Reed Benson: A Personal Encounter

I wanted to write this tribute to Reed Amussen Benson since I don't know how long he will be around still. Back in 1985 I was a graduate student in early twentieth century history at BYU. I worked in the religion department at the time for Donald Q. Cannon and Richard O. Cowan. I helped Brother Cowan do research on LDS temples and assisted him in preparing some of the gospel doctrine lessons as well as helping him on his book the Church in the Twentieth Century. I helped Don Cannon work on a few articles such as the Provo Sugar Miracle, Latter-day Visions of the Savior, the Wisconsin Pinery and a few odds and ends on free masonry. At the time I was writing my master's thesis on James E. Talmage: The Man and His Times. I had the first two chapters complete and had submitted them to Tom Alexander. In one of my history classes I had written a paper on Ezra Taft Benson during his time as Secretary of Agriculture during Dwight D. Eisenhower's administration.

One day I was walking along near the administration building when a short man with a bald head dressed in a blue Mr. Mac suit came running up to me. He called me Friend Bruno. I didn't really recognize him very well since I had never met him before. He introduced himself as Reed Benson. He said he had heard good things about me and heard I had written a paper on his father and would I bring a copy by his office. He told me he had talked to his good dad Elder Ezra Taft Benson about me since I was recommended as a top researcher and writer. I told him I already had a job and that I appreciated the offer. He told me he needed help writing his fathers biography and eventually also his teachings book.



According to a 2001 biography of Reed Amussen Benson he is "Reed A. Benson is a professor in the Ancient Scripture Department at BYU and teaches a thousand students a semester. He has written for a national news magazine and lectured widely, with numerous TV interviews and press conferences. A former Air Force Chaplin during the Korean War, he was the President of the Kentucky, Louisville Mission. He served as Branch President in Oxford, England and in the Israel District Presidency. Oldest son of President and Mrs. Ezra Taft Benson, he is the father of nine children and grandfather to twenty-four." I think he is semi-retired now as a professor I haven't really spoken to him in about twenty years.

I learned a great deal about missionary work from Reed Benson. He was president of the Kentucky Louisville Mission. He was a master at commitment. He taught me that you need to be bold and to testify. That missionaries need a message to match their mission. He was very influential in converting his father's words in to practice. President Benson was really influential in flooding the earth with the Book of Mormon. Reed was a great spokesman for his message training literally thousands of students who passed through the halls of the religion department at BYU.

Later that day I took my only copy of my paper by. I was so poor at the time that I didn't even have enough to copy the paper so I gave him my original. A few days later he called and said his good dad had read my paper and they both wanted me to work for them. I went and talked talked with Don Cannon who told me that Brother Robert J. Matthews wanted to see me about working with Reed. I was told I was to be a full-time staff member during the two years I was to work on the project and was to be paid $8 an hour.

A day or two later Reed told me that Ezra Taft Benson, who was then President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles wanted to see me in his office in Salt Lake City. We drove up in Reed's car. When I arrived President Benson was meeting with one of my heroes Boyd K. Packer so I had to wait about ten minutes. Reed wandered off to speak with one of his secretaries who I think was named Betty about some business he needed to take care of for his dad. I learned that Reed was always doing some project or another for his dad from the very beginning. His office was on the First Floor. It was quite different than visiting my old mission president Russ Ballard whose office was on the fourth floor or Elder Kikuchi's who was on the third and later in the Church Office Building. It was a very impressive office.

Finally I was ushered in to the office. Reed was in the office and left to take care of some other things. President Benson shook my hand and said that he had read my paper and that he wanted me to come to work for them. He said you will have to work probably hundreds of hours with no pay and sacrifice your time. Are you willing to do it? I told him I was. He said that he heard from Reed that I wanted to be an institute teacher and that he felt I would make a good one since he knew I was one of the good and trusted LDS historians. He told me that some of the current ones were struggling and we needed men like me working in the ranks.

I asked him if he would give me a blessing prior to working on the project. He told me that he would like to but that the brethren discourage that so that a person receiving wouldn't later claim something was said interpreting it differently than the way it really was given. He told me that I would work out of Reed's office and would work closely with him in writing his biography and later his teachings book. He said since he couldn't give me a blessing he would give me copies of his books and that he personally would sign them.

Ezra Taft Benson went to a closet in his office and removed about nine books which included God, Family and Country, An Enemy Hath Done This, The Red Carpet, Farmers at the Crossroads, Cross Fire, So Shall Ye Reap, This Nations Shall Endure, Title of Liberty, and On Wings of Faith. He took out a pen and said that he was going to personally sign mine and he wanted me to have them as a gift of his appreciation. I had asked Reed coming up how he father signed the dozens of documents and he told me he used an autopen so I knew that his signing them was a special thing since he was a busy man. Elder Benson was very enthusiastic warm and had a vital and active mind. He told me that there were two criteria that needed to be involved in writing his biography and doing his teachings book and that was "It lead men to Christ and that it establish the trutfulness of the Book of Mormon." I spent about an hour with him. He later explained to me where his desire to flood the earth with the Book of Mormon came from.

The next day I went to work with Reed. The first few days I went either over to his house. He had a spacious custom home that had been built by Reed Bankhead's sons he later moved over on Stadium Avenue when he sold his house to Joe Cannon who was head of Geneva Steel. Reed Bankhead was one of Reed's religion colleagues that had a similar John Birch perspective. Bankhead and Reed were really in to the idea that they were opposing communism and other socialist regimes in order to preserve the liberty and freedom of the Free World. I remember that Bankhead, Ron Mann, Gerald Lund, Dennis Wardle and Reed all worked on The Constitution: Our Heavenly Banner. Glenn Pearson might have even had a hand but I do know for a fact the other men did research on it.

I remember that Reed Benson was an exceptional parent. He and his wife May were not able to have children and adopted nine children. They were both very involved in the home schooling movement. They had some pretty elaborate family home evening activities which included things like going to the Utah Jazz basketball games. One time Reed showed me an itemized listing of his expenses. He kept a detailed account of things he did in life which showe he spent close to eight thousand dollars alone for family activities. My kids are lucky they go to the local water park which cost a few hundred. I hardly ever take all eight out to a restaurant. He even took them every summer to Aspen Grove for family camp. They had a weight room and one the nicest libraries I have ever seen in their home. He always had time for his kids who would visit him on occasion at his office. He was a patient and understanding type of a father.

One time I was visiting and they had Book of Mormon reading while I was there. It was very impressive seeing him there with all his kids. One day he told me had to go to school and see what his kids were being taught. Apparently when they got in the older grades a few of them attended a formal school and Reed went to see what kind of curriculum and teachers they had. I learned a lesson or two from Reed I never had a clue that they would let you come right in the classroom and check it out until then.

I remember one of his daughters had her stomach stapled. Reed made sure that she was prayerful about her decision. He was very even keeled about his interactions with his kids. I would have probably have said you must be whacking out of your brain let alone pay for something like that. His kids loved him a great deal.

Not only was he a good parent but he was probably the best son I have ever seen. He sacrificed his whole life to promote his father and his mission. Everything Reed did had to do with religion and serving his father or family. He was the most devoted son I ever saw. He was constantly in touch with his father. He spoke to him a few times a day. Dennis Wardle was constantly telling me about the things he would do. Reed would drop whatever he was doing if his father needed him to do something for him. Usually he did research on whatever topic his father was interested in. His brother Mark was also closely connected to his father and ended up serving as a special assistant. Reed took a beating because of his faithful devotion not everyone realized just how faithful he was. He taught in the religion department so he could be close to his dad. He told me that earlier in his life he was interested in working with Jack Welch and was in the Freeman movement but his dad needed him so that is why he moved to Provo.

To look at Reed one would never know with his bald head and large ears just how dynamic he was. He would tilt his head to the side and start speaking and it was amazing how he would capture his audience and enthralled them with his grasp of doctrine. He was an exceptional scholar of the Book of Mormon and taught thousands of students many returned missionaries. In terms of religiosity I found Reed Benson to be one of the top people in the whole LDS Church. He was as straight laced a Mormon as ever walked the earth. He prayed conscientiously. I would find him on his knees sometimes in the office in the JSB. He would be there some days at four a.m. One cute story about him involved sleep. The poor guy never got more than three or four hours a nigh of sleep. He had special pink Sylvania bulbs put in because otherwise he would fall asleep in the afternoon. One morning he fell asleep at the wheel and drove down the side of the hill just below the Heber J. Grant Building. I tried to make sure he was always properly rested. I even learned to work with a dim light on in his office.

He was actively involved in the John Birch Society but he kept it low key as a religion instructor. It took me a while to catch on to the code. Someone would call him and the conversation would go something like "I am glad you are interested in the freedom movement. There is a meeting but I will have to meet you by the temple since I don't get involved with that here." He would then tell the person to come at certain time where he would be parked waiting for them. He never once pushed it on anyway that I saw. I never had an interest in the John Birch movement and he never offered to take me personally since he respected my preferences. It was cute though when he would call me Comrade Bruno or Friend Bruno.

