Earl R Olsen

Born 23 December 1915 in Emery to Raymond Peter Olsen and Eudean Worthington
Married Dixie Cook 3 October 1939 in Manti
Died August 2008 in Salt Lake City
Buried in Emery

1920 Census
1930 Census

The following is his autobiography.

I was born December 23, 1915, at Emery, Utah, the first child of Raymond Peter Olsen and Eudean Worthington Olsen. The house in which I was born still stands (1977). My great-grandmother was the midwife who attended my mother. Her name was Mary Eliza Allred Anderson. I was blessed April 2, 1916, by Bishop Alonzo Brinkerhoff.

My father left for a mission to the Northern States just prior to my fourth birthday. I can remember this time. We had a milk cow which we called “Old Roanie." Mother would sit on one side and I would sit on the other and milk her. I don’t suppose I got much milk. Shortly after Dad left, Mother took in two new school teachers. I can remember the day they arrived. Mother spent the whole day cooking and cleaning the house. These two fine people became lifelong friends of the family. They were Rosetta Boss, who later married Gerald L. Olsen and Alice Probst, who married Joseph Jorgenson. They stayed with us until Dad returned two years later.

I suppose, at least according to Mother’s account, I was not always the nice little boy she wanted me to be. I suppose I’m the only person who ever made friends with a skunk and played with it for several hours without smelling a thing. However, I still remember Mother meeting me halfway between the corral and the house and with the tips of her fingers stripping me to my birthday suit, and then setting fire to my clothes. All this time she was carrying on about the terrible smell. I never smelled a thing.

While Dad was on his mission, I liked to spend quite a bit of time over to Grandma Olsen’s. They lived across the street where Alonzo lives now. I remember playing on the hearth in front of the fireplace and listening to Grandma sing and tell stories. Naomi, my cousin, lived just across the street also. She and I spent many hours together playing and getting into trouble.

Each day during the winter Grandpa would go down town to Uncle Elmer’s garage and help him. One day I decided I wanted to follow him. He had ridden Old Kit down, a nice gentle bay mare. When I decided to go all that was left was “Old Jack," a very flighty high-strung stallion. I learned later that only Uncle Que had ever ridden him. I remember getting up in the manger and putting a work bridle on “Old Jack," then climbing on and starting down the street. I can still see Mother coming out of the house as I passed screaming at the top of her voice for me to stop, and following me all the way to Uncle Elmer’s garage where he and Grandpa took me off. I never lived that one down.

I remember when Dad returned from his mission, how strange it seemed to have a man in the house after spending two years with three women. However, the adjustment was soon made, and my Dad and I have been very close ever since.

On September 23, 1923, Grandma Worthington came to our home and was very busy doing many strange things and after a few hours she came and told me that I had a baby sister. On November 11, 1923, she was blessed by her father and given the name of Cleon.

On July 6, 1924, I was baptized in the old swimming pool, by Gerald L. Olsen. I was confirmed a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by my father, Raymond P. Olsen on the same day.

These were good times. Dad was now renting farms out on Quitchumpah, and I was his constant companion. We would move out to the farm about the first of March, and would not move back to town until late November. This meant that I had to ride “Ole Tiny” back and forth to school. Then, when school was out I had to herd cows up in the hills above the farms.

We had a very good culinary water system out to Quitchumpah. There was a wooden barrel up by the canal for drinking water, a stream running in front of the house for other purposes. In the spring and during stormy seasons, the water would be so muddy that you could almost cut it with a knife. We didn’t mind though, in fact we didn’t know any better. I still remember the bed I slept on out there. Dad made a wooden frame out of 2x6 lumber and covered the bottom of it with net wire and then we went down to the straw stack and filled the “straw tick” full of good clean straw. That was my mattress. We always slept in a tent in the summer out under the trees. Those were great times though.

It was then and there that I learned to work, learned to assume responsibility, learned to respect those about me. In speaking to or about anyone older than myself, I was taught to either say Mr., Mrs., or Brother or Sister so and so. Never was I permitted to talk back or ridicule my elders. These virtues and others, I feel have been a blessing to me through out my life.

