Never Give Up

On Wednesday September 17th I attended a luncheon at the new Gordon B. Hinckley Alumni Center at BYU. This was a ticketed affair with Elder John Carmack to be the speaker. I had bought the tickets sometime ago and Elena was to be my partner. However, she could not attend, so I invited my grand nephew, Bradley Carmack, who is also brother Carmack’s grand nephew.

Bradley and I were able to shake John Carmack’s hand before we sat down for lunch. Of course John recognized Bradley. He also recognized me; but since I had a name tag that was made easier.

The original invitees to this event were people who had graduated OVER FORTY YEARS BEFORE, Brad was a little younger than the other 150 luncheon guests; but Bradley is a natural conversationalist. He mixed right in with the other total strangers at our table.

The blessing on the food was by Tara’s ex mission president.

There where several rituals at lunch and before the speaker including SINGING THE SCHOOL SONG. I knew the lyrics as did most of the audience, but Bradley did not. Since then I asked my home teacher who went to the Wyoming football game with me, if he knew it. (He is only 30 years younger than me.) He did not. However, after the game, the band was playing it. I do not know when the school got out of the habit of singing this nice song. It was written by the same man who wrote the famous ‘Rise and Shout’ song.

Then Brother Carmack spoke; the topic of his address – the Perpetual Education Fund. He described the board that supervises the fund; the board consisting of the First Presidency, a couple members of the Twelve, a few members of the Seventy, the Presiding Bishop, and the General Relief Society President. He then described the last board meeting that President Hinckley attended in January, which he claimed was the last public meeting President Hinckley conducted on earth.

He quoted President Hinckley as saying that the Conference Center came to him by direct revelation.

When Elder Carmack was serving as a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy, he was serving in the Area Presidency in Germany and about to become emeritus when he received a call from President Hinckley. The President gave him a 15 minute lecture on the history of Perpetual EMIGRATION Fund. How this fund helped 100,000 moved to the Rocky Mountains. 30,000 loans were given out, many if not most were paid back.

Brother Carmack wondered why he was getting this historical lecture. President Hinckley then changed the subject and described his idea for the Perpetual EDUCATION Fund. He described how it would work. President Hinckley said it would be directed by an Emeritus member of the Seventy, but the problem was that member was in Germany. Brother Carmack said, “Are you calling me to this position?” President Hinckley said, “Yes.” Of course, Brother Carmack accepted, and President Hinckley said, “We’ll see you at conference” and hung up.

Brother Carmack said the church has been very generous in their donations – the typical month brings in 2 to 3 MILLION dollars. However, they invest that money and can only loan out the interest. Traditionally they have been getting 8%, but this year it has been down to 4%. President Hinckley prophesied you will always have enough money.

The original loans were for vocations; some of the more recent loans have been for professions and university training. All of the funds are out of the United States.

All of the department’s operating expenses come from the general church budget; not from donations to the Perpetual Education Fund.

They have 75 missionary couples helping to administer and supervise the funds.

So far 31,000 have been helped with loans; the majority have been repaved.

Area Presidents say that 10% of Stake Presidents and Bishops come from men who have received these loans. .

The program started in Mexico, Peru and Chile, with Brazil added early. It is now in 40 countries.

Brother Carmack has been the director for 7 and ½ years. He is an impressive, low keyed, humble man. I was glad to be there that Wednesday.

Clarence Olauson was born April 2, 1914 in Oslo, Norway. He came to the U. S. when he was 7 years old. He married Margaret Childs a younger sister of my mother. Margaret was always my favorite Aunt. (Robert Larsen was always my favorite Uncle. Did the fact that Margaret looked like Mom and Robert looked like Dad have anything to do with these choices?)

Clarence and Margaret were married a few days short of 70 years. Margaret died about five years ago. Clarence died September 4th. The funeral was September 13th at the Larkin Mortuary in Sandy, Utah.

Members of the family gathered for the viewing at 1:00PM. My first cousins who were present where Jeannette Olauson Christen and her husband Duane; Ron Olauson and his wife Marsha; Marilyn Childs Owens (Elsie’s daughter) and her husband Bill. In addition my cousin Doug Olauson’s wife, Margaret (another Margaret) was there coming from Denmark where Doug is serving as Mission President.