He was very busy in his life taking care of daily things like teaching his classes, serving in his local callings, taking care of his family, etc. I knew he didn't have a lot of time so I concentrated on doing research on the biography and later the teachings book.

A few months in to the biography we had a change. One day I heard Reed talking to his father. His father said that Marvin J. Ashton had a prodigy named Sheri Dew that worked at This People magazine and that President Benson needed someone that could make him more human and show that side of h im. Reed tried to argue that he and I were writing the book but President Benson said he was convinced by his brethren that was the way he should go. He never liked to go contrary to them. In fact I was apalled that they made him put a disclaimer in his original pamphlet the Constitution Our Heavenly Banner that it was his opinion and not the official viewpoint of the LDS Church. I had a good laugh when as President of the Church he gave it at a general conference. When a Prophet gives an address in an official capacity it becomes the mind and will of the Lord. It actually was a marvelous address and I am far from being an ultra-conservative but even I felt it was an inspired discourse. Anyway Sheri Dew came on board.

Reed was a very busy man so he had his niece Flora Parker who was staying with the President and his wife help Sheri Dew out by gathering the thousands of pages of his addresses in to one place. Reed paid her I believe the same way I was paid which included countless hours of service. Sheri would occasionally call for Reed and sometimes he would respond right away. I can honestly say that the man was given constant assignments from his father that side-tracked him. He was a sweet man and thought the best of those he worked with. One day she called out of frustration and said she was going to quit unless she got the diaries. I have to say I understand Reed's reluctantance to not give them up until he read through them since there were delicate topics in them. I remember assuring her that he would call her and to hang in there. She told me she had writer's block and was going to give up. Reed brought the diaries in within a few days and he and I and Dennis Wardle spent a few hours photocopying them since we didn't want unauthorized copies to spring up on the underground. She was given a copy of his diaries and Reed became more actively involved in editing her writing. Richard Cowan helped her a little bit and soon Reed put his time in moving that project along. I was pleased that she was able to bring it to fruitition. At the time I resented her taking the book I was supposed to write but she had a more journalistic style. I doubt even if I had written it that I would have ended up President of Deseret Book.

Reed, Dennis Wardle and myself began to concentrate on the teachings book. Reed did a few talks extracting quotes. We had to whittle down forty years of talks in to a five hundred page book. I came up with the classification schedule using the church magazines scheme which I only had to adapt using a few topics they didn't have. I had a few volunteers from student wards and Richard O. Cowan's classes do a few talks but in the end Dennis and I did the majority of the selection. We used a numbering system for the topics with the person marking the talk with a pencil using brackets. Then we had two different secretaries Jodie Durrant, George Durrant's son Warren's wife and Jannell Johnson who typed the quotes in WordPerfect. We ended up with forty or fifty floppy disks. Dennis and I whittled it down to about eight hundred pages.

Then the three of us went to the Benson Institute and sat together for about a month condensing it down to the punchiest quotes. Reed made sure that we always started with a word of prayer. He continually reminded us that his dad wanted nothing said that didn't lead men to Christ. Slowly but surely we began wading through the material. It was in the Spring of 1987. Reed called the three of us the three musketeers. Each day we would make our way through about two or three topics as we would have to tell Reed whether that was the best his father said. Reed would argue with us sometimes whether we had already said that and we would discuss how each quote was different or added something different.

I had a couple of great experiences while working with Reed.

When President Benson became President of the Church there was a special solemn assembly. Since Reed and Dennis and I were working on his book he wanted us to attend it as his personal guest. We were given special tickets. I was able to sit with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir during the service with my wife and children I never had better seats and was able to raise my hand to sustain him.

Another experience involved blessing the living Prophet. One day I got a phone call from Mark Benson that President Benson was in Provo at Dr. Harold Oaks, an eye surgeon's office and that Reed was needed there immediately. Dennis Wardle came about then and so we checked Reed's class schedule and saw he was about to get out of one of his classes. Dennis and I drove in his car over to pick up Reed. We took him down to Dr. Oaks office. President Benson was going blind due to cataracts just like President Kimball had been. Dr. Oaks was busy for several weeks and President Benson had a busy schedule for several weeks to come the only time they could do the operation they discovered was that very day. Dennis Wardle and me and a Church Security guard waiting in the foyer while Reed went back. I asked Dennis why the Twelve didn't give him a blessing he told me that they didn't have time and that his sons had the right to give him a blessing. A few minutes later Reed came out and invited Dennis and me to join him. He had told his dad we were there and so he invited us to assist in the blessing. Mark annointed his father and Reed sealed the blessing. As we stood there I prayed silently to the Lord that if President Benson needed some of my eyesight that I would willingly give it up so he could be able to fill his duties as a Prophet. I learned a lesson that day as the Lord took me at my word. My eyesight has slowly diminished in my right eye. Today I have hugh black floaters but I will always remember Reed's confidence and his father's in Dennis and me. We were considered family.

Reed was always concerned about us. One time his father was given some prime number one Idaho spuds. He told his dad we were living in the basement of a mission president who had his daughter living in the home while he was gone. Reed brought nuts, oranges, and the potatoes. Three families living there ate those potatoes for a week we didn't have much money between us.

Reed always thought people would be great leaders. One day on August 4th 1987 I was at President Benson's apartment which was his birthday and also my own. Reed came out I was sitting at the Prophet's kitchen table waiting and he told me to write in my journal that President Benson prophesied that one day I would be a bishop and stake president. Both he and his dad were certain of it. Another time I had President Benson tell me I would one day be a mission president. I have always been faithful in the church because of their confidence in me. I have remained true to the faith. I remember Reed would tell me that J. Reuben Clark Jr. who was a counselor in the First Presidency even said on his death bed that he wanted to endure to the end. Reed liked telling us personal church history stories. A lot of what I know came from Reed's instruction.

I don't mind that I have never served in high profile ways because I think of Reed Benson who quietly served his whole life and gave his all to the Church or Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint. I hope to be half the man he was when they lay me down in the grave. In the next life I intend to hang around with Ezra Taft Benson and Reed some of the greatest men of God and patriots I have ever known. I believe Reed Benson is the salt of the earth and one of the most faithful sons a man could ever have. Members of the Church owe Reed Benson a debt of gratitute for his life of service.

Mark Hoffman: A Personal Historical Remembrance

In 1982 three years before Mark Hoffman planted his bombs he was at the height of his noteriety and was considered the number one top Mormon antiquity dealer. He was supposedly blessed to find rare and valuable documents. Hoffman was invited to be the keynote speaker at the Mormon History Association in Odgen Utah at Weber State University. I was a senior majoring in history at the time and trying to break in to the Mormon history circles. I was also working at the time as a volunteer for Richard O. Cowan, a Church History professor for whom I would did some research in the Church History Archives in Salt Lake City.

A couple of my BYU history department classmates Scott Faulring and Mark Grandstaff invited me to share their hotel room if I would split the cost with them. I really had not planned on going but they insisted I needed to go so I could meet the movers and shakers in the field. Being students on a limited budget I thought it was no big deal. Being young I didn't worry about the fact I might have to sleep on the floor. It got a bit complicated when I arrived at our hotel and found that they had invited Walt West to also share our room. It was pretty crowded with four men in a room with two queens.

Walt West was an older man who had retired from the Postal Service and had a bookstore in Provo near Deseret Industries. Walt had wild red hair and wore colorful blue, red, yellow and green jumpsuits. He got most of his books from students and DI as well as the vast collection he had acquired in his life collecting. He described his life to me on a few occasions when I hung out there for five or six hours. I knew his collection quite intimately having spent several hours there. I had a hard time going up to Salt Lake City to Cosmic Airplane or Sam Wellers so his store was convenient. One of my friends Jay Bell turned me on to Walt West Books. Jay was a mega collector and he was in my ward one year. It was weird that he was such a mega collector since he could hardly read or see for that matter wearing glasses that looked like coke bottles or binoculars. He actually got me to go to DI since some guy found a set of journals valued at thousands.

I remember one day go to visit Walt. He had a first edition Book of Mormon that he offered to sell me for about $8,000. I wish I had bought it but I had a good time holding it and discussing its value. Walt and I speculated what it might one day be worth. Walt really encouraged me to buy that book but I never had two nickles to rub together let alone 8 grand. It is a shame because they sell for over a $100,000 today. Walt knew I was poor and would sometimes give me a discounted price on some of the 600 books I ended up owning. He wrote the price in pencil in the front of the book. In my case he would knock off a buck of two. Anyway Walt and I bunked with them. We flipped a coin to see who got the bed during the three nights we were to be there. Walt suggested we all could fit two to a bed but Faulring didn't want to share a bed with anyone. Walt and I slept on the floor the first and third night.

I remember the first night we all went to a barbecue that Jan Shipps the noted IUPUI non-Mormon Scholar spoke at. Hoffman supposedly had found the William McLellin Papers and it is interesting to note that Shipps ended up editing his bonafide journals later. Anyway Faulring and Grandstaff ended up making friends with Lawrence Foster, another non-Mormon scholar who had written a book on the millenarian experience of Mormons and Shakers in Ohio in 1981. The three of them sat on the floor for hours discussing Mormons and their millenarian connections since Grandstaff was thinking about doing a thesis on the same subject. He had written something in one of his classes and had a strong interest. They were also enamored of Foster's attention.

