We had a three-year contract to serve in Samoa. We returned a year and a half early. When planning to move home early, we ran into a conflict with the people we had rented our house to. Foolishly, I had drawn up an iron-clad rental contract that protected us if the renters moved out of our house early but did not make a provision for us needing to return early. They had the legal rights in the matter, and we had to rent another house while working through this conflict. Kathy became pregnant with Adam, our fourth child and third son. Eventually, the family in our home found another house. We returned to our Victorian home when they moved and vacated it. But the conflict left us with bad feelings. Adam was born in Clearfield, Utah, healthy and happy shortly after our move back home.
When I first returned to our downtown Kaysville home, I joined a carpool to get me to work in Salt Lake City. The first day they picked me up, the former renter of my home was a part of the carpool. At first, we both felt the tension. On the way home one evening, he told the group that he had purchased a gas dryer and didn’t have a gas hookup. He needed help setting that up. No one else volunteered to help him make the hookup, so I volunteered. While working together, we were able to talk about other things and gradually worked towards discussing our rental contract. After the discussion, we both understood the other person’s position better. His family was living in our ward. On Sunday, we ended up sitting directly behind them at Church. When the sacrament meeting was over, we turned to each other and talked. And we became friends. They were from New York. We were from Los Angeles. We were both in Utah without family connections. So, we formed a family connection and did a lot of activities together. We also gardened together and often visited each other's homes.
A few months into my new job as Payroll Manager, my former boss from Samoa needed a special concession because he was moving to a different country. Only the Payroll Manager could grant this favor, and he was sent to me to make the request. I’m so glad this happened because I could assess my feelings. I decided to let God, not me, judge what had happened in Samoa. For me, the best thing to do was to forgive and move on. And forgiveness felt good. And the feelings of my service in Samoa remained sweet.
Paychecks were printed at an off-site IT center. An employee from treasury and I would check out a car, usually a station wagon, from fleet services. We would go to the IT center and print checks, then use a unique signature tool to "sign" all of the paychecks (thousands of them). We would then pack them up and return the car to fleet services, where we would move the checks to the treasury for distribution—one time, the treasury representative checked in the car before I had unloaded it. I stepped a few feet away and someone got into the car and drove off, with all of the paychecks. I turned around to see him driving off. He had no idea. There were no cell phones then. I went to my boss with the problem. He then set an example for me on how to manage a crisis. He called all of his supervisors together to discuss the situation and explore everyone's ideas on how to recover or replace the paychecks. After exploring all ideas, a recovery plan was put in place. The paychecks surfaced when the driver stopped outside Salt Lake City and looked at what was in the car's storage area. He immediately drove back to fleet services. Once the checks were recovered, another meeting was held to explore how to prevent this from happening again. And a procedure was implemented. There was never any effort made to point out fault, only how to solve today's problem and then prevent a future problem. This has been my management style ever since. Finding blame is a waste of time.
While I was payroll manager, the Church decided to explore payroll direct deposit. The Church was a very early player in paying by direct deposit, particularly for this big of a payroll. This process was also examined for other tasks, such as funding missionary living allowances, donations, etc. When they decided to move ahead I was in charge of promoting the program among employees. Because of the number of employees living outside of Utah, direct deposit was a good idea and took off some pressure on getting paychecks delivered throughout the world on time. If a direct deposit slip did not get to the employee quickly enough, the employee still got paid on time. The goal was 70% participation by employees. I made presentations to each employee group in Salt Lake City, typically a few hundred employees at a time. I put together flyers for those outside SLC. Participation went rapidly past 70%. And the leadership started looking into other applications for electronic funds transfer. I reported progress weekly. It was great to be a part of starting something so new.
In 1984, my mother passed away. Dad, at 76, was serving as bishop of a singles' ward when she was diagnosed with cancer. The breast cancer was successfully removed but new symptoms emerged just weeks after, and she was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. She and Dad decided to serve in the singles' ward to her end. A few weeks later, she unexpectedly developed a respiratory infection, which took her life. Upon knowing she was in the hospital we began driving to Lakewood after work in Salt Lake City. I arrived at the front door of the hospital in the early morning. They called her room and announced my arrival, and I went up to her room. She passed away after the call to her room but before I got to her room. I believe she held on until I was there to be with Dad. I am convinced the respiratory infection was a blessing so she would not have to face a future with brain cancer. When she went into the hospital she was blessed by Dad and the stake president, with the president acting as spokesman. He blessed her that she would live to continue her work in genealogy. She loved genealogy and spent hours and hours doing research. My dad went to bed that night but had an extremely restless night. He awoke with the impression that they had given Mom the wrong blessing. In the morning he called the stake president and asked that they go back. They then gave her a new blessing promising peace as she goes to a new world. The stake president spoke at her funeral. In his talk, he mentioned that her future was to work on genealogy on the other side of the veil instead of this side. He said, "Now that the lights are out in her own room, she will be able to see more, know, and meet more ancestors. Now she will be able to direct those here to the proper records. Those who have survived her must continue with her desire, for she will inspire, bless, and help." He looked directly at me when he said those words, reminding me that I needed to continue Mom's work. I don't want to go to the other side, knowing I have let my ancestors down. I am finally getting serious about finding the records of my ancestors.
Also, during this period, we started planning to build a solar-heated home in Alpine, Utah. The plans were drawn up, but life took us in another direction before we could close on the lot. Kathy’s mother and my father were both alone in their separate homes and were having health problems. Dad had fallen once and was on the floor for two days before being discovered. We decided we should move to Southern California to be closer. This was a career sacrifice because I was being groomed then to run the entire Church accounting system. My bosses were very disappointed when I requested the move. (I still wonder if I made the right decision.)