While stationed in San Diego we would “car pool / caravan” our way from San Diego to Salt Lake for General Conference. For October conference in 1972 we had 4 cars and were once again in “the caravan”. About midway between St. George and Cedar City and about 2:00 a.m. one of the cars broke down. We had several people with us but I was the only one who knew the difference between an adjustable wrench and a screwdriver so I was the designated mechanic. I determined that there was something terribly wrong with the engine timing but was unable to do anything about it.

While we were discussing different options a girl with us by the name of Virginia (or Ginny for short) looked at me and with her soft southern accent said something like “Brother Wilson! You are the Single Adult President and you hold the Priesthood stop wasting time Bless this car and lets go!” I attempted to explain that it was inappropriate to give a car a blessing because it was a thing and could not have faith … Ginny looked at me like I was daft and said again that she was tired of wasting time I should bless the car and we should continue on our way. I didn’t know how to bless a car so I decided that we would offer a group prayer each one of us in turn would pray for the help we needed. Each of us told our Heavenly Father how much we wanted to attend Conference and needed the car to work so we could attend.

After the prayers I felt to tell everyone to get back into their respective cars and it was time to go on to conference. We determined to go as far as Cedar City where we would stop, have some breakfast and find a mechanic who could look at the car and hopefully repair it.

All 4 cars started right up. The two cars in the lead drove away thinking everything was OK. Dan’s car (while the engine was running and sounded okay) would only travel about 5 miles per hour. I was following him and determined that it would be unwise for me to leave them stranded. All of a sudden something took over and, although I was sitting in the drivers seat I was not controlling the car, we inched up and locked bumpers. The next thing I knew we were traveling down the freeway at about 70 miles per hour with my car pushing Dan’s.

We stopped at Denney’s for Breakfast and after Breakfast called a Mechanic at home and explained our dilemma. He agreed to meet us at his shop, which was just 4 miles from Denney’s. After breakfast the car would NOT start. I figured that I had pushed him down the freeway it would be no problem to push him the additional few miles to the Mechanic WRONG the bumpers didn’t match they were off by more than 8 inches. While I had pushed him well over 35 miles down the freeway with not a scratch or dent. When we tried “on our own” I broke out both his taillights and dented his trunk. Finally we arrived at the mechanic shop, and after looking at the car he determined that the points were broken. If you know anything about cars of the time, it was absolutely impossible for that car to run because the points are what delivers the electric impulse to the spark plug. No points, no spark, no spark no go.

This car with broken points had enough power to operate the power steering, brakes, lights and heater. My car was able to push it down the freeway with no damage to either car. All as a result of Ginny telling me “Bless this car and lets go!” We were able to get to a Mechanic who was willing to help us early in the morning and we arrived in time to attend Conference.

While in Boot Camp I received a bed bug bite on my right thigh. We never did find the bug so we don’t know what kind of bug it was but it was a serious bite. 

I woke up on Sunday Morning with what looked like a pimple on my thigh but it wasn’t ready to pop so I went to breakfast. After breakfast it hurt something terrible so I checked it and the whitehead was about the size of a penny. Much alarmed I asked permission to go to Sick Call upon arriving (because I was in Boot Camp I had to “march”) the head was about the size of a quarter. The Dr took a look and determined that I needed to go to the Clinic about a mile and a half away. Again I was required to “march” as I was in Boot Camp. I remember taking a chance and stopping to write a letter home asking mom and dad to pray for me marked it “Airmail special delivery” and dropped it in a mailbox and continued my journey to the clinic. Upon arriving at the clinic the Dr. looked at my leg. The head was larger than a silver dollar and there was an ugly red streak up my inner thigh. He swore profusely at anybody, everybody, anything and everything. He told me that because of the “marching” I had been doing I was going to lose my leg just below the hip. He found a consent form and told me I had no choice but to sign the form and allow him to remove my leg within the next 3 or 4 minutes or I would be dead from the poison. 