Grandstaff and Faulring were interesting guys. He and Faulring planned on going in the air force and sitting in missile silos for twenty or thirty years then having enough money to devote their lives to Mormon history. I was inoculcated by them in to the Ernest Strack circle earlier in the year. Faulring was always trying to get me to visit Grandpa's Books since Uncle Ernie had some good things that he felt I needed like L. John Nuttall's diaries etc. One day I saw Grandstaff in the library and he took me over to the reprographics area where it turned out that Faurling was working. Faulring would make copies of things and they swapped Mormon documents like trading stamps. I drove the two guys nuts because I was so conservative and would insist they were liberal apostates on the road to hell.

Anyway on the day of the keynote address I was walking with the group when who should come walking by but Mark Hoffman with a group of five or six admirers. I asked Grandstaff and Faulring who the guy with the followers was because I had never met Hoffman and didn't know what he even looked like. I wasn't enamored of him even from what I had read or seen about him. The other men went on about what a lucky guy he was and how he had made some important finds. I told them I was totally unimpressed with him and felt his finds were too good to be true and doubted they were authentic. Faulring told me I was just jealous.

Hoffman and his group of accolytes wasn't more than five feet in front of us. Being the mild manner guy that I am I said almost yelling, which I do very well, I think the guy is a phony baloney. As we walked towards the big session I got madder and madder as they went on about Hoffman.

When we sat down we were near the front row. The Spirit told me stand up and denounce this guy. I told Walt West I am going to stand up and denounce this guy. He told me that I shouldn't do it and that I would embarass myself and everyone there. He also said if he was a phony he would be found out later. As I sat there I continued to get madder and madder and almost stood up. He actually grabbed me by the shoulder. Finally I endured to the end as he gave a few brief remarks and some religion guy I believe named Gage gave the major address.

I wonder what would have happened to me had I stood up and denounced Hoffman. Would he have started his kiling spree sooner. Would I have been one of his first? Or would I have stopped him before he got started. The trajectory of our lives might have been different.

One thing I do know I despised the guy. Later I began to be suspuscious of him even more. I was up at the LDS Church Historical Department waiting to speak to Glenn Rowe and Don Schmidt was in there ranting and raving with G. Homer Durham about how Sam Weller wanted to trade some land for the McClleland diaries. They were very angry about how Weller was taking them over Hoffman's find. I believe Hugh Pinnock took a beating on purchasing some of Hoffman's stuff.

When the bombing started I didn't really give Hoffman much thought until the day he was caught. Ron Walker who was working in the BYU Religion Department was fearful that he might be a target of the bomber. The police had named Hoffman by this point but he was not yet apprehended. Ron said he was concerned because they had found a package in the Religion Department but it didn't turn out to be anything.

I was not overly surprised when it all came out that Hoffman was a murder and psychopath. I was sorry though that I hadn't stood up and denounced him. If I had maybe things would have been different.

Keith Meservy

Keith Hansen Meservy, one of the kindest and nicest men that I knew from my day's in the BYU Religion Department recently passed away on the 27 April 2008 after a fight with leukema. He was born in 4 Dec 1924 in Provo, Utah, to Edward Southwick Meservy and Lucille Hansen. He attended Provo schools, graduating from Provo High School. He enlisted as a private in the army on 11 Sep 1943 in Salt Lake City. I remember he had a picture of himself in uniform on one of his bookshelves in his office.

I knew Brother Meservy because I took a religion class and a Hebrew Class from him during the late 1970s. I spoke with him many times over the years up until I left there in August 1987.

I was perusing the bloggernacle and I discovered a blog written by Keven Crenshaw called a Personal Tribute to Keith Meservy that spoke about his recent death. Crenshaw's sister is married to his son Mark. Crenshaw said about him that "His quiet, encouraging manner and careful attention to spiritual things left their mark on me."

I know how Crenshaw feels I spent many a pleasant day in Meservy's office talking to him on different religious issues. He would bring out some details to some interesting details in the Old or New Testament. He and I had a chat about Elijah were I was able to show that at the very day and hour that the Jews were expecting him he came to Joseph Smith in the Kirtland Temple if you consider that the seder actually is celebrated a day later here in diaspora. I passed that on to Dr. Cowan who expanded on it in his writings. Brother Meservy was talking about the Jews and Diaspora when I put the two together. Later Dr. Cowan and I spruced up the concept Meservy got a kick out the fact that we put it together just by his going on about what the Jews do in Disapora. Some of the faculty actually used to get together at the Madsens for a seder meal I think that was how it even came up.

He used to have a passion for Hebrew and he would say little phrases to me and others like David Seeley and Richard Holzapfel I met Meservy's son Mike who went with his dad on one of his trips to Israel. Keith used to be like Lamar Berrett and take out travel tours to Eygpt and Israel. At one point he was the chairman over Ancient Scripture while my boss Lamar Berrett was the chair over Church History. Keith was chair right before George Horton. The two men Brothers Barrett and Meservy took out travel study groups during the year. I remember Brother Meservy telling me about some of his trips and occasionally showing me some of his slides.

I took his famous Hebrew class in Fall 1977 with Dave Seeley, Richard Neitzel Holzapfel, Jenny Holzapfel (engaged at time I don't remember her maiden name but she was cute with braces at the time), me, and Margaret Potter (Toscano). There might have been one other person in the class but I don't remember who it is anymore, it could have been one of the Madsen kids. The four of us in Winter 1978 took Margaret who taught Greek and had an office in the Talmage building right above where the class was held. She was dating Seeley at the time. It was before he went out with George Horton's daughter. I thought Hebrew was tough well Margaret's class was even tougher. Kevin Barney the famous LDS blogger and a lawyer also took Brother Meservy's class in a different year. Barney graduated in 1982 in classics from BYU. I believe he copublished an article in Dialog with him.

I remember many days walking with Brother Meservy from the Religion Building after my Religion 421 class to our class in the Talmage Building. He would joke with me about being a returned missionary and dating.

Russell B. Swenson and Sidney B. Sperry 1943

One day he told me how he was inspired to teach Hebrew by the example of one of his own professors Sidney B. Sperry. Brother Meservy related how he knew him in an issue of Book of Mormon Studies:

"In 1932 Brother Sperry began teaching at Brigham Young University. It was here that Robert Patch began his association with him. Visiting Utah for the centennial celebrations in 1947, Brother Patch was walking by Brother Sperry’s office when he was invited in to visit, whereupon Brother Sperry hired him on the spot, about the same time that he hired Reid Bankhead and Calvin Bartholomew. For the better part of three years, Brother Sperry was their Hebrew teacher. Brother Patch recalls that Brother Sperry was a major influence in their study of the scriptures. One colleague asked him if he believed in what he was writing, and he answered, “Categorically affirmative.”

Keith Meservy met Brother Sperry a year later, in 1948, upon returning from his mission. He recalls that when he needed a class in biblical Aramaic, Brother Sperry willingly agreed to teach him one on one, since there were no other students. He remembers that Brother Sperry was an organist for the Provo Fourth Ward (having been one of the last students of John J. McClellan, organist at the Salt Lake Tabernacle) and that he had been a boxer in his younger days. Brother Meservy tells an interesting story about a race sponsored in Provo for a course from Provo to Manti via Nephi and back. The object of the race was to use the least amount of gas, and Brother Sperry in his Volkswagen won this race at least twice.

Brother Meservy has a favorite anecdote concerning Brother Sperry’s writing habits. He reports, “One day when I went into his office to see him, I found him working on one of his books. He had a pile of papers neatly stacked on the right side of his desk. Each sheet was written in long hand. When I learned that this was the manuscript of his next book, I looked in amazement at the unruffled stack of papers lying there. (In those precomputer days, I not only typed out whatever I wrote, but also double-spaced it to make sure I had enough room to make corrections. Handwriting anything, knowing that it would all have to be rewritten, was too laborious and time consuming a way to write to my way of thinking.

The thought of writing a whole book by this process amazed me.) When I made an observation to this effect, he chuckled and noted that a friend of his had recognized his lifelong disposition to write well-composed paragraphs by nicknaming him ‘One-Write Sperry.’" Sperry passed his skills on to guys like Richard Cowan and Keith Meservy.

Sidney B. Sperry in his Book of Mormon Compendium thanked Keith Meservy for the help he gave him in reappraising the Book of Mormon:

"I am indebted to two of my former Hebrew students, Dr. Ellis T. Rasmussen and Professor Keith H. Meservy, now my colleagues in the College of Religious Instruction of Brigham Young University, for looking over my work on the Isaiah text in the Book of Mormon and for offering helpful criticisms and suggestions, a number of which I have adopted. They are not, however, to be held responsible for any errors, or slips in the interpretation of the Isaiah chapters which may be found in this book. I am hopeful that my work on Isaiah will, in a measure, help to bring about the fulfillment of one of Nephi's prophecies that in the latter days men shall understand Isaiah's words. (2 Nephi 25:8.)

