Thank you very much, Frank, for that introduction.

I admire and love Frank Clawson.

He is, as you know, a remarkably wise man, a great leader, and I just felt so fortunate to be able to work closely with Frank.

This is an honor for me to be here tonight.

I know probably everybody says that, but I really feel that way.

I have always respected people who serve in the military. I have, at least, an inkling of some of the work that the chaplains and spouses do.

And I had a father who served in World War II, so I’ve always had an interest in history, maybe especially military history.

In the days before streaming, my children never wanted me to go rent a video

because they thought, “Oh, he’ll bring back one of those World War II movies.”

What’s wrong with that?

I really do believe that you are heroic and that you are on the frontlines of

ministering and of discipleship, which is the theme, as you know.

I pray for the influence of the spirit as I speak.

This is an important topic and an important audience.

I had a chance to read one of the recent chaplains newsletters, which was really touching to hear about the service and the influence that you have.

And then I saw from a distance, because I work on the same floor with

Frank, saw some of the chaplains being set apart today.

Even not being able to be there in person, it was tender to see that.

So it is important, but I also hope to be a little bit informal.

I’m talking about important experiences that my father had and lessons that he and my mother taught me.

And I’d like to relate experiences, more than to give a sermon

on discipleship, I hope that’s okay.

But I hope that also allows you to feel, to take some of the ideas from his experiences and his insights that may apply in your situation.

I adore my father and my mother, and I’m glad to have opportunities to talk about them.

But I have to say that he would be the first one to say that he’s not perfect, and he would get mad at me at some point, maybe on the other side, if I depicted him as somebody who was basically without flaws.

I think he was pretty close to that. Just to give an example, he felt patience was not his strong suit, he consciously

worked on becoming more patient.

But he was just very organized, and he didn't like to waste time.

He did not like standing in lines. In fact, I heard him say that the Army soured him on that.

And he also said that he must’ve had a bad experience in the premortal existance with the lines.

You know, he just didn't like to waste time. He had this idea that at wedding receptions, back when there was a traditional line with the parents and the bride and the groom and the bridegroom and all that, he had this idea that maybe you could install a conveyor belt so that each person would have 4.7 seconds in front of each person in the line.

He loved to talk to people, he just didn't care for small talk a lot.

So let me mention some affirmative experiences in his early life, and then I’ll talk a little more about discipleship.

He loved and admired his parents, they were good people, they were humble.

His father was a convert to the Church and a bookkeeper, his mother was equally devoted to the gospel.

They were very poor for most of his youth, he lived in a home, at least for much of it, without indoor plumbing.

He doesn't recall going on a vacation or going to dinner or to movies much at all when he was growing up.

He has become known for giving articulate and insightful speeches, but if you’d heard his first speech and age 13, you might not have predicted that.

He wrote and memorized a talk on tithing, he got up to give the talk and he said, “Tithing, the principle of tithing”, and then his mind went blank.

He could not recall the talk.

He tried for a while and then finally snapped his fingers and said,

“Nuts”, and sat down.

So, Mom told us that when he proposed to her he used terms like, "fruition" in describing their relationship, so he clearly increased his vocabulary in the meantime.

This first image is of Dad raising pigs. And sometimes when I say that people think I mean his children. But he started this 4-H project when he was very young and was very serious about it. So, that’s him feeding his pigs.

He, actually, I think, was pretty proud, not in an inappropriate way, but he was quite successful at that.

So this is the ribbons that he won and county and state fairs a little later in life. And then some of you may remember this, but in a conference session where he was autobiographical -- rarely was he autobiographical -- he did show those ribbons with President Nelson helping him hold them.

As a young man he loved to play basketball.

This is him with a team that he was on. He’s the second from left, kind of in the back there. Obviously, he was not going to play power forward.

But he had five uncles who wanted him to be all-state, and he wanted to play well.

And he was on the team for a while, but he went from being first string to second string, and then not at all on the team, which is a hard experience. He talked about irony in life.

That was an ironic experience for him, because he helped a friend of his briefly learn how to play basketball, who later became all-state.

But Dad said he learned that "recycling regrets does not change reality and that too much attention to what might have been gets in the way of what might yet be." He served in the Army and saw action in Okinawa.

This was a defining experience for him, and I think this is fairly well-known.

But this is a slide of him with some Army buddies, he’s in the second row on the left.