In those days if we wanted to go somewhere, we either saddled a horse, hitched up a team, or we walked. What a thrill it was when I was 14 because Dad bought a “Model T” Ford. There were no bridges. I can remember crossing some of the larger ditches when there would be two heavy planks that we would lay across the ditch, one for each wheel. Then, one of us would get out in front and guide Dad as he drove across. After crossing, we would remove them because the next ones along would probably be in a wagon or buggy. Little did I realize at that time, that I would live to see and ride airplanes, and other modern and comfortable means of transportation on super highways and freeways.

It was that time that I developed a love for the land and for livestock. I remember Dad gave me ten acres of land down in the lower field on Quitchumpah. No water, just the land. How proud I was and how hard I worked. I acquired a few calves at that time. Dad had a few cattle permitted on the Forest, and oh how we tried to get more. Little did I realize at that time that the day would come when I would own most of the land on Quitchumpah plus much more elsewhere, own also the largest block of water in the Canal Company, and also the largest permit for cattle on the Forrest and the B.L.M. in the Emery area. The Lord was very patient and good to me at that time as He has been ever since.

School and its related studies always seemed quite easy for me. I feel this is partly because I had such great teachers, Hessie Bunderson, Ada Smith, Helen Larsen, Iola Jensen, Joe Bunderson, Clark Frie, and the list goes on and on.

I also had many wonderful spiritual leaders to help me, my parents and my grandparents. I believe Grandma Worthington was the best story teller that ever lived. Grandpa Olsen (James Peter) was in the bishopric and he was a spiritual giant to all the people in Emery. There was also Bishop Gerald L. Olsen, a man who more than anyone else perhaps helped me through a difficult time in my life. It seems I always knew that the gospel was true, but notwithstanding this, I did many things in my youth that I am not very proud of now.

I had an experience as a young lad that I would like to relate. The ward took a group of us kids to the Manti Temple to do baptism for the dead. We were doing a list of German names, and we kids were getting quite a kick out of some of them. But all at once, the name of Uhlric Abderhulden came along, and for some reason that was different. I can remember nothing about any other name, but I have never forgotten him. I honestly believe that some day I shall meet him, and he shall be grateful for what I did for him.

During my youth, I was privileged to be a Deacons’ Quorum President, a Teachers’ Quorum President and Secretary to the Priest Quorum. And, in later years to be an Elders’ Quorum President, Seventies’ President, and First Counselor to the President of the High Priest Quorum.

I remember how in my early youth we traveled from town to Quitchumpah either in a wagon, buggy, or in the winter a sleigh. In the winter we would heat rocks in the oven and put them at our feet, also because we would have no heat in the house at night, we would sometimes put a hot rock or flat iron in the foot of the bed. Oh, how nice that would feel. But, in the morning when you awoke, it would be ice cold again. Regarding heat, in those days all we had was wood. Dad would spend almost all winter hauling wood from the nearby hills to have enough to keep us warm in the winter and to cook with during the summer.

We had no electricity in those days, hence no refrigeration. We would have in the summer what we called a cooler, a box about three feet high and two feet deep, covered with screen wire and burlap. We would put a five-gallon can on top with a small hole in one corner of the can and fill it with water and it would soak the burlap and as the water evaporated, it cooled the box in which we had out milk and other perishables.

Dad would butcher and cure with brine several pigs each winter. After the ham shoulders were cured, we would put them in clean white socks and bury them in the wheat bin. Then as we needed meat, we would take one out. I might mention at this point that it was a tradition of the Olsen family which started with my great Grandfather, that we have a full bin of wheat on hand at all times. This we adhered to faithfully, and when I sold the property in 1977, the bin was still full. When we left for Nigeria, however, we felt it best to sell the wheat.

We had other ways of coping before we had electricity or refrigeration. In the summer, the town had what they called a “beef trust.” Each week they would kill a beef and each member of the trust received a cut of the beef. During the course of the summer, each member had to contribute a beef to the trust. It was supposed to be so that each member of the trust got each of the different cuts of beef during the course of the summer.

They also in later years had a mutton trust, four families would join together and kill a mutton each week. Each family would get a quarter of the mutton a week. Menus were very simple in those days, meat and potatoes and gravy. In the summer, we ate vegetables from the garden and nearly always bread and milk for supper. Quite often during the summer the milk would sour and we would have clabber, quite good with a little sugar on top.