In this volume I have reversed my views, held many years ago, that the Hill Cumorah, around which the last great battles of the Nephites and Jaredites took place, was in the State of New York. The book of Mormon data are very clear and show quite conclusively that the Hill (Ramah to the Jaredites) was in the land of Desolation, somewhere in Middle America. I have summed up my arguments and conclusions in connection with the discussion of Mormon Chapter 6. My conclusions have been tested in a number of classes of graduate students who were challenged to demonstrate their falsity. Up to the present time, no one has done so. The Hill Cumorah in New York, from which the Prophet Joseph Smith obtained the Nephite plates, may have been so named by Moroni in commemoration of the Cumorah in the land of Desolation, around which his father and fellow Nephites lost their lives in their last struggles with the Lamanites."

We used a large grey or silver Hebrew text in his Hebrew class. In fact I still had that book and my wife BiV used it to self-teach herself Hebrew years later when she worked with some Jewish scholar on a mechanical translation of Isaiah. I'm sure Brother Meservy would get a kick out of that. I remember how we all labored so hard in his class to learn how to point the vowels. I remember the joy he had in reading to us the Old Testament brief passages and our going over them again and again. He liked saying the word for king mulek as we read passages from Isaiah. I remember I almost dropped the class because it was a pretty tedious class and I wasn't sure I would pass. Holzapfel told me not to sweat it and he would pass me no matter what if I tried hard. Sure enough I pass the class. Back then I thought I would be the next Hugh Nibley and taking Keith Meservy's class was on my path to getting a degree in religion. The funny thing was when Duke accepted me later I couldn't afford to go and pursued a different field for my doctorate.

Keith Meservy had a love for learning and was especially good at languages. He was in study group with Larry Porter, Don Cannon, LaMarr Berrett, Richard O. Cowan, Larry Dahl, and occasionally Truman and Ann Madsen who studied Spanish on their lunch hours for over twenty years. I believe they might have allowed David Boone Flake and Bruce Van Orden to join them on occasion in the later years. I believe Keith had also conducted a Hebrew class for the group during their many years of studying together. Members of the group with bring a brown bag lunch and would meet in one of the professor's offices as they munched and learned in a very casual atmosphere.

I remember another of his sons was in my ward when I lived up in Palymra Bean Packer and Thane Packer's basement on Sego Lane which I think was in the Pleasant View 3rd Ward. His wife might have even been related to Palymra who was also a Bean. I remember that Merrill Bateman lived in the same ward as did Barney and Mindy Madsen, the children of Ann and Truman Madsen. Barney was the elder's quorum instructor and gave some good lessons. He ended up going to Law School.

Brother Meservy and his wife Arlene had four children: Mike (Sally Oxborrow, dec.), Marcia (Dan Wheeler, the fisherman), Mark (Jileen Crenshaw,) and Lynda (Greg Schaelling), twenty grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

I remember Keith son Mark looked a lot like him and was kind of a mellow guy. He had a great sense of humor like his dad which was on the dry side. He might have married one of our home evening sisters I can't remember but he was in my home evening group when I attended the local ward for about a year. I liked some girl that ended up marrying Bateman's son but she was a challenge at the time as I drove her mad. I think the kid was on a mission so that was why I could tease her so mercilessly. I remember seeing Brother Meservy occasionally on Sunday. He liked to wear this grey sports coat with elbow pads. I always thought he looked like the absent-minded professor with those metal glasses and his gray hair blown all over with that preppy coat. On Sunday he sometimes wore a pin-stripe suit but I remember that one particular sports coat that he liked so well.

An example of Keith Meservy's humor was provided by Gary Begera in his BYU: A House of Faith:

Eight months later in May 1974, religion professor Keith Meservy gave some of his classes copies of a parody attacking not only evolutionary theory but biologists in particular. Written by Kent Peterson and entitled, "The First Book of Moses Called Genesis," Meservy's handout read, in part:

But God did look down from his heaven, and did speak with anger; saying: "Is this the man to rule the earth? A monkey's brother? A half ape? Lucifer, Son of the Morning, what mischief thou hast wrought upon my world!" . . . And he spake a curse upon the ape-man, and upon all his seed forever, "Behold, upon thee shall I set a mark, and all men shall know thee by thy speech, and ye shall use great words for small things, great Latin words for tiny creatures, and this is thy mark and thy curse. And ye shall be called biologists, which is to say, those who know much, and understand nothing."

Keith Meservy joined the Ancient Scripture faculty in 1958. Brother Meservy received his B.A. in 1951 from BYU and his M.A. in 1966 from Johns Hopkins University. He is an acknowledged scholar in Old and New Testament studies. Brother Meservy served on the Gospel Curriculum Committee for many years that was head up by Richard O. Cowan. I remember his giving Brother Cowan some drafts for Sunday School lessons when I worked for him as his research assistant during the 1980s. Brother Meservy was also a member of the bishopric of the Pleasant View Third Ward, Provo Utah Sharon East Stake. He taught on occasional class up until about six years ago but was an emeritus faculty member in Ancient Scripture since the early 1990s.

In the Daily Herald Obituary it said that the family preferred contributions to the Perpetual Education Fund which is something that Brother Meservy would have approved of.

List of Church Publications

1.	Ezekiel’s Sticks and the Gathering of Israel Keith Meservy Ensign February 1987 Many critics have long frowned upon the Latter-day Saint interpretation of sticks in Ezekiel’s prophecy as two books of scripture—the Bible and the Book of Mormon.
2.	The Peaceful Life through Reconciliation: Five Stories from the Old Testament Keith Meservy Ensign July 1986 As we seek to develop a Godlike quality in our lives, we daily come into contact with conflict—conflict within ourselves and conflict with our fellowmen.
3.	Life in Ancient Biblical Lands John M. Lundquist John M. Lundquist Ensign December 1981 Israel—ever-changing, yet timeless. Indeed, some of Israel’s scenes have succumbed to time and history; yet others have remained constant and are as familiar to modern inhabitants as they were to the
4.	“This Day Is This Scripture Fulfilled” Keith Meservy Ensign April 1987 We anchor our faith with the testimony that Jesus is the Christ, or in other words, the Messiah.
5.	Four Accounts of the Creation Keith Meservy Ensign January 1986 All authentic accounts of the earth’s origins have a single source—the Creator of all things, whose explanations come to us through prophets.
6.	Jerusalem at the Time of Lehi and Jeremiah Keith H. Meservy Ensign January 1988 Lehi abandoned the doomed city of Jerusalem in the first year of Zedekiah’s eleven-year reign.
7.	I Have a Question Ensign October 1973 Richard Lloyd Anderson 03036_000_010 I Have a Question Ensign Oct. 1973 28 What Old Testament books are most quoted by the Savior? Richard Lloyd Anderson : Jesus showed impressive ability both to use the Old Testament and to
8.	I Have a Question Keith H. Meservy 03041_000_017 I Have a Question Ensign Feb. 1974 38–39 What have our authorities said about the account in Joshua 10:12–14 about the sun standing still? Keith H. Meservy Assistant Professor of Ancient Scripture, Brigham Young University In his book Evidences and Reconciliations (Bookcraft, Inc., 1960), pp. 129–30, John A. Widtsoe says that: “A miracle is an occurrence which, first, cannot be repeated at will by man, or, second, is not understood in its cause and effect relationship.” If it is repeatable at will by man or explainable t...
9.	LORD = Jehovah Keith H. Meservy Ensign June 2002 We are frequently told that Jesus Christ is the God of the Old Testament (see Bible Dictionary, “Jehovah,” 710–11). Keith H. Meservy is an emeritus professor of ancient scripture at Brigham Young University and a member of the Pleasant View Third Ward, Provo Utah Sharon East Stake.
10.	Ezekiel, Prophet of Hope Keith H. Meservy Ensign September 1990 Ezekiel lived at the close of an age.
11.	I Have a Question No doubt there were many others who, under the direction of the Lord, could have done that work; but the Lord selected the one that pleased him, and that is sufficient.” 15 Keith H. Meservy 92904_000_029 I Have a Question Ensign Apr. 1992 60–61 What does the phrase “blood on one’s head or on one’s garment” mean? Keith H. Meservy , professor emeritus of ancient scripture at BYU, a member of a Church writing committee, and a member of the bishopric of the Pleasant View Third Ward, Provo Utah Sharon East Stake.

Dillon Inouye and His Influence on My Life

One of the most influential people in my life was Dillon Inouye. Most people in the LDS Church have probably never heard of him. But he is one of the most influential teachers who has shaped the lives of hundreds of BYU students and several LDS General Authorities. He is a pretty honest guy and usually tells it likes he sees it. He is about ten years older than me and was married within a year of me so his children are even about the same age as mine. I have known him my entire adult life. I call him from time to time just to see how he is doing. He thinks I call him up to give him a report but the truth is I think about him and know he must be doing something good so I want to know what he is up to. I pretend to give him a report of my life because he is my teacher and I am his student.



