“Friend to Friend,” Friend, Feb. 1988, 6
Friend to Friend
Elder Robert L. Backman, the oldest of five children, spent his early childhood years in Salt Lake City. He said that he regards his parents as powerful examples of service and that his father served as a bishop when Elder Backman was a very young child. “My earliest memories of my father are of when I would go up and sit with him on the stand at church.
“Dad loved sports, and one of our rituals was to go to the Deseret Gym on Saturday. I would watch him and his brothers play handball together. Afterward we would go for a swim. That was the highlight of my week. My father is a lawyer, his father was a lawyer, and my uncle was a lawyer. All my life I wanted to be a lawyer, and eventually I became one. My father just closed his law practice at the age of ninety-three.
“My mother is one of the most selfless, sweet women I’ve ever met. Her life is devoted to others. And her mother, my Grandmother Price, can be described the same way.
“A spiritual experience that had a positive influence on my life, but one that I really don’t remember, happened when I was a baby. I played the part of the Christ Child in a pageant in the Tabernacle, and my mother played Mary. Since then I have often been reminded that I had had that honor. When I was called as a General Authority, I mentioned in my first conference address that my initial appearance in the Tabernacle was as a baby.
“I had a happy childhood. During the summers I would spend time at my grandmother’s in Goshen, Utah. A city boy, I had a delightful time riding horses and swimming in the hot springs. One morning when the raw milk just obtained from the morning’s milking was served for breakfast, I said, ‘Oh, no thank you. I want bottled milk, not cow’s milk!’ My cousins had a good laugh over that.”
When Elder Backman was twelve years old, his father was called to be president of the South African Mission. “That mission was one of the highlights of my boyhood!” Elder Backman recalled. “We were so excited when Mother told us that we were going to Cape Town, South Africa, that my brother, two sisters, and I danced around the front room. Africa seemed like such an exotic place with all its wild animals.
“It was a very spiritual experience,” Elder Backman continued. “My father was permitted to have only twenty-five missionaries, and they became very close to us. We lived in the same home with them, and they ate every meal with us. I was absolutely immersed in the mission. All those missionaries were my big brothers. They still are. We still get together once a month. I have always tried to follow in their footsteps.
“Our church meetings were held in a room that had been added to the mission home for that purpose. Upstairs was the dormitory for the missionaries. The building also had a baptismal font. I was the only deacon in the branch, and I felt pretty important. As old as I am now, I think that those experiences in South Africa at that tender age are the most vivid that I have had in my entire life.
“When I was young, our family took a number of trips. The most memorable one was when we left South Africa and traveled by ship for two months and stopped at twenty-four ports. We sailed up the east coast of Africa, through the Mediterranean Sea, and ended our trip in Hamburg, Germany. Tangiers, Algiers, Zanzibar, Dar es Salaam, Cairo, and Port Said, were only a few of the exotic cities that we visited.
“When President Gordon B. Hinckley invited me to attend the dedication of the temple in South Africa a few years ago, I had the choice experience of greeting many of the Saints there whom I had known as a boy. I love those people, and I love that country.”
Even before going to South Africa, Elder Backman had great admiration for missionaries. “When I was a boy, a lot of missionaries went out from our ward,” he recollected. “They were permitted then to print missionary farewell programs with their pictures on them, and I would save those programs, fold them, and stand them up on my dresser. Those missionaries were my heroes. I never wavered in my desire to go on a mission because of the example that those men had set for me. As a boy, I was shy and didn’t do anything to call attention to myself. But serving a mission helped me to overcome my shyness.
“My message to young people is that they should prepare to serve a mission. Preparing to serve a mission means that you must keep the commandments, be active in the Church, take part in Primary classes and Sunday School, gain the Aaronic Priesthood if you are a boy, and if you are a girl, be active in the Young Women organization. Serving a mission is the greatest preparation for life that I know.”
A guileless Robert before first birthday
Robert, next to rear fender
Young Robert astride tricycle
Twelve-year-old Robert, rear, before his family’s departure to South African Mission