I failed to mention how we made the brine we used to cure the pork. We would put a No. 3 tub over an open fire and fill the tub with water and bring the water to a boil. Then we would add salt to the water until the solution become strong enough to float an egg on top of the water. Then we would pour the solution into a large wooden barrel, put the meat into the solution and leave it there for about two weeks or until the solution penetrated through the piece of meat. It would then keep indefinitely. I might mention also that we had little if any farm machinery. Every thing had to be done by hand. It was a long hard process, but we loved it.

I remember also at this time, as we would go to stake conferences in those days they would rotate them over the various wards of the stake, but I would listen with complete awe and would wonder as Lois P. Oveson, A. Richard Peterson, J. Frank Killion, Nephi Williams, and in later years, Eldon Luke, LaVar Black, Perry Snow, Frank Hall, Glen Bott, Rex Bunderson, and others spoke being members of the stake presidency. Never once thinking that some day I should be privileged to stand in those same places. As I said before, the Lord has been ever so kind to me.

I would like at this point, to interject something else about my life. I did not graduate from high school, and as a result, did not attend any institution of higher learning. I did not go on a mission as a young man. These were my decisions. I am sure that I could have done both if I had wanted to badly enough. But, I felt at the time that I had more important things to do. What a mistake. I have been playing catch up ever since, and I suppose this will not change much. My point is, for those of mine who might care to read this, do not fail to take advantage of every opportunity that comes to you. Especially in your youth. The school of hard knocks doesn’t issue diplomas because it never ends.

I failed to mention that when I was 15 years of age, Mother gave birth to a son. They named him Marvell Kent. He was a great joy to Mom and Dad. He was very considerate and loving at all times. At the age of 14 he passed away in his sleep. This was a hard time for my parents. It all happened so sudden. I never became very close to my brother, a fact that I have always regretted.

When I was about 13 years old, we got electricity in Emery. How thrilling it was to be able to have a light when I went upstairs to bed. It wasn’t long after that, that the Ward obtained a movie machine and everybody in town would go to the show. They were silent at first and someone would sit and play the piano all during the show. When the action got faster they would play louder and faster, etc.

Dad was now in the bishopric of the ward. In those days, it took a lot of time; and as a result a lot of the work became mine and I enjoyed it. Finally we obtained a slightly used tractor. What a blessing that was, we could plow, cut hay, and do a million other things so much faster and better. But I have always said that if I could have a good team of horses for a few minutes to get acquainted; I could drive a straighter line with them than with a tractor I have always loved horses and could get from them about what I wanted.

These next few years were spent pretty much in farming in the summer; bailing hay and cutting posts in the winter, intermixed with a lot of foolish things that need no elaboration.

Finally in about 1936, I started to go to Wilberg Resort over by Castle Dale. It was an outdoor dance hall, and people came there from all over the state. They would hold dances once a week and on holidays during the summer. It was during this time when I met a young lady who ran a beauty shop in Castle Dale. We did a lot of fun things and a lot of foolish things. We were married on October 3, 1939, in the Manti Temple by President Robert Young. It snowed that day so we couldn’t get through Salina Canyon. We had to turn around and go back by Price. When we returned we arrived at home in Emery at 3 A.M. I left for work at 6 A.M. Short honeymoon.

I had purchased a house that was fully constructed, but only partly finished. We lived there for 38 years.

At the time we were married, I was working for Ham Duzzett on his ranch for $65 per month, which was a very good job for those days. Dixie was making much more than that with her business. But we decided that she should quit work and stay home, a decision which we never regretted even though there were many times when we had not enough for the next meal. We paid our tithes and our offerings on what we did get, and the Lord poured out his blessings upon us. We never had much, but somehow we always had enough. I worked in coal mines, rented farms, did anything that was available during those depression times.

On July 27, 1940, we were blessed with our first child, a boy. We named him Lee Ray. Dr. Duggins came to the house and Grandma Worthington was there also. Quite different from the way they do it today, but all went well; and what a blessing he was in our lives.

Time seemed to go much faster now, and on June 30, 1942, another little boy came to us. We named him Duane Earl. He was born on the kitchen table. By this time, I had been serving in the Elders Quorum Presidency and now I was asked to be an Assistant Ward Clerk to Bishop Byron C. Peacock.

We now had better employment at the Link Canyon Coal Mine, and could afford an old used Chevy pickup. We were finally in the upper class of things. About this time Clinton Anderson came and wanted to sell us the forty acres just east of our ten, so we bought it. We had also been able to purchase 17 head of cattle permit on the forest from Odell Mortenson. We owned all this in common with Dad and worked together each taking what his own produced.

