Something that probably should have been said years ago...

I am currently serving as the Sunday School president in my ward here at BYU. Last night about midnight or so I realized that I had forgotten to call my 1st counselor back to find out if we had teachers for one of our two "Marriage and Family" Sunday School classes. Today sitting in Sacrament meeting I realized that there was no way we had teachers because I couldn't see the couple that teaches that class. So I ran to the clerk's office and grabbed a class member study guide from our cupboard and saw that today's lesson was: "The divine role of parents" (or something like that). I don't have kids yet so I looked in the obvious place, my own life growing up with my parents. As I taught the lesson and talked about some of the things my parents did while I was growing up I realized that I owe them a great deal and I'm not sure I've ever told them about some of the things I really appreciate about the way I was raised. So here goes:

1. I am incredibly grateful that my parents taught me how to work.

Some of these lessons were learned as a result of the fact that we burned wood for heat, grew our own garden for most of our vegetables, and killed/butchered most our our own meat. Up until I was about 14 I hated most of these activities (anyone who knows me well will know that me with virtually unlimited quantities of meat for a whole day is a happy me). But as I realized that these "activities" were helping our family subsist I grew to enjoy the time spent with my family working.

One of these lessons that began when I was 12 and continued until I left home was the result of being ambushed by my dad. One of the first days of summer vacation the year between 6th and 7th grade I was lazily sleeping in to avoid doing some of my chores when my dad came in and told me that one of the farmers in our valley had called to ask if I wanted to haul hay. For the young man I was then, his rhetoric was flawless: "That's where most of the bigger stronger guys around get so strong, and I think you're probably strong enough..." So I went. The combination of only weighing 30 or 40 pounds more than most of the hay bales and having pretty bad allergies made for what was at that time the most miserable day of my life. But the pay was much better than some of the other things I could do, so I kept at it. I quickly learned that because of the amount of hay dust in the barn, and because hay dust down my shirt quickly incapacitated me that I was the designated guy stacking hay on the truck and throwing it off into the barn. So for the next 6 years I got to lift every bale in the field twice 3 or 4 times per summer.

And sadly, some of these lessons were the result of me being stupid. After getting a 'whuppin' stopped being an effective bad behavior deterrent I would get grounded for making a 'bad choice'. It began with moving the entire woodpile so that one side would end up about 2 feet from where the opposite side began. Later after a couple of spectacularly bad choices, I hand-tilled with a shovel our lot all the way around our house one summer. The next summer I got to dig every clump of orchard grass out of our 3/4 acre orchard.

I had the opportunity when I was a little older to work alongside my dad. We worked together on family cars, doing work for farmers around the valley in exchange for a beef to fill the freezer with, and working together on maintenance and construction at a resort near Zion National Park for a couple of years. All of these experiences allowed me to have a close relationship with my dad, despite the fact that for a large portion of my high school years he had to drive truck and was gone a lot. I thoroughly enjoyed the conversations we had as we worked side by side. Later when I was a Basic Training, or on my mission, I was grateful for the fact that I had learned to work and that it wasn't much harder than things I had done at home with my dad.

2. I am incredibly grateful that the gospel was important to my parents.

When I was growing up, it was never a question of whether or not we were going to have family prayer, but when. As a result of major difficulties establishing a time for family scripture study, my mom would read the Book of Mormon to us over dinner every night. My dad was a better Deacon's Quorum adviser than I could have ever asked for. When I had had a bad day at school my mom would bring me The New Era or The Ensign with a highlighted article or talk. Every so often when dad was gone on the truck, after we had family prayer I would remember I needed to tell or ask my mom something I would go back to her room only to find her on her knees praying. I would quietly sneak back to my room, and she would somehow always know it had been me.

3. I am incredibly grateful that my mom trekked all over the state to watch me wrestle and run at track meets.

Valley High school is not necessarily at any kind of hub. Our shortest trip to a wrestling tournament was 45 minutes, and the longest was more than 4 hours. Track meets were just as bad. Despite the early morning starting times, I could count on looking into the stands and seeing here there. Granted she sometimes looked a little tired, and she did arrive at one track meet my junior year approximately 45 seconds after one of the best races of my career to that point, but it meant the world to me that she was there almost every single time.

4. I am incredibly grateful for all the time I spent with my dad hand-loading bullets, calculating trajectories, and scanning the rocks above the hay fields for wood chucks.

We would spend hours talking about which caliber had better long-range trajectory, less wind drift, etc... We would spend even more time with our varmint rifles resting on sandbags on the hood of the jeep or truck or car, waiting for the little hay-mowing rats to show their beady eyes. Our talks about trajectories would drift on to physics, the army, cars, trucks, and you name it. While my class went on the Senior Trip, my dad and I went camping, hiking, and wood-chuck hunting on Cedar Mountain.

For these things, and so many more, I owe my parents more than I could ever pay back. Mom and dad, I love you guys and I appreciate all you've done for me.