The first Latter-day Saint baptisms in the United Kingdom were performed in the River Ribble, near Preston, Lancashire. \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
I found President M. Russell Ballard\u2019s talk at the beginning of today\u2019s morning conference session profoundly significant and deeply, personally, moving. \u00a0And particularly appropriate, for me, on this very date.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
My brother, my only sibling, would have been seventy-six years old today. \u00a0Unfortunately, he passed away suddenly in March 2012.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
I miss him terribly. \u00a0Few days, if any, have passed since his death without my thinking of him.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
For years, I had feared that his life might be relatively short; he was actually my half-brother, he was more than a decade older than I, and his biological father had died suddenly, shortly after he was born, at only thirty-eight. \u00a0Still, he seemed to me to be doing pretty well, and we had begun to travel together. \u00a0After years, for example, I had finally been able to introduce him to my beloved Switzerland and the Alps. \u00a0Twice. \u00a0And we were making plans for further trips. \u00a0In fact, he and his wife were scheduled to go the following June on a British Isles cruise on which I was speaking. \u00a0He would have loved it. \u00a0Like his wife (and, really, like me), he was an Anglophile. \u00a0It was a wonderful trip, taking us to places in Ireland and the United Kingdom that we had never before seen. \u00a0But, understandably, his widow backed out of the cruise \u2014 and, without my brother and his wife, it was bittersweet.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
I share with you two hopeful poems on the subject of death \u2014 the first by Henry Scott-Holland and the second by Charles Henry Brent:<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
I.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\nDeath is nothing at all;
\nI have only slipped away into the next room.
\nI am I and you are you;
\nwhatever we were to each other
\nthat we are still.<\/span><\/p>\nCall me by my old familiar name;
\nspeak to me in the easy way you always used.
\nPut no difference into your tone,
\nWear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow;
\nLaugh as we always laughed
\nat the little jokes we always enjoyed together.<\/span><\/p>\nPlay, smile, think of me, pray for me;
\nLet my name be ever the household word that it always was.
\nLet it be spoken without effort,
\nwithout the ghost of a shadow in it.
\nLife means all that it ever meant;
\nit is the same as it ever was.
\nThere is absolute unbroken continuity.<\/span><\/p>\nWhat is death but a negligible accident?
\nWhy should I be out of mind
\nbecause I am out of sight?
\nI am waiting for you for an interval,
\nsomewhere very near,
\nJust around the corner;
\nall is well.<\/span><\/p>\nNothing is past; nothing is lost.
\nOne brief moment and all will be as it was before;
\nhow we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
II.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\nI am standing upon that foreshore,
\na ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze
\nand starts for the blue ocean.<\/span><\/p>\nShe is an object of beauty and strength<\/span>
\nand I stand and watch her until, at length,<\/span>
\nshe hangs like a speck of white cloud<\/span>
\njust where the sea and sky come down to mingle with each other.<\/span><\/p>\nThen someone at my side says, \u201cThere! She\u2019s gone.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cGone where?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cGone from my sight, that\u2019s all\u201d,<\/span>
\nshe is just as large in mast and spar and hull<\/span>
\nas ever she was when she left my side;<\/span>
\njust as able to bear her load of living freight<\/span>
\nto the place of her destination.
\nHer diminished size is in me, not in her.<\/span><\/p>\nAnd just at that moment<\/span>
\nwhen someone at my side says,<\/span>
\n\u201cThere! She\u2019s gone!\u201d<\/span>
\nthere are other eyes watching her coming<\/span>
\nand other voices ready to take up the glad shout,<\/span>
\n\u201cHere she comes!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nAnd that is dying.<\/span><\/p>\nYes; life is eternal and love is immortal,<\/span>
\nand death is only an horizon.<\/span>
\nAnd an horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight.<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Posted from Park City, Utah<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 I found President M. Russell Ballard\u2019s talk at the beginning of today\u2019s morning conference session profoundly significant and deeply, personally, moving. \u00a0And particularly appropriate, for me, on this very date. \u00a0 My brother, my only sibling, would have been seventy-six years old today. \u00a0Unfortunately, he passed away suddenly in March 2012. \u00a0 I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a>