I was also working in the coal mines steadily. About this time World War II broke out and the government needed coal miners in the Horse Creek Mine. This mine supplied coal for the Geneva Steel Plant in Orem, Utah. The mine was located in North Eastern Carbon County. We applied for and received a job. Now we were getting union wages, $9.20 per day. We were very fortunate. Gas was rationed, but because we had the farm in Emery we could get all the gas we wanted. I failed to mention that we now lived in Dragerton, Carbon County.

During the last part of January in 1944, Lee, Duane and myself came down with the mumps. Dixie was expecting to go to the hospital any day; and so Dad and Mother came up to help out. On February 7, 1944, Dad took Dixie to Price to the hospital, and out first little daughter was born. She was a doll and we were all so proud and happy. We named her Iris.

When Iris was about six months old, she became very sick. We took her to Dr. Columbo and he said she had spinal meningitis. He quarantined us all. He did, however, allow me to go to work if I would stay in the boarding house away from the family. I stayed one night and never did go back. That night I felt something crawling on me. I turned on the light and I was literally covered with bed bugs. The ceiling and everywhere you looked there were bed bugs. But, to get back to our little Iris, the new drug penicillin had just been developed. And, because we lived in a defense camp, Dr. Columbo had some. He told us if we had been any other place in the state at that time we would have lost Iris, but the new drug saved her.

Fifteen months after Iris was born, we made another trip to the hospital, this time we had a new hospital in Dragerton. There our third son was born on April 19, 1945. We called him Kenneth William. Dixie was now very busy taking care of this lovely family, and shortly after this we moved back home to Emery where I went to work in the mines there and helped on the farm on the side.

On January 18, 1948, we made another rushed trip to the hospital, this time to Price. There our fourth son was born. We named him Vern Dixon. When he was about two years old, he too became very sick. It was determined that he had rheumatic fever, a problem that he still has to deal with. I can still see his frail little body as he tried to do things that others did.

Shortly after this our second daughter was born on January 26, 1951. We named her Earlene. She too was plagued with a very serious problem, and we almost lost her when she was only a few weeks old.

We now had bought the Broderick Place on Quitchumpah, also Uncle Elmer’s part of the lower field. So, now we were pretty heavily involved in farming as well as mining. But Lee and Duane were now big enough to help with a lot of things.

About this time I was called to be a member of the Stake High Council. I had been serving for a time before this as a President of the 149th Quorum of Seventy. I served on the High Council for 12 years. This was a glorious experience. I became acquainted with almost all of the people in the stake. I also became very close to the stake presidency. I was almost like a third counselor, for which I am very grateful.

During this time the children grew up and went to school. Kenneth, Iris and Vern went on missions. Lee got married to Sharon McClintock, a lovely girl who was divorced and had two small children, a boy Steven and a girl Tonya. Lee adopted these two children and bought a home in Winnemucca, Nevada.

The Vietnam War broke out and Duane went to Vietnam. I remember we were afraid to watch the accounts of the war on T.V. for fear of seeing him in some tragic way, but he returned home safely and went to work in New Mexico where he met and married Tina Valdez.

Kenneth also was drafted in the Vietnam conflict, but was later released because of medical problems.

Now in the early part of 1968 Lee became quite sick, and they brought him to Salt Lake City where we were told that he had Hodgkin’s Disease. It had progressed so far that we were told that there was no hope for him. This was a terrible blow. Lee had just baptized Sharon and the two kiddies. Also I failed to mention a beautiful little girl whom they named Linda Lee had been born to them five years earlier. But they were all waiting for the time to come when they could go to the temple and be sealed as a family for time and all eternity. But it was not to be. On April 8, 1968, Lee left us. I don’t suppose one can understand or even imagine the thoughts that go through the minds of parents and grandparents and all the family members at times like this, except if they experience it for themselves. Certainly we thought Lee had a great missionary work to do here, but the Lord willed otherwise. As I write this in 1985, Steven and Tonya are married and each have two lovely children. Linda is here in Salt Lake City, in her last year at the University of Utah. She is a great student and a delight to be around.

