Also, the weekend after Oct, 1963 General Conference, we had a visit from Elder Thomas S Monson, sustained in that conference as a Member of the Quorem of the Twelve Apostles. President Smith called me from SLC where they were still in a Mission Presidency Training Meeting, alerting me that he would be arriving late at night. He was given a key to enter and use the apartment in the Mission Home reserved for visiting general authorities. He was meeting President N. Eldon Tanner of the First Presidency who was accompanying him and teaching him how to reorganize a stake, the Taylor Alberta Stake.
I went into the living room at 6:00 AM to prepare for our morning devotional and Elder Monson came in as spoke with me. We spoke for about 25 minutes and I was asked many sweet questions that were the kind a recent Mission President might ask. (He was serving as President of the Toronto, Canadian Mission just prior to his Apostolic call.)
As the rest of the Missionary Elders began to assemble, President Tanner arrived to take him to Taylor. I had invited Elder Monson to join us in our devotional and he asked President Tanner if it would be OK. President Tanner said that they would have time for a prayer. As we were preparing to pray, Elder Monson asked President Tanner who was in charge. President Tanner said, “It’s your mission,” because Elder Monson presided over our Area of the Church. He then looked me and said, “So, who is in charge?” I meekly raised my hand and said, questioningly, “I guess I am.” So, having authority and since President Tanner had visited us several times, his home being in Calgary, I took full advantage of the situation and called upon Elder Monson to lead us in prayer, just as President Smith had done or would do with each of the other Apostles that had visited us there, including, Elder Hinckley, President Moyle, Elder Packer and President Tanner. Again, like it was when the others prayed, it was such a personal prayer to a such a familiar God that I feared to look up. This experience was a precursor to a later experience with President Monson the day I left my Mission that made a huge impact on my life. More on this later.
In October, Elder Bond transferred home and Elder Hardy became the Mission Secretary and my companion. We had some wonderful experiences. One day, Pres. Smith received a telephone call from the large hospital in Calgary requesting that he represent the Church at a special Religions Symposium that they were having for their nursing school. They were inviting a Catholic Priest, an Anglican Minister, a United Church Minister and President Smith to speak 15 minutes each explaining their Church’s basic doctrines and beliefs, their programs for visiting the sick, ordinances and last rites and what the nurses needed to do to prepare the area for them. This would be followed by 15-20 minutes of questions from the nursing students.
President Smith informed them that he had a scheduling problem with their date but that he would send two Elders that could meet their needs. It was Elder Hardy and me!
Oh fun, we were last of the four and the first three each acted a bit miffed that these kids were there and were a bit pompous in their delivery. When we got up before 150 to 200 young women, we proceeded to present a quick overview of our doctrine, including answers to the questions of, “where we came from, why we are here and where we are going,” ie a quick overview of the Plan of Salvation. We also discussed the organization of our Wards and told them that many would probably come to visit their patients, from the Relief Society, Bishopric, Home Teachers, Priesthood leaders, and explained the anointing/blessing process. Of course we had carefully structured it so that we were done in the allotted 15 minutes. The others all went overtime. We took turns at the podium while the other showed some pictures or wrote/drew on the black board for visual aid. We just wanted to give a good overview and raise questions. We left some literature as requested.
In the question and answer session, all questions were directed to us. The other three presenters were very unhappy. Then, afterward, we were surrounded with young nurses with more questions for another 30 minutes and we took names and contact info for those wanting to still learn more.
We turned over the follow-up to two very special Sister Missionaries, Sister Ling, from Tasmania and Sister Kamu from New Zealand. Sister Ling was a tiny ball of fire and energy and Sister Kamu was about 5’11” and a big, strong, peaceful person. Both were outstanding Sisters and a wonderful companionship. The last I heard 19-20 of those nurses were converted and baptized under the teaching of those sweet Sisters. Such a sweet experience!
We also went across town to meet with a Dr. Lloyd that called the Mission Home requesting information on the Church. There, we had some great Elders that we handed off to.
Our District was very small. We all worked in one Ward and had so many convert baptisms that the ward would have after baptism open houses. We would meet in Dan Sorenson’s home, our “fellowshipping couple” or, in the home of a prior convert or, because they had a piano, in the Art Lee home. (Sister Carol Lee was Bro Sorenson’s sister and mother of our future son-in-law, Darren Lee, but long before he was born.) Members strongly supported the baptisms and then brought refreshments to the open house and got to know the new converts. We sang, did quartets, all kinds of sweet things. It was amazing and we had open houses usually 3 times a month.
