Recorded and Transcribed March 2021
Cynde and I were quite active in Resurrection Parish in Rochester. She was the choir conductor and we did a lot of music and I sang in her choir. Apparently not quite–I could have done better. One of Cynde’s musical activities was serving as accompanist for singing lessons that Sue Ockey gave at the junior college. So Cynde set me up with singing lessons with Sue Ockey. So I went to a singing lesson every week for probably a year and a half. This [was the] early ’90’s.
I didn’t understand very much of any of this at the time, but the “Stake” based in Rochester was planning to perform Handel’s Messiah at Christmas time in 1993. Sue Ockey set me up with a position in the choir for Handel’s Messiah. So I went to rehearsals, two hours every Sunday night for 16 weeks or so. As I sat there among all those “Utah Mormons,” (no offense intended, you understand), I came to see how they took care of each other and that reminded me of a phrase in the Bible: “By their love, shall ye know them.” It was winter time and bad weather and the people that lived in Rochester would say to the people that drove from Viroqua, Wisconsin, 90 miles away: “The weather is bad; stay at our place tonight.” Things like that.
At some point I was sitting there in between the conductor spouting about diction or something and all of a sudden it hit me like a two-by-four on my head: What am I looking at? And I knew I was looking at a true church–not necessarily the only one because Catholicism insists that it is the only true church on earth today, but I knew what I saw.
I got through the performance real well. People loved it. We went from there right to rehearsal for Midnight Mass. Midnight Mass is a big deal–lots of wonderful music, all kinds of good music. Within a week or two we actually did Midnight Mass and for some reason it just seemed a little more hollow than it should have.
To shorten the story, the job I had, more or less, dictated you take your vacation in the winter, so Cynde wanted to go to Arizona to get warm. It was a bad winter, so we went to Arizona for a week. We got out of the car in the middle of February in Phoenix and we smelled the flowers and there were citrus trees growing in the street median. Come April, we were loaded in the moving truck on our way to Arizona.
After we got to Arizona and set up in a decent place to live, we started looking for a parish. We went to the local parish and there was a rock band and it just wasn’t right. We went to another parish and there was the jazz combo and it didn’t seem right. We finally discovered the reactionary underground parish where they still sang Gregorian chant and said mass in Latin. That was really great except they still wanted me to go to confession to the priest and I always hated that, so we more or less stopped going to church.
About a year later, our car broke down and we found a place that knew how to fix it in Mesa, right near the temple grounds. It was a hot day–you know, 100 degrees or something. We needed a drink of water and there looked like this nice public place–you know, gardens around it and whatever. I kind of knew what it was from Sue Ockey’s description. After some hesitation, we went inside. We got our drink of water and heard the spiel. We saw the statue of Christ and kind of explored [around] because it was cool in there. Of course, you can’t get out of there without signing the cards. The card grants permission for the missionaries to come and talk to you.
At some point a couple of missionary boys came to talk to us and visit us. Okay, fine. It was kind of haphazard missionary visits–seldom the same two for two times in a row. They talked about Jesus Christ. Fine–I knew all of that. I had a good religious education. I knew all that stuff. What I wanted to know was where do we go to attend your church. Well, the missionaries couldn’t tell me where to go to attend their church. And I thought well okay, forget that.
Eventually, the same missionaries came and were teaching Cynde because she had a different schedule than I did. She was soon ready to get baptized. We were in the car on the way to get baptized and all of a sudden, I didn’t want to get left behind. So I got baptized [at] the same time as Cynde did. This was the end of June 1996 in the Tempe 3rd Ward in Tempe, Arizona.
We went to the temple together one year and one day later. We were sealed in the Mesa Temple. Sue Ockey was Cynde’s guide through the temple
We attended the Tempe 3rd Ward for four years and then for whatever reason, we moved to Mesa, Arizona–6 or 7 miles east. The ward we were assigned to was the Heritage Ward, where we attended for about four years and that dissolved. Then we were assigned to the Mesa 25th ward. Eventually we moved to Canyon City, Colorado, and the Canyon First Ward. Then we moved back to Minnesota and we were assigned to the Kasson Branch. And here we are.