At one point a Japanese artillery squad had been trying to find Dad’s mortar group for several days without success.

And then the shells suddenly started landing closer, and one landed within several feet of him.

Close enough that it actually damaged his hearing in one ear. And he knew the enemy had found the range, he offered a very fervent prayer that God would spare his life and he made some promises.

The shelling stopped just when it should have started in earnest when they should've fired for effect.

I heard him say several times later in his life that he spent most of his life trying to live up to those promises.

This is a note -- I understand they’re called V Mails -- that he wrote from Okinawa.

You probably can't read it. I’m sure you can't, but in the highlight thing he says that "many things have strengthened his faith, that he could hardly wait to go on a mission." And he talks about having used C-rations for the bread, and water collected in his helmet for the water in administering the sacrament there on the frontlines.

And some years later, I think when he was serving as Church Commissioner of Education, he had a chance to go back to Okinawa and found the place where his foxhole was, now covered by sugar cane.

That was just a sacred place to him.

A few years before his death, President Packer somehow learned that he had been at a servicemen’s conference on Okinawa shortly after the war

that my dad also attended.

So again, you can't really see this, but there are arrows showing where my father was and where President Packer was back there in the back. And President Packer was pretty excited about this, as I was.

Dad did serve a mission as he promised, while on his mission he devoured books about the gospel. This was, of course, in a day when you could read things that were outside our

current Gospel Library.

I’ve seen copies of letters home where he asked his dad to send him books written

by the Brethren.

At that time there wasn't an established teaching plan, so he created one.

“The Sword of Truth”, 14 lessons.

I mean, I think if I had been in his shoes, I would never have thought of

doing something like that, but Dad did. But that mission plan showed his love for the gospel.

He would say, sometimes ribbing himself a bit that he was not a very successful missionary.

I would differ, but he said he baptized two people, and while he was serving

as a district president he excommunicated four.

So he said not an impressive success rate.

(laughter)

Dad married Mom in 1950.

I heard Dad say in many public and private settings that he “married up spiritually”. And he did just say that, he meant it.

He also described Mom as “a woman for all seasons”.

He traveled a lot in his work as commissioner and later as General Authority.

So much of the responsibility for raising the children fell on Mom.

During the first year he served as Commissioner of Education he wanted to visit all the Church school across the globe and he was gone for a total of five months during that year.

Now, that may sound like small change to many of the people in this room, but I admired him for doing that.

He worked in the Washington D.C. area for a few years, and then had some offers to join firms back there in the D.C. area but he also had an offer from the University of Utah in the Public Relations area.

And as they discussed those opportunities, his Mom said, “You know, I think you should take the offer at the University of Utah, because you might have an influence on students there.” And Dad kind of scoffed at that and said, “I’m just going to be writing press releases.” But he sensed that she had an impression that might not have been easy to explain logically, so they decided to take the position at the University of Utah because he respected her opinion.

When I think about the service he later gave as Dean of Students, Executive Vice President, teaching poly-sci classes at the University of Utah, being the bishop of a student ward, and then later serving as Commissioner of Education, I’m really grateful that he listened to Mom, because he certainly had

an influence on students.

Mom was very instinctive in her service.

Dad was around a lot of people, as you can imagine, who were wonderful examples of service.

But he referred most often to Mom and to President Kimball, who later became a neighbor of theirs, as giving him an example of how to serve more spontaneously and conscientiously.

One example, he came home from work one day, a hard day at work, and Mom said, “Why don't you go see such and such”, a widow in the ward.

And I don't think Dad really wanted to, and he didn't know that he needed to do it then, but he did what Mom suggested.

When he knocked on this widow’s door, she said, “She knew he would come that day.” My sister and I still hear reports from people who talk about something that my father had done for them, or my mother’s done for them.

He shared a story about following spiritual promptings.

He was in the Administration Building and received a letter from a missionary at the MTC whose companion really wanted to go home.

And this companion of the missionary was asking Dad if he could write a letter

encouraging his companion to stay on his mission.

So Dad’s secretary was out that day, but he followed an impression respond right away and asked another secretary to take dictation and type the letter out. And he said, “Please get it out today.” He found out not long after that the letter arrived at the MTC as the missionary who was intent on going home was talking to the MTC mission president with his bags packed, ready to leave.

Somehow his companion found out that the letter from Dad had

arrived, rushed it into the MTC mission president’s office.

The missionary who wanted to go home, read the letter, broke out sobbing

and stayed on his mission.

