Before we went through this section, I reviewed my notes from the one week I was in the mission home and there was a short Temple preparation discussion that help prepare us for the ordinances we would receive in the temple. These are sacred, and are not discussed in detail outside of the temple. We receive those covenants and ordinances with a lifelong commitment that we will honor them, wear the temple garment as instructed and live lives that are worthy of being representatives and teachers of the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ as restored in these latter days.
I have always taken extensive notes and last two or three days I have found and reviewed the notes I took while in this one week mission home experience. Some of the people you will recognize. Elder Hinckley of the quorum of the 12 was one of the instructors. LeGrand Richards spoke to us about family history, genealogy, and help explain how we would teach new investigators and new members about the sacred nature, and the importance of the temple endowment and the temple marriage where we become eternal families. It was fantastic. My mission home mission president and his wife, were brother and sister Richards, and I’m sure there is some relationship. You will recall also that it was LeGrand Richards who interviewed me for my final mission interview by a member of the quorum of the 12. Marion D Hanks was one of our teachers during this one week. Brother and sister Richards, I believe had just returned from being mission presidents in Europe. I found my notes where President Richards was teaching and preparing us for our missions. For the next several pages I’m going to attach a copy of my notes so that you can get a feel for the power and knowledge we were given in this one week.
My notes reflect that on this occasion he Pres. Richards started out by reviewing the promises given in the Book of Mormon 10:3 to 6 and John 7:16 and 17 so that we could gain a personal testimony of the Book of Mormon He then relates that on November 28, 1841 Joseph Smith (see church history volume for page 461). He then quoted Joseph Smith statement “that the book of Mormon was the most correct book on the earth”. He then made this statement “you cannot take out of this gospel more than you put into it.” He then related that Joseph Smith was asked by the newspaper “what the Mormons believed” he then taught us that Joseph Smith answered that question by writing the Wentworth letters containing the Articles of Faith
As You Can See from My Notes He Then Told Us That If We Are Asked to Give a 30 Minute Speech or a Two Minute Speech We Could Do It on Each Article of Faith with the Following Scriptural References. He then Outlines Crystal References for Each Article of Faith. These Are Reflected in My Notes from That Day in the Mission Home. Additional from the Doctrine and Covenants . He further gave Us More Scriptural References to Each of the Subjects Taught in Each of the Articles of Faith. He Then Taught Us about Baptism Appropriate Manner Baptism. The Appropriate dress for Baptisms along with the Age for Baptism with Scriptural References. These Notes Continue through Pages 3,4,5, and 6 with Many Instructions, Scriptural References and Giving Us Great Knowledge As Potential Missionaries on Things to Do and Procedure to Follow. I will attach these so that you can see my notes and feel the spirit and power of the messages we received while in the mission home in that one week. This is only one of the many powerful people, including Gordon B Hinckley when he was just Elder Hinckley.
I was set apart , on the day or two after, receiving my endowments, by Apostle Mark E Petersen, another member of the quorum of the 12 apostles.
I felt so close and touched by the spirit and lifted by the power of the messages that I felt like I could fly to Norway without the airplane. It was a wonderful experience.
This picture shows, from left to right, Aunt Vera, Aunt Maxine, dad, mom, and myself, in the back row. In the front row from left to right, is Tamra , Karen, and just to the right of where I’m standing is Mark who came to the mission home with my family.
[Insert family picture in front of the Mission Home]
Before we went through this section, I reviewed my notes from the one week I was in the mission home and there was a short Temple preparation discussion that help prepare us for the ordinances we would receive in the temple. These are sacred, and are not discussed in detail outside of the temple. We receive those covenants and ordinances with a lifelong commitment that we will honor them, wear the temple garment as instructed and live lives that are worthy of being representatives and teachers of the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ as restored in these latter days.
I have always taken extensive notes and last two or three days I have found and reviewed the notes I took while in this one week mission home experience. Some of the people you will recognize. Elder Hinckley of the quorum of the 12 was one of the instructors. LeGrand Richards spoke to us about family history, genealogy, and help explain how we would teach new investigators and new members about the sacred nature, and the importance of the temple endowment and the temple marriage where we become eternal families. It was fantastic. My mission home mission president and his wife, were brother and sister Richards, and I’m sure there is some relationship. You will recall also that it was LeGrand Richards who interviewed me for my final mission interview by a member of the quorum of the 12. Marion D Hanks was one of our teachers during this one week. Brother and sister Richards, I believe had just returned from being mission presidents in Europe. I found my notes where President Richards was teaching and preparing us for our missions. For the next several pages I’m going to attach a copy of my notes so that you can get a feel for the power and knowledge we were given in this one week.
