Being a 70- a letter to Dean

"Dean, I am glad you mentioned about being a seventy. I had kind of forgotten we both were seventy. And that just reminded me of a comment that our Asia North Area President made. He is Elder Evans, of the First Quorum, and we had the privilege to be at the Yokoda AF Base this spring when they changed the District Presidency. Elder Evans was there it interview and call a new President and we were there as guest of President and Sister Hill. There was a luncheon after the Priesthood leadership meeting on Saturday and I was invited to stay. Being in the presence of a general authority just across the table, makes one just a little self aware, like why am I here with all these great people. But Pres. Evans is a way humble man and a great teacher. His discussion in the Priesthood leadership was great. Anyway at lunch he started talking and he commented on when he was called and set apart as a general authority in the Fist Quorum of the Seventy. He said that because he had been ordained a Seventy, like we were, years before, that they didn't have to ordain him a seventy, just set him apart as a general authority. I hadn't thought much about my ordination as a seventy lately, so that was a near reminder. Kind of like emeritus status I guess.

This next week we have Elder Stevenson, a new First Quorum of the Seventy, coming for a mission tour. He is the new First counselor to Elder Evans as of this last general conference. It is pretty neat to be among these great men. Last year they had Elder Bendar hear for a conference, which apparently was awesome.

If I didn't mention it before I am also the Mission Presidency Executive Secretary. So far there hasn't been much responsibility to that be to set up some meetings. There has only been two meetings so far, the first when a new councilors was set apart and my self and I took a few notes of the 5% of the meeting that I could understand. Even though I could not understand what was being said, the spirit was so strong I could get the feeling of what was being shared as the bore testimony to each other. Both the counselors are Japanese and all the meeting is in Japanese. The next meeting was when President was traveling and the councilors met him there. And we are trying to set up one for September."