Deseret, Cactus, & Texas: March 2019

My mom passed away this month. She had given us scares before but recovered. This time she didn't. She had been living at the River Meadows assisted living center for the past 3 years.Up until a year and a half ago, my sister, Janet, was her main support. Janet was in a roll-over accident in July of 2017 rendering her with a severe brain injury. Janet survived but cannot function or communicate. After the accident Janet's daughter, Stephanie, stepped up and became the main support for mom. We are all grateful to her for that. Stephanie was with her when she passed away. She and Kristen had gone to be with her in the morning of March 16, 2019. She had struggled to be comfortable the day prior but now she was resting peacefully. Stephanie and Kristen were conversing together while Mom slept but then realized they hadn't heard her breathe recently. Stephanie put here ear to her chest and hear one heart beat and then nothing. She said she felt the spirit very strongly right then.

My first vivid memories of my mom are while we were in the Tongan Islands. It was December. I was 4yrs old. We had a housekeeper then. I’ll call her Kolani. Mom went shopping and left Kolani to watch us. While she was tending to the babies, I got the idea to sneak off to the yard with my Christmas presents and open them early. Mom returned from shopping to see me in my brand new Roy Rogers cowboy shirt and cowboy hat being chased around the yard by Kolani carrying baby Janet. I saw Mom and thought, “Oh good, mom is here to rescue me.” I was surprised to discover she was angrier with me than Kolani was. This was the first I remember being disciplined by mom, but it wouldn’t be the last time.

Getting ready to leave Tonga. Our Housekeeper is also in the photo.

Mom was not fond of bugs and I am afraid that Tonga was not a good place for someone with that kind of aversion. If you turned the lights off for a few minutes and then turned them back on hundreds of black six-legged creatures would zip under the baseboards. Mom gave birth to 2 babies there and the crib legs had to be placed in jar lids filled with liquid to prevent the ferocious ants from attacking the babies. Motherly diligence to ant protection allowed Van and Janet to survive.

Mom had a beautiful alto voice. I loved it when she would sing hymns around the house. As a child, I thought that all mothers could sing like that, but then I started paying attention to other voices at church and realized I was fortunate. In high school, mom was a member of the Girl’s Glee Club. While working in Salt Lake after graduation she joined an LDS singing group called Sacre Dulce Chorus. She met five girl friends in this chorus who convinced her to get on a train for our nation’s capital to work as a secretary in the Department of Labor. While there, Mom and her friends went into a coin-operated recording booth and recorded a song, in full harmony, called, “Five Minutes More”. This was recorded on a red colored 78RPM vinyl record. We had an old 78 record player and I used to put that record on and listen and think to myself, “That is my mom on that record! How cool!”. To me, they were a good as the Lemon Sisters.

Mom and the DC girls in Chesapeake bay

While in Washington, DC mom and her friends attended the LDS ward near their apartment. Mom was surprised to find another Box Elder graduate and fellow Perryite there, the former Dantzel White, and then Dantzel Nelson. Her husband, Russel M Nelson, was serving a term in the U. S. Army Medical Corps at the Walter Reed Army Medical Hospital and attending that ward. Mom and her friends enjoyed attending the ward and said the Nelsons sang beautifully together.

Mom had a strong testimony of the gospel. It was evident in her prayers, in her gospel teaching at home, in her private scripture study, and in her living example. Several times, as a child, I would walk into my parent’s bedroom and find mom on her knees in prayer. In later life, I would visit her at the River Meadows assisted living center and find her studying her scriptures.

Mom with the rest of the LA Mission Office (Mission President in light sport coat)

She tells a story about when she strengthened her testimony of the Book of Mormon while working for General Electric Supply Corporation. A new girl named Moselle Evans became a coworker. She was a returned missionary and influenced mom and the other female LDS office workers to read the Book of Mormon in a small room during their lunch hour. She wrote, “My testimony grew much stronger both of the Book of Mormon and the great work of the prophet, Joseph Smith, whom I know was called of God to the work of the restoration of the gospel and who sealed his testimony with his blood.”

