This is the last
memo but some of you have asked for us to publish earlier ones so we will
attempt doing so. Hope you have enjoyed them as much as I have. Dad said these
would take us about 3 years beyond his death and he died April 1, 2009. He was
right! They’ve lasted 3 years & 4 months. So our dear father wrote memos
for us from Mom’s passing July 13, 2000 to July 1, 2012. That’s 12 years worth!
July 1, 2012
To: My Beloved Family
From: Dad, Grandpa etc. Richard M. Pratt
Re: Marriage
Just a year ago you received two
memos on marriage, but I feel an urgency to write one more on this so very
vital subject. When you receive this I will have had my 100th
birthday and will likely be in the Spirit world. But that is not important.
What is important is what have you done to make your marriage a happy one? Even
more than a happy one, but one that is so heavenly that you can’t imagine ever
living any other way. If I cannot be rejoined after this life with my
sweetheart then I would want to cease to exist, but that is not possible. So
without my wife what would my future be? The scriptures inform us that we will
be eternally separate and single. And that we will be the servants of those who
did secure to themselves, by the Law of God, their eternal marriage.
No other church or religion on
earth teaches this, why? Because they do not have the knowledge or the
authority to do so. Yet, I have friends, who are members of some other church,
who admit their church doesn’t teach it, but they believe it. And they usually
rationalize like this; “God is a God of love and because he loves us He will
not separate us. My answer to that is, yes he loves us, He loves us so much
that He has provided a law by which we can have eternal love, eternal romance,
eternal togetherness, eternal joy. And because God does everything by law, then
to try to bypass that law and do it our way will always bring failure, heartache
eternally and eternally be separated from He or she that we loved so deeply in
mortal life.
The scriptures say: Know the law
and the law shall make you free. They also say that to try and get in any
other way than by the door provided by our Lord is to be a thief and a criminal
and will be treated as such. So that couple, no matter how much they love each
other, and their children, must use the doorway provided or be treated as a
common thief.
My first romance or love came in my
senior year in High School. I was eighteen years old. We were the only Mormons
in the tiny town of Dryden, Washington. And I fell madly in love with a
beautiful, petite girl a year my junior and a junior in High School. She was
not only beautiful but also as virtuous and free of the sins of the world as a
person could be. My interest in Esther (Bently) soon became obvious to my
mother. She tried to cool my ardor by pointing out that a marriage outside the
law of God would end at the death of the first one to go. I believed her. But love
won out. One Sunday evening I went to Esther’s home determined to propose
marriage. I would figure out how to over come the hurdle of Eternal marriage
later. I might add that she attended church faithfully, I believe it was the
Presbyterian church. I stepped upon the porch and knocked on the door as
nervous as a cat on a hot tin roof.
The door opened. The light was dim.
She opened the door and couldn’t see me or recognize me until I spoke her name.
Whereupon she gave a little squeal of delight, threw her arms around my neck,
locked her fingers together, lifted her feet off the floor and literally hung
from my neck. Boy, what a welcome, but before I could say a thing, she loudly
announced, “I’m saved, I’m saved!”
“You’re what,” says I.
She replied, “I’m saved, I’m
saved!”
~ 2 ~
Now says I, “What in the devil are
you talking about?” I had never heard such a declaration before.
Why said she, “I went to the
mourner’s bench in church today and got Jesus in my heart and I’m saved.”
Says I, “sounds great, how long is
it going to last?”
She replied, “for the rest of my
life, I can do no wrong.”
Now she’s still hanging on my neck,
and a little picture (in my mind kind of like TV) came up in front of my eyes,
and in that picture I could see unsaved me with saved her in a home with the
usual problems of family life and inasmuch as she could do no wrong I would
have to take the blame for all our problems, my heart broke! I knew such a
marriage could not be happy. I reached up behind my neck and un did her
fingers, dropped her on the floor, and turned and ran into the dark, I didn’t
want her to see that I was weeping. My heart was broken.