I reminded Margaret that one of her missionaries, Elder Brandon Robinson, was the Grandson of Elena’s sister. She said, “Oh, he was one of our favorite missionaries. He just glowed!” This was the same phase that Ron and Laurene described him as he got of the plane last Saturday.

In addition to these first cousins, there were numerous cousins once removed, or twice removed. In particular, there was David Perry, Jeannette’s son by here first marriage who my siblings probably remember as a small baby. He is now a six foot three grandfather.

There were also a group of “Thunnels” This is the last name of my mother’s mother. One woman said that Margaret had been raised by her family, whom we knew as Uncle Issac. When Margaret was born, my Mother’s mother died in childbirth and my Grandfather Childs could not raise a newborn baby and Issac’s family did the bulk of raising her.

I ask this distant cousin, Melba Thunell (I forget her married name), “Didn’t your Dad serve as Mission President in Sweden at one time? She said yes. I said “And now, Doug Olauson is serving as Mission President of the Danish Mission.” I did not add that Howard Childs, Doug Olauson and Richard Carmack had all also gone to Sweden on a mission.

One other Thunell distant cousin by marriage who was present, Ken Hardy, had taught me my first statistics class in the psychology department FIFTY YEARS AGO.


For the first time in decades I TOOK PICTURES of these cousins. I will e-mail these pictures to my siblings and anyone else who requests them.

Jeannette gave the family prayer in the viewing room and then we all moved into the small chapel in the mortuary.

Duane Christen conducted and Marilyn Owens gave the opening prayer. Jennifer, daughter of Ron, Clarence’s oldest son, sang a beautiful song accompanied by her mother, Judith.

When I was a Freshman at BYU Margaret and Clarence befriended me very much, but so did Ron and Judith. Ron was a drama major and introduced me to some good plays. Somewhere along the line, he and Judith where divorced but Elena and I were able to see their daughter, Jennifer, perform Shakespeare at BYU years later. It was good to see them both again.

Richard Olauson, a grandson spoke briefly (Doug’s son.)

Then Ron spoke. He was very emotional. He finally had to ask Jeannette (his sister) to come and stand by to give him emotional support. He told many stories about his Dad; how supportive a father he was. But the major thrust was HOW DEVOTED CLEARENCE WAS TO HIS WIFE. Jeannette echoed this sentiment.

Then we were surprised to get to hear Doug speak via computer from Denmark. Doug said essentially the same things as Ron and added his strong testimony that life goes on beyond the grave and that Jesus is the author of the resurrection.

This was followed by a beautiful solo by Doug’s daughter-in-law, Corey –“Because I Have Been Given Much”

The final speaker was Jeannette’s son that I mentioned before, David Perry. He gave a short talk about the faith that brought Clarence and others to the Salt Lake Valley. David has served as a Bishop and was the proper one to give such a talk. It was mercifully short.

The funeral closed with Doug’s daughter-in-law singing again. This time singing, “God be with You until We Meet Again”

The benediction was by one of Jeannette’s and Duane’s daughters, Shelly Stadling.

I was one of the pallbearers who helped with the casket. This was a first time experience for me.

As we pallbearers were waiting by the hearse, I asked if anyone knew the score of the BYU—UCLA game and someone told me that at half time BYU was ahead 42-0. I was delighted.

A few minutes later, David Perry dedicated the grave.

We were invited to McGrath’s for a lunch/dinner. Quite a few of us did attend where I took some pictures which I will forward via e-mail eventually.

One of the distant cousins and spouse sat across the table from us. I finally figured the relationship – step cousin once removed. Anyway, this couple has a son on a mission in Bolivia, or rather they did. That very day their son had been moved from Bolivia to Brazil because of an uprising in Bolivia. I said but Brazil speaks a different language. The father said, “Yes, we do not know where his permanent location will be.”

It was a very good day. Clarence was a good man. Elena commented how the two of them were always cheerful. When they attended some of my children’s wedding breakfasts and we asked everyone to make a brief comment, Margaret would always cry with her comment. She had a soft heart. I was glad to know both of them and I their children.