Mom and Dad on mission in West Virginia

Mom always attended her meetings while raising us and expected her children to always attend as well, so I was surprised to read in her history that she and Fay had once decided to stay home from church when they were children. Fay and Dorothy’s mother, Thelma, faithfully attended her church meetings, although their father, Arnold, started attending only occasionally. Fay and Dorothy decided one morning that they were going to stay home from Sunday School and told their mother that. Dorothy wrote, “Our mother wept; we felt duly chastised and never offered to stay home again from our church meetings”.

Dorothy and Fay in Burley

Robbins family at Peach Days 1941

She will always remain a great example to me of faithfulness. In later years, when I would visit, she would often question why she remained while so many others she knew had passed on. I think it was to continue to provide that example of faithfulness to her posterity.

In home evenings as children, we were taught the plan of salvation. Mom and Dad explained that we had once lived with our Father in Heaven as spirits, and that he sent us to earth to gain a mortal body and demonstrate that with our agency we would choose to live his commandments when not in God’s presence; that we could demonstrate faith in the face of trials. Heavenly Father knew that we would not always exercise the important gift of agency correctly and that our mortal existence would end in death. To overcome both of these impediments, he sent is Son. Through the resurrection and atonement of Jesus Christ, both mortal and spiritual death are overcome.

Mom overcame many trials in life: serious childhood illnesses, the Tongan Islands, emotional struggles, the loss of a spouse, but I think the hardest thing for her (and our whole family) has been the accident that crippled her daughter Janet. Janet had been a major strength and support to her after Dad passed. Our natural tendency is to ask why? Why her, why such a devastating result despite so much prayer and fasting? Well, clearly God’s ways are not our ways. I believe the accident has placed Janet in a state of innocence. She, as Moroni said of little children, “is alive in Christ”. The power of redemption is on her. She has passed beyond being subject to temptation in this life. Janet is here for us to love. Her husband and daughters now set the example to us as a family in their demonstration of charity. “Charity suffereth long, and is kind; … [it] beareth all things, … hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth.”

I take comfort that Dad, and now Mom, can clearly see from a Heavenly vantage point that the temporary pain endured well in this life, will, through our Saviour’s atonement, give way to eternal happiness in the next.

Mom and Janet 2018

All grandsons present as pall bearers

Family waits for hearse to be loaded

Mom's Burial: Felicia, Gordon, Eric

Emily, Angela, Kristen, Ben, Aunt Fay, Aunt Skip

A historic event happened this week, the dedication of the Rome Italy Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. All of the apostles and first Presidency were in attendance. This is the first time, since the restoration, that all apostles were gathered in a single location outside of the USA. This may be the first time ever that all apostles were gathered in Rome. The Rome visitor's center features the Christus statue depicting the resurrected Christ and the original 12 apostles with Peter holding the keys representing the authority to act in Christ's name while directing the kingdom of God on earth.

Bertel Thorvaldsen's Christus and the Apostles

Rome Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

In conjunction with the dedication, the two men claiming to hold the keys of presidency today held a meeting together.

Pope Francis and President Russel M. Nelson

Of course they can'y both be right about holding the keys of presidency, so they differed on that front, but they found common cause on many other aspects such as religious freedom, secularization of society, and charitable support of the needy.

Here in Tucson, the 3rd annual NW Interfaith Community Celebration was held with Pres. Broadbent representing the North Stake of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with leaders representing the Catholic Church, the Third Church of Christ, Scientist; the Casas Adobes Congregational United Church of Christ; the Muslim Community Center of Tucson; the Jewish Community Center of Tucson, and the Baha’i Faith of Oro Valley. The subject of the meeting was gratitude. Gratitude to God is an subject all religions can agree on. I forgot to attend this year but I heard reports about it from Bro. Hurst. The leader of each congregation spoke about something they were grateful for. President Broadbent spoke about being grateful for a prophet and tactfully discussed the prophets throughout time who have received inspiration to share with us in holy scripture while directing the church of their time. He said he was grateful for a modern prophet today. A small choir group from the stake then sang a cappella, 'We Thank Thee, O God, for a Prophet'. Terril said the mixed congregation all clapped when the the last strain of the song was finished: "While they who reject this glad message, shall never such happiness know".