Buried Treasure

When I was set apart as a full-time missionary by Theodore M. Burton almost 48 years ago he suggested that I use the letters I sent home as my missionary journal rather than keep a journal while serving, so as to devote as much time as possible to missionary work. I determined to do that.

So, I faithfully wrote letters to my parents and to Carma every week. After we married I thought my parents had given me those letters and I had stored them in a box (with the one's I had written to Carma).

Through some unfortunate circumstances that box was destroyed and, so I thought, also my only written record of my mission. One of the great disappointments of my life - I had always planned to (someday) take those letters and produce my mission journal. I was not absolutely positive my parents had given them to me so on one of our visits to Mom, after Dad was gone, I searched the house with her - literally every drawer and storage area in their house. I wasn't too optimistic because they had moved several times and I was pretty sure they had given them to me many years ago. Anyway, after the search I was fully convinced they did not have them. So, all I had was my memory - which isn't getting better with age.

Thursday, I went up to visit Emily and do a few little jobs for her. When I got home, there was a phone message from Donna saying that in cleaning out the storeroom under the stairs in their home (Mom and Dad's old home in Logan), they had found a few things of mine. They had driven down to attend the Draper Temple open house, and since I wasn't home they left the stuff in a large envelope on the front porch.

I went out and got it. As I began to pull things out of the envelope, I couldn't believe my eyes. There were ALL my mission letters to my parents that I had written from March 1961 to March 1963, along with a few other treasures and letters that I had written to Mom and Dad. I was stunned and excited beyond words.

So here they are:

And below is Elder Harold Hinckley (nephew of Gordon B. Hinckley- "Uncle Gordon" was put into the Quorum of the 12 while Elder Hinckley and I served together) and I in 1962 on the front page of the Jackson County Floridian in Marianna, FL (It was our practice when we went to a new town to write an article about why we were there and to take it with our pictures to the local newspaper - we were a little surprised to find it on the front page!)

And here we are (below), on two occasions, in the Lakeland, FL paper.

And, as you can see, also the picture and write-up of Carma and me in the Twin Falls, ID Times-News in Aug. 1963.

While this won't matter to many others, to me it was a priceless discovery. And, oh yes, I will now compile my mission journal - just like I always planned.