Today I’ve been pondering on the kindness, love and mercy of God. How many times have I failed Him and yet He continues to love me and show mercy on me? This is what keeps giving me hope and helping me continue to try.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
John 3:16
He gave us his only begotten son in the flesh. He provided a savior for us, knowing that we would all make mistakes and fail. His plan took all this into account. What a loving Father in Heaven to provide a way for us to escape death and hell and to continue to love us no matter what.
Repenting is the key to progress. Pure faith keeps us moving forward on the covenant path.
Wow! I am starting to feel old now! I am officially a grandpa. My oldest daughter had a baby girl about seven weeks ago. She is so beautiful. It is just so hard to believe that I am a grandfather now.
On the same note, my middle child is now off on a mission for our church, serving currently in the North Carolina Charlotte Mission. I dropped him off at the airport EARLY this morning (around 5:00 a.m.). He will be gone for another 21 months. I’ll sure miss that young man. I started a web blog to post his emails home to at https://sethmission.blog.
Sunday, April 1st, 2018 – April Fools Day. With the van loaded, family, luggage, food and all, we pulled out of Springville, headed for the Oregon coast. The kids found a Box Elder Bug inside the van, crawling across the dash board. We joked that it wanted to hitch a ride to Oregon with us. They named it “George.”
First to I-80 and across to Wendover, Utah and West Wendover, Nevada we went, stopping there for a restroom break, a few yards from the Nevada state line. I had never been there before, but I knew that the town straddled the state line between Utah and Nevada. It was just funny to see a casino with its parking lot in Utah but the building in Nevada.
Our last stop before Oregon was in Carlin, Nevada. It felt good to stand up and stretch our legs. We filled up and made use of the facilities before heading out on our last stretch before the motel in Oregon. We also switched drivers. Hunter drove the rest of the way to Lakeview, Oregon.
The last stretch of road for the day was the lonely area from northwest Nevada into southeast Oregon. From Winnemucca, Nevada up highway 95, and then northwest on highway 140 to Lakeview, Oregon, there were no towns, no cell service, and practically no gas, restrooms or civilization. The highway was narrow, with almost no shoulder, especially after crossing into Oregon. We encountered almost no other traffic. I only found out later that the southeastern part of Oregon seems to be made up of practically nothing but wilderness study areas and wildlife refugees. If course this pretty much means no civilization either, but it was sure pretty, kind of reminding me of southwest Utah with all the black lava rock and sage brush.
At one point we came to the top of a ridge called Doherty Slide which looks to me like a faultline, where one side dropped and the other side went up, similar to the hill just above Hurricane, Utah where I grew up. The highway down Doherty Slide precariously winds down a steep slope into the valley below, with no guardrail and a speed limit of 25 miles per hour. This photo doesn’t do it justice. It is a thousand foot drop from the top to the valley floor. Hunter took this portion very slowly, but it still made us all a little nervous. We were glad to make it safely to the bottom.
Shortly after this area, the drive seemed to slowly get greener and greener. Then we hit a valley of cultivated fields and greenery, with farmhouses scattered across the valley. I don’t know if you’d call it a town or a village, but it’s listed on the map as Adel. From there we began heading up the canyon where Deep Creek flowed, getting into more greenery and alpine conditions. We even got into a few snow flurries and some rain. There were also some beautiful waterfalls. The beauty of God’s creations was astounding.
We arrived in Lakeview, Oregon and checked into the Best Western Skyline Motor Lodge. They had a room that had an extra extension room with another bed – three queen beds (we made due with this with some of the kids sleeping on the floor). We enjoyed pulled pork sandwiches for dinner. The room had a microwave oven in which we reheated the pulled pork we had roasted in the crock pot the night before. We had some chips we brought that the kids enjoyed too.
Later the boys and Grace went down to the pool and enjoyed a swim.
The next morning we packed up and headed out for the beach house, excited that we were going to see the ocean that very day. We were also excited to go through parts of Oregon we knew would be green, mountainous and beautiful.
We hit some spots of snow on the roads going over the mountain passes after Klammath Falls. The sun was out though, and it was already melting. It was amazingly gorgeous.
Back in February I finished and submitted our taxes and found out how much we would receive back with tax returns. I pondered all the things we would need to earmark the money for, but then had another thought cross my mind. I thought that since our daughter, Blythe, is back from her 1 1/2 years of service as a missionary for our church, we need to do a family trip while we still have all of our children back together – before our other boys are of on missions and/or off on their own. It was then I remembered the savings fund I had our bank account send money to automatically every month to save for a family trip. This would give us some money to work with for lodging.