When I was a student at BYU Dillon Inouye was a professor of Instructional Science now the Instructional Psychology and Technology Department. I ended up taking a class from him based on the philosophy of Walter Gong. Dillon was a wiz kid of sorts having gone to Stanford and majored in psychology where he completed his doctorate in 1978. After his doctorate he came to work at BYU and that is where I met him. I had been a student there about a year when he graduated and I met him in 1981 which was about in his third year there. Dillon had been a student of Walter Gong who was in to exponential learning. Gong talked about learning as being a three-person problem. "Gong, was a firm believer that teachers must be learners and learners must teach others." Dillon modeled his life on Gong's philosophy and was close personal friends with him and his family. Dillon brought his former mentor's ideas to BYU from Stanford. He made recruits out of professors across the campus and tried to interest students in the concepts espoused by Gong.



Dillon even arranged for Gong to come and teach a special class that influenced Stephen R. Covey who went on to make millions using the three person problem concept. I took Covey for a couple of classes including his Organizational Behavior Class before the BYU administration forced him to choose between consulting or teaching which I believe was a great loss for students but beneficial to Covey who built his motivational seminar firm. I knew Covey from the fact he was a good friend to my mission president M. Russell Ballard and had spoken to us when visiting the Canada Toronto Mission (CTM) back in 1976 at a time he was consulting for IBM. I used to sit on the floor in Covey's class and listen to him describe the three person problem we had and how we all needed to be teachers and learners. Covey being Gong's disciple gave credence to what Dillon told us. In his 2005 book the Eight Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness, Covey said about Gong:



"While teaching at the university years ago, I met a visiting professor, Dr. Walter Gong, from San Jose, California. He taught a one-semester class for faculty entitled How to Improve Your Teaching. The essence of his program was this great principle: The best way to get people to learn is to turn them into teachers. In other words, you learn the material best when you teach it.



I immediately started to apply that principle in my work and at home. When I first started university teaching, my classes only had about fifteen to thirty students. When I started applying Dr. Gong's principle, I found that I could effectively teach many more students; in fact, some of my classes were packed with nearly a thousand students, and yet the students' performance and test scores actually went up. Why? When you teach you simply learn better. Every student becomes a teacher, and every teacher a student.

Now, the common paradigm is that the teacher-student ratio is critical -- fewer students means higher-quality teaching. But if you turn your students into teachers, you gain leverage. You move the fulcrum over.

Also when you teach or share what you're learning with others, you implicitly commit socially to live what you teach. You will naturally be more motivated to live what you're learning. This sharing will be a basis for deepening learning, commitment and motivation, making change legitimate, and enrolling a support team. You will also find that sharing creates bonding with people -- especially with your children. Have them regularly teach you what they are learning in school. My wife, Sandra, and I have found that doing this simple thing essentially eliminates any need for external motivation with their studies. Those who teach what they are learning are, by far, the greatest students."

Dillon liked to find ways of helping some of his gifted students to excel in their lives and treated us all as Gong would. I met Dillon in a strange way I was one day talking to someone about my interest in studying LDS temples and a female student in the Harold B. Lee Library told me that I should go over to the stadium and meet him. She said she had worked for one of his colleagues Grant Von Harrison in the Instructional Science department and that if he had any money he would hire you. Dillon's office was up by the stadium and later in the Jesse Knight Building before ending up in the McKay Building so I decided to apply my father's philosophy which was "They can just say no" which means you can't get it if you don't ask so I went over to see him. I remember it seemed like a long way from the campus to go up there by the stadium but I trudged up there one day and he immediately decided to make me one of his projects. He claimed that Von Harrison had the money and he was going to hire me to research the subject. Can you imagine getting paid to do something you wanted to do in the first place?



They did it to help students who needed help and it was their way of finding new recruits. Soon you were sucked in to their world. Many people who have doctorates today started out that way. Even Richard Page, a high powered lawyer now legal counsel for the Church in Russia and a former stake president I served under in Houston, Texas told me one day he had worked for Grant Von Harrison and knew the very same men I did including some of the research assistants. He said he even went to law school with Jeanne Bryant now Dillon's wife.



There was a cadre of men back then who liked to act like a think tank that consisted of Dillon Inouye, Monte Shelley, Grant Von Harrison, Adrian Van Mondfrans, and Harvey Black. They used to sit around and talk about some deep philosophical issues including LDS religion. They could go on for hours and didn't mind students being in the room who would listen in and sometimes offer up opinions. I sat with them some times for four or five hours as they would debate different intellectual ideas. For example years later after I left there in 2003 at the International Conference on the Psychology of Other Dillon presented Levinas" Hypostasis: Three Implications for Psychology that is the kind of stuff they would talk about if it wasn't him it would have been Piaget or Montessori etc.



They actually ruined my academic career as I developed the mistaken notion that all academicians sat around and discussed intellectual concepts. Later I learned after twenty years of working in universities that most professors are mundane and banal and would rather tell jokes or talk about sports. Usually their conversations were so esoteric it went over our heads but we soaked in a few ideas that carried with us. You had to be intellectually gifted to understand the various psychologists and philosophers that they would be sprouting. Grant Von Harrison was known for his book Drawing on the Power of Heaven and was idealized by people since it was a mystical thing to tap in to the powers of heaven.



His assistants were guys like Larry Ellsworth and Conrad Gottfredsen who later worked at the MTC and one ended up teaching at BYU. Grant Von Harrison was in to his blended theory of reading at the time that kids needed to learn to read by both sight words and memorizing key words. His current popularity of using the Book of Mormon isn't something new but something he preached for thirty plus years. All of these men were quite innovative and made money either by developing software or publishing books or investing in start-up companies. They were quite generous and gave lots of upcoming students a start including many of us that weren't directly related to them. I was always amazed that they picked me out since I wasn't the sharpest card in the deck back then. He was a very caring individual who loved to serve in the Church and did very innovative types of projects. He gave dozens of students over the year a start lots of times out of his own pocket or awarded them grants or student internships.







Dillon liked to help out students and was in to financing many of them out of his own pocket. He even helped lots of emotionally challenged people including counseling them from time to time. When I took his revolutionary Instructional Science class that was supposed to make you in the top ten percent of your class, he hooked me up with a couple of really anti-social characters that I wouldn't have otherwise come to know. We had small cluster groups and were suppose to know our fellow students like they were our families. One of them was a young woman who was brilliant artist but socially a whack job. She couldn't even look you in the eyes and was constantly putting herself down. I met her family but couldn't see how they had emotionally abused her but she suffered from low self-esteem. I wasn't very normal but she even beat me in the social skills department. She was a passive aggressive type who one minute was tearing herself down and then the next saying something angry and hostile. For his sake I hung out with her and came to see her outlandish behavior was just a coping mechanism. I ended up liking her as a friend. It was one of the few times in life I saw a female as a friend not a girlfriend so in that regards it was an evolutionary success in my development. I actually discovered that she was abnormally normal now that I have had seven daughters and a wife. Associating with her helped me cope with all that progesterone.



Dillon was an entrepreneur of sorts. When I knew him in the early 1980s he was single and in his thirties. He had been at BYU for several years and was able to save a great deal of his income which he invested in different start-up companies. When Walkman were hot he purchased thousands of knock-offs and sold them making a tidy profit. He owned a house near Timpview even before he was married and was known for making investments in up and coming innovations. He invested in many different kind of technologies including Folio View which was an indexing program that grew into LDS Infobase. When computers first came out he actually helped several kids pay for their education or go on missions by building and selling computers.



In the last few years he founded Perfect Search which is a sophisticated way to find information. He gave me my first paid job in the Instructional Science department doing a bibliography on LDS Temples. When computers first came out just before he married his wife Jeanne he sold me a computer saying I needed it to do my LDS research. Later when I struggled to pay for it when he was first married he and Jeanne just gave it to me saying to help someone else out who was in need when I was in a better financial position in life. I learned a lesson in generosity from him. Later I was able to give away a couple of automobiles and furniture to struggling families as well as hundreds of dollars in food and cash. I probably won't have done that if it weren't for his example.



He is involved in education and helped found a couple of educational institutions in the Provo area including the Walden School and the Liahona Academy where his daughter Emily worked. The Walden Schools says: " This vision is rooted in the developmental and cognitive theories of Jean Piaget, Lev Vygotsky, Maria Montessori, and Jerome Bruner; in the contemporary research of respected educators such as David Gardner, Frank Pajaras and Carol Dweck, and on the ideas of noted educational philosophers such as Nell Noddings, Parker Palmer, Walter Gong and Dillon Inouye. It will be a place where students feel welcome and respected and where they will rediscover a love of learning."



Even when Dillon was single he served in the Church in some very important callings such as on a LDS Melchizedek Priesthood church board and in a campus bishopric. His wife served on the General Relief Society Board and is now an assistant attorney general in Utah. He was of Japanese descent and had served a mission to Japan. He became acquainted with Elder Yoshihiko Kikuchi through his Japanese connections. It was through Dillon that I was introduced to Elder Kikuchi. He and Elder Kikuchi were both about the same age and both served missions in Japan. Dillon's parents were both placed in a Japanese American concentration camp in Utah where he was born during World War II. Kikuchi's dad was killed by American bombings during World War II so the two men could relate to one another in both had suffered oppression at the hands of the American government.