And Dad just used that as an example -- he rarely talked about himself -- as why we need to respond quickly to promptings.

In this setting I probably should at least mention it, Dad was keenly interested in politics and government and current affairs.

I wish he were around now so I could ask him some questions.

He spoke often about the Constitutional Convention in 1787 and the insights that we find in the scriptures and in the teachings of modern prophets on moral and social issues.

He believed that good citizenship was a part of discipleship.

Dad often talked about his high school English teacher, Mary Mason. He’d written a paper for her and she’d given him a D and he protested and talked to her and said, “I think I deserve better than a D on that.” And she said, “You are capable of better work. And until you do better work that’s the grade I’m going to give you.” And he was so grateful to her for instilling in him the desire to write well.

He spoke at her funeral because he was so grateful.

Beginning in the late 1960s Dad began working on writing books.

He was very quick, but he said, not terribly accurate in that manual typewriter.

Writing became a priority in what free time he had, including during the month of July, when, in theory, the Brethren have a quiet month.

I’ve worked in the publishing business some and it takes an incredible amount of discipline to find time to write at all, but especially if you’re as busy as he was.

I lived within a couple of blocks of him the last 20 years of his life, and I’d go over there regularly.

And because he loved news, he’d always have the TV on.

And maybe he and Mom were watching a movie, but also invariably if he wasn't on the phone he was working on a talk or a manuscript for a book.

He just had that kind of commitment to writing and refining.

He sought feedback from people whose judgment he respected and would be honest in their feedback.

Often these were people he knew through Church service of through his professional life.

But he also regularly got feedback from Mom, and occasionally he’d ask one of us kids to read and provide feedback.

He gave one talk to my sister and she included several comments in the margin like, “too cute, too much alliteration”, those kinds of things.

He was very open to feedback.

With respect to alliteration I heard him say later in life that he was trying to get down to "two pack a day" of alliteration.

At Dad’s funeral President Hinckley observed that his genius was the product of diligence.

He was a perfectionist determined to extract from each sentence every drop of nutrition that could be provided.

He asked my wife, who is very well-read, to look at some poetry he was writing. He didn't write a lot of poems, but he wanted her input on that.

And one of the poems he wrote is this one. Let me just read that, because I don't know that any of you would've seen this.

It’s called “Submission”.

When from Thy stern tutoring I would quickly flee, Turn me from my Tarshish To

where is best for me.

Help me in my Ninevah To serve with love and truth-- Not on a hillside posted Mid shade of gourd or booth.

When my modest suffering seems So vexing, wrong, and sore, May I recall what freely flowed From each and every pore.

Dear Lord of the Abba Cry, Help me in my duress To endure it well enough And to say,… “Nevertheless”.

I love that poem.

Dad loved to read.

He read widely on biography, he read religion, history, and some fiction.

But his reading was largely focused on the scriptures and was application oriented.

He read a biography of John Adams and he thought it was very well-done. And he handed it to me and said, “You really ought to read this.”

And then his little comment on it, I’m sure he could come up with a lot of others was, “He would've made a good high priest group leader.” That’s

the kind of way he would think about some of these things.

His study of the scriptures gave his fertile mind ideas for books.

His love of the scriptures did not wane with the passage of time. In a talk he gave at BYU just five years before he passed away he said, “I am enjoying he scriptures more than ever. I have read a lot in my life, thousands of books, but rarely do I do encore reading except for the holy scriptures.

Therefore, I am even more anxiously engaged in the restored gospel than ever, because the restored gospel is so engaging.

It really does get a grasp on our minds.

And there is no end to the exploration that one can make of it.

As I said from this pulpit years ago, it is an inexhaustible gospel.

To be anxiously engaged really does meant that we are engaged intellectually, as well as spiritually.

Although some people at my stage of life might say, in effect, ‘been there, done that’, not I.

I feel instead this sense of anxious engagement in something that I have yet to take the full measure of.” With that backdrop, let me just talk about some experiences with my dad and mom that showed their commitment to discipleship and helping us stay on the covenant path.

Being raised by them was enjoyable and it was pretty gospel-centric.

Dad wanted to make is clear that he cared about how we thought he was doing as a dad.

I remember one time, I couldn't have been more than ten years old, I was in the kitchen with him and he was talking about wanting to be a good father.