I approached my wife, Jill, with the idea, and told her about the amount of money saved, as well as what we’d get back with tax returns. She knew immediately after I said something that we needed to do this. I knew we needed to do it too. This would be something that would help us bond us all together again as a family, before the older ones go of into the world to make their own way. It just felt right, like God was saying, “you need to do this.”
From that point Jill and Blythe took the reins of vacation planning and went to town! We had talked about wanting to see the Pacific coast in Oregon and the giant redwood trees. They found some rental homes near the coast that were within our price range for the week of the kids’ spring break. They narrowed the list down to seven options, and then we had a Family Home Evening where we basically listened to the descriptions of the places, along with their amenities and a list of nearby sites to visit. We also looked at the virtual tours of each house with pictures. Then we each voted for our top three places, and then for our number one choice. When votes were counted, Bandon, Oregon won, with the Bandon Cliff House as the winner. When funds were available we reserved the house for four nights.
Everyone decided that we would leave for Oregon on Sunday, listening to the General Conference broadcast on the way. We would stay over night in Lakeview, Oregon and on Monday travel the rest of the way to Bandon, Oregon to occupy the house there for four nights. Then we would drive home on Friday afternoon and into the night, trading drivers so we could travel straight through back home (Springville, Utah).
Jill and Blythe also planned out meals. I made a big batch of my homemade chicken enchiladas which we then froze in plastic freezer bags to take on our trip in the ice chest. We also packed boxes of food from our cupboards. On the day before, we cooked some pork roast in the crock pot so that we could just heat up the meat in the microwave at the motel in Lakeview, Oregon and have pulled pork sandwiches for dinner. This sort of meal planning saved us a lot in food expenses for the trip. It would not have happened without the hard work of Jill and Blythe and their meticulous efforts.
Everyone was so anxiously waiting, but the day of the trip finally arrived – Sunday, April 1, 2018 – April Fools Day. But, it was no April Fool’s joke. We were off on the first true vacation that we had ever taken as a family. I felt like declaring, “Oregon, here we come!”
Wow! I cannot believe it has been almost for years since I last posted on here! That is just far too long! My youngest son, whom I posted about when he was born, is now almost four. Our oldest is now twenty-two, and he keeps honing his musical and artistic skills. He is a responsible hard worker, and has been working full-time.
I guess life gets busy and we get so involved in a myriad of things that we sometimes lose track of time and of how important it can really be to record our lives for our posterity. Spencer W. Kimball shared some sage advice on this topic. He said:
Your story should be written now while it is fresh and while the true details are available…
Write [about] your goings and your comings, your deeper thoughts, your achievements and your failures, your associations and your triumphs, your impressions and your testimonies…
Those who keep a personal journal are more likely to keep the Lord in remembrance in their daily lives.”
Kimball, Spencer W. President Kimball Speaks Out. Deseret Book Co., 1981, pp. 57, 59.
In pondering this, I realize that I need to do better with this, both with my blog here as well as with my handwritten journal. I could sure use keeping the Lord in remembrance in my life a bit more right now – who couldn’t? So, I am going to make the attempt.
Four years ago I was attending Utah Valley University part-time as a computer science student, and was working there full-time as an academic advisor. I finished that degree in April 2016 and started working as a Computer Scientist at Hill Air Force Base in the late summer of 2016. My career change finally came to fruition.
My oldest daughter served a mission for the LDS Church in the Atlanta, Georgia area. She helped a lot of people draw closer to God. She served for a year and a half. She is an amazing woman who overcame a lot of challenges in her life to just be able to go on her mission.
My third finished high school a year ago and struggled through a whole semester of full-time college and a part-time job with some serious health issues. He did so well in bearing up under his trials. He’s a strong young man.
He recently performed the oratorio “The Lamb of God” by Rob Gardner with a group that puts it on annually around Easter. It was so amazing that words just fail to describe its spiritual power.
What makes me feel old is that our middle child is almost eighteen and will graduate from high school in another couple of months. He has been serving in the role of senior class president and has participated in theater. He’s a responsible young man.
Our fifth is fourteen, almost fifteen. In another month he will be able to get his learners permit for driving. As a freshman in high school he has been participating in theater and has been learning the guitar over the past few years. He’s a very talented young man.
Then there is our youngest daughter. It seems like just yesterday she was born, yet she was baptized in January. I just can’t believe my little girl is eight years old. She is a sweet, thoughtful and considerate girl that is growing up too fast.
Then our youngest – almost four – wow! How did this happen? Where did the time go? I love my family and feel extremely grateful to Heavenly Father for this wonderful blessing in my life!
