Random thoughts from oldmcgyver

“From the beginning down through the dispensations, God has used angels as His emissaries in conveying love and concern for His children.  “Usually such beings are not seen. Sometimes they are. But seen or unseen they are always near. Sometimes their assignments are very grand and have significance for the whole world. Sometimes the messages are more private. Occasionally the angelic purpose is to warn. But most often it is to comfort, to provide some form of merciful attention, guidance in difficult times. When I was young, 11 years old, my mother was diagnosed with cancer. It had progressed to the point that the doctors could nothing to help her. She spent the last month and half of her life in a hospital bed in our living room and passed away a week before Christmas. Because of something called jaundice her feet itched so bad she would ask me to rub her feet. On the night she passed I went up stairs to bed and in the early morning hours I woke up and sat up in bed to find mo...

Its 6am and I am up because of a dream and I wanted to record it for you. In my dream I am standing at the entrance to the Savior’s tomb and people were treating it like a common tourist attraction, going in and out, like ok, we’ve seen that let’s go to the next place. Someone came up to me and said, “ Aren’t you going in?” And I said no, and I felt so sad that it was being treated so common, like it was just another place to see. This was a personal place for the Savior and I didn’t want it to be an in and out experience. I wanted it to be personal for me, to take some time and BE there with Him and feel the Savior’s presence and maybe talk with him Well I never got to because my sadness and tears woke me up.

I found this story in the Readers Digest many years ago and lost track of it. I finally found again with a search program called “Duck Duck Go” . The ‘ parable of Henry the pheasant’.  A pheasant is a bird, in case you were wondering. The location is England in Blenheim Palace, the Churchill family home. The season is just after a harsh winter that took toll of the pheasant population, and hunters had been busy, clearing the remaining ones. Only one pheasant remained, and the locals gave him a name- Henry. One pheasant in control of the palace gardens means one thing, abundance. There was food in the freshly seeded field. Henry had no competition and his intake was largely unregulated by the environment. He ate constantly, and eat he did so much that before long, he was enormous! He used his enormous stature to scare other birds away, consuming even more food. He became so fat that they made him a tourist attraction: the fat pheasant Henry. An obese pheasant meant only one thing- ...

OK, so mom and I are reading the Book of Mormon together. We strive to read a chapter every day. We are reading from the Book of Mormon Study Guide Start to Finish. I read a page out loud and mom reads a page out loud till we get to the end of the chapter. It’s the whole Book of Mormon with commentaries by General Authorities included with each chapter. ( That’s probably more than you wanted to know) So, today we were in 3rd Nephi chapter 6. The Nephits are in one of their forever cycles - faithfully looking to God, following the Prophets, becoming prosperous and proud. The rich could afford education and the poor could not and were looked down upon. And finally hating the Prophets and killing them. Bruce R McConkie said: ”It is ironic many who refuse to submit to the will of the Father in Heaven will bow so submissively to the father of darkness.” Elder Maxwell said: “Mortality without the dimension of temptation or trial would not be full proving, it would be a school of soft credits...

This I found in a newspaper years ago, I have been good about retaining things I like but not so good about keeping who wrote them. It might have been Dear Abby. These are grandparents from a child’s view. They are full of the kind of warmth and love only a child can have. 1- Grand parents are a lady and a man who have no children of their own, they like other peoples. 2- A grandfather is a man and a grandmother is a lady. 3- Grandparents don’t have to do anything except be there when we come to see them. They are so old, they shouldn’t play hard or run. It is good if they drive us to the shops and give us money. 4- When they take us for walks, they slow down past things like pretty leaves and caterpillars. 5- They show us and talk to us about the colors of the flowers and why we shouldn’t step on “cracks”. 6- They don’t say “hurry up”. 7- Usually, grandmothers are fat but not too fat to tie your shoes. 8- They wear glasses and wear funny underwear. 9- They take their teeth and gums ou...

Our radio was a Zenith that sat on our kitchen counter. There was a Saturday morning program that always started at 9:00 called Let’s Pretend. It was my favorite program when I was little, I believe it was those stories that helped me develop my imagination. As I grew older I became addicted to cowboy shows, Gene Autry, Roy Roger’s, Tom Mix, the Lone Ranger, the Cisco Kid and Hopalong Cassidy. I listened to their programs while helping milk the cows, after supper and any other time I could Back to let’s pretend, I happened to turn the radio a little before 9:00 one Saturday. and heard the end of the program beforehand sign off and heard the most beautiful song ever. Kate Smith was singing America the Beautiful and after it was over I asked mom the name of that song. She told me the name and said they always signed off with that song. After that I always tuned in early so I could hear that song, I truly loved that song. I have always thought that song should be our National Anthem. Mov...

In Leslie where I grew up we had a Mexican family whose 2 kids (brother and sister) came to our high school. They were very different from the rest of us in many ways. Some of the kids didn’t treat them very kindly and others just ignored them. They were behind me a grade so I didn’t interact much with them although I felt bad for them for the way they were treated. Dad had a swamp at the back of the farm that he had drained with a ditch to a small creek so he had 2 fields back there of dark rich dirt. The Mexican family rented one to plant sugar beets on shares (Dad would get 1/3 of the profits). Dad and I had a conversation about how they were treated in school and he said, “don’t judge someone because of where they came from and who you know nothing about”. So sometimes when I wasn’t busy I went back to work with them and they were hard workers, the whole family, they put me to shame. But they were really friendly and seemed to tolerate my inability to keep up. I became close friend...

We just passed our 63rd anniversary and I sit here thinking about our life together. We had help finding each other. How else would a Michigan farm boy serving in the Army, in Korea be put in a place to meet the girl Heavenly Father prepared for him. Returning from Korea I was destined for 5th Army Headquarters near Chicago, close to home. When the orders were cut the 5 was replaced with a 6. Sixth Army headquarters was on the Presidio of San Francisco. Recently moved to San Francisco from Mesa Arizona was a beautiful young lady whom I was destined to meet. Exiting a movie theater my friend saw two girls ahead of us and said he would like to meet the one in the green skirt. I was friends with the other one so we stopped to talk to them. We went with them to a pizza place and then took them home, and there I saw her. She was beautiful. I immediately felt drawn to her. My heart thrilled. I couldn’t stop looking at her. I felt like I found someone I knew but had lost track of, I knew her....

I grew up on a 380 acre farm in Michigan near the little town of Leslie. As a boy on the farm my life revolved around the process, sowing the seeds with faith in the future The planting season starts in the Fall with preparation of the soil and planting the wheat after the first frost because the first frost kills a fly that lays it’s eggs in the young wheat stem and destroys the crop. The wheat grows to about 3 or 4 inches and is covered with a blanket of snow to wait till spring. In the spring we prepare the next field for oats. The smell of freshly turned earth is so good in the spring. Oats are planted in early May. Next the corn is planted in late May to early June. In June the hay field is ready to cut. The smell of new mown hay is sweet and to this day if I am driving by a field of hay that has just been cut I will roll down the windows to smell that sweet field of hay. Near the end of July the oats are ready for harvest and put in the oat bin. The wheat comes next. When the so...