Elder Yoshihiko Kikuchi was called to be a Seventy in October 1977. In the summer of 1978 he and his family went to BYU every summer for a few years to take classes and learn English. They actually stayed in Heritage Halls over on Ninth East. Dillon was one of his best friends when he came to this country and helped him to get situated and acculturate to the culture. I remembered how quickly Elder Kikuchi picked up English and how he started functioning professionally once he picked up the language in a year or two. I remember the first time I met him going up to his office in the Church Administration Building that he spoke in broken English but by the time I worked with him on his book he had almost mastered the language.



In an earlier blog Spiritual Experience on Spencer W. Kimball book I described how Dillon introduced me to Elder Kikuchi. Dillon was a friend and confidante to him. When Elder Kikuchi expressed his desire to do a quote book on missionary work to Dillon he knew that I had a gift for collecting and compiling information. Dillon liked to think good things about the people he mentored he told him "I had a gift and a genius for finding material by the General Authorities on any subject." I actually helped Elder Kikuchi find the best missionary stuff by getting Ed Kimball to let me make copies of all his father's talks. Then I rounded up a group of student volunteers including my future wife who helped extract them in to usable subjects. My real contribution was falling on the Ensign index and adapting its topical arrangement in to subjects that he used in his book. Elder Kikuchi was good at extracting things but he was in to overkill he found things that weren't specific enough and had to do with other subjects like a beautiful sunset or something on tithing. My job was to distill down to the punchy stuff on the topic.



I didn't see the project to completion because of a personal life's situation. I was dating an eighteen year old freshman at the time who was very immature. We never went past making out but we spent a lot of time kissing. Once she lost control and tried to do some serious stuff but I stopped her when she started unzipping my fly. I said what do you think you are doing. I told Dillon about it who demanded that I should tell Elder Kikuchi immediately since if I lost control I could jeopardize the spirituality of the Kimball missionary book project. Dillon thought I shouldn't work on the book any more.



I didn't know it but it was just what they needed to get rid of me as Kikuchi's unofficial assistant on the book. When I went up to see Elder Kikuchi he told me that I had been accused of stealing and copying some sensitive documents in the temple department. I had used the CES vertical file library which had some missionary articles and a compilation by the Prophets on doctrinal topics and was going between two floors with the documents to copy it near Elder Kikuchi's office and to save him charges. One of the full-time employees in the temple department where Elder Kikuchi's office was located said I had copied a sensitive notebook from his office. The only temple stuff I got at the time was some histories of the current temples that Elder Kikuchi gave me and his secretary at the time copied which was an unofficial volume about the history of each temple which included dedicatory prayers and who the architect were. Nothing high level or sensitive. I always wondered what this other document was that I never saw but that I was accused of copying. I didn't even know where the guy's office was at the time. The funny thing was that the Mormon underground claimed the guy's son feed them stuff his son provided them when he wasn't looking. I found the thing very funny but Elder Kikuchi went on about his losing face over something I had been perceived to have done.



Losing face is a very serious matter to a Japanese person who wanted to be in the good graces of the Prophets and Apostles. Dillon told me one time that Gordon B. Hinckley had prophesied about Elder Kikuchi when he was touring his mission Elder Hinckley pointed at the young Elder Kikuchi and said that he would be a great leader one day in the Church. Dillon told me he thought Elder Hinckley meant one day Elder Kikuchi might be an apostle. So I felt sorry for the guy since I was innocent of taking anything but he thought he had a mark against him by his association with me and it could affect his future prospects. My personal concern was that he wasn't faithful to those who were faithful to him. I would never have believed for one minute what the church bureacrat said without finding out from the horse's mouth.



I was actually told I might be put on a list that might follow me the rest of my life. I sometimes wonder if that is true once I was called in by a stake president who said he thought he would call me to be his executive secretary but had changed his mind at the last moment. I wonder if when my name goes to Salt Lake does it come back with a red mark. Plus now I have been turned down twenty times for jobs at BYU even one for $40,000 that was a library technician and didn't require an MLS let alone the doctorate that I hold. When they hire a person with a BA over someone with a doctorate as being the better qualified person it makes you wonder.



I never even got a grateful mention for my work or the loss of several hundred dollars that I paid to copy the articles. I had four hundred dollars covered by ASBYU grant but I paid for some of it personally. I figured Dillon did the same thing so I should be more like him. I didn't see my name mentioned even in a long list of names. It is better to be like Dillon Inouye behind the scenes. I know he has personally spent thousands of dollars on different Church related projects and all he gets out of it is the satisfaction of knowing he did a good thing.



Kikuchi never had much to do with me after that except to marry me and my wife in the Salt Lake Temple when my own mission president M. Russell Ballard didn't want to do it since Tom Mullen was getting married the same day and he just didn't have the time. The one thing I did learn was it was always better "to walk in the noon day sun" so I didn't regret telling him. Kikuchi was very pleasant and came out with our non-member families and had his picture taken. He is one very likable guy.



The funny thing is that in my meeting Elder Kikuchi told me "the young woman I was dating would one day end up a divorcee." I wonder if she has been? and just how prophetic he is. I never told her what Kikuchi said. My girlfriend broke up with me because one of my roommates who was a jerk started putting me down telling her I was told old for her and a loser. He actually told her she deserved a better guy. After what Elder Kikuchi said I really thought it for the best at the time that she broke up with me.



I loved it when the same roommate started dating my former girlfriend's roommate and actually shared his patriarchal blessing with her and then she dumped him for another guy in our ward who was actually a decent human being unlike him and married the other guy who she barely met. I met my wife right after this so it was actually a blessing in my opinion that I didn't marry the first girl. The jerky roommate once threw away a hundred dollar pair of my hiking boots because I left them outside the apartment when they were muddy for a couple of days. He didn't care I couldn't afford another pair or wouldn't even tell me where they were when I asked about them for a few days. His brother later confessed to me where they were and apologized about his brother but the trash company had already picked up the bin. When I called the hick on it he said he would do it again if I ever left something out and I should learn to take care of my stuff. What goes around comes around, he got what he deserved in life.



Elder Packer even had come about this time warning youth not to share their blessings. I will always remember that roommate as the red neck hillbilly roommate who was stupid in sharing something he should have held as sacred. Getting your heart crushed at BYU was just a part of your social development as I had learned myself and my roommate later learned. His experience was one of the few times that my faith in social justice was restored. It couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.



I got the last laugh a year later when Ezra Taft Benson asked me to do his Teachings book. I always loved Elder Kikuchi but I learned that even LDS General Authorities could be disappointing at times. I never trusted another one after that incident and wasn't overly surprised when the Benson book didn't list me as compiler later nor that Elder Kukuchi has never used me again and doesn't welcome my visiting him in Salt Lake City with open arms. It didn't shake my testimony that GA's were human and could make mistakes by unjustly accusing you of untrue things. I offered him my missionary compilation a couple of times to use when I heard he wanted to do a similar thing but he just blew me off.



Dillon Inouye ended up being a BYU campus bishop in a married student ward I lived in. He did some very innovative things. He divided us up in to family home evening groups. We actually went to Sunday School in several different classes by group where we would have a leader who would be the teacher. Every Monday one of them would show up and make sure we were doing okay. It was a very tight knit group. I still remember many of the young couples fondly. He even tried counseling my wife when we had marital problems which helped a little bit at the time. He was a good listening going ah ha and would try to get the person to answer how to solve their own problems sometimes it was helpful.



I think it surprised Dillon that I ended up compiling the Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson. I stayed in touch with him throughout the years. After I finished the book when they were deciding what to do with me. Elder Ballard wondered what to do with me so he contacted a couple of people like Donald Q. Cannon and Dillon. I had been promised a job when I was done in the CES. All of them including Elder Ballard said they should give me one that I had earned it and it was the least they could do but none of them were willing to do anything to really help me other than to say I should have a job. So I actually wrote a letter on his stationary and signed it telling the CES to hire me. I knew that I was going to be put out on the street after years of service and that you couldn't do anything with a bachelor's degree in history. I also knew that if he told them to they couldn't refuse. Some men have power and can do things.



I knew Gary Gillispie had phoned the CES earlier but Joe Christensen and Stan Peterson said they wouldn't hire me and that if President Benson didn't like it he should release them since they ran the CES and he had called them in the first place so he should let them do their jobs and they just didn't want me so that was the end of the matter. When I told Dillon about writing the letter he told me that I should be banned from BYU for life and that I followed Satan since I wasn't trustworthy. I admit it wasn't my most ethical moment but I was desperate at the time since I was made promises that no one meant to keep. In the end I was given a temporary job at BYU Hawaii and had my graduate degree paid by the CES. I know Dillon feels he has always been faithful and he probably has for the most part. But he had a few breaks that people like me never seem to have. Desperate people are reduced to desperate measures. Its an area I didn't measure up in.