A wonderful blessing entered our lives on Tuesday, June 3, 2014. Stewart Henry Gifford was born in the American Fork, Utah Hospital at 3:38 p.m., weighing in at 8 lbs. 9 oz. and measuring 21 inches long.
I had spent several hours watching the love of my life go through such excruciating pain in preparing to deliver Stewart into this world. I was almost in tears seeing her suffering like that and feeling so helpless to do anything to help her other than be by her side reassuring her. So when Stewart finally made his appearance, I was so overcome with relief that the hardest part for Jill was over and with joy that Stewart was finally here that tears came to my eyes. I was so relieved that Jill was okay – she was my superhero! She was absolutely amazing! I was also overcome with such joy at our newborn son, so innocent and fresh from heaven, and new to this world. Words cannot describe to emotions that I went through in seeing such a miracle as the birth of my son!
Stewart didn’t cry much when he was born. They brought him up to snuggle with Jill right after the delivery and then he stopped breathing and started turning blue. One of the nurses grabbed him and put him onto the little bed for newborns that has a heater above it. She immediately started rubbing him down to stimulate him to breathe. He responded and started breathing again and pinked up, but his breathing was fast and shallow. We were all concerned for him.
They monitored him for 20 – 30 minutes in the room, watching his breathing rate and making sure his vital signs were okay. After that I went with him down to the nursery to be with him while he was “checked in.” This means they had to enter all his information into the computer, take his footprints, give him the newborn physical screening, give him his newborn bath, and get him dressed. Stewart and I waited for probably half an hour in the nursery before they could get to him because of about five other newborns ahead of him to get the same things done. Of course, Stewart didn’t mind because he was laying under a heat lamp on a little bed sleeping.
When the nurse got to giving him his bath, he didn’t mind too much, except when they took off his diaper and washed that area down. That was the most I heard him cry since he was born, and even that wasn’t much. It was just a short little cry.
After he was bathed, we had to wait some more while the nurse entered his information into their computer. However, it was fun to see all the babies in the nursery, and to be by Stewart as we waited.
With all of our other children, they’ve had fairly large feet at birth (for a newborn), and Jill had just been saying to me that we always got comments from nurses saying, “Wow, his/her feet are really big!” She didn’t want to hear anyone say that about Stewart. In fact, the nurse that checked him did NOT end up saying anything about him having big feet. I was happy to report this back to Jill. Of course, the next day Jill had a nurse tell her that exact same thing – that Stewart had really big feet.
Finally Stewart was ready, and I was able to take him to the recovery room they had moved Jill to so he could see his mommy. Jill was so excited to finally have her baby back in her arms.
The other day, as I was sharing some stories from the time I served a two-year mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Mendoza, Argentina, my son, Seth, was asking a lot of questions about the story I shared. I said to him that I realized that these stories have never been recorded. My journals have a lot of experiences in them, but not a lot of the stories I shared over and over agains with my children as bedtime stories when they were younger. Thus, I felt that I should begin a journey to record these experiences. I’m not sure yet if I want to do it in such a public venue as this blog – I’m still trying to figure out exactly what I want to do, and how I want to record them. For now, I thought I would share a story that I don’t mind sharing on this blog:
When I first arrived in Argentina I had been studying Spanish in the Missionary Training Center (MTC) in Provo, Utah for four months (for those of you familiar with LDS missions, the usual time in the MTC for a foreign language mission was two months). I had been delayed because I had to have surgery to have a cyst removed before being shipped off to Argentina. I was anxious to get to the country to start preaching the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. It was a 13-hour flight from Los Angeles (we had to go to the Argentinian Consulate in LA to officially obtain our visas to be able to remain in Argentina for two years) to Buenos Aires. My first shock was going from three feet of snow in Provo in January to the middle of a hot, muggy summer in Buenos Aires. I stepped off the plane with my big heave trenchcoat on and quickly realized that I needed to strip down to just my white shirt and roll up my sleeves. I had been told about the seasons in the southern hemisphere being opposite, but it never really sunk in until I experienced it.
The next shock to me was getting into the airport with the small group of missionaries I was with and realizing that everyone but us was speaking in Spanish, even the announcements over the loudspeaker. Despite having studied it intensively for four months, I could not understand any of what people were saying. It was one thing to hear an instructor speak it in the classroom, but it was entirely different to be thrown into a place where my native language was no longer being spoken by anyone but those in my tiny group. Everyone seemed to be speaking so fast – I couldn’t make out where one word ended and the next word began. Only here and there was I picking out words that I could understand. I was more than a little nervous and scared. I realized that I was going to be here for two years.
