Conclusion

What Do I Value?

     As exemplified by the Savior, I too, desire to increase in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man (Luke 2:52).

Spiritual (In Favor with God)

      I have a deep and abiding faith in my Heavenly Father and in the Savior, Jesus the Christ. I value the teachings of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ as revealed through the Prophet Joseph Smith, and his successors who I sustain as modern prophets.

      I love the powerful truth that we actually can become as our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are, as taught in Matthew 5:48 and 3 Nephi 27:27.  I believe this to be the most powerful teaching of the gospel.

      I take seriously the covenants I have made in the temple, and feel an obligation to live a life consistent with them. I have full faith that the power to seal families together eternally has been restored.

     I recognize that spirituality in one’s life can be lost. I feel committed to follow the steps to cultivate this dimension of my life consistent with the ten-point plan as I wrote in the book To Grow In Spirit (1983).

Social (In Favor with Man)

      My family comes first in my list of social values.  I love and treasure my wife Barbara.

      I desire to become a better husband, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather to these most precious human beings in my life.

     I love to share the gospel and have found rich blessings by opening my mouth and sharing what I know to be true. 

      I feel strongly that among the personal characteristics I value and strive to cultivate are:

Honesty—total trustworthiness and integrity.  I desire to have my word be as binding upon me as any legally signed document.

Empathy—being sensitive to others’ feelings and needs.

Generosity—being free with time, resources, and services to bless others.

Love—for everyone regardless of race, faith or economic status.

Morality—in the narrow sense of absolute chastity and faithfulness, as well as more broadly in terms of basic righteousness in dealing with others.

Intellectual (Increase in Wisdom)

      I have cultivated intellectual development throughout my life.  I feel challenged to continue to grow in knowledge and comprehension. I love books and ideas. I recognize the value of forcing myself to think clearly enough on issues to be able to write my ideas sufficiently well to clarify my own thinking, and to be understood by others.

     I have treasured education and the growth that can come from learning as a result of reading, travel, and cultivating new skills. I feel that when one stops striving to learn new ideas and subjects, life stagnates, and one can easily retrogress.

Physical (To Grow in Stature)

     I value my physical body and health. I still consider the human body to be God’s greatest miracle of creation and as mentioned in the scriptures, it is the “temple of the Spirit.”

      I feel motivated to care for my body through effective and adequate nutrition, exercise and rest.  For reasons of faith, as well as practicality, I have always avoided partaking of harmful drugs, stimulants, and other products that tend to enslave the body and/or destroy its capacity to function.

         

Financial/Temporal

     I have always desired to acquire, in honest and appropriate ways, sufficient financial resources to assure the temporal welfare of our family.

      I have never felt the need to accumulate great wealth, but always planned to have sufficient financial resources to be relatively secure and still be able to share with others, in and outside, the family as occasion permits and needs indicate.

      I feel it is important to share with others and will strive to overcome untoward tendencies to be greedy.

     I have always loved cultivating the soil for the production of food—not merely for temporal and/or nutritional benefit, but as a value that I prize.  It brings me closer to my Maker and to what I consider to be the basic purposes of life.

*****

     What a satisfaction it is to have had the privilege of having six remarkable children: Amy, Susan, Stephen, Linda, Douglas and Spencer, each of whom has married very well, the 28 grandchildren and now, as of this date, (January 1, 2020), 63 great-grandchildren!

     I hope that this collection of material may be of value and interest to some of them. Our hope and prayer is that all of them will remain true to their testimonies of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and live very happy, successful and fulfilling lives.