Starting in November of 1963 we were almost always the top baptizing district in the Mission. Here are a few other stories:
The Griff Lloyd family joined the church under the teaching of our District with Elder Wosniak and Elder Call as their Elders. Sister Lloyd nursed some evening shifts in the Catholic Hospital with Sister Sorenson. She was upset by the infant baptism she saw and was talking to Sister Sorenson about it and Sister Sorenson explained our beliefs and invited her to learn more. He husband, Griff, a very successful petro-geologist/scientist was there when they taught the first 4 discussions but did not show himself, listening in around the corner. Sister Lloyd loved it all until they got to the 4th discussion on the word of wisdom. When that was taught, she just said, “That’s all, I smoke and I will not give it up.” At that point Griff came around the corner and told her she had better because the Church was true. He had listened in, gone to the library for more books, read the Book of Mormon, D&C, Jesus the Christ by Talmage and other books, had already quit smoking, and led his family into the waters of baptism. We saw them when we went to Calgary for Shae and Darren’s reception there and when we went to church that Sunday, the Missionary giving his homecoming talk was one of the Griff Lloyd boys and the youth speaker was the daughter of Elder Wosniak and his wife, Sister Lloyd’s sister who Elder Wosniak baptized and later married. Wow, what a joy!
One dark evening, our appointment fell through and Elder Hardy and I never gave up any of our proselyting time without a fight. We went to a high rise apartment complex and started hitting the buzzers. We finally got the Sankerili family to answer and invite us up. They buzzed the door open and up we went to find a family from Trinidad (of India race). He was going to accounting school. They were baptized three weeks later -parents and two children.
On another fall-through appointment Elder Hardy checked the area record book and felt that we should go to the George Wastle family and give them the first discussion. I suggested that they had had the full discussions twice, liked the Church, the wife and kids wanted to be baptized but Bro Wastle wasn’t ready. The rest of the family would not join without him, so… I did not want to use precious proselyting time for naught, but Elder Hardy felt spiritually motivated and persisted and we went to their door. We had not yet met them. Elder Hardy was inspired when he went to the door and when we got in asked if we could gather their family and practice the first discussion with them. Bro. Wastle said great and got his wife and 3 teenage children to join us.
Now, the week before, we had a zone conference in which Pres. Smith taught us how to teach a contact to pray before we asked them at the end of the 1st discussion. Well, Elder Hardy did his typical, masterful job of leading the discussion and I sat back and let him go.
However, here was manifest one of the reasons for two companions. I noticed that as we started to get to the end of the discussion, Brother Wastle started to get very nervous. The spirit whispered to me that he had remembered that we always asked him to pray at the end of the discussion. I sensed his anxiety and when we got there, I taught him as President Smith had trained us.
I went through the 4 steps of prayer 5 times, first teaching that we pray to Heavenly Father, express things that we are thankful for, asked for the things we needed and close in the name of Jesus Christ. I felt to direct it right to him and had him repeat, with my help, the 4 steps and finally had him formulate a prayer that he might use. Then, I invited him to pray and we all knelt down. There was the longest pause, like several minutes, but in sure faith, we never looked up. Finally, with a sob, he uttered a sweet prayer, saying, “Heavenly Father, thank you for my family, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.” We all hugged each other and we left.
The next morning, a Saturday, we got a call from a member at the new ward house building site telling us that George Wastle had shown up with tools to work, just beaming. We headed over and he told us that, although he was always a deep sleeper, he had awakened in the night, prompted to get up and pray. He went into the living room and knelt and prayed and received a profound confirmation that the Gospel was true and that he and his family should join the Church.
The Wosniak, Sankerili and Wastle families also attended Darren and Shae’s reception. All gave me wonderful, tearful hugs. Oh joy!
Another amazing experience I had was helping to produce and direct the first live nativity put on by the Church in Calgary. It is now a major event put on by the Calgary Stakes in a park in down town Calgary. President and Sister Smith had the inspiration and put many to work on it. Sister Smith found and arranged for the animals, costumes, and cast. She also developed the method of presentation.