I kept in touch with Dillon who went through some up and down times in his own life due to his health and a couple of run-ins with Church leaders. He is usually serving quietly in some position and doing a marvelous job. He always said he was at fault never his leaders unlike me who thinks it takes two to tango. About two years ago when I wrote the foreword to my Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord and told about how it was not published by Sheri Dew for unknown reasons. Dillon told me that I was under the power of Satan to mention the details since I was negative. He doesn't think it any big deal if I don't publish it. Some of us are meant for greatness and some us aren't.



I told Dillon I appreciated his sentiment but I didn't agree with him. I spent twenty years compiling the book and in that twenty years I have never wavered about telling my disappointment in never being acknowledged for my work on ETB nor my being able to make it right with the second book by being acknowledged as compiler and having it published in a legitimate place. I told him one day when I stand before God I will tell him to his face of my disappointment and I won't be ashamed of what I wrote or what I feel. I just don't agree that I follow Satan just because he Dillon Inouye says so. It is hard to tell your teacher you reject anything they say but that is what happens in the learning teaching process. Students become teachers and teachers become students. I didn't tell him when he had a scuffle with a stake president several years ago and he was released that he must have been under the power of Satan. Two can play that game. No I just saw it as a human break down in communication. Any one that knows Dillon knows his heart is usually in the right place. Any one that knows me knows that I love the brethren and would do anything to build the kingdom of God. We are not the same person we have different experiences.



Unlike me Dillon Inouye is as faithful as the sun shining. You know it is up there in the sky shining even on a cloudy day. I can't say the same for me because I don't mind calling a bozo a bozo when he is one even if he holds a church position. I respect the man for his deeds but being a former Catholic I don't kiss any rings. I could use a little more humility as taught in the Japanese culture. I don't have a problem luckily with any current general authorities so I don't foresee a problem nor do I associate with any nor do I think I will at my age. So I am safe to make these statements.



Dillon helped me to weather periods in the church when others have accused me of following the wrong spirit. Unless someone calls you out a time or two you don't have the ability to analyze yourself. His telling me I followed Satan a time or two has allowed me to realize that maybe I do at times make bad decisions. Sometimes I let others run all over me because I think am I being disobedient. Once a bishop ecclesiastically abused me and told me I followed Satan when he removed my recommend for saying a counselor in a stake presidency needed to dust off his scriptures because he was plugging Abraham Gileadi in a gospel doctrine class shortly after the man had been disfellowshipped. I had laughed when the counselor had been teaching a gospel doctrine class and yes I snickered because at the time Gileadi was living up by the Kohl Dream Mine near Benjamin. I wasn't laughing at his naivety nor at Gileadi's scholarship which is some of the best ever written on Isaiah I was laughing at the fact he was in to Jewish mysticism and was living up there near a mine that never once produce one lick of gold.



A few weeks later I was in the stake presidency counselor's institute class and had shared an experience about President Benson's To the Mother's in Zion talk about how I thought it was an inspired talk and how my wife benefited from it. A non member was in the class who worked and she didn't like my telling how Reed Benson told me about how President Benson got thirty thousand letters from women who said he didn't know what he was talking about nor my telling how the next seventy thousand said he was inspired from women who went home so he called me in to tell me not to talk in his class. The institute man had his secretary call me in to his institute office saying President F..... want to see you. He in essence told me to shut up that he was telling me to shut up. I told him he worked for the CES and in my opinion he should tell us if there is a non member in the class if we need to be careful and he had no right to use his stake position to tell me what to do or not do since it was a religion class and had nothing to do directly with the church. I also told him it wasn't the policy of the CES to have non-members taking institute classes. He didn't like that I disrespected him and he reported me to the stake president.



The next week the stake president showed up at the institute building and told me and my wife that I didn't sustain my leaders. I told the stake president his counselor was not acting as my leader but as an institute guy and that was different. If the guy asked me to do something I would do it but what he said or did in his class was separate from the Church structure. My wife and I both tried to tell him my side of the story but he said we were lying and his friend wouldn't misuse his position and that my problem was I didn't sustain the other man.



The bishop took my recommend over the CES man misusing his power. You can cloak it all you want but I to this day do not respect the institute teacher. When the bishop told me I followed Satan as he took my recommend I said "yes sir you are the bishop and if you say I follow Satan then I must sir." I had learned from Dillon Inouye that I followed Satan on the CES matter with the Benson book so I figured I might as well admit if I ever did follow Satan again. I have always been taught to jump when my leaders say jump and ask how high to jump. A few months later the bishop returned my recommend on the day he was released. It was his last official act as bishop. The stake president went off to BYU and the CES guy went off to Utah State leaving me all alone. I am glad BYU was smart enough never to hire him nor did he ever get any higher in the church. Unfortunately the new stake president heard all about me so he treated me accordingly. I solved matter by leaving a perfectly good job at 37 and getting a doctorate. I am glad I did I was made a high priest two months later. If I had stayed in Missouri I would have lived and died as an elder.



I had a second problem with ecclesiastical abuse a few years later after I completed my doctorate. I moved to California and the counselor in the stake presidency touched my wife in an inappropriate place at a Know Your Religion Session. It was crowded so she sat on one side of a row and I sat across the row on the side pew. He had his hand on the pew and she wasn't sure it was a hand at first. She told me about it a few days later and at first I didn't believe her and thought she was imagining it. But one Sunday I saw him take a hold of her hand and he wouldn't let go of it. She had to literally pry it out of his hands. I never saw anything like it in all the years I have been a member of a guy holding on to a woman's hand for five minutes. The Spirit told me at that moment she was telling me the truth.



I don't know which Spirit it was but I knew he had done it. A few weeks later I told him in private when he was visiting my ward after he said to me "you don't like me do you?" I told him he was very perceptive and that he was a slime ball in my opinion. I told him about putting his hands on my wife and then I told him if I had actually seen him do it I would have punched his lights out but that since I didn't see it I would have to take my wife's word for it and I knew she was telling the truth. He never denied he touched her but he said I don't know if I did touch her but if I did touch her I apologize." The stake president came to my place of work a few days later and told me I had traumatized the poor guy so he was taking my recommend and putting it in a drawer for a few months that I couldn't treat such a spiritual man that way. I left a tenured faculty position and moved within a few months to get away from them despite the fact I would have made $100,000 a year just by staying in my job for ten more years. I would have never left California if not for that man inappropriately touching my wife. I lived four blocks from the campus and had a cushy job. I regret the day I left there but I wouldn't have had another calling for years had I stayed.



I was appalled a few years later after I moved when I heard the perv was made a stake president which he still is today. I guess he repented. I told a couple of area seventy's about him but they counseled me to forget it so I did meaning don't contact the First Presidency and the Twelve which I told them I was contemplating. I just wonder if he has been tempted in dealing with women with problems. Will he put his hand on their behinds mentally?



I talked to Dillon a few months before coming to the Middle East. He told me he thought about recommending me to Terry Warner since he was looking for someone with my skills. But the foreword in my Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord was written under a dark cloud and that guys like me don't belong at BYU. The first part I didn't agree with but I think I agree with the last part. I could never make it in a repressed society like BYU. They aren't the best librarians in the country and many of them are actually quite rude. One time I had an interview with them they called me fifteen minutes early and made fun of me during the interview. Lucky for us we have faithful brethren like Dillon Inouye there. I wish more of us were like him.



He sees a bright beautiful world while others like me see the good, the bad, and the ugly at times. It is all in our construct. The one thing I have learned from Dillon Inouye is to serve no matter how flawed we may be and that sickness shouldn't hold us back either. I have been amazed that he is still going strong like the energizer bunny despite kidney problems and an atrocious hacking cough. I would have given Dillon Inouye my kidney had I been a blood match because in my opinion this would be a sad world if he weren't in it. He is an honest and true friend. We just don't always agree about some things. I wonder if I really learned what he was trying to teach me.



With the passing of Dillon K. Inouye one of his other students P. Clint Rogers posted another tribute on 3 July 2008 entitled "In memory of a true teacher and friend, Dillon K. Inouye: his thoughts on the central role of our profession."

Unusual Dream : Communing with Church of First Born

The other night I had a very unusual dream. Every few months I have dreams involving various ancient and modern prophets and apostles. Since I have been having dreams involving various Church figures for most of my teen age and adult life I don't really get to excited about them any more. I enjoy dreaming in technocolor since my conversations and the scenery are so vivid. My wife and a few of my children don't dream at all particularly not with the ability to talk with the characters. I have tried to analysis my dreams but some times I can't figure them out other than the fact I have them. Every now and then they come true. I think it is part of having believing blood.

One time I actually wanted to meet Joseph and Hyrum and another time I wanted to know where a Church history site was located because I was writing a paper about it. Both happened and I solved a historical riddle. I like to share my dreams on my blog more out of the fact I believe people need to realize that even minor characters like myself or Joe Mormon can walk with the Savior and other luminaries in the Church and I know it drives a few high ranking figures crazy. It causes me to remember the hand of God is over even the least in the kingdom of God. Years ago when I did the research for Latter-day Visions of the Savior that was subsequently published by Don Cannon in the Ensign I learned that it is not that uncommon for the general lay member to have such occurrences. I should have shared my experiences with Brother Cannon but I know he would think me a kook as my being featured on trash can or snarked prove.

