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Deeply sad about Elder Perry

Deeply sad about Elder Perry

Last updated on: May 29, 2015 at 5:59 pm by Dan Peterson

Deeply sad about Elder Perry 2015-05-29T17:59:37-06:00 Dan Peterson

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The Perrys at a Utah Jazz game in 2009
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It’s public knowledge now that Elder L. Tom Perry of the Council of the Twelve is terminally ill:

http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/elder-l-tom-perry-thanks-members-and-friends-as-health-worsens

I won’t pretend to have been closer to Elder Perry and his wife than I really am. We weren’t regular companions or close friends.

But my wife and I have come to know them a bit over the past few years in, for us, a special way, and we’ve been deeply, personally, saddened at his illness.

They’ve been very kind. And we’ve had the rare opportunity to interact with them in a number of ways.

They have in-laws in our ward, for example, and that led to an amusing story:

One Sunday night, my wife and I were expecting a small group of our former Jerusalem intensive-Arabic students over to our house. We’d grown quite close to them while in Israel for months together, but, by this time, they’d married and moved away for jobs and for graduate programs. On this summer evening, though, several were visiting back in Utah, so we saw an opportunity to get them together.

But we had a little long-haired white dog then who sometimes came into the house and invariably left white fur all over the place. So, at about 7:15, I set about to vacuum the sofa and chairs and floor of our front room in preparation for the students, who were due at 7:30.

Suddenly, though, the doorbell rang. Thinking “they’re early!” I opened the door, vacuum in hand.

It was our neighbor, with Elder Perry.

“Do you always vacuum on the Sabbath?” Elder Perry asked with a smile.

I can’t remember how I answered him. I was too astonished. If I’d had my wits about me, I would have replied that, No, as my wife could readily testify, I never vacuum at all. This was just incredibly bad luck.

One of my sons was, at that time, a junior home teacher assigned to Elder Perry’s relatives in our ward. They liked our son and had spoken of him to Elder Perry, and Elder Perry had decided that he wanted to meet him.

It was a remarkable moment. The Proclamation of the First Presidency and the Twelve regarding “The Living Christ” had just appeared. Elder Perry asked if we had a copy of the most recent issue of the Church News, which contained the document. Fortunately, we did, and — miraculously — we could actually find it. He pointed his signature out to our son on the printed page, and bore his testimony, instructing our son to teach the doctrine of the Proclamation to the families under his stewardship.

I’ll never forget the fact that an apostle of the Lord came into our house and bore personal, direct apostolic witness to my son and my other children.

I’ve also never forgotten that, in a remarkably high percentage of the cases that I’ve taken a vacuum into my hand, an apostle has appeared on our front doorstep. I use that as persuasive evidence in an argument with my wife: Having me do the vacuuming is simply too risky; we shouldn’t venture down that path.

On another occasion, back in the summer of 2012, he invited us into his condo in Salt Lake at a very difficult time for me. His graciousness and his supportive friendship helped me more than he could likely have known.

We’ve had other contacts with him — including a few meetings that I’ve been privileged to be involved in with him at Church headquarters, as well as a wonderful dinner and discussion at our neighbors’ home and, additionally, lunch with his family in the Salt Lake condo between Saturday conference sessions a year or two back — and we’ve always found him to be friendly, kind, good-humored, and unassuming. We’ve enjoyed seeing that side of one of the Lord’s ordained apostles. It was also a privilege, not too long ago, to take the Perrys and a number of others through a special exhibit of the Dead Sea Scrolls in Salt Lake City. We were honored and excited to do it.

I want to bear my witness, based on personal acquaintance, that Elder L. Tom Perry is a good and sincere man, a modest man, genuinely devoted to the Lord. I’ve seen it at first hand.

We’re so very grateful for Elder Perry’s years of service, and for his kindness to us and untold others.

We’re praying for him and his family. May God bless them.

Posted from Berlin, Germany

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