We had to disembark at the Ezeiza International Airport in Buenos Aires and then catch a bus from there to the other airport closer to downtown Buenos Aires.
Ministro Pistarini Ezeiza International Airport, Buenos Aires, Argentina
I don’t remember how that worked, but someone in our group knew where to go to catch the proper bus that would take us to the other airport (I think somewhere I still have the ticket from that bus ride). It was a ride that allowed us all to stare out the windows and get a good look at what Argentina was like. It took us on a freeway that went right past the LDS Buenos Aires Temple.
This was taken from the bus we were riding in (Buenos Aires Temple)
We also drove past residential areas and into the heart of downtown Buenos Aires, heading for the Aeroparque Jorge Newberry, another airport very near the bay of the Rio de la Plata, the large river that separates Argentina from Uruguay on its other side. From this airport we would catch another flight to the province of Mendoza on the other side of the country. It was an awesome sight seeing huge docks and shipping yards along the river as we neared the airport. Everything was so new and so beautiful.
Upon arrival at Jorge Newbery, we had to find our way to the right terminal for our next flight. In struggling to find our way around in a new place without the language skills to understand anyone, we were all a bit overwhelmed and scared. To our surprise and great relief, a woman who spoke English came to our rescue. She lived in the United States but was flying to Mendoza to visit her family there. She guided us to the right terminal. We were very appreciative of her and thanked her profusely.
While waiting for the next flight I decided I would go to the restroom before we had to board. The facilities were right across from where we were waiting. I entered and had another shock. There were no enclosed bathroom stalls whatsoever. There was one big urinal wall that was open all the way across. Then there was another wall, also all open, with holes in the floor and feet marks in front where one would squat to poop into the hold in the floor. This was too much! I wasn’t about to relieve myself openly in front of complete strangers, with absolutely no privacy. I turned around and left, deciding I’d wait and relieve myself on the plane.
It was about an hour and a half flight from Buenos Aires to Mendoza (about 700 miles). We boarded the old-fashioned way – walking out from the terminal across the tarmac to the plane, going up the staircase that was set up against the side of the plane. I was happy to get on board and finally be able to privately relieve myself in the restroom. I was very aware as the flight attendants served us Sprite from glass bottles, realizing that soft drink brands here were very much the same as at home, but in glass bottles instead.
As we came in for a landing in Mendoza, I remember looking out the window and thinking that it was weird to see a large airport surrounded by what looked like ghettos and dirt roads. Strange to have such modern forms of transportation and yet find such poor conditions right next door. The mission president met us at the airport – he was from the United States. We loaded up our luggage into his car, a fairly newer model Peugeot, a popular make of car in Argentina at that time. We rode with wide eyes, staring out the windows and taking in all the new sites, to the mission home in downtown Mendoza, leaving the ghettos region behind as the freeway drew closer to downtown. We got into areas of smaller skyscrapers, busy with traffic. The mission home was in a fairly nice area of the city, and it was nice to be there with our mission president and his wife (President Charles Eastwood and his wife), both of whom were from the U.S. Sister Eastwood served us a delicious dinner and we received instruction from the mission president.
President Charles and Sister Eastwood, Mendoza, Argentina
Later on we were taken by the assistants to the president (the APs) in the mission van to a small hotel nearby for the night. This was a very old hotel, with a small office at the front for check-in, and narrow halls and steep staircases to the rooms. The APs got us checked in and showed us up to our room on the third or fourth floor – a shared room with several small single beds (4-5 of them) with hard matresses and no box springs. Then they showed us the bathroom, telling us all about the bidet attachment on the toilet. It was a lever that when moved, made a sprayer slide out into the middle of the toilet. It was for washing oneself off after doing “number 2 in the bathroom. The APs swore up and down how awesome the bidets were, and how they loved to use them instead of toilet paper. I was skeptical because I had never tried one before. Later on, I actually did try it, but I held the hot water lever too long and slightly scalded my rear-end – ouch!!! Looking out the back window of our room, I through the center of the block and saw the ruins of some very old brick buildings there. It made me wonder how long it had been that way.
Picture taken from the hotel room of the ruins behind the hotel
This all made me think that all the modernity of Argentina was sort of tourist trappy – all show on the outside to make a good impression on the visitors, but then deep down on the inside of everything there were run-down neighborhoods, dirt roads, old adobe brick houses with cane walls plastered with mud and dirt floors, and widescale poverty. This is what I started prepping myself for as I lay in that hotel room and dozed off to sleep. I wondered how the Lord would help me learn the language well enough to be able to communicate with people. I was anxious and nervous, yet at the same time, ready to dive into the Lord’s word in harvesting souls for his cause.