And he pointed to the handle on the oven door and he asked me to show him if I felt he was too lenient on one end of the handle door, or too

permissive on the other end. I just thought, “He really wants a ten year old’s opinion?” But he cared to know how we thought he was doing.

There were lines he would not cross, although he loved his family.

I remember listening to some rock music when I was in my mid-teens in the living room that included some profanity.

I heard his footsteps pounding down the hallway, which I knew was not a good sign.

When he came into the living room he said, “I will not have that music in my house.” And it was not a matter for debate.

I remember a time in high school when I had violated a gospel principle.

Dad was out of town, when Mom found out she talked to me and she was

kind, but it was clear that I had disappointed her.

Dad got back a night or two later, I had just gotten into bed. He came into my room and sat on the edge of the bed, and he said something like, “Cory, I think you are better than that.” And he told me that he loved me. It probably lasted less than five minutes, but it was the perfect thing for me to hear because he didn't let me get away with it.

But he also emphasized the fact that he loved me and I could do better.

That experience still remains vivid in my mind.

My sister Jane shared an experience when she was in high school and was talking with Mom and Dad about what she felt were some poor choices that she had made.

The very first thing Mom and Dad did was got up and put their arms around her

and expressed their love. And she just said that helped her understand maybe how the Savior feels about us when we’re trying to make changes.

He wanted to know that he loved the gospel and we knew that.

He’d heard that one of the Church presidents, I don't remember

who, had born testimony to his children individually.

So one day he asked me to just come into the living room for a minute and he bore his testimony to me, just to me.

Because he wanted me to know that what I heard him say publicly was the way he

really felt privately.

He wrote to me every week as a missionary, which is just mindboggling

to me, given what he had going on. But it was concrete evidence of how important I was to him, and it inspired me to try to do that for my children as they served missions.

In this setting I should share that the he must have sensed that I was discouraged at one point on my mission, and he wrote in his response that sometimes missionary work is like being in the infantry, it’s just putting one foot in front of the other.

He gave father’s blessings on a regular basis. His father was a convert so his father had never had an opportunity to have a father’s blessing, so my father gave a son’s blessing to his father.

When he realized that he didn't have a lot of time left before he passed away he started giving blessings to each of the grandchildren.

Mom and Dad were doting parents, they had what they called gospel conversations or gospel cons where they’d invite us children and our spouses over

for a gospel conversation.

Sometimes he’s have kind of a lesson, sometimes he’d want to hear what we’d been learning.

They were doting grandparents.

That’s him kissing one of his grandbabies.

I love this photograph, this is of him being chased by some grandchildren. He’s peddling backwards and trying to get away from them, they’re trying to track him down.

The grandchildren loved to be around Mom and Dad.

As grandchildren began to be added to the family and turn ten, Dad and Mom

decided to have grandchildren’s firesides.

They got a briefcase for each of the grandchildren and a set of the scriptures if they didn't already have one, and had them come over to

the home for good food and time with cousins and a gospel conversation.

My mother felt strongly about the Savior’s counsel to be peacemakers. And she saw

the mothers of her grandchildren having to cope with some fighting and unkindness in their families. So she invented her own rewards club.

The mothers were given special printed cards to hand out when they found a child being a peacemaker.

There was a certain number of cards that you needed to have to come to one of these peacemaker gatherings, a party at Mom’s house, basically.

I don't think she ever denied someone entrance who hadn't earned enough card.

When the grandchildren were pretty young Dad made up stories and told them to them.

They were called Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum Stories, but this is not “Alice in Wonderland”.

He had a creative bent and they were about a group of animals the he called friends of the forest, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum were rabbits but they had friends who were bears and coyotes and eagles and foxes and whatnot. They were moral tales, often about inclusion, or repentance, or brotherly kindness.

They were quite engaging and the grandchildren loved to hear them

and they came complete with some sound effects that Dad made.

He showed his love for his children in interesting ways, I remember a vacation we took a few years before he passed away. He found a babysitter for the grandchildren and took the children and spouses to dinner.

I noticed that he brought a legal pad with him, which he wasn't normally that formal.

But after we’d been eating for a while he told us that he wanted to mention things that he admired about each of us, that’s why he brought the legal pad.

He thought carefully and made notes of what he wanted to say to each of us children and our spouses.

That remains one of the most tender and vivid experiences I’ve had in my life.

He taught during his ministry about giving deserved specific praise to loved

ones about the garment of praise mentioned in Isaiah 61.

