In April of 1975 most of our Stake Primary Board was at General Primary Conference. We stayed at the Hotel Utah and had a wonderful time. Steve Covey was one of the principal speakers as was Elder Ashton and Sister LaVerne Parmley, General Primary Board President.
In addition, our Stake President, President Jordan Naylor, arranged for us to have a personal meeting with the President of the Church. It was his birthday and we had brought very large Birthday Greetings which had been signed by the children in our Stake.
He looked each one of us in the eye and personally took our hand and spoke to each one of us. President Naylor had grown up in the same town with him in Arizona. It was very spiritually thrilling and we appreciated President Naylor's gesture on our behalf to arrange this meeting.
We also were able to pose with Sister La Verne Parmley, president of the General Primary. We were all very inspired by her talks to us.
I had been called to the Stake Primary Board as 1st Counselor in 1971 and was put in as President in 1973 through mid 1975. Working on the Stake Board with these ladies was the most gratifying and enjoyable Church job I ever had.
Unfortunately it caused an unfortunate situation for my daughter Linda. As my John and Karla Hansen had expressed in a Sunday School class (so I heard) they both had wonderful mothers. The only problem they each agreed was that we were gone too much. Karla's mother Mom was over the Stake Young Women.
We met on Thursday nights at the Stake Center and did not have telephone's in our room or cell phones at that time. Linda had attended an evening performance with her Jr High on a bus and was so embarrassed that I was not there to pick her up (obvious miscommunication probably from me being distracted when listening), she had hidden until all the teachers had left. It was a rainy, stormy night and she called John on the phone and asked him if either Dad or I were home.
Unfortunately Richard also was in a Stake Meeting in the other part of the building that I was in. John tried to reach us by phone but was unsuccessful. So he called our home teacher Bro. Clawson and apprised him of Linda's situation. He told him that since he was our home teacher he needed to go pick her up and he did. I felt so badly about this. It seemed I was often late picking up the children and I know I was overextended and often distracted with all I was doing. John did not let us hear the end of this.
