Month: October 2024

At BYU Idaho my actor friend was given the role of Joseph Smith in a play being put on by the college. As he was developing the character he wondered what it would have been like to spend time in a small jail cell so he got into full costume, took his scriptures and went to spend the night in a practice room in the theatre building. These rooms, which were soundproof and designed to practice voice and other musical talents, were very small and windowless. Of course students aren’t supposed to spend the night in the theatre building, or any other school building, so he snuck in.

This building, like most theatres, had a reputation for being haunted. We had all heard strange stories of a faceless ghost, or a phantom ballet troop who practiced on the main stage at midnight and then disappeared.

The janitor, who had heard all these stories many times, was cleaning the lower level where the practice rooms were. My friend was in full character when the door opened and when asked who he was said: “I’m Joseph Smith”.

The poor man ran full tilt down the hall, up the stairs and out the door.

A new ghost story was added to the legend.

In mid February of 1999 I received a phone call from my bishop. He said that both he and the Stake President had received the prompting that I should be made a High Priest as soon as possible.

I was an Elder in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and becoming a High Priest was typically something that wouldn’t happen until I was a bit older, I was thirty three, or called to be in a bishopric or something along those lines. Usually they wait until stake conference so they can present the name of the fellow to become a High Priest to the membership. The bishop said that the Spirit had given them a strong sense of urgency and they weren’t going to wait until stake conference.

My father was a High Priest and had set me apart in every office of the priesthood that I had ever held-Deacon, Teacher, Priest and Elder. It was an honor to have him set me apart as a High Priest.

Still, no one understood why there was such a sense of urgency.

A few months later my father passed away.

The Lord, in His tender mercies, let my dad set me apart one last time.

I once went to Alaska to work for the summer. I got a job house sitting in this beautiful home in the middle of acres of forest. The family had two dogs, a Labrador and a mixed mutt. I took care of the house, fed the dogs, and watched tv.

After a couple of days I got a call from a friend of mine.

He said: “Hey, there’s a salmon cannery nearby that is hiring. I’m going to apply and was wondering if you wanted to go with me. It would mean more money and you could still house sit.”

I agreed and he said they would pick me up in the morning.

The next morning the doorbell rang. Opening it I saw my friend standing there with a strange look on his face.

He said: “Why’s the dog dead?”

“What?” I replied intelligently.

“Yeah, the Labrador is in the driveway, dead. I flipped him over with a stick a couple of times just to be sure.”

“Um,” said I.

“Well, let’s go. We don’t want to be late.”

His mom was parked out front in their huge suburban capable of carrying the population of a small village. Three of her seven children had their noses pressed against the windows asking: “Why is the doggy sleeping?”

I sat up front next to her and after a moment she asked me what I did to kill the dog. She was a bit mortified because she was friends with the family and had been instrumental in them hiring me to house sit.

“Did you feed him?” she asked.

“Of course I did,” I responded.

“Give him water?”

“Naturally.”

“Where did you get the water from?”

“I filled up the dish from the hose.”

She gasped. “Don’t you know better than to give an animal water from a hose in Alaska? They had it hooked up to a herbicide.”

I was devastated. I made her promise to go back to the house after dropping us off and dump the poisoned water dish so the other dog wouldn’t wind up dead. She promised.

I was sick.

Well, I got the job at the salmon cannery. I was put on the Slime Line, where I stood with a rubber apron and a spoon. My job was to take a salmon from the conveyor belt, where it had just been slit open, and scrape out all the blood deposits and place it back on the belt. Twelve hours a day.

Every dead fish made me think of the poor dead dog lying in the sun.

When I got back to the house the dog (who’s name was Lucky) was gone, friends of the family had taken it away. So far the other dog seemed fine.

The backyard, where the dog dishes were kept, was down a flight of twenty steps. I went down them, got the water dish, went back up them, filled it at the kitchen sink, went down them, put the bowl down for the dog and then came back up the stairs.

Three times a day. For a couple of weeks.

Down the stairs, up the stairs.

After the house sitting job was over I learned an interesting fact about dear departed Lucky the Labrador. My friend’s mother had fibbed. There was no herbicide. The hose water was perfectly fine. Lucky was old and everyone had been expecting him to pass away.

I left Alaska a few weeks later and she was still laughing.

Several years ago I got an email from NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness. They asked me if I would be one of their speakers at a training seminar they were giving. I marked it on my calendar and when I got there no one else had shown up. I spoke to the lady in charge of the facility and after a lot of looking on her calendar and making phone calls it turned out that I was early. By a month.

This was on a Friday so I drove across town to attend a public speaking group I was trying to decide whether or not to join. I helped set up the chairs, shook hands with a lot of people, even got to speak a bit.

Afterwards I met my wife for lunch and as we sat at the table I told her about my day. She looked at me and then said: “How long has your shirt been buttoned up wrong?”

My mother had carcinoma of the liver and got along very well with it for eight years. Then one afternoon she lost her balance and fell on the lawn. She passed away three weeks later. She spent the last couple of weeks in a long term care facility in their hospice ward. I spent as much time with her as I could. My father had passed away eight years earlier and I am an only child, so I was alone with her much of the time.

One afternoon when I was with her she needed to get to the bathroom. She was far to weak to be able to go alone so I rang for the nurse. No answer. I went out into the hall to try and find someone but the hall was empty, except for an older fellow dressed in workman’s clothes walking towards me.

“Need some help?” he asked me.

I explained the situation and he told me he had some experience with this kind of thing. He helped me get my mom up and to the bathroom, and then back into bed. As he was leaving I told him how incredibly grateful I was. He stopped by the door and looked at me with a smile.

“I’m always glad to help a fellow High Priest.” Then he left.

I hurried to the door to ask him how he knew I was a High Priest , but the hall was empty.

I had never before seen this fellow, and have never seen him again.