But he didn't just talk about it, he did it.

Elder Hafen, who wrote Dad’s biography said this of Dad’s feelings about the family.

He said, “There is no group with whom Neal would rather share and learn about the gospel than his own family.”

Dad was an example of keeping confidences, I know that’s an issue for a lot of us.

They traveled a lot and when they’d come back from their travels they would willingly share inspiring experiences they’d had, but not if they were confidential.

So decades ago Dad asked me to take them to a Saturday morning session of Conference in the Tabernacle. I couldn't go, we had a daughter who had a soccer game on at the same time.

Anyway, I almost never tried to get the inside story from Dad when he was a General Authority because I respected his desire to keep confidences, and I knew it was probably pointless anyway.

But I made an exception that once, and it was stupid.

There were two vacancies in the Quorum of the Twelve at that time.

And as you can imagine, there was circulation about who might be called to fill the vacancies.

So as I drove them to the Tabernacle I said, “Dad are there any announcements at Conference you might want to mention to me?” And his response was, “You’ll just have to wait and see.” So I went to watch my daughter’s soccer game, and that was a conference at which, then Elder Nelson and Elder Oaks

were sustained as members of the Twelve.

So I said that I might’ve been one of the last people in the English speaking church to learn who filled the vacancies, even though I was related to a member of the Twelve.

But I respected him for his integrity.

Dad spoke often the last 15 years of his life about discipleship and being submissive, that was a focus as he battled leukemia.

But the desire to be submissive started long before that.

My one kind of fun story, I learned from my mother that when she and Dad had been married just a few years a letter came out from the Brethren, they needed more missionaries.

I don't know if it was a result of the Korean War or what, but Dad charged off to the bishop and said, “I’m happy to serve.” And when Mom told us this story she said, kind of wryly, “And I thought he loved me.”

But the bishop reassured Dad that it wasn’t intended for married priesthood holders.

But it shows how keen he was on being obedient.

When a senator from Utah retired from the Senate, Dad was encouraged to run for the Senate, this may not be interesting to others, but it’s powerful to me.

He had to go to the Holy Land on assignment and he reflected and prayed while he was in the Holy Land about whether or not he should run.

He decided not to run because he felt he could have more influence in other ways.

It was just two years later that he was called as a General Authority.

Interestingly, few years later the man who won that Senate seat said to me, “Before your father decided not to run I talked to him and I said, ‘Neal, if you’re going to run, I’m not.’” So I’m pretty confident he could've won that seat, but the fact that he was prayerful and chose not to run said

a lot to me about his priorities.

Dad and Mom were grateful, they were always expressing gratitude to people.

I love the verse in Section 78, verse 19 of the Doctrine and Covenants, it says, “And he who receiveth all things with thankfulness shall be made glorious; and the things of the earth shall be added unto him, even an hundred fold, yea, more.” Mom lived by that principle, she was the most grateful person I have ever known.

I just wanted to show you this.

That’s a picture of Dad telling Tweedle Dee and

Tweedle Dum Stories.

This I later in his ministry, but it’s just a picture of Mom and Dad and the Conference Center.

Speaking of gratitude, Dad’s last Conference talk was in April 2004, when, I think he knew he had weeks, maybe a few months, but not years to live. The title of his talk at that last Conference was “Remember How Merciful

the Lord Hath Been”.

He talked about, not only counting our blessings, but inventorying our insights.

Which I love that idea.

He had what I’d describe as spiritual equilibrium, he was centered in the gospel and his desire to follow the Savior.

One of our sons played high school football, he wasn't a starter, but my father wanted to see him play.

Dad showed up at a game one afternoon.

A day or two before that we had learned that he’d been diagnosed with a pre-leukemic condition.

What I didn't know until a few days later was that the day he attended this son’s game was the day he had informed the members of the Twelve and the First Presidency about his condition and that they’d given him a blessing. And I thought, “How do you, you know” -- it said a lot to our son and to me about the fact that he would attend a game on a day that was as filled as that, and wondering what the future held for him.

His greatest concern when he was diagnosed with leukemia was not how long he would live, though we knew he wanted more time, but whether he would shrink, whether he would fail to be submissive to the Lord’s will.

Not long after Dad was released from the hospital after more than six weeks there having treatments, he spoke in Conference. He had to leave the session during the intermediate hymn because he just didn't have the stamina to stay.

And he usually had lots of stamina.

