Will You Be One of the Apostles?

On June 6, 2004, I was called to serve as the 2nd Counselor in the Norman Oklahoma Stake Presidency. At the time, I was serving as the Bishop of the Norman 2nd Ward. In July 2004, two apostles of the church (Elder Neal A. Maxwell and Elder David B. Haight) passed away.

As we prepared for the October 2004 General Conference, Annette and I talked with our children about them being ready to sustain two new apostles. On Friday night before the conference, I was tucking Tanner in bed. We talked briefly about getting up early the next morning to go to the church and to listen to General Conference.

(At that time in our life, we did not have a television in our home. We did not subscribe to cable TV and the church did not stream General Conference on the internet. So, our family tradition was to go to the church building and watch each session of the conference in the chapel.)

I mentioned to Tanner that we would be able to find out about the newly called apostles. Tanner looked at me and in an innocent voice asked "Dad, will you be one of the new Apostles tomorrow?"