity that I think you have and what it takes—I know you have 'cause I knew your father and his ambition, then I think we'll be short one man when we go back down on the desert road. I know for a fact, 'that he who takes the wrong road must make the journey twice,' which may not always be possible to do. That's all I gotta say for now;" and he changed the talk to how pretty autumn can be in late September.
We got home to Ferron at a late hour. I had no appetite for food. After retiring to my bed, I couldn't go to sleep. I was thinking, thinking hard about a decision I had to make. The foreman boss said he had to know by tomorrow if anyone was not going back to work until Christmas time, so he could get replacements. "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush," was his counsel. This kept repeating itself over and over in my mind. I was favored with a job, the money was good to have; I could buy myself some needed new clothes; and maybe have a little fling like I'd heard about but had never been able to afford. And the importance of an education seemed to have gone clear out of my mind and purposes in life. I had lost the inspirational spirit for an education.
I want to add here that if there was any one and big thing that I felt was missing right then in my life, it was the opportunity to talk things over with my father. No one could take his place, I felt, as a counselor to an almost lost young man, not even the devoted and loving mother whom I had. I was sure of what Mother would say, but I was getting more weaned from her; and, anyway, well, this had to be a man's decision. What would my earthly father say if I could talk with him about this critical problem?
I began to recall the things Mother had previously and informally told me about Father making unusual financial sacrifices that other men would not think of making so that he could get away and go to the Brigham Young Academy in Provo for new learning and education. I also remembered an axiom she said he used to talk about and try to live by. "The smaller the education you get, the smaller the job you'll end up with."
I then and there developed a strong yearning and desire to know what my mortal father would counsel me to do, I believe in prayer and had been faithful in always saying a daily prayer. The thought came to me that perhaps my Father in Heaven would have an interest in me and in my future and would reveal to me His mind and will, and also that of my deceased father.
I got out of bed, knelt by the side of it, and talked to the Lord, as one man to another, telling him of my perplexed mind and of the importance of the decision I had to make. I thanked him for a rich heritage, for dutiful and loving parents, for a wonderful environment and a promising opportunity for the future, if I could but more fully envision it. I thanked him for life and health, for strength and desire to learn and fulfill his mind and will concerning me and others whom I might have occasion in life to encourage and counsel along the rough areas of living.
Then I felt relieved and got in bed. Sleep soon came to me and the next thing I knew was the sound of Mother's voice, as she asked, "Are you hungry for a woman's cooking? Breakfast is ready."
What a short night, and yet I felt refreshed; and my mind was cleared and my answer was ready. I had had no dream, nor a vision, and, yet, knowing the value of earned money, I had decided to have a time of indulgence.
As we ate breakfast, Mother and I talked of the work I had been doing, and then she asked, "And what are your plans now?"
I don't know what she had been thinking during the summer and early fall, and the look on her face did not betray her feelings, but I hoped that my answer would not disappoint her.
"Mother, I'm going back to school!" I answered.
Though a show of tears appeared in her eyes, her voice was calm as she answered, "You are already three weeks late; may I help you get your things ready to travel?"
And thus I was to be benefited by the maxim that "one can not climb the heights without first looking up."
There you are. A voice as one from the dust. I hope you felt the spirit of Elijah as you read. Have the greatest of weeks.
