August 31, 1958, the day the world gained one of it's finest; my dad. Since his passing, we've all experienced our own grief and have dealt in many different ways. The common thread we all share is that we all feel a strong bond with him that has continued on, despite my dad's earthly passing. Our testimonies of the plan of salvation, the atonement, and eternal families, has grown dramatically. We cling to the knowledge that we will see him again.
Each of us have experienced tender mercies that have reassured us my dad is not far. We know he has been called to hasten the work on the other side. We believe one of his most recent assignments is to attend to my cousin, Brennen as he is now serving a full time LDS mission.
Brennen recently shared this experience:
The MTC has taught me so many things already and i absolutely love the spirit here and i have had some great experiences. I'll start off with one i had last week during
a movie that we have after the devotional on sunday and the movie was
called "Character of Christ" and it was a talk from David A. Bednar. I
wrote it into a poem because i just felt prompted like i needed to.
"It's been very hard here to learn the Ablanian way, but here in the
MTC I was blessed with a tender mercy today, for a man sat next to me
in the chapel, no it was not the Lord, although I'm sure he gave my
visitor a good word, no I will never forget the the time i spent,
learning about the character of Christ, in the MTC with my Uncle
Brent."
When we first walked into one of the chapels me and my companion sat
next to some other elders in my district, another some other random
elders walked in and asked if they could sit by me and i told them
yeah of course! but for some reason he had the feeling that he needed
to leave the chair next to me open... as the movie began i could feel
that my guardian angel was there with me.. whenever i closed my eyes i
could see him sitting there next to me smiling and he had his arm
around me. it was one of the greatest experiences of my life! When the
movie was over i said goodbye and he smiled and said i am with you and
then he disappeared. I am confident that this was a way that the lord
was answering my prayers after those very hard first few days in the
MTC. Everyone always says "make it to sunday." i didn't really believe
them and i thought the MTC was going to be awful.. but once that first
sunday came around it completely changed my views on everything, i
turned outward and stopped worrying about myself so much as christ
would, i prayed more for others than myself, i put more faith and
trust in the lord, and i became confident that he would help me every
step of the way along with the holy ghost.
I'm so grateful my dad has been able to be near Brennan and assist him in this transition as a missionary. It's amazing to me how he can be fill so many roles on the other side of the veil in ways he couldn't physically do it here on earth.
So- today dad, we honor you, we celebrate you, we send kisses and hugs to you, and we will continue living our lives in a way to be worthy of your presence. (and we will even have your favorite cake in your honor) We want nothing more than to make you proud.
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