Who Are These Guys?

1.  Winchester Cathedral by The New Vaudeville Band

2.  I'm A Believer by The Monkees

3.  Kind of a Drag by The Buckinghams

4.  Penny Lane by The Beatles

5.  Happy Together by The Turtles

6.  Georgy Girl by The Seekers

7.  Windy by The Association

8.  Groovin' by The Young Rascals

9.  Light My Fire by The Doors

10. Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye by Casinos & The Casinos

11. To Sir With Love by Lulu

12. The Letter by The Box Tops

13. Can't Take My Eyes Off You by Frankie Valli

14. Never My Love by The Association

As soon as I got home from the hospital I knew something was different.  Call it intuition or that uncanny ability that children have for discernment.  Such as - to be able to hear "ice cream" but never hear "pick up your toys."  In any case, my home had changed.  Not physically, but emotionally and spiritually.  And it was almost tangible.

We had been members of the Evangelical United Brethren church, whose meetinghouse was right across the street from our house on Main Street in Clarendon.  I was friends with Pastor Swift's daughter, Janet.  It was a darling little church with stained glass windows and smelled of Murphy's Oil Soap and all things old. I loved Christmas time here because of how beautiful and magical the chapel was with all the candles lit and the organ music.  There was always a pageant and then they handed out little folded cardboard boxes of hard candies to the kids.  

The regular sermon service was held upstairs and then the kids would go downstairs for Sunday School.  I can still picture the room where I met for my classes.  I would also take piano lessons there someday.  I remember a woman who would sit in there and do hand-piece work for quilts.  Odd what sticks in your mind.  I don't know what her job was but she sat in there with us children and the teacher and did her piece work.  If you got up to some mischief she would stop her work and give you this "look" and let us know that Jesus was watching us and keeping track of all our misdeeds.  In my little girl mind I could just picture Him up there with a huge tome with my name printed across the front and on the spine.  He'd see me do one of the million wrong things that I always seemed to be doing and shake His head, give me a stern look, open my book, take a pen and make yet another mark against me.  Jesus did this alot in my mind.  I was pretty sure I was going to have some pretty big explaining to do.  Not only was He watching me, but this woman was sure to give Him a heads up if He happened to miss something.  It wasn't always fun down there in Sunday School.

My father taught Sunday School and was well-liked.  He was a true people person and could strike up a conversation with anyone.  Shortly before going into the hospital I remember Pastor Swift telling my father what a good job he was doing with the lessons and how he'd presented a different approach to a scriptural topic which he'd found fascinating.  All was well at the EUB church - or so I had supposed.

It ends up that my paternal grandparents, Charles and Gertrude Alspaugh, had recently converted to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  They lived out in Baker, Oregon.  My Aunt Mary had also converted.  They wanted to share their new beliefs with my father and sent him all sorts of literature - pamphlets, books, magazines.  My dad, being a voracious reader, read it all and liked what he read.  He started realizing that so much of this new material would go well with his Sunday School lessons at the EUB so he slowly started using passages and thoughts from books like "A Marvelous Work and A Wonder" in his lessons.  These were the "approaches" which Pastor Swift found so enlightening!  My father didn't share right away where the material was coming from as he was still deciding in his mind about whether this was a direction he should go or not.  But, eventually, when he knew that what he was reading was true, he did inform the pastor as to the source of his new enlightenment.  Needless to say, Pastor Swift was not amused.  

This studying phase had been going on for almost a year before when I went into the hospital for my surgery.  While I was in the hospital the missionaries started coming to the house and my family started taking the discussions.  My father had done so much studying on his own and he had lots of questions for the young men, Elder Stanley Miller and Elder Kerry Law.  To accept the gospel meant some big life changes for them.  My father was pretty much a chain smoker - he even coiled the leftover string on the end of his guitar and fashioned it into a cigarette holder while playing a job.  The bands that my parents played in meant every weekend was spent in bars and nightclubs where smoking and drinking was par for the course.  That whole scene was a big part of their life.  Just how much were they going to have to give up in order to join this new church? And was it worth it?  Ultimately, he had developed a testimony that what he had been reading was true and he knew that the path down which it would lead our family was the one we should take.  He quit smoking cold turkey if my memory serves me correct.  He also gave up the alcohol and coffee.  My mom didn't smoke, if my memory serves me correct, but she also gave up the coffee and tea and alcohol.  My whole family had made the decision to be baptized and, as all were of age, that's exactly what they did - and this came to pass right before I was to come home.