I was scared to death and signed the form but told him that he could not operate until after the Mormon Missionaries had administered to me. He once again went into a cursing streak like I had never before heard and only heard once or twice since. As “luck” would have it there were two young missionaries in the clinic at the time they were quickly ushered into my room where I explained the problem to them. They responded that they were sorry but the didn’t have any consecrated oil with them and could not give me a blessing. The Dr. had not left the room and started to tell the missionaries to leave as he was worried about losing me. I told the missionaries that I didn’t care if they had oil or not but they needed to lay their hands on my head and bless me and they had to do it now because that Dr. wanted to saw my leg off. They gave me a blessing and at the end of the blessing the infection was 100% gone and all that was left was a small scar on my leg (which I still carry) to remind me of the experience. 

I was able to walk back to my quarters with those two young men. I have always regretted that I didn’t record their names and addresses so I could keep in touch with them. I bet neither one of them has ever been caught without any oil ever again.

My parents received the letter I had sent them abut 2 weeks later.

My first encounter with a prophet was on my 10 year old birthday. My grandparents had moved from Panguitch to St. George to fill an assignment given to serve in the St. George Temple, they purchased a small duplex right across the street from the temple. I had the opportunity to visit regularly and when I would visit I would walk across the street to the temple and go to the baptistery entrance to meet either my grand mother or grand father for lunch. Grandma always had a hamper ready and we would go to the South West corner of the temple grounds where there is a gazebo and we would sit on the grass and have a grand picnic. If I met Grand Father he would bring me in and we would have lunch in the temple cafeteria even though I was under age.

On my birthday I met Grand Father and he had made arrangements for them make a birthday cake for me. The newly sustained Prophet was also eating lunch, Grand Father took me over and introduced me to President McKay who upon finding it was my birthday left his group and came and enjoyed birthday lunch with me.

My second encounter with a prophet took place on October 7, 1972, along with 3 friends whose names were Jon Thompson, James Alexander, and Peter James were having a “brown bag” lunch underneath the Seagull Monument. A man (obviously church security) approached us and asked if we were who we were to which we said yes. He told us we needed to come with him ~ a little nervously we complied.

After a “tour” of the under ground network between the Church Office Building and Temple Square we found ourselves in the old Church Office Building where the Prophet’s office was located. President Lee was at his desk with his office door open. It was October 7, 1972, because we had just witnessed a Solemn Assembly and sustained President Lee as Prophet and President of the Church. This was the first General Conference that President Lee had presided over. President Lee immediately got up from his desk and greeted us at his door. He knew us by name yes he got the names right and knew which one of us belonged to each name. He invited us into his office and I will never forget his exact words to us “I want to thank you for taking time out of your busy schedules to meet with me for a few minutes.” I am still in awe every time I think of that statement. He was the one who was busy we were just having lunch in-between conference sessions. He told us that he was aware of our activities in San Diego and wanted to personally thank us. All four of us were in the Navy at the time James was the only one who had served a Mission but we had made name tags that looked similar to the badges worn by the missionaries of the time, the badges said “Peter of Peter James and Jon of Latter Days”, “James of Peter James and Jon of Latter Days”, Jon of Peter James and Jon of Latter Days” and mine simply said “Doubting Thomas”. We had been keeping the missionaries busy. We did all their tracking and set up appointments for them in so much that the church had to send two additional sets of missionaries to keep up with the appointments we were setting.

Six months later in April, it was once again time for conference but the clutch in my car was totally shot so I crawled under the car and welded the clutch solidly to the flywheel. The car would run just fine like this but you had to power-shift because there was no clutch to disengage the engine so it also meant that if you had to stop you had to push-it into neutral to stop turn off the engine put it in first gear and grind the starter lurching the car along until the engine started. I drove the car from San Diego to Pleasant Grove like that. My dad and I junked the car and I borrowed dads’ truck to get to conference and flew back to San Diego. After I had boarded the plane, President Lee and his entourage boarded the plane. They had first class seats while I was flying military standby. President Lee looked back saw me and came back and asked if it were okay if he sat with me. He actually remembered me from conference six months ago. He was telling me how excited he was that church business was taking him to southern California because he was going to be able to meet with a marine who had been excommunicated several years before. He said he was going to have the opportunity to tell him in person that he had been approved for re-baptism. He then said something remarkable. He said with watery eyes, “I hope he will let me come to his baptism”.