Shortly after Lee’s death, I was called to be first counselor to Roger Curtis, the new president of the Emery Stake. This association lasted a little over nine years. What a blessing to be counted worthy of such a trust. This calling required much time, and we were now involved very heavily with the farms and cattle. The boys had all left. Iris, Kenneth and Earlene had married. Vern would come home and help us brand the calves and assist when he could, but those times became fewer and farther between. So, Dixie and Grandpa and I did it all. If I needed some help Dixie was always ready and willing even if she had to hurry to Price, Richfield, or wherever she had to go.

I had now retired form the coal mines, having suffered an injury which required delicate surgery on my neck. I was advised to quit work altogether, but we stayed with the farm. Notwithstanding all this, I can truthfully say that there was never a meeting called in those nine years that I could not attend because of my work. I know that if you will pursue the work of the Lord honestly and faithfully, He will prepare the way.

We had now obtained more land, water, cattle and permits on the range, until we now had the largest holdings in the Emery area. Our land was producing better than any of our neighbors, everything was looking so well for us. But, one day a feeling came over me, which suggested that we sell out and leave. This was very unusual, because up to this time everything had indicated that we stay. We were out of debt and really doing fine. I talked to Dixie about this, and oddly enough she had the same feelings.

I was now, and had been for some time, the President of the Irrigation Company and was working very hard on a storage project for the company. But, the feeling persisted, so we put the whole thing up for sale: home, land, water, cattle, etc.

One day Dave Horne, the owner of a construction firm in Salt Lake City came to inquire about some water stock he had bought. I told him about the stock and asked him if he wanted more land, cattle and water. He said “Yes”. He looked over our holdings and liked what he saw and we proceeded to make a deal.

September 14, 1992
I hope the Lord will forgive me for procrastinating so long. I have been busy, but that is no excuse.

To continue with the deal which we made with Dave Horne, he was very good to us. He gave us much more for our property than it was worth at that time.

We signed the papers on March 11, 1977. We sold everything, but 26 shares of water, the west forty and a few acres where the old Homestead house stood, plus two lots in town; also, Skeeter my horse and Shag our dog.

Dave wanted me to work for him for awhile to help him get started. I was still in the stake presidency and president of the irrigation company, so we went to work for him. This lasted until we received a call to serve as Ordinance Workers in the Manti Temple.

We accepted the call and moved to Manti on August 1, 1977, into a one-bedroom trailer. I still was serving as Counselor in the Stake Presidency and president of the irrigation company. I was released from the stake in October and from the irrigation company when we went to Nigeria.

Now a little bit about the deal and the move. It wasn’t easy to move from a five-bedroom house into a little one-bedroom trailer. It was especially hard on Dixie. Concerning the deal, we took as much cash as we dared, so the I.R.S. wouldn’t take it all. Then we traded for properties all over Salt Lake and Davis Counties for the balance.

We bought unit 808 in Canyon Road Towers. There were no larger units available. Later #1101 became available. We bought it and sold 808. #1101 has been our home ever since. Vern was working in Salt Lake City at the time and he moved into 808 and became a “slum landlord” taking care of all these properties. Eventually we sold them all at a nice profit and the income from these sales has been our support since.

February 15, 1995
“He that is commanded in all things is a slothful and unwise servant and shall not be counted worthy to stand.” I certainly fit into this category.

May I update the family situation. Iris divorced Clinton Merrell, and in 1984 married Ken Heaton.

We now have 19 grandchildren and 21 great grandchildren.

I mentioned earlier about being called to the Manti temple. This was a glorious experience. We learned all the dialogue in six months and had many wonderful spiritual experiences. We obtained a whole host of wonderful new friends, but we still felt that the Lord had something for us to do somewhere else.

So after 14 months we moved to Salt Lake City, and began working in the Salt Lake Temple. Here again we made a host of new friends and had many glorious experiences.

On January 19, 1980, we received a call to serve a mission in West Africa, Nigeria and Ghana. On February 18, we were in Lagos, Nigeria. We were called by the International Mission. Elder Carlos Asay was the President. When he set me apart, he gave me authority to do anything that in my judgement I felt needed to be done.

I suppose in retrospect this mission was perhaps the most spiritual experience of our lives. We found that in order to do what needed to be done that we had to have help, and in order to get that help we had to seek the Lord in humble prayer. One cannot fully explain some things; one must experience them. Here again, we made many more beautiful friends.

While we were there, they organized the area into a mission and sent a mission president over. I became his assistant and driver. When we first arrived, I knew I could never drive in that country, but I soon had to change my mind; and I was able to drive anywhere anyone needed to go.

