R. Doran Johnson

I've expressed my feelings for our wet rainy weather, yesterday I spent the rainy day with my grandpa Doran's personal history. Last week I had to give a Sunday church lesson on family history. I enjoy this topic. It doesn't scare me like say the topic of temple marriage. Temple marriage is tough for me, it's important, it's a big one and I am always so worried I won't help the girls understand and fully comprehend the BIG issues of the gospel. I joke around a lot, and I'm sarcastic and I always have a can of diet coke in my hand, the cuss words, "shit, damn and hell" come out of my mouth several times a day. But, truth be told, I have a strong conviction of the truth of the gospel of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I worry that the girls I work with don't see that part of me enough.
Back to the point of this entry, I was working on the family history lesson and I came across a big black binder of my grandfathers history. Ralph Doran Johnson, what an amazing man. This was 90 something single spaced type written pages of his life. I spent most of yesterday reading it. He wrote it specifically for me and my siblings. It was such a treat to know more about this man I knew for 20 years. I delighted each time I saw my name in print. He adored my grandma Millie, and told about his courtship, and being jealous of any other young man who looked her way. I remember hiding down the stair case with my brothers laughing at them kiss and really giggling each time he called her "baby." He wrote about his battle with cancer and wow, if I thought I knew the pain he had while I watched him in the end, was I ever wrong. He hid so much of his physical pain so well. He was such a sweet, kind, loving man. The lesson I learned from reading my grandpa's history, family history IS one of the big lessons in life. The people that came before us, in this case even during our lives matter. We need to write things down so our posterity knows what life is like, we can learn from them. Over the 20 something years he wrote this he was careful with money, he worked hard. Most important he had a rock solid testimony of Christ. He acted on his beliefs by serving and praying and following the teachings of Jesus Christ. I have always felt I owe my testimony of prayer to my grandfather. When I was 6 or 7 as a family we were told he had cancer. That is such a scary word to a child. I prayed every night for years for God not to let him die. It was a child's prayer so it was simply, "Dear God, don't let grandpa die. I need him. Amen" God let him live for 13 more years. He lived until I was old enough to understand death. I am convinced of this. I have experienced a lot of death in my life. It's never easy, some have been more tragic than others, unbearable even, but I know what comes after. I just do and that makes it tolerable. This was definitely one of those church lessons that benefited me more than those I taught. I've got work to do, especially since my memory is not what it used to be!