North Dakota was the time I was probably closest to the church as I have ever been. For nine months, just before we left, I served as the Branch President of the Langdon branch. That was a unique experience. Karen was the Relief Society president during part or all of that time, too. You never get to know people as well as you do when you lead them in church. My fondest moment during that time was when I went to a Stake (or maybe it was a District) conference in Fargo and Elder A. Theodore Tuttle of the Seventy came to the meeting to address the Stake. I got to sit in a Bishop’s meeting with him and the other Bishops of the Stake and we just sat around in a room in a bunch of soft chairs. It was like he was in our living room. He just sat there and taught us. It was a very spiritual moment in my life.
I had a counselor named Jerry Stroup. I only had one. We were too small to have two. Jerry had married a gal from Vietnam that he had met during the war. It was fun to listen to stories of how he got married and the Vietnamese customs that he had to go through to get it done. His wife’s name was Na and she was a great cook. Jerry and I were good friends and he was a great counselor. At some point several years later, we came to Salt Lake for Education Week and visited the Stroup’s in Brigham City. She had opened a Vietnamese restaurant up there and we had a good meal. I think that was the last time I saw him and I have no idea where he is today. It would be wonderful to find out.
A couple of memories I have of being Branch President were one time I had to go visit a guy who was a member, but made a habit of beating up his wife every now and then. One night, she had taken all she could and called the cops on him. So, I had to go down to the local jail and talk to him. He wanted me to use church funds to bail him out, but, of course, I couldn’t do that. Jerry went with me and we talked with him and tried to get him into a program that would help the family. I don’t think they made it, though. I left the area before it was resolved, but I think later, they did divorce.
Another thing I remember was, we had a sister whose husband wasn’t a member of the church. We wanted to call her to a job in the Relief Society. I told Jerry, we need to talk to the husband and get his OK to call her. This was a job that took some time and took the sister away from the home occasionally. I wanted to make sure, he was OK with it. So, Jerry and I went to the house and talked to him and asked his permission to call his wife to the position. He not only gave his permission, but he said he and the wife had been married for 20 years and she in the church the whole time and him not in the church. In all that time, this was the first time anyone had ever asked him for his permission to call his wife to something. We were great friends after that.
Dad