So this is Dad at that Conference session giving the thumbs up to someone.

I think disciples are of good cheer, and he was.

He did believe in mentoring and he felt like he’d been mentored in his life -- I’ll just show you a couple images -- by people like President Lee,

by people like Elder Faust. This is a Conference after Dad was sustained as a General Authority.

He’d known, then, Elder Faust for a number of years, they were good friends.

I just love this photograph.

Sorry about the quality, but you can see the emotion, almost the anguish, in Dad’s face, and you can see the encouragement and warmth and support

in President Faust’s face.

I love this photo. These are two other people that he absolutely adored and

who mentored him. The students that he taught at the University of Utah, other people that he met, he continued to stay in touch with and invite out for conversations.

So he was called as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve in July of ’81.

President Kimball extended the call while Dad was in the hospital recovering from minor surgery.

The announcement of Elder Gordon B. Hinckley’s call as an additional counselor and my father’s call to

the Twelve was made in a press conference.

The morning Dad was released from the hospital, he still had his hospital

bracelet on, he was obviously overwhelmed by the call.

These were men Dad admired among all the General Authorities, but I’m touched by the fact that President Kimball reached back and was hold his hand.

This is a photo of the Quorum of the Twelve shortly after Dad’s call.

A couple of months later he visited the Pacific for a number of conferences

and on his way back, the flight over the Pacific, he was thinking about what

should he say at the October Conference, his first talk as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve.

He felt that he was the least among the Twelve.

Though he felt a lot of things were going to take him a long time to

understand, he knew he was clear about one thing, he felt an intimate and inexpressible gratitude for the Savior.

He got out a legal pad on that flight and began to write down ideas that flooded into his mind.

He lost track of time during the flight, soon tears were running down his cheeks, he brushed them away and kept writing. A flight attendant noticed that he was weeping and asked him if she could do anything. He said he was fine and kept on jotting down notes.

Those notes became the basis for his October 1981 Conference talk, entitled

“O, Divine Redeemer”.

When he was asked 20 years later when the most important talk or publication he’d given was, he said it was probably that Conference talk, because his life had changed so much since the prior Conference.

I want to mention his feelings about the importance of the First Commandment.

Elder Christofferson gave a great talk in the October 2018 Conference and made the following observation about discipleship: “Most of us find ourselves

at this moment on a continuum between a socially motivated participation in gospel rituals on the one hand, and a fully developed, Christlike commitment to the will of God on the other.

Somewhere along that continuum the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ enters into our heart and takes possession of our soul.

It may not happen in an instant, but we should all be moving toward that blessed state.

To persevere firm and steadfast in the faith of Christ requires that the gospel of Jesus Christ penetrate one’s heart and soul, meaning the that gospel becomes not just one of many influences in a person’s life, but

the defining focus of his or her life and character.” I love that description.

And I believe Dad was firm and steadfast in the faith with his eyes fixed on the Savior.

He gave a talk at BYU years ago where he talked about the First and Second Commandments and this may not be a popular point now, but I want to quote it.

He said, “Now, we don't think about it often enough, but the First Commandment if first for a reason and the Second Comfortable is second for a reason.

True, the Second Commandment is like unto the first, but it isn’t the first.

We worship the perfect object of that First Commandment, God, because of His spiritual supremacy. We do not worship our neighbors.

We are to love them, but not worship them.

This recognition of God’s supremacy on all counts is why it is completely safe for us to submit to Him.

The mind must surrender to God, too.

It’s my impression that there are comparatively more knees bent in reverence to God than minds bent in reverence to Him.

The First Commandment”, he said, “is the lynchpin for everything else, even self-centered people find themselves doing good, keeping the Second Commandment at times, but it’s almost kind of a sidebar thing”, Dad said.

He said, “We must not overlook how crucial that First Commandment is.” Dad loved God with all his might, mind, and heart.

I love the photo that was included in the Ensign with the statements of each

member of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve in April 2001 entitled “Special Witnesses of Christ”.

So this is Dad at an observatory in Northern California, that’s the picture that appeared with his statement about witnessing of Christ.

He said later in life that if he could go back to college, he loved political science, but he said he would study astronomy, I think, because of his love for the Lord and the universe and His creations.

Dad spoke about prayer and the important of aligning our wills with God.