In the scriptures in D&C 107: 19 it talks about communing with the church of the first born: 19 To have the privilege of receiving the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, to have the heavens opened unto them, to commune with the general assembly and church of the Firstborn, and to enjoy the communion and presence of God the Father, and Jesus the mediator of the new covenant.

I dreamt that I was in conversation with Elder L. Tom Perry. In the dream we were discussing some problems that he had encountered while going out speaking as a General Authority. He said that many times church authorities cut his time when speaking in their congregation due to overloading the stake or regional meetings with too many speakers. I told him that wasn't an uncommon occurrence. I told him my former mission president M. Russell Ballard had expressed the same thing to me when I had visited him a couple of times once many years ago when he was a member of the Seventy and once back in the late 1980s when he was a member of the Council of the Twelve. Elder Perry and I also discussed a few other issues he was concerned with.

I always liked the man due to the fact his daughter Gay was in my BYU 130th Ward. I figured he he produced a person of her caliber he must be alright. She talked about him to me and how kind and nice he was. She told me about the death of her mother and how he had to look out for her. She was my home evening sister. My first week after my mission she came to my dorm on a Sunday with her roommate and introduced herself. She was very attractive with blond hair and cornflake eyes. She was also prone to blushing since she had a light complexion and her cheeks went from a natural pink to a bright red.

She was a bit on the shy side but she had a pixie kind of humor. Sometimes she was self conscious so I tried to see if I could get her out of her shell by challenging her from time to time. I caught her eyes twinkling many times when I or my roommates at DT would say something ridiculous. If I had been two inches taller or she two inches shorter I would have dated her seriously. I remember going out with her a couple of times but she was self-conscious because of our difference in height. I always made it point to visit her in the Harold B. Lee Library where she hung out on the fourth floor and studied. I tried to talk with her at least once every few weeks. One time she told me she wanted to marry someone just like her dad. I knew I wasn't nothing like him since he was a happy kind of a person and I came from a very dysfunctional family.

I was very disappointed when she married some MBA type guy. He was a nice enough guy but he was overly assertive; I guess it goes with being a business type. I didn't think he worship the ground she walked on like I did but I could see she was in love. Since her father was a business executive I could see her attraction even if I thought I was better looking. Maybe it was good she married him because she was on the shy side and he notched up her self-confidence. I hope he didn't drive her crazy over the past twenty years like I have my own wife. I felt bad that I didn't take a shot at her when she was single but those are the breaks. I thought there was plenty of time but he snatched her up. I guess I wasn't factoring in the fact she was a GA's daughter. I used to see the couple sitting in the Marriott Center with Elder Perry who was a fanatical Cougar fan enjoying the basketball games. In my opinion he was very lucky since she was a very sweet woman and hope they had a large family and made a ton of money. I will have to see if he went on to great Church assignments and positions. I hope he was just like her dad.

Dying In the Yoke-- Personal Observations on James E. Talmage

In 1985 when I was working on my master thesis on James E. Talmage I had some interesting experiences. I wrote a significant part of the first two chapters but my chair Thomas G. Alexander was too busy to give me much time so I never finished. He liked my first chapter but after that I never progressed. He was a nice guy and very likable and did his own work superbly. But my experience was that it was hard getting even an hour out of him so I switched to library studies. It was too frustrating to not have any help. I don't think he gave me over four hours in the year he was my adviser. I passed all the comps but never finished the thesis. I found out later when I completed a doctorate that his busyness was unique to him rather than most other graduate advisers, including men of national reputation who gave me days of their time. I should of have stuck with Marv Hill.

One of my memorable experiences was examining the manuscript for Jesus the Christ. This was the time of the Mark Hoffman bombing incident. I had gone to the Church Archives to examine the manuscript. At the time Glenn Rowe was the assistant to G. Homer Durham. On the day I made the request Rowe had to wait to take my request slip in for approval by Elder Durham. I sat in the anteroom. I overheard a phone conversation with Sam Weller where he wanted to trade the Church for some property in the downtown area. Elder Durham was not very happy about it and was in a bad mood because Weller was demanding a high price for some of Hoffman's finds. When Glenn Rowe took my request in to Elder Durham he was still charge up about Weller's request. Elder Durham started shouting at Brother Rowe his face turned bright red as he vented about Weller so he denied my request. Glenn came out and said you heard it for yourself. You can try to talking to him if you want. Knowing Elder Durham wasn't usually like that I went in asked for his permission again. He said "Why do you want to even see that?" I explained that I was doing my master's degree on Talmage under Thomas G. Alexander who suggested I look at it in my preliminary research. I said I wanted to see if there were any margin notes since they would be critical to my research. Finally he relented and gave me permission. He even graciously came out later and looked at the manuscript himself. I thanked him for letting me use it. I never had any difficulty with him and found him pleasant to deal with. I knew being a scholar himself and President of Arizona State University that he understood research demands. I was expecting the Jesus the Christ manuscript to be typewritten.

When the manuscript came out in its folder, it was written in James E. Talmage's personal handwriting. The most interesting thing was that it was written on yellowing pad paper from a local Salt Lake City lumber company. It was smaller than 8 1/2 by 11 inches so it was a pretty sizable file. Elder Talmage taught me frugality as he had written it on free paper. After that I tried to be more environmentally conscious and recyle computer paper by using it for notes. I also remember as I turned the pages and examined his book that there were relatively few cross outs. I really gained an appreciation that day for Talmage and his ability to write so well in draft form. I next concentrated my efforts on going through his journals which are located at the Special Collections department at BYU. Chad Flake and Scott Duvall where very kind in allowing me access.

In reading his journals, I learned a great deal about patience and tolerance in marriage. His wife Maia suffered from depression and had fits or mood swings that he would mention on occasion as she would become angry and yell at him on a regular basis. His notation would only say it happened with no blame or explanation. Only once or twice do I remember his mentioned she would go to her local physician for the condition. Since his wife served on the church-wide Young Ladies Mutual Improvement Board for many years I figured she was functional but just had a strong personality. I know the yelling had some affect on his children because a couple of them had some struggles with inactivity. I interviewed John for my thesis and who gave me some of this information. John told me he was was active but went through a short period of inactivity when he was younger. In his older years he was active and worked in the Salt Lake Temple. I figured if Talmage could endure shouting in his marriage than so could I and that my children would turn out fine too. I wonder if some of it has to do with husbands who work a lot.

I recently see that BYU has made available some of Talmage's diaries but when I searched for his wife's fits for a four year period from 1924-1928 that none were listed. I wondered if BYU was going to release his pre-1924 diaries which describes his ups and downs in his marriage. There really isn't much titillating stuff other than that and his use of hash once in a scientific experiment when he studied chemistry at John Hopkins University (See Dennis Rowley).

Mostly Talmage's diaries talk about his church assignments and an occasional spiritual experience. He received four different patriarchal blessings which are fascinating to read. He paid $1 to have a professional transcriber record his blessings. I learned from him that you need to have someone record it or it would be lost. That is why I have always used a digital recorder in my pocket when giving or receiving blessings/ordinations in my family. Our family has a personal Blessing Book. The microphone is unobtrusive and you can listen over and over until your transcription is as correct as you can get it.

I collected every article, diary entry of colleagues, or any mention of Talmage that I could find during my research, filling three xerox boxes using BYU, the LDS Church Archives, and the University of Utah. There wasn't any journal, or available diary that I didn't consult. My wife eventually threw it all in a landfill when we lived in California. I had intended to write a book on him.

I read some fascinating stories: In 1911 Francis M. Lyman was made the President of the Twelve Apostles. On December 8, 1911 James E. Talmage was made an apostle and served under Elder Lyman until 18 November 1916. Talmage was famous for working twelve to fourteen hour days. Even President Heber J. Grant was concerned that Talmage learn to enjoy life. Grant asked Talmage to show up to play golf with him and his golfing partner Charles W. Nibley, who was the presiding bishop. President Grant told Talmage that when he could drive the ball 200 yards down the fairway he could quit playing. Talmage showed up on the appointed day in his three piece suit with his black patent leather shoes on. He teed up the ball and drove it over 200 yards down the fairway. He looked at President Grant and said "Is that good enough" and walked off to continue his busy work schedule. Francis M. Lyman also talked constantly to Elder Talmage about his demanding work schedule that he said was making him a workaholic. Lyman told Talmage that he needed to loosen up a little and take time off to spend it with his family.

Talmage records in his journal that in a dream Francis M. Lyman came to him after he died. He was dressed all bedraggled and had stubble and a beard. He looked very tired and weary. Lyman turned to him and told him he was sorry he had ever talked to him about slowing down. Lyman said there was so much priesthood work in the spirit world that it was hard to get it done. Elder Lyman told Talmage that he should wear himself out in the work and it was better to die in the yoke. That is one of the most valuable lesson that I have ever heard and a testimony to Talmage's character that I admire.