Onward and upward we go

December 27, 2014

The world is filled with amazing people. Amazing people do amazing things. Most of the things we do as mortals are necessary to take care of our basic physiological needs, ie food, water, air, and the like.Life is spent almost entirely in average, ordinary activity, interlaced with a few moments of sheer happiness; and a few more with absolute terror.  As I have thought of this idea over the years, I am convinced the idea belongs to someone, someplace in time; I just have no idea who it was. Choosing not to belabor the stark terror moments these are ones that I treasure and consider to have steered my life to a peaceful understanding of why we are here in this probationary point in eternity.

I truly shudder to think what my life would have been without these truly inspiring moments that have blessed my life.I had a dream when I was twenty and in that dream I saw a piece of my life go slowly across the screen. In my dream I saw my future wife and two of my future children. The first nineteen years of my life had been basic, average, and ordinary. I had been studying, praying and looking for direction for two years and this dream, directly from the Holy Ghost, gave me understanding and hope for a positive, meaningful life. The Holy Ghost and ministering angels determined that I needed to get my life together at the beginning of the two years preceding my dream. I was on hospital stay in Yokosuka, Japan and had just been released and sent to Hokkaido, Japan to wait for about a week and rejoin the USS Hornet CVS 12 when it came in to dock. I was doing some things Satan’s tools that were not becoming of anyone, especially one who had a glimpse of God and eternal things. God, working through the Holy Ghost, interceded in my life and gave me one of my moments of sheer happiness and terror at the same time. The prompting was very real and very pointed; declaring that I had my agency to good or evil and this was the time I needed to determine which road I would travel.

What joy! Every joyful thing in my life has been predicated on those two experiences. My next joyous moment was a natural extension and came when I was TAD (Temporary Assignment of Duty) in San Diego going to Class C school in Air Conditioning and Refrigeration. I had then been on the USS Hornet through two WESPAC six month tours of duty in the Western Pacific and spent three years in the sharks den of iniquity that flows in and around the environment in military towns and minds. I received a wedding invitation from a good Navy friend and member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints inviting me to come to his reception at the Long Beach First Ward building. This was a wonderful opportunity to see Howard Shaffer and his new bride Cathy once again and visit my old Long Beach ward at the same time. I had dated and been very interested in a young lady who attended that ward and wanted to see what might happen in the future with her; however, when I walked into that church auditorium all wrapped in nice wedding paper and happy people another moment of great joy jumped right out at me. Her name was Viola Jean Scott and one of our mutual friends from the ward, A Linda something, gave Jean a good sized nudge and shoved her towards me telling her that she knew he was single. For Jean there was a great deal of uncertainty but for me it was another of those moments when my ministering angels told me in no uncertain terms that Jean would be my eternal mate.

They were right because we were married a little less than a year later on May 1, 1965. We will celebrate our 50^th anniversary with our six children, twenty seven grandchildren, and the blessings of eternity on our team if we will but endure to the end, live righteously, give all that we have and are to those in need of temporal and spiritual nourishment, and work through all the wrinkles any two people face as they move though life together.

God bless each of us as we work to accomplish those things that will bless our lives and the lives of all those in which we come in contact.

Duane Jacobs, grandfather, father, husband, brother, uncle, cousin, and friend