Faith and Action

I've been reading a biography of Brigham Young. The early members of the church were asked to do a lot of hard things for their religion. They could not have done it without a lot of faith. They had to endure persecution, leave homes and land behind, leave families to serve missions, leave newly established homes in the wilderness to go into another part of the wilderness and establish another home and community.  The government officials of the United States were not supportive of the church. We often think the people and our government are getting more wicked. In some ways they are but in many ways things were worse in the 1850s. All this was possible because they had a testimony of the Book of Mormon.

Mission Memories

Haley asked if I had been busted by police on my mission. The incident building the chapel did not involve the police but involved immigration officials. I did get pulled over by a policeman twice while bike riding in Olten, Switzerland (my 2nd assignment), though. The first time was not coming to a complete stop at a stop sign...just got a warning. The second time was more serious. We had done a trade-off that day with the other Elders in the district. I went to the town of Aarau with Elder Noorda (from Las Vegas) and Elder Seawright took my place in Olten. We met up with our companions at a fireside in Zofingen that evening and took the train back to our respective towns. When I arrived at the Trimbach (town near Olten) train station, I discovered that Elder Seawright had locked my bike up and took the key with him back to Aarau. Elder Pyper unlocked his bike and we started walking home to Olten (about 3 miles). We were on a lightly-used back road and Elder Pyper had me climb on the handlebars to ride double. I don't think we had gone more than a block when we rode past a dark parked car that suddenly lighted up like a flashing Christmas tree. The policeman in the car was going to fine us 10 Franks for riding double, 10 Franks for having a burned out tail light, and 10 Franks for running a stop sign. We taught him about the first vision and gave him a Book of Mormon and he lowered the fine from 30 Franks to 20 Franks (that was all we had anyway). In Switzerland you pay the policeman directly when he pulls you over. I told Elder Pyper that we were going to never break another traffic law. We had lost 20 Franks of our weekly grocery money and had to eat oatmeal for a few days.

One of our tickets