My father’s siblings and spouses have long since passed on. Elena’s parents’ siblings and spouses are all gone. But some of my mother’s siblings and/or spouses are still with us.

My uncle Gordon Dee and his wife live St. George, Utah.

My mother’s half sister’s Muriel’s husband Frank Rydalch still lives in Idaho Falls, Idaho.

Finally, my mother’s half brother, Lynn’s wife, Lois lives here in Orem. I need to make sure I do not ignore these people before it is too late.

I am writing a personal blog entry in Word even though my internet connection is down until a generous neighbor can come tonight and hopefully restore it.

Let me report on Tyson’s wedding. (For blog readers who are not Bodily family members Tyson is Elena’s nephew. Even those readers may find the first paragraph below mildly interesting.)

The wedding was excellent on all fronts. The first event was a dinner held Friday evening after Tyson and Jana’s Temple Endowment session (at the Bountiful Temple.) By coincidence this was held at the chapel that Elena attended while she and I were engaged. As I told anyone who would listen Friday night, 45 years ago Elena and I attended a fireside in that chapel one Sunday evening. In fact Elena’s uncle Alma with whom she was living right across the street was conducting the program and Elena was accompanying on the piano for a musical number before the Fireside speaker. Well, after the musical number, Elena and I were too anxious to be together and slipped out and went across the street to her apartment. After about an hour of talking, I proposed to her. In a few minutes Uncle Alma came home and sternly criticized us for leaving early. Of course, he was correct in almost all circumstances. We were not ready to tell anyone we were engaged yet. We wanted to get the ring first. That happened two nights later. So we took the criticism without complaint and announced the engagement Tuesday night.

The same chapel had earlier held the reception for Seldon and Carol Owens and Doug and Karen Anderson.

The actual wedding between Jana and Tyson occurred in the Salt Lake Temple shortly after 10AM on Saturday morning September 6th. As always there is nothing to match the feeling accompanying a temple wedding. A brother Richards conducted the ceremony and gave the couple some wonderful advice which he acknowledged they probably would not remember, but those of us in attendance got a refresher course on how to live happily married. Family members in attendance included LouAnn and Ivan, Wayne and Elena and Ron and Laurene.

Later there were pictures on the temple grounds. The picture taker was Erin Hoffman’s good friend, John. More family joined us here – Amanda Hoffman along with Shane. Alanya Hoffman Silver with her Husband Dan, and Ryan Hoffman.

Three hours later there was a three hour reception held at a picnic area in a canyon area north of Salt City. More family members attended including Kirk, Kathy, Julia and Jon Larsen. Doug and Karen Anderson. Carol Owens and her son Fred and maybe some more I have forgotten. The couple looked very happy. Many of Jana’s family were there including her father from Michigan.

They went to southwestern Colorado to some cabin her family had in a timeshare for a week long honeymoon.

Teachings of the Book of Mormon
Part One
Hugh Nibley
Transcripts of lectures presented to an honors Book of Mormon class at Brigham Young University 1998-1990

Semester 1 Lecture 8
I Nephi
Escape from Doom

Finally, Professor Nibley gets into the Book of Mormon per se. But then in his first paragraph he points out another major historical figure who was a cotemporary of Lehi – Zarathustra. He even tries to tie the great musical theme “Thus Spake Zaratustra” by Richard Straus that Kubick uses to open up the movie “2001” with the Book of Mormon. I could not follow his reasoning. I just mention this in case any reader of these summaries has any idea how Nibley has this Zarathustra and The Book of Mormon related.

When I get beyond Nibley’s first paragraph he begins to make sense to me. He mentions the obvious fact that Nephi has good parents and that Nephi has a good education. He then comes upon one of the repetitive themes – REPENT OR BE DESTROYED. A computer printout has the word DESTRUCTION 456 times in the book and the word REPENT 360 times – usually mentioned in the same breath.

Nibley points out that many ancient civilizations are still around, but Lehi’s civilization on this continent is gone. THIS IS THE RULE FOR THE PROMISED LAND. KEEP THE COMMANDMENTS OR BE DESTROYED. Nibley believes that is a warning to us.

