Many years ago I worked as a night stocker (sounds a little ominous, doesn’t it?) in an Albertson’s grocery store. I went to work at 10 or 11 p.m. and would get off the next morning at 6 a.m. I would re-stock the candy and nut aisle and operate the cash register for the shoppers who would come into the store at all hours of the night. When I worked in the grocery store, bar codes and scanners had not yet been invented.

I did a double-take as I looked through the May 2012 issue of “Smithsonian” magazine. I realized I was looking at a picture of the little school in Mexico where I received my high school diploma fifty years ago. I borrowed the magazine and, first chance I got, read the entire article. Some space was dedicated to the impact of the Mexican drug wars in the northern part of the country, then the article went on to give a little history of the settlement of the area by American members of the ...

When I became the principal of an alternative school (AEP) in a large school district, I found that drug abuse, gang activity, bullying, violence, sexual activity and disrespect toward legitimate authority were rampant in the campus student population. The disciplinary consequences were weak to the point of being laughable to the students.

It is customary in my church to hold “fast and testimony meeting” every first Sunday of the month. It is called fast meeting because church members fast two meals and donate what would have been the cost of those meals to the church for the care of the poor and needy and to provide humanitarian service throughout the world.

As area building supervisor in the 1960s, my father was responsible for the construction of a church building in the city of Hermosillo on the west coast of Mexico. The plans called for an unusual vaulted, reinforced concrete roof over the main part of the large building. He traveled frequently between our home in Mexico City and Hermosillo to check on the building’s progress.

I had an awful little secret in high school; one that caused me untold grief, guilt and embarrassment. In the early 60s in the small town in which I lived there was no television and even radio reception left something to be desired. The social life of the community revolved around the church and the school.

While doing missionary work in Uruguay, South America, my companion and I met a young man on the streets of Montevideo who expressed interest in our message. He gave us an address and suggested that we meet him there at a certain time the next day. At the appointed hour, we descended from an old city bus and stared up at the address we had been given—it was posted in bold numbers at the entrance to Montevideo’s principal cemetery!

While attending school at Brigham Young University I obtained employment as an Operating Room orderly at a local hospital. It was one of the most interesting jobs I have ever had. It was my privilege to pick up patients in their rooms and transport them to the OR and, after surgery, take them to Recovery and then back to their rooms.

We have purchased a lot of alfalfa hay from our friend Rudy Avila in El Paso. We go back to him for two reasons: one, he is a trusted friend, and two; we know we will get a quality product at a good price. Rudy doesn’t sell hay to the big guys.

One day at his elementary school my youngest brother, Dale, was hit in the shin with a baseball bat. It was painful but it didn’t warrant staying home from school the next day. But even with time, the pain didn’t go away. One day Dale was sent home from school in tears, the pain having become almost unbearable.

As a young man growing up in Mexico, I took advantage of every opportunity to travel around that beautiful country with my dad. I had read a lot about Mexico and its colorful history and I wanted to see the places and things about which I had read. On one occasion my dad and I had checked in to a motel in a Mexican town, the name of which I do not presently recall.

A shipwrecked mariner washed up on the shore of a deserted island, barely clinging to life. Upon recovering some of his strength, he managed to salvage a few things from the derelict ship and built a crude shelter to protect his scant belongings and for refuge from the elements. He prayed and prayed for rescue but it didn’t come.

On a recent trip to El Paso to purchase hay, I stood near some sheep pens with my old friend, Rudy Avila. Rudy comes as close as anyone I know to being one of those proverbial “horse whisperers.” I came to know his unusual abilities with those animals while boarding some horses with him a few years back.

It was almost 7 p.m. in Mexico City, 1968. One and a half hours earlier the winners of the 26 mile Olympic marathon had crossed the finish line. It had been a grueling hot day as the 7,000 foot altitude took its toll on all the athletes. The sky was beginning to darken and most of the stadium was empty.

When I was about eleven years old, my parents bought a lot in the mountains with the intent of building a cabin there some day. Shortly after buying it, Dad wanted to show the site to a friend; the only problem was that it was winter and the area lay under a four or five foot blanket of snow. I remember the difficulty of trying to forge a path from the gravel road to the cabin site.