September 9, 2002.
D&C 107-100. He that is slothful . . .

To continue the Nigeria story. The first morning the mission president arrived, he began telling me what he planned to do. Having been there for a while, I felt that it would be impossible for him to do what he had planned. He began raving and called me everything but good. In fact, I have never been scolded so badly in all my life. But, how quickly things can change. He soon found out that I was right; and I have never met him since we returned home, but what he puts his face right up against mine generally with tears in his eyes, and says, “I could never have done it without you.”

May I say that the people of West Africa knew many years before the revelation on June 1978 that the gospel was true and that they someday would be given all the blessings it holds. Case in point. Anthony Abinnah was a school teacher. One night Anthony had a dream that disturbed him very much. In his dream he saw the most beautiful building a man could ever imagine. He could not forget it. One day he was at the book store, he picked up a Readers Digest and in the center fold someone had written a story about the church. Just above the heading was a picture of the Salt Lake Temple about two inches tall. Anthony said there is my building. He said I saw it in every detail. He wrote to church headquarters in Salt Lake City, and they sent him books of Mormon and old Improvement Eras from which he taught his family.

One day I was down to Anthony’s little church. He reached into a little drawer in his desk and pulled out an old dusty Readers’ Digest dated July, 1951. There in the center fold was the story and the picture of the Salt Lake Temple. Anthony had been teaching his family the gospel all this time. When the first missionaries arrived in Nigeria, Anthony was the first Nigerian to be baptized. When we returned from West Africa we brought with us two fine young men from Ghana. They were the first missionaries to serve from that area. They stayed with us for eight days. We took them to Mr. Macs and fitted them out with suits, shoes, ties, shirts, and everything they would need for their mission; then took them to Provo to the Missionary Training Center. They were Samuel Bainson and Crosby Samson Davis.

Sam and his lovely family now live in the Salt Lake Valley. The children all call us Grandpa and Grandma. After returning from Africa, we went back to the Salt Lake Temple as Ordinance Workers. In April, 1983, we were called to go to Atlanta Georgia and train local people to work in the new temple that was being built there. I was given the sealing power under the hands of Gordon B. Hinckley who was First Counselor to President Benson at that time.

Dixie and I were privileged to take the first session through the new Atlanta Temple. Here again, we made many wonderful friends.

After returning from Atlanta, we again became ordinance workers in the Salt Lake Temple. We had the added responsibility of Dixie becoming a shift supervisor and I was called as an Assistant Supervisor in the Sealing Office. This in addition to being ordinance workers and my being a sealer on other days.

During this time, I served as Sunday School President with Vern and Dale Hicken as my
Counselors. I served on two high councils, one in the old Ensign Stake and when the new Eagle Gate Stake was organized, I was the first high counselor called. Dixie served in the Presidency of two Relief Societies.

July 14, 2003.
Shortly after I received the call to serve in the new Eagle Gate Stake, I received a phone call while serving in the temple from the office of the First Presidency, “Would I bring Dixie and come to their office.” There we were greeted by President Gordon B. Hinckley. He began by talking about Nigeria,. We knew they were looking for a couple to go there, then after some discussion he said, “We’re going to send you back home. You have been called to serve as President and Matron of the Manti Temple.” Here again, words cannot express how we felt. Never in our fondest dreams had we even thought of such a wonderful opportunity. In retrospect, we now see why we were prompted to sell the ranch and move on. Had we stayed in Emery, we would not have had all these wonderful blessings. In fact, now I can see the hand of
the Lord in all that we do.

To continue with the call, David A. Burton, who is now President of the Eagle Gate Stake was a sealer in the Salt Lake Temple at the time we received the call. He and I had become acquainted as I was working in the Sealing Office. His father Alma P., Burton was serving as the current President of the Manti Temple, and I was to replace him. I told David Burton about my call and he immediately went to the phone and called his father and introduced me. As I talked to President Burton, he invited us down to Manti to get acquainted. Words cannot describe how we felt as we rounded the bend just outside of Ephraim and that beautiful temple came into view–knowing that it and all that pertained to it had been entrusted to us for the next three years.

