Author's note: Bishop Rex Parley is one of my favorite characters, from a book still in progress called Heaven Help Us! This week, I would like to share a little of his wisdom.

Here is a little background to help in understanding this excerpt. Rex is an estate planning attorney by day and a bishop by night, Camille is his secretary of several years. She is a young, recently-divorced single mother of a little girl. Through her positive association with some of the LDS people in the office, and with the effort of an overzealous recently-returned missionary telephone repairman, she has investigated the Church and has recently been baptized. There is one person in the office, though, who has been more of a stumbling block than a stepping stone.

Camille took the chair in Rex's office across from his desk.

"Cheryl told me you wanted to see me."

He walked across the room and closed the door. Returning to the comfort of his leather executive chair, he pulled it in close to the desk and leaned forward, resting his arms on the desk, lowering him to eye level with Camille. It was his “I'm with you” posture, which he had often used in conducting bishop's interviews until he moved the desk to the corner of the office, preferring to just pull up a chair next to his interviewee.

Of course, he had the opposite posture perfected also, his “intimidation pose” — which was accomplished by hitting the handle on the right side to raise the chair a bit, and leaning back, which gave him height and distance. As a member of the Executive Committee, he'd used this posture a few months ago in talking with Ted Simon, an attorney in the office who had repeatedly been making inappropriate comments to Camille. Ted's body language had been arrogant and dismissive of Rex's authoritative stance.

Bishop Parley usually took the first twenty seconds or so of a bishop's interview to sit quietly, smiling and observing whatever silent signals were being communicated. He did the same in the office. He considered himself a good judge of character. He had a gift for reading people, and though Ted had protested his innocence, Rex had been waiting for his arrogance to trip him up.

“Mr. McClelland stopped by my office on his way out and told me that he overheard Ted saying some undisputedly inappropriate things to you and that he fired him, basically, of which you are already aware. I wanted to let you know that the Executive Committee will be meeting to discuss bringing a legal action against him.

“With this firm squarely behind you, and with Mr. McClelland as your witness, Ted's about as powerful now as Superman after an encounter with some kryptonite. When I said you needed a witness in order to make anything stick, you went right to the top. I guess it is good that our stubborn old senior partner has insisted on being here every day, even at his age, that and the fact that his wife badgered him into getting the new hearing aid. Remind me to share with you later a funny story she told me about that.”

He hesitated. “I hate to drag you through all this again, especially just when you were having joyful events in your life, but rest assured that Ted will not be bothering you again. If he should make any contact with you let me know. Then again, I don't think he will. Ted is not stupid. Quite the opposite is true, which is how he's gotten away with this as long as he has, knowing that without a witness it was always just your word against his, and knowing he could intimidate you. It took a lot of strength for you to come forward and tell me what you did before, knowing your opponent was a hotshot attorney, and I for one won't be sorry to see him brought to justice.”

“Why didn't you tell me he was a member of the Church?”

“How did you find that out?"

“He congratulated me on my baptism, welcomed me to the fold. It had been a long time since he'd said anything off-color to me, and I almost believed he had changed. I wanted to believe that, but I guess it was just that he knew he wouldn't make partner if I had anything else to report, witness or not.”

She looked down and spoke softly. “Then he told me he was sorry he missed the celestial wet t-shirt contest.” She met his eyes again. "How could he act like that, being a member of the Church?" she asked softly. "Why didn't you tell me he was a member of the Church?"

“That's what Mr. McClelland overheard? He didn't give me the details.”

“Among other things.”

He smiled. “I'm surprised we didn't just find Ted bludgeoned to death with Morris's cane there in the hallway.” He continued. "To answer your question, what purpose would that have served, Camille, except to interfere with your good feelings and growing testimony?"

"Yes, it probably would have. You're right."

"And is it now?"

Camille looked down. "Everyone I have met at church seems so nice and they all seem to be what they say they are. How can the Church let ... I mean, how can a man like Ted go to church on Sunday and then act like ...?"