My notes reflect that on this occasion he Pres. Richards started out by reviewing the promises given in the Book of Mormon 10:3 to 6 and John 7:16 and 17 so that we could gain a personal testimony of the Book of Mormon He then relates that on November 28, 1841 Joseph Smith (see church history volume for page 461). He then quoted Joseph Smith statement “that the book of Mormon was the most correct book on the earth”. He then made this statement “you cannot take out of this gospel more than you put into it.” He then related that Joseph Smith was asked by the newspaper “what the Mormons believed” he then taught us that Joseph Smith answered that question by writing the Wentworth letters containing the Articles of Faith
As You Can See from My Notes He Then Told Us That If We Are Asked to Give a 30 Minute Speech or a Two Minute Speech We Could Do It on Each Article of Faith with the Following Scriptural References. He then Outlines Crystal References for Each Article of Faith. These Are Reflected in My Notes from That Day in the Mission Home. Additional from the Doctrine and Covenants . He further gave Us More Scriptural References to Each of the Subjects Taught in Each of the Articles of Faith. He Then Taught Us about Baptism Appropriate Manner Baptism. The Appropriate dress for Baptisms along with the Age for Baptism with Scriptural References. These Notes Continue through Pages 3,4,5, and 6 with Many Instructions, Scriptural References and Giving Us Great Knowledge As Potential Missionaries on Things to Do and Procedure to Follow. I will attach these so that you can see my notes and feel the spirit and power of the messages we received while in the mission home in that one week. This is only one of the many powerful people, including Gordon B Hinckley when he was just Elder Hinckley.
I was set apart , on the day or two after, receiving my endowments, by Apostle Mark E Petersen, another member of the quorum of the 12 apostles.
I felt so close and touched by the spirit and lifted by the power of the messages that I felt like I could fly to Norway without the airplane. It was a wonderful experience.
[Insert Lary in front of Mission Home]
I also Still have a vivid memory that Mark E. Peterson, a member of the Council of 12 apostles, set me apart 21.as a missionary. And again my memory is clear that he gave me a great blessing indicating that I would have a special ability to find and teach, and would bring many souls into the gospel. This wording was very similar, and in some aspects almost identical to my patriarchal blessing. Patriarch Swenson said in my patriarchal blessing that I would have the ability to “ferret out the honest in heart and bring them into the church”.
My mission home experience was only one week long and I took extensive notes because many of the speakers were members of the quorum of 12 apostles. There were also former mission presidents who taught us how to be good missionaries and how to use our time wisely. During this entire week however, there was not one word said about Norway or the Norwegian language.
Today, August 2, 2020 , Mariane and I have been going through boxes and papers and/or all the information we could find about my mission to supplement my memory. This information has been very helpful.
I do recall, getting up early, before 6:30, usually at 5:30 am because that’s when we got up to milk the cows!. I would then go to the library and start studying and reviewing the things we had been taught the previous day. On Friday morning, early the last day, Sister Richards, my Mission President’s wife, came into the library and graciously complimented me on rising early and using the time effectively to study. When she shook my hand,,she left a five dollar bill in it and thanked me for the good example. Back then, I could have purchased 10 gallons of gas, or a whole bunch of “Milk Nickels”, now known as fudge bars, because they only cost a nickel.
One other vivid memory I have of this week in the Mission Home was that a man came and gave each missionary one of his recently authored books entitled “Know The Bible”. I studied this book, which told about the many martyrs who had worked during their lives to bring the Bible to the common people in English. It also outlines the different canonizations of the Bible, which obviously this little farm boy knew nothing about. I didn’t have time to study it during my mission home experience, but later I had a companion who had trouble getting up in the morning and that’s when I read and studied this and other materials. I had. That has been a topick that I have studied and given talks about.
I still have a clear recollection, that after being delivered to the Salt Lake city airport, I boarded my first jet airplane flight in my life. This was on the American airline flight. I was overly impressed by the power of the Jet engines in the process of taking off, and could not understand how they could generate so much power. We landed in Chicago, after what seemed to be a relatively short period of time, and had passengers deplane and more passengers come on board and then we went on to New York where we landed. At New York, we changed planes, and left the jet airplane and boarded a much older airplane, the DC8.. This was a old propeller airplane, this flight was on the Norwegian airlines. And I remember sitting by the window and watching the runway come to an end just as this DC 8 plane lifted off the ground. I thought we were going to land in the ocean because we were overwater. We didn’t land in the water and we flew the rest of that day. I still remember, some time shortly after midnight the pilot coming on saying that we were flying over Scotland and if we looked out the right we could see the lights of Scotland below. Sometime later he announced that we were flying into Copenhagen, Denmark, or it may have been Stockholm Sweden.
This was the end of the DC 8 flight and the beginning of an even smaller, and older airplane, that was like getting into an icebox, as we were in the middle of winter. After getting into this older airplane, it took quite a while for them to get it started, warmed up and ready to try to take off. It wasn’t long however before the pilot announced that we would be landing in Oso Norway. I have noted in my original pocket notebook, I used on my mission, and I landed in Norway at 3 o’clock in the afternoon.
This was a very small airport and I still remember clearly getting off the airplane, not being able to read anything, see anything that looked familiar, or having any clue of what I’m supposed to do. I had received no instructions, no guidelines, had no flight itinerary, and found myself in this airport all by myself with a strange language, and in a strange country. It seemed like I waited 15 or 20 minutes before I finally saw two young men coming down a hallway that had black hats. They were missionaries, and I was much relieved.
Because my assumption was correct. I was just have in my possession a copy of the original letter by my mission president, Ray Engebretsen, dated January 28, 1960 addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Wendell H Walker, Route one, Marsing, Idaho. He says that I had safely arrived in Norway and that they had been given charge by the First Presidency, to see that I was safeguarded during My Mission.
Jumping back a little bit, the pictures on the following page were taken from my handwritten notes when Pres. Richards taught us some basic principles about missionary work and how to prepared for any challenge that we might encounter. I reviewed these notes just this last week and was impressed to include them in this history. They were significant to me as a young missionary and very informative and helpful.
[Insert scan of notes here]