He

said, “Petitioning of prayer has taught me that the vault of heaven, with all its blessings, is to be opened only by a combination lock: one tumbler falls when there is faith, a second when there is personal righteousness, and the third

and final tumbler falls only when what is sought, in God’s judgment, not

ours, is right for us.

Sometimes we pound on the vault door for something we want very much in faith

and reasonable righteousness and wonder why the door does not open.

We would be very spoiled children if that vault door opened any more easily than it does now.

I can tell you”, he said, “looking back, that God truly loves me by the petitions that, in his perfect wisdom and love, he has refused to grant me.” As you know, being a disciple requires consistency over a lifetime, it’s not about fits and starts.

One of the poetic quotes of Dad about the importance of submissiveness is from his talk “Willing to Submit”.

He said, “The descriptive simplicity of this submissiveness quality is matched by its development difficulty.

It is so easy to be halfhearted, but this only produces half the growth, half the blessings, and just half a life, really, with more bud than blossom.” Dad was known for being a good listener, he really was remarkable.

But there was a firmness beneath his tenderness.

I love an insight that President Eyring shared about my father.

He said, “Some of the people who love his wonderful insights and his gorgeous language underestimate how close he is to the Savior.

I would tell them, ‘You don't know him.

You don't know that, as brilliant as he is, as gifted as he is in language, there’s no one as brave and as determined to do only what the Savior wants.’ For some reason his writing style results in many people seeing him as the intellectual.

But he’s way closer to Peter than he is to C.S. Lewis.

And when it comes time to say, ‘The world be hanged, we’ll go the Lord’s way’, no one is braver.” That’s an interesting insight, I think, about Dad.

Let me mention a couple more thoughts, I need to conclude.

In early 1997 after he was diagnosed, Dad spent 46 days in the hospital having his first round of chemotherapy.

And the first days were particularly exhausting for him. There was some bleeding, he was just feeling completely zapped.

The doctor who had diagnosed to leukemia and helped him throughout the illness

visited him in the hospital one of those first nights.

Dad was completely spent.

Dr. Staker asked him how he was feeling and what he was thinking.

Dad said, “I just want a jersey on this side of the veil or the other.

I don't want to sit on the sidelines.” That reference to wanting a jersey is poignant because it harks back to his youth when he ended up on the sidelines.

In 2002 with the Winter Olympics here in Salt Lake, Dad was invited to carry the Olympic Torch.

I love that photo of him with some of the other Brethren on the steps of the Administration Building.

Of course, he couldn't really run at that point, he could only walk.

But he was honored to be asked, and he wanted to be part of that experience.

That race reminded me of a stirring quote from the Apostle Paul who was in prison as he neared the end of his life.

It’s from 2nd Timothy 4:7-8.

“I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at

that day, and not to me only, but unto all of them that love his appearing.”

I think Dad fought a good fight, he finished the course, he kept the faith, and he helped others to keep the faith.

This is a photo of Dad that was taken about two years before he passed away.

I love it because you can see his reflective nature, he reflected

beautifully and deeply about the gospel.

Dad loved King Benjamin’s sermon, he wanted the name of Jesus Christ to always be written in his heart.

He recognized the voice of the Lord and always wanted to hearken to it.

Dad loved a lot of verses of scripture, there were many times where I heard him quote Mosiah, Chapter 5, verse 13.

“For how knoweth a man the master whom he has not served, and who is a stranger unto him, and is far from the thoughts and intents of his heart?” Dad wanted his thoughts and intents to be centered on the Master.

He wanted to be serving the Master.

He was defined, I think, by his love of Jesus Christ and his gospel, his love of a family, and his desire to have his will swallowed up in the will of the Father.

I’m grateful that my father and mother taught our family about discipleship

and were consistent in their striving to be disciples of the Savior.

Dad bore witness in one of his talks that the best way to valiantly testify of Jesus it to become steadily more like Him.

And as you know, that is a tall order.

I bear witness, brothers and sister, I want to tell you how much I admire what you are doing. I am really grateful for what you’re doing.

I bear witness that the more we focus on being the Lord’s disciples, the happier we will be in this life and the more joy we will experience

on the other side of the veil.

Dad taught that God blesses us according to law, but out of all proportion to the ratios we mortals recon by.

I absolutely believe that.

As we’re disciples we will be enabled to bless and enrich the lives of those we associate with and serve, as you are doing in your work.

I love the Lord and I’m grateful to have the fullness of His gospel and His

restored church on the earth today. I say that, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.