President Lee has a special place in my heart.

One Tuesday morning I was asked to come in to the temple an hour earlier than my normal 3:30 start time to substitute for as an Assistant Coordinator. I arrived at 2:30 as assigned but found I was not needed, the person who was not expected to be there was there. I went to sit in the Instruction Room to wait for my shift to begin. As I approached the Instruction Room, I heard a magnificent choir. It became more and more clear to me the closer to the room I got. I sat in the room and listened to the most beautiful, magnificent Men’s Choir that I can imagine. There was not a person to be seen anywhere, and as people started to arrive, the choir faded out. Then someone turned on the lights and the choir was gone. I asked several of the first comers if they had heard anything and they had not. As far as I can tell, I was the only mortal attendee at that Heavenly Choir practice / recital. What a wonderful experience it was for me.

My first encounter with President Monson was in the temple on March 23, 2004. This was the first time deaf temple workers were allowed to officiate an Endowment Session in any temple in the church. Because I was the coordinator for the deaf, I was instrumental in setting this up as a trial to attempt to prove that deaf people could, in-fact, officiate sessions. After the session, which by the way was VERY successful, I went to the temple presidents office to report. In the office I expected to see only President Banks, but all three of the Temple Presidency were there, along with President Hinckley, President Packer and five other members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. I attempted to excuse myself, feeling I had interrupted a meeting of some sort, but no President Banks asked me in and closed the door behind me. Then President Hinckley looked at me and said something to the effect of “Well Brother Wilson what do we need to do to fix the temple?” I attempted to say, “no President you tell me what I need to do.” He kindly said that, no, I was the expert and I should instruct them in what needed to be done in the temple so deaf people could better officiate and partake of the sacred ordinances of the temple. Let me tell you THAT is a humbling experience to have the Prophet tell me I had to instruct him. We talked about several things that could / should be done. Within a year, everything we had discussed had been implemented and I was given the responsibility to instruct temple presidents and recorders world wide in how to implement these changes. Because President Monson had employed several deaf people when he was at the newspaper agency and had a soft place in his heart for the deaf, he was assigned to be my lesion and we worked closely together to get things working. During this association we became good friends.

April 30, 2009, Bishop Anderson contacted me and asked if he could bring something by and I said yes. He showed up about 8:30 p.m. and had an envelope. He came in for a short visit and then handed me the envelope and said I was not to open it until after he had left and that TediAnn and I should open it and read it together.

After he left we opened the envelope and found another envelope inside which was addressed to me %Salt Lake Valley 2nd Ward. I looked at the return address on he back of the envelope and found it was from President Monson. TediAnn thought we were being called on a mission or something ~ I am not sure what I thought but a mission didn’t cross my mind as it was addressed to me, not to us. As it turns out it was a reply to a letter I had sent him. Here is a copy of the letter sent to President Monson.

His Reply

As mentioned earlier I was Ordained a High Priest by my stake President Alan Rindlisbacher on May 10, 2009. The circumstances behind this ordination were a little unusual in that the reason I was being ordained a High Priest is that my name had been submitted to the First Presidency to receive the Sealing Power to preform Sealings in Sign Language.

President Rindlisbacher knew that one of the requirements to receive the Sealing Power was to be a High Priest. During the actual ordination there wasn’t a word said about it, but as the brethren who I had asked to participate formed a circle around me they just naturally left two spaces in the circle. There was no doubt in my mind then or now but what those two spaces were occupied by my dad and President Rindlisbacher’s dad. We had discussed our fathers before the ordination and found that both men had very similar circumstances in their lives. Also President Rindlisbacher had received all his ordinations from his father. Other the ordination he (President Rindlisbacher) looked at me and without any words we both acknowledged that our fathers had been there and joined in the ordination and were standing in the spaces that had been left for them.