1 A Father's Day regret

When I was a young man, about a month before I left for my mission, I received the Melchizedek Priesthood and was ordained an elder. When he interviewed me, my stake president had probably said something about the ordination needing to be done under the direction of the stake presidency. What my untrained youthful ears heard was that it had to be done by a member of the stake presidency.

The second counselor in our stake presidency, David G. Hurren, lived in our ward and was a man I greatly admired. His wife had been my early-morning seminary teacher the year I was a freshman. She had also been my piano and organ teacher. They lived just a mile or so east of where we lived. So I asked President Hurren to ordain me. No one said a word otherwise. So, one evening late in the summer of 1968, I drove over to his house to be ordained.

I went alone. No father and mother. No other family member. Just me.

Later, sometime while I was serving as a missionary, it dawned on me that I could have asked my father, himself a Melchizedek Priesthood holder, to have given me the higher priesthood. For years that missed opportunity deeply bothered me. It was a genuine regret.

Yes, he had confirmed me a member of the Church and given me the Holy Ghost when I turned eight. And yes, he had ordained me to the Aaronic Priesthood offices of deacon, teacher, and priest when I was a boy. But I had missed the opportunity of a lifetime, and though my ordination was valid and the authority I had been given was genuine, by right it should have come through my father.

My story did have a happy ending finally. Some seventeen years later, in the summer of 1985, I was called to serve in a bishopric. A little over three years before his death, Dad joined us here in Bountiful when I was sustained. It was a happy moment for him. Just before the counselor in the stake presidency set me apart as a counselor in the bishopric, my father ordained me a high priest. I was honored this time to have been able to invite him to lay his hands on my head and to be voice for the ordination. I felt like a great wrong had been righted. And I was at peace.

I had come eventually to what Father Abraham described millennia ago when he wrote, "And, finding there was greater happiness and peace and rest for me, I sought for the blessings of the fathers, and the right whereunto I should be ordained to administer the same; having been myself a follower of righteousness, desiring also to be one who possessed great knowledge, and to be a greater follower of righteousness, and to possess a greater knowledge, and to be a father of many nations, a prince of peace, and desiring to receive instructions, and to keep the commandments of God, I became a rightful heir, a High Priest, holding the right belonging to the fathers" (Abraham 1:2).

This coming Sunday is Father's Day. With this little recollection I have shared, I honor my own father, who has been gone now for more than a score of years. And I wish the very best to all you fathers out there in our family today.