Remembrance | James E. Faulconer | 1998

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James E. Faulconer explains the importance of remembering our covenants and our spiritual experiences.

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"I don’t know when children begin to remember, but I know that my earliest childhood memories are an important part of who I am even though I don’t have a good memory for things that I really should remember: people’s names, things that happened to me, important events. For example, I was 14 when I was baptized, but I remember only a few details of what happened, though I remember vividly some of the things surrounding my conversion. Perhaps it’s true that you don’t remember what doesn’t matter to you or what is painful, but I don’t think so. I remember relatively little about my childhood, but I know that it was a happy one. I remember relatively few details of when Janice and our sons and I lived in Pennsylvania while I went to graduate school, and that was one of the most important and happiest times of my life.

In spite of my poor memory, some memories stand out for me. One of my earliest is a game that my mother and I played together: she chewed gum and blew as large a bubble as possible, and I tried to break the bubble before she could suck it back into her mouth. I also remember the interior of my Grandfather Sammon’s car. It was dark and warm, and I especially remember the seat covering—gray, rough, and musty but pleasant smelling. Was it made of horsehair or wool? I don’t know, but once in a great while I smell the smell again, though I can never quite decide just what I am smelling. In new-car showrooms or dry-goods stores I often sniff the air, unsuccessfully searching for that smell.

I remember riding in the back of that car with my mother—my grandfather driving while she pointed at the telephone poles going by outside. I think she was counting them, and we pointed to animals in the fields: “Look, a horse” or “See the cow?”

These two shadows of memory come together in one vivid memory. While my father served in General MacArthur’s honor guard in Japan during the Korean War, my mother and I lived with and near my grandparents in central Missouri. I remember riding with my mother one afternoon, probably in the fall—my mother on the right and me in the middle of the backseat, and my grandfather in the front, driving. Mother blew an especially large bubble, and this time I won, exploding the bubble before she could pull it back. When it burst, it was all over her face and in her hair, and she laughed. But Grandpa didn’t laugh. I think he was probably afraid we would get gum on the upholstery of his car.

I also remember my first experience with death, though I didn’t know that was what it was. The house where my grandparents lived when I was young is gone now, torn down after both had passed away because it was dilapidated. I’m told that the large room in the northwest corner at the front of the house was the bedroom for my mother and me when we came back from Colorado after my father left for Japan, but it wasn’t until many years later that I remember being allowed in that room, a sitting room. In the early days its large double doors were kept closed, and I had to be quiet when around them. At that time my Aunt Betty, Uncle Ermon’s first wife, slept in the room behind those doors. In fact, she was confined there with tuberculosis—which I only learned when I was quite a bit older.

I remember nothing about Aunt Betty except being kept from her, but I remember standing in the front yard one day, north of the yard gate across from where the chicken coop was later built, watching Uncle Ermon carry a small woman wrapped in a light-colored blanket or quilt out to the car, her head on his right shoulder. My mother and grandmother stood watching from the porch. My grandfather got in the front seat to drive.

The memory ends there, but my mother says this must have happened when I was about two years old, perhaps on a visit, since by the time we returned to Missouri to wait for my father, my aunt was dead."

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[guardianangel]

That is a true example (well outlined) of how much we DO take for granted the Gospel blessings we have readily available.
While people in other areas are fasting and praying to even have missionaries come by, or have acceess to a meeting house, we sit around complaining about counterfeit issues.... Wow!😧
Anyway, good "reminder" talk
👏🏻👍🏻🙏🏼🤍🕊