The missionaries were a fixture in our home now.  I didn't know who they were but I knew I liked the new feeling in our home and I really liked these new guys.  They brought laughter and good times.  Everything about them was for the good.  They joked with my brothers and teased and played with me.  They were wonderful!  Elders Miller and Law were the ones to baptize my parents and brothers.  I was only six so I would have to wait a couple years to be baptized.  

Our new church was far away up in Jamestown, New York.  Quite a change from walking across the street! But we soon learned that there were other members closer to us and we became fast friends with them - the McNutt family lived just a couple miles up the road in Stoneham and the Mortenson's lived in Sugar Grove. There were others, too, but these families would become a big part of our lives.

As all new members learn, missionaries come and missionaries go.  We would be saying goodbye to Elder Law and meeting a new missionary named Elder Clayton Sharer.  I loved Elder Sharer.  And, to this day, hope to see him again someday hereafter.  He was a good singer and loved to sing, which worked well with our musical family.  He would serenade me with his renditions of Hey There, Georgy Girl and Windy.  He also would sing Can't Take My Eyes Off You and I would giggle tee-hee!  At what age do we girls begin to develop crushes?  It seems sort of young to me but I KNOW I had a crush on Elder Sharer!  He must have had little sisters or something because he always knew how to talk to me on my level.  I loved Elder Miller, too, and he was so good with telling us stories.  I remember once that, for some reason, we had gone up to Jamestown for a meeting of some sort and it was just my mother and us kids.  It was winter time and my mother had car problems.  We realized the missionaries lived fairly close so we trudged through the snow to their apartment to get some help.  I just remember that while help was being dispatched to our car, us kids were piled into one of the elder's beds to get warm and Elder Miller plopped himself down in the middle of us and started telling us stories.  It was warmth, it was love, it was Christ-like in every way and I feel so blessed to have had these particular missionaries around at such an impressionable time in my life.  I learned first hand about living the gospel from the missionaries that came and went during this time.  We would have Elders Miller and Law at crossroads in our lives in the next couple years, but those are other stories! Sadly, soon after he returned home from his mission we received a call from Elder Sharer's family telling us that he had been killed in a truck accident.  Our grief was acute, to be sure.  My little heart just broke.  I had so looked forward to seeing him when our family made our way out west to go to the temple for the first time.  Now our reunion would have to wait . . . 

The changes in our life were many.  I had always said my prayers at my bedside with my parents - "Now I lay me down to sleep . . ." - but now the prayers were to be more personal - a dialogue, if you will - not formula.  No more "God is great, God is good, and we thank Him for our food" - it was, again, praying to our Heavenly Father through Jesus Christ, His Son.  Church was not just a Sunday thing - it was an every day way of life.  My Sunday School teachers talked about Jesus and Heavenly Father as kind individuals who loved me and had done all they could to prepare a way for me to return to them.  The people at the new church were friendly and soon it felt like I had tons of aunts and uncles!  

Me in the parking lot of the Jamestown Branch

I remember the first Christmas with the missionaries and countless Christmases after that with many, many wonderful missionaries to follow.  I was then, am now, and will always be cognizant of the fact that the gospel had invited the Spirit of Christ into our home.  I felt it in the most real sense of the word and can't deny it no matter how frustrated I get sometimes.  I thank my parents for making this decision to lead our family this way.  It was the best thing possible for me.

This playlist reflects the songs which Elder Sharer sang to me and songs which were hits during this first year in the church.  It was good times, good memories, and good living.