(September 1988-1991) It was during this time that we served in the Manti Temple that I was privileged to become a witness of the reality of the resurrection. I know that if a man die he shall yet live. I no longer have to take this fact on faith, I know. Lee came to me in the night vision. He walked up to me with his right hand extended. I clasped his hand and felt that it was real. Please read the 129 section of the Doctrine and Covenants for an explanation. I was privileged to witness other manifestations that told me that the work that goes on in the Temple is accepted by those on the other side of the veil.

Here again, we met many many wonderful people, who when we go back treat us as royalty. It is so beautiful.

Let me just mention one event that I was witness to in the Manti Temple. We had a group of young people doing baptisms. After they were finished and getting dressed this one little 12 year-old said, “Isn’t it neat, each person that you are baptized for appears in front of you.” He had been proxy for 15 people and he saw each one of them. He thought that happened to everyone. Surely this is the work of the Lord. There can be no question.

Three weeks before we were to be released from the Manti Temple, President Osborne of the Salt Lake Temple called me and ask if I would like my old job back as a supervisor in the sealing office. I told him I would be delighted, so I never missed a day in the transition. I was privileged to serve there until the last week in November, 2003. What a blessing, I have received letters and phone calls from many wonderful friends I made there.

In May of 1993, I was called to serve as a Branch President to a new Family History Branch. Dixie was to be the President of the Relief Society. Here again, we met so many wonderful people from all over the world. We served for nine years and three months in these callings.

Now as we approach our 88th and 87th years, we are home and visiting teachers and enjoying every minute of it.

There are two stories that have influenced my life very much, and maybe if I write these someone else may profit.

The first story is what I call my Pete and Charlie story:
Just a few weeks before Dad was to come home from his mission, I was out to Quitchumpa helping haul hay. The crew had gone home and Pete and Charlie and I were loading a load of hay for Charlie to take home for his pay. It was Saturday evening and it looked like it could rain any minute. When we got the load finished, those two great men paused at the back of the wagon and leaned on their forks for a minute to rest. Charlie said, “Pete if this were my hay I would haul it tomorrow.” Pete said, “No, tomorrow is the Sabbath, the Lord’s day. We will get it Monday. From my vantage point on top of that load of hay, as I looked toward the West as far as I could see was nothing but hay piles. I must admit, I wondered.

But, for some reason those words stuck with me, and the day would come when I would own all that Pete had and many times more. Never once was I tempted to haul hay on the Sabbath, “It’s the Lord’s day.”

I also watched those two great men during the following years. Charlie never could quite catch up. There was always something that had to be done on Sunday. Pete on the other hand, was in the bishopric for 26 years, involved in the church and the community and did much better in every way. These two great men were Charles Worthington and James Peter Olsen - my grandfathers. We never know who might be listening to what we say.

When my Olsen grandparents first moved to Emery, they spent the first winter in a corner of Rasmus Johnson’s grainary. (This is the same grandpa, Pete Olsen as is in the previous story.) Later they filed on a homestead and built a two-room log house on it. Grandpa had cleared about twenty acres, and dug a ditch to the canal by hand. It is about three miles long. It is still called the Pete Olsen ditch. As he was finishing this project, he received a call from the President of the Manti Temple to serve a two-year mission in the Manti Temple. Grandma was expecting a child in about a month. He asked if he could stay until the child was born before starting his mission. His request was granted. He turned the responsibility of caring for the family over to my Dad and his older brother Elmer. Grandpa Pete gathered up a few personal things in a sack and walked to Manti from Emery. It took him three days.

When he arrived in Manti, he had no money, no place to stay, or any way to sustain himself. He found a farmer who let him sleep on a couch on an outside porch and help him with the chores for his food. Grandpa went to work. When his two years were up, he gathered up his things up, put them in his sack and walked home. “Surely the Lord God will ask us to do nothing except he shall prepare the way for us to accomplish it.”

Throughout my entire life time this example has stood out before me in every thing I have been asked to do. While serving as President of the Manti Temple, I interviewed hundreds of people to serve in the Temple. I heard many excuses why people could not serve, and I always thought of my Grandpa. Now to those of mine who might read these things I have written concerning my life; let me say that I know that God lives, He is the father of our spirits, His beloved son is indeed the Savior and Redeemer of all mankind and His grace will save each one of us after all we can do. The gospel of Jesus Christ as explained in the Bible and the Book of Mormon is the only true church on the face of the earth today. Joseph Smith was and is a Prophet of God, as is also Gordon B. Hinckley a Prophet of God.