She cried out, “Where are you
going?” and I blubbered back, “I’m going home and I’m never coming back.”
Selfish me, I never realized that I was breaking her heart too. Here she was
telling me something that to her and her beliefs was a wonderful spiritual
experience.
The next six weeks were pure hell.
I couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t think of anything but that beautiful
little girl. I lost ten pounds and didn’t really have any to lose. Mother got
so worried that she finally advised me, against her better judgement, to go
back and make up. But even with that encouragement I declined doing so.
Then a few days later I was driving
down the road and there she stood. I came to a screeching halt and invited her
for a drive. I think we were both elated. But after an hours visit, I wondered
what had happened ~ the magic was gone ~ I was no longer in love. And I believe
she felt the same way.
Esther married a man that was also
saved, I’ve always wondered who got blamed for what. But she died young, in her
thirties I think.
I learned a valuable lesson ~ One
does not fall in love. The ability to love is within ourselves. We can take it
out and place it on whomever we choose and we can take it back again. But when
we have chosen “wisely” then we want our love to be eternally placed and
maintained. And a loving Father in Heaven has provided the way for it to be so.
But do it any other way, than His way and we have a marriage that lasts only
until the death of one or the other.
Please, please do not come up to me
in some future world and say, oh, Grandpa, why didn’t you tell me? For I am
doing everything I can in my weak way to say ~ If you want anything to
last that is good including marriage do it God’s way. He has provided a way for
us to receive all the eternal blessings. With one exception all lasting
blessings are based on His eternal law that one exception is resurrection, because
by one man, Adam, death came upon all of us, so by one man, Jesus Christ, will
come the resurrection. Every other blessing we desire comes by obedience to the
law upon which that blessing was predicated.
Shortly after that I went on my
first mission and when I returned I went back to the Colockum and to work on
the ranch for my Grandpa. There were no LDS girls in our tiny branch except a
fourteen year old whose mother said to mine, “Oh I do hope Richard will wait
for my little girl!” Well, her little girl was already six feet tall and no
“end” in sight. I couldn’t feature climbing a ladder to kiss her so never got
interested. In fact I decided to become a hermit. In riding the high mountain
ranges for cattle I even had the spot picked out where civilization would never
enter. A beautiful mountain glen, a little meadow of grass and flowers plenty
of timber. I
~ 3 ~
could go right to it today if physically able. But then my
eternal companion came into view and everything was eternally changed as I now
quote my great grand father Parley P. Pratt, as one of the twelve apostles he
was also a prophet, seer, and revelator.
“So we see, the great object of our
life should be to secure a part in the first resurrection, and also to secure
all the glory and dominion and power and might and possession and happiness
which it is possible for us to secure, by faith, and obedience to the
commandments of the risen Jesus.
In the resurrection, and the life
to come, men that are prepared will actually possess a material inheritance on
the earth. They will possess houses, and cities, and villages, and gold and
silver, and precious stones, and food and raiment, and they will eat, drink,
converse, think, walk, taste, smell and enjoy. They will also sing and preach,
and teach, and learn, and investigate, and play on musical instruments, and
enjoy all the pure delights of affection, love, and domestic felicity. While
each, like the risen Jesus can take his friend by the hand and say; “handle me
and see for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.”
Isaiah testifies, “thy people
also shall be righteous; they shall inherit the land forever. Isaiah
60:21
And Ezekiel testified, “so I
prophesied as I was commanded, and as I prophesied there was a noise, and
behold a shaking and the bones came together, bone to his bone. And when I
beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came upon them, and the skin covered them
above. And the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood upon their feet
an exceeding great army.”