We had a large lawn area to the side of the Mission Home with a road running by it. There was room for bleacher seating and car and bus parking. Their plan was for me to figure out how to build a lean-to structure, the size of a small barn, about 15’x15’ and means to mount a very high star, fence for live animals, etc. It was a very big undertaking, especially in the subzero weather. We spent many hours in planning and then adapting our plan. I built a pole barn out of plywood and lined it with black tar paper. In the open front facing the bleachers, on the left side we sank posts and built a stanchion for our cow, and a rail for them to tie the donkey. In the middle, recessed inward a bit was a place for Mary and Joseph to retire to upon their arrival, behind a manger. Off to the left of the barn, we had cut out props of the inn and other buildings. Attached to the back of and anchored by the barn and guy wires I designed and mounted a 30 foot steel pole of fitted together steel water pipe, painted black with a beautiful star on top. It was electric wired to my control stand where I could turn it off and on.
We had live animals, 4 sheep, 1 cow, 1 goat and 1 donkey. We spent a lot of time getting to know them and caring for them. One dilemma, how do I get the sheep to follow the two Elders that were to act as their shepherds, like the sheep spoken of by Christ? Pursuant to a direct answer to my prayer, I had each of the shepherds put small bags of grain in their pockets and come twice a day, walk through the gate to the fenced in area in front of the barn and props and feed the sheep by dropping some grain out of their pockets. Then, once the sheep knew them and of their grain, the Elders would always walk in and walk to the far left corner and drop grain out of their pockets where they would be with the sheep when the light came on when the angels announced the Savior’s birth. Soon, those sheep would follow them anywhere and stay with them.
President Smith’s daughter played Mary and Elder Wilfred Griggs, Joseph. Elder Wosniak was the Inn Keeper. Three other elders were the three kings. My control tower was about ten feet high with light switches put in by electrician members per Pres. Smith’s and my instructions. We had various lights on towers, on the barn, etc.
Mary and Joseph entered the gate to the right of the barn about 15 feet out, and I started “O Little town of Bethlehem” as Joseph slowly led the Donkey carrying Mary across to the Inn. The Inn Keeper came out and directed them to the manger with some great gesturing and expression (no words were ever spoken), and Joseph then sadly took Mary to and into the barn. The lights were then extinguished and I brought up “Far, Far Away on Judea’s Plain” and turned on a wide bright light shining down on the shepherds from a very tall pole. The shepherds knelt in amazement and worship and then arose and slowly started towards the barn walking first along the fence in front of the bleachers with the lights dimmed and then turning and walking to the barn. As they turned, I brought up “Joy to the World” and simultaneously turned on the star and brought up lights shining on Mary as she loved the baby and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in the manger. The shepherds then arrived with sheep following and knelt and worshiped him. We let that last a while and then I brought up “We Three Kings” with lights to follow them to the manger with their gifts and they joined in the worship as the shepherds left and went to the props of houses and the Inn and gestured to appear to be telling people of the miracle they had seen. Then the lights went down and the bleachers emptied and the next crowd readied for the next show. We did one every 30 minutes, and the second week the city setup special bus tours, closed the street for more bleachers, parking and access for the local resident, who gladly cooperated. We got front page coverage in the newspaper and lots of TV coverage. Many actually wept when the saw the presentation. Many were very touched by how our sweet sheep (that were happily putting on weight) followed the shepherds. I have long forgotten how many saw the nativity but would estimate that with 10 shows per night and 14 nights, about 15-20,000. We had missionaries greeting and hosting and handing out special programs with forms printed on the back for them to send comments and ask for more information about the Church. Many were used. Oh, what a joy!
Our goat was a character and had to be tied to the side or he was into mischief all the time. One of the shepherd missionaries was very shy and stiff with stage fright. Billy sensed it and loved to harass him by grabbing the long hanging part of his head piece and pulling it off. So, we secured it so Billy could not pull it off. Once, while they were kneeling by the manger, Billy stretched out and got a bit hold on to the back of that shepherd’s head piece and pulled. He tipped the Elder backwards, like a board, onto his back. There he lay with his knees still in kneeling position. His companion just tipped him back up but ole Billy got staked off further away. Billy was so smart, funny and fun.
BTW, though it was very cold, the weather held so we only had snow during the daytime a few times. I really had to dress in special clothing to stay warm and they brought me heated sand bags and hot drinks all night.