Nibley then spouts on for several pages about how the foundation of the world order in Lehi’s time AND OUR TIME “is absolute nihilism. That is no hope for anything future—no hope for any hereafter, that this is all there is. That is what nihilism is.” I cannot speak about Lehi’s time, but are we really living in a time of nihilistic thinking? To a certain extent, yes. There is much talk in our major publications about mutual nuclear destruction. Scientific articles discuss how the universe began 14 billion years ago and will end some billion years in the future; there is never any discussion in these scientific articles that theologians disagree and feel that we will exist for eternity.

So what does The Book of Mormon have to say about such a pessimistic view? Look at the last verse of I Nephi: “if ye shall be obedient to the commandments, and endure to the end, ye shall be saved at the last day.” The Book also warns us: “Cursed is he who puts his trust in the arm of the flesh.” So Nibley quotes D&C Section 1 and shows that the first 18 verses are warnings and then the last 18 verses are good news. Good news if we follow the prophets.

Meanwhile back to the I Nephi. In 1873 a German scholar, Martin Haug, discovered the phenomenon of the Ascension story. The Ascension story in ancient times follows the same format – a righteous man is suffering and is worried about his people. He prays and is taken up to Heaven where he sees God on his throne. He is given an explanation of things which he writes down. He goes forth and preaches. The people do not believe him and put him to death.

The first chapter of I Nephi is a perfect example of an Ascension story except that Lehi escapes death by fleeing Jerusalem. Note that Lehi says, “Great and marvelous are thy works…” What is he talking about? He has just learned that Jerusalem is going to be destroyed! But more importantly, he has learned about the Eternal Plan of Salvation, which overshadows everything else.

Nibley than discusses that Lehi was a wealthy man; therefore when he and his family left their house and their gold and silver and their precious things that they would surely be traveling with beasts of burden; animals to carry their provisions and Lehi’s tent.

“My father dwelt in a tent.” They travel for eight years in one of the worst deserts in the world so they must have these animals.

We leave it there for now.

August 1st is the day when the NCAA allows the college football teams to begin the practices and their team meetings. BYU is no exception. But this year there is one big difference from my point of view; I got to attend the team meetings.

For those who have not heard, Bronco Mendenhall, the head coach approached Pam Mayes, the director of the Western Sand Play Associates, asking for help with some his players who are not totally prepared for college academically, socially or culturally. The result of this is that I am now part of “Project Morningstar” or as Bronco calls us, the Dream Team; a set of diverse people who are going to work with a subset of the football team in order to help them get their grape point average up among other things.

So let me describe August 1st, one of the more exciting days I have experience in a long time.

At 8:45 we meet with Bronco and all the Freshman players (along with their parents.) We meet in the athletic building, a building I had never been in before expect to eat at the Legends Grille. For those who know the campus, it is the building across from the George Albert Smith Fieldhouse. This building is relatively new and it is beautiful. The halls are filled with displays of passed glories – the BYU National Championship, the Cotton Bowl victory in the late 90’s, etc.

Bronco (isn’t that a great name for a football coach) has the meeting open with prayer. He then introduces all the assistant coaches. One comment is worth mentioning. He says that he has nothing to do with the team’s offense. He leaves that totally in the hands of the offensive coordinator. The only time he gets involved is on fourth down, he does make the decision whether to punt or go for a first down.

The assistant coaches are then dismissed and we then have a couple of musical numbers by Maxine, a daughter of one the campus security officer, who is in attendance.

Bronco then launches into an extended pep talk for these Freshman. The pep talk includes football, but mostly it is about how to succeed in life. If I were a player on Bronco’s team, I would be enthusiastic. HE IS THE RIGHT MAN FOR THIS JOB.

He tells these young men that as football players that are particularly visible as part of BYU and NOT JUST ON THE FOOTBALL FIELD. They are representatives for Christ in everything they do.

The goal of this year’s team is “Quest for perfection and eternal life.” This goal has been widely interpreted by the press that he wants an undefeated season, be he says, no, he just wants his players to do their personal best in all aspects of his life.

So he had a longer goal –

“Flag bearer of Brigham Young University through football excellence, embracing truth, tradition, virtue and honor as a beacon to the world.”

Speaking of flag bearer, when the team comes on the field one player leads the team carrying the flag with the big Y. The team chooses who gets to carry that flag.