Thus saith the Lord God, behold, I
my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your
graves, and bring you into the land of Israel. And ye shall know that I
am the Lord, when I have opened your graves. O my people, and brought you up
out of your graves, and shall put my spirit in you, and you shall live; and I
shall place you in your own land; then shall ye know that I the
Lord have spoken it, and performed it saith the Lord. And they shall dwell in
the land that I have given unto Jacob my servant, wherein your fathers have
dwelt; and they shall dwell therein, even they and their children and their
children’s children forever; and my servant David shall be their prince
forever.
More over, I will make a covenant
of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them; and
it will place them, and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst
of them forevermore.” Ezekiel 37
And Daniel said, “and many (the
righteous) of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, and the
kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole
heaven shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High.” Daniel
7:27
And the prophet Zachariah wrote:
“and his (the Lord’s) feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives
which is before Jerusalem on the East.” “And the Lord my God shall come, and
all the saints with thee.” “And the Lord shall be king over all the earth; in
that day shall there be one Lord, and his name one.” “All the land shall be
turned as a plain, from Geba to Rimmon, South of Jerusalem; and it shall be
lifted up, and inhabited in her place from Benjamin’s gate, unto the place of
the first gate, unto the corner gate and from the tower of Hananeel unto the
king’s wine-presses. And men shall dwell in it. And their shall be no more
utter destruction; but Jerusalem shall be safely inhabited
and it shall be that whoso will not
come up of all the families of the land unto Jerusalem to worship the king, the
Lord of Hosts, even upon them shall be no rain. Zechariah ch. 14
~ 4 ~
So we see that our noble ancestor
is in complete agreement with the prophets of the Bible. “For blessed are
the meek for they shall inherit the earth.” and the Savior himself said
that.
So at the great judgement bar of
truth and righteousness, in my resurrected body of flesh and bones I will take
Grandma by the hand in her resurrected body of flesh and bones and we together
will receive the verdict of, “Well done my son and daughter enter into thy
rest.” there we will be allotted our inheritance on this, then,
Celestialized earth and be forever free from the wickedness of this world now dominated
by Satan and his followers.
How long will it take to receive
all things? Just as fast as we then prepare ourselves in our eternal home. For
we must learn all things in order to have all power and become as God and to
become Gods.
“And he that receiveth my Father,
receiveth my Father’s kingdom; therefore all that my Father hath shall be given
unto him (and her). And this is according to the oath and covenant which
belongeth to the Priesthood. Therefore, all those who receive the Priesthood,
receive this oath and covenant of my Father, which he cannot break, neither can
it be moved.” D&C 84:38-40
We can break it, and many do, but God
will never let us down!
And whoso receiveth not my voice is
not acquainted with my voice, and is not of me. And by this you may know the
righteous from the wicked, and that the whole world groaneth under sin and
darkness even now. D&C 84: 50-52
How long will it take after the
judgement day we don’t know but we have this glimmer of light; “Abraham, as
Isaac also and Jacob did none other thing than that which they were commanded;
and because they did none other thing than that which they were commanded, they
have entered into their exaltation, according to the promises, and sit upon
thrones, and are not angels but are Gods.” (Note: Gods are man and wife sealed
to each other and they rule and reign as one.) D&C132:37
Oh how thankful that I didn’t marry
sweet Esther. For she would have spent a frustrated life of trying to save an
unsalable soul, according to her beliefs. And I, too would have been equally
dismayed.
Oh how thankful I am that I
married Adaline Kearl and that we were sealed in the Holy Temple. I look
forward to being with her, my sweetheart, for eternity!
Be sure then that you take
the proper steps in harmony with Eternal laws that you will have no eternal
regrets when this life ends. The gospel is true! Live it! As you do you will
come to understand all the love that it is built upon.
I have finished this memo at
8:30 PM April 9, 2008. I now have forty-eight written ahead. You should receive
this a month or so after my 100th birthday. I don’t expect to be
here by then so goodbye until we meet on the other side of the Vail. I love you
and so hope that you will so live that we may enjoy eternity together.
As ever yours
My love always,
Dad, Grandpa etc. Richard Marden
Pratt
