Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

On January 13, 1991, Binki was preparing to leave for his mission to Switzerland Geneva (he would actually first spend eight weeks at the MTC in Provo). For his farewell Sacrament Meeting, Dad had prepared what he diplomatically called "a tightly organized, very scriptural, carefully documented, but, doubtless, extremely dry talk".

An hour or two before the meeting, Mom listened to him read it and gently pointed out that it "needed a story or a faith-promoting experience". Dad scrambled: "I spent the next couple of hours hustling around looking for a story, to no avail. I had been praying all week that the Lord would help me find something to say that might be useful to the congregation, but my mind got blanker and blanker as the 1100 Sacrament Meeting approached".

On the way to the chapel, Mom suggested he just start with something from his own life and lead into the prepared exposition. "By then my mind was starting to get numb," Dad admitted.

He expected to speak first, but Elder Darrington, Bishop Dale Willis, and a musical number came before him. During the opening song, something changed. "Things to say, rather, things that should be said, just started coming," he wrote. "By the time the sacrament song was over, I had a little introduction, with some history and perspective worked in, outlined in red pen on the back of my computer printout". He reflected that "a small part of what I experienced was, no doubt, that clarity of mind that sometimes comes after a prolonged period of fear. Most of it, however, was the Holy Spirit working on me".

Then he stood up. "I was astonished to see that the following words just came out of my mouth":

Brothers and sisters, the Lord blessed me with a quick mind and the ability to express myself quite effectively. My greatest love is teaching. In fact, that is what I spend most of my professional life doing, since we in my profession are, basically, teachers. But at the same time they have given me a paranoid, irrational, screaming, floor-pounding fear of talking in front of a large group, such that, I must confess, this is only the second time I have talked in sacrament meeting since I got back from my mission more than twenty-five years ago.

He scrapped the prepared talk entirely and pivoted to a meditation on legacy:

I like to look at things from an historical perspective, and Sir Isaac Newton's observation, made several hundred years ago, comes to mind, to the effect that, when we accomplish great things, we are only standing on the shoulders of giants. Newton was talking about intellectual and scientific discoveries, but the same principle applies to the spiritual, physical, educational and temporal accomplishments we are so justly proud of today.

Then, speaking directly to Binki, he traced the line of "giants" in their family tree. He spoke of "a Platt, who came across the ocean from England with his foster mother, shortly after his dad had died, and a big brood of half and full siblings". The mother "sickened on the ship, and died just after they got to New Orleans, but Binki's fifteen-year-old ancestor managed to get all 10 kids up the river to Missouri, then made his way with one of the early groups out to Salt Lake".

He spoke of Miles Park Romney, "the impoverished descendent of a Romney Lord Mayor of London" who, "after great trials and tribulations, and with great faith, established a branch of that family in the New World that produced a member of the first presidency, a governor of Michigan and, among many other great souls, Binki's great-grandmother". He spoke of Edmund Lovell Ellsworth, "captain of the first handcart company".

Then he turned to Mom's side of the family. "Dina, Binki's mother, is a first-generation Latter-day Saint," he said, "but she had multitudinous wonderful ancestors, none of whom had the opportunity here on earth to hear the Restored Gospel, but many of whom made great sacrifices to bring her family to the point that Dina could accept the Gospel". He reminded the congregation that Mom's sister Nori, "who joined the Church in Germany about 10 years ago, after being taught by Bob Sisk and Dina here in Chandler, has done the temple work for many of their ancestors".

He closed with a direct blessing:

Binki, as you go on the Lord's errand as a missionary, you will also stand on their shoulders. I testify to you that you are one of the spirits prepared from before the world was to preach the Gospel. There are people in Switzerland and in France prepared from before the foundations of the world to hear the Gospel. The Lord wants you to live so that you can hear the promptings of his Spirit and find those choice souls.

The prepared talk that never got delivered? It was a careful doctrinal exposition about missionary work, beginning with Matthew 28:18-20.