As most of you know, before every game the team gives firesides. Last year 60,000 people came to those firesides.

Two years ago BYU was ranked 15th at the end of the season. Last year they were ranked 14th. ONLY 5 TEAMS IN THE USA WERE RANKED IN THE TOP 15 BOTH YEARS.

We also have the longest win streak in the country – 10 games.

The present team has 68 returned missionaries.

The Grade Point Average of the team is 2.94 which might be the best in the country, but Bronco wants it to be higher, at least 3.0.

Bronco met one of his previous graduates who is now playing for New York Giants. The alumni told him how disappointed he was in his teammates; vulgar, immoral players. At one time there were two buses offered to players—one going back to the Hotel where the players could indulge in their hedonistic activities—the second going to a Ronald McDonald House where the players could talk to some kids who were fighting some disease. At first no one was going on the Ronald McDonald bus, but then the BYU player said he would go and finally a couple other players joined him.

Bronco then introduces us, the members of his ‘Dream Team.’ He has our names on excellently prepared PowerPoint slides along with our accomplishments. For me he mentions my WordPrint study and my work with ranking sports teams. He lets me say a word about the latter. I keep it quick and just say that our ranking system is better than the BCS systems and that when Lavell Edwards won the National Championship our system vindicated Lavell. Bronco also pointed out that I was the man who developed the formula for Expected Grade Point Average which the team uses to identify team members who might get into trouble. He made me sound like one of the world’s best statisticians.

After he introduces us, Pam, our leader says that what we are going do is going to be fun. Bronco says good, since he is not know for being fun. (His practices are known for being extremely hard.)

The meeting ends.

Our group meets before lunch and discuss a few details and then we break for lunch.

We come back at 1:00 this time with just team assistants in charge of academics. After about a 15 spiel where they tell the Freshman how to contact them with any problems with their academic schedules, they dismiss the players who are not in “Project Morningstar” and we are left with the Freshman who are in the program. The are about 9 others who are in the program but by some NCAA rule since they are not Freshman they cannot meet with us today.

Pam tells them a little of what the program is and has us introduce ourselves again. I have about 2 minutes this time and tell them a little about both LARC and the WordPrint analysis. I also tell them I am excited about Sand Trays.

Pam them distributes a story about “MorningStar” who was an actual Native American who has a pretty dramatic story to tell. She tells the story. I save that story for another time. It turns out that one our team, Lakato John, is his great-grandson. Spring Term these young football players are going to get go down to Southern Utah and go through a 5 day vision quest with Lakato John. I may be going with them.

At this time each football player is given a one-on-one (or at most a one-on-two) interview with an Associate of Western Sand Play. The Associate was doing an In-Take interview and then scheduling a time that the young man could do an initial Sand Tray.
Pam had divided all the young men up to us practitioners beforehand. My two are both non freshman, so I did not get to meet them; will do so when we meet again at 9:00 on Monday morning.

I then left for supper break to return for the team’s first activity at 8:15 that evening.

At 8:15 Bronco opened again by introducing us, the Dream Team again; this time to the full team. He then show a 17-minute DVD; a church film entitled “Only a Stone Cutter.” This is wonderful film, about a man who walked 22 miles each week from Alpine, Utah to work on the Salt Lake City Temple for over two decades. He even continued this after he had lost a leg.

After the film, Bronco told each of the players he had a chisel for each of them. They were to go into ten separate rooms and each write their life’s mission of the chisel and then come out on the patio and coat their chisel with gold or some other color of paint. They would then come back at 9:30 and report.

I mingled around the rooms while the players where writing their goals. One of the players said to me, “So you are the numbers person?” I affirmed that I was. He said that he had trouble with numbers. I told him that they were “the only true fun”. I mention this because I think this young man might be one of my two clients.

I asked Bronco could I pick up the DVD at church distribution. He said no, that he had a special relationship with Sherri Dew and got a pre-release copy. But look for it when it comes out. It will make a real impression on the church.

I told Bronco that I was very impressed with the day’s activities. He said that this was not unusual. They often had activities like this that had nothing to do with football.

We were then dismissed. They wanted to have the reporting back be strictly a team affair.

A day to remember.