This evening I enjoyed being with my boys as they worked on the dishes. At our house, Sundays are the days boys are responsible to do all the dishes. Gavin, without fail, always pulls up and turns on some Sabbath music. He was playing different hymns through YouTube. That got me wanting to create a playlist that I could use for this – one with good Sabbath music. So, I added it to my YouTube channel and started searching for a lot of the songs Gavin likes to hear on the Sabbath. Then, after most of the kids were in bed, I continued adding some songs. This one in particular really strikes a chord with me every time I hear it:
So here’s the story behind it: The year: 1992. Location: General Alvear, Mendoza, Argentina. It was a Sunday morning and church services were starting. The branch president had asked me about a month previous to give a talk that day in sacrament meeting. I spent several hours over the previous week preparing a talk. However, when the branch president got up and announced the program that day, he announced different speakers, completely leaving me out. A flood of anger washed over me. How could he do this to me? I spent hours preparing my talk. He asked me in advance to do this and now he forgets? I was boiling inside, yet I knew I shouldn’t be.
The opening song started, and it was this one: Did You Think to Pray? I was just singing words that didn’t mean anything to me as the anger simmered inside. Then came the second verse:
When your heart was filled with anger, did you think to pray?
Did you plead for grace, my brother, that you might forgive another
Who had crossed your way?
Oh, how praying rests the weary!
Prayer will change the night to day.
So, when life gets dark and dreary,
Don’t forget to pray.
It hit me like a steam train. This was a message from God right to me at that very moment. I needed to pray for grace to forgive the branch president. I knew he didn’t do this to me maliciously. It was just a simple oversight, a human bout of forgetfulness. We all have this happen at one time or another. Tears rolled down my checks as God’s love rushed into my heart and I looked up with love at the branch president. He had no idea that this had even happened to me, and yet my heart swelled with love for him and his diligent service to the Lord.
Now every time I hear this hymn, it is like I feel God’s voice speaking directly to my soul. It moves me still almost to tears. I am so grateful that Heavenly Father loves us enough to help us get past our human foibles and has mercy enough to forget what we’ve done wrong in the past and see what we can become – he sees our potential. I am grateful that he loves me enough to encourage me on despite how many times I’ve let him down in the past. He loves us all this much. Let’s hear his voice and strive harder to be what he knows we can become. He reminds us all, “Don’t Forget to Pray!”
My thoughts are going a hundred miles an hour. They are racing between so many different things right now. My 16-year-old niece, Reesa Kammerman, passed away last Sunday and her viewing is today, with her funeral tomorrow. She will sorely be missed.
Also, I’ve been working on my wife’s website for her business, trying to find the right e-commerce software to use. Things have been crazy busy for everyone, with hardly a moment to just sit and ponder.
I am extremely grateful today for my family! As I write this, I am holding an adorable little girl of 18 months on my shoulder – she is fast asleep. She fell asleep while I was holding her, as she watched one of her favorite YouTube videos, I Am A Child of God:
How is it possible to have such a perfect little gift, such a perfect little angel of innocence from heaven sent to me? I am such an imperfect person to be the father of such a perfect little spirit, of such a beautiful little angel. It feels so good to feel her snuggled up against her daddy! I relish this moment because I know that it won’t be long before this little girl is grown. I cherish the moment while it is now!
I am also grateful for my wonderful wife and eternal companion! Jill continues to serve our family and do so many things for everyone even when she doesn’t feel well at all, without complaint. She is an amazing example of selfless service and strength, and that is the very essence of love. She exudes this love and this service daily! How I long to be like her in this way – filled with such compassion and caring. She truly embodies what President Eyring talks about in this YouTube video on families – joy from putting the welfare of others first. Why am I so blessed? I thank Heavenly Father daily that he allowed my closest friend to become my eternal companion. I just pray that I can live worthy to have her in the hereafter.
We filled up and made use of the facilities before heading out on our last stretch before the motel in Oregon. 
We also switched drivers. Hunter drove the rest of the way to Lakeview, Oregon.
It is a thousand foot drop from the top to the valley floor. Hunter took this portion very slowly, but it still made us all a little nervous. We were glad to make it safely to the bottom.
He has been serving in the role of senior class president and has participated in theater. He’s a responsible young man.
I just can’t believe my little girl is eight years old. She is a sweet, thoughtful and considerate girl that is growing up too fast.
How did this happen? Where did the time go? I love my family and feel extremely grateful to Heavenly Father for this wonderful blessing in my life!