Rex reached down and opened the bottom drawer of his desk and pulled out a small set of scriptures. He held them up. "My office copy. Let me share a scripture with you, Camille, and also let me tell you that this will not be the last time a Church member will offend you or act in an otherwise unChristlike manner. “First —" He began to thumb the pages. "One of my favorite scriptures is Helaman 5:12."

He began to read: "And now, my sons — and daughters " he added, for Camille's benefit, "remember, remember that it us upon the rock of Our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation whereon if men — and women — build they cannot fall."

He looked across the desk at her. "Build on the rock, Camille. It doesn't say there won't be storms. In your case, there have already been storms, certainly, and the weather patterns of our lives can be as changeable as the weather outside. We can never say about the weather that we have survived a big storm and that it will most likely be fair weather from then on.

“There will always be trials and challenges. It is part of this earthly life. But there will be good weather and times of great joy and happiness awaiting you along the way. But there may be other people who will disappoint you. You may have home teachers who don't seem to care or come to check on you and little Jordan. You may find women in the Relief Society who are less than accepting of you and find reasons to gossip about your divorce or find fault with you somehow.

“You are a beautiful young woman, and there may be those who are envious of you, and sometimes people are unkind to those they envy. There is another scripture I want to share with you. It's here in Helaman also." He smiled. "Helaman seems to be talking to us today." He flipped back a couple of pages. "Here it is, chapter 3, verse 33:

“And in the fifty and first year of the reign of the judges there was peace also — much like the peace you are probably feeling now this soon after your baptism — save it were the pride which began to enter into the church — now this is the part I want you to listen carefully to — not into the church of God, but into the hearts of the people who professed to belong to the church of God."

"Ted."

"Yes, unfortunately, Ted. Remember Camille, the Church is true. That does not mean that every member will always act as he or she should. Catch yourself any time you hear yourself holding the Church accountable for the actions of a member here or there. I have to. The majority of Church members strive to do their best to live up to the commandments and the things they profess to believe. We are all in need of repentance and should constantly be warring with our faults and trying to course-correct when necessary. Some never do, of course, and that is an unfortunate state of affairs.

“When we're on the road and there is an obstacle, we go around it or remove it, whichever is possible and whichever makes more sense, for our own well-being and for those who may follow behind us. Sometimes there will be times when a confrontation is the right thing to do, sometimes it is not. Sometimes it is best just continuing to go forward, putting things behind us as best we can. Other times, it is important that we speak up, like you did with Ted, so that something can be done and so that others do not suffer similarly at someone's hand.

“In this office we're in the business of helping people to confront when it is necessary, but trust me, this office has handled many a case where the parties involved would have been better served had they just put it behind them and moved on with their lives. In the estate planning department, of course, I miss much of the drama of litigation, but when people die and we try to disperse their worldly goods, there are many opportunities for things to get ugly and for people to focus on all the wrong things and allow the inheritance of the things of this world to come before their relationships with family members.

“Ultimately the judgment day will come for all of us, even people who seem to get away with things they shouldn't. Do what you determine to be best in any given situation and then leave it in God's hands as best you can, and Camille, no matter what, don't ever let anger and bitterness replace your gentle disposition.

“Satan would like more than anything to make us all such cantankerous characters that we would be a poor fit for the heaven our Father has planned for those of his children who continue faithful and live up to his commandments and are true to the covenants they have entered into with Him." He closed the book.

"Okay, lecture over. Sorry, I put on my bishop hat for a minute there."

"That's okay. All of that helped — a lot."

"There is something else, Camille. I need to ask your forgiveness. I meant to do this before your baptism, but the time didn't seem right."

"My forgiveness? You haven't done anything."

"It is for something I didn't do that I am asking you to forgive me. Forgive me for not being the one who shared the gospel with you. There were many times that the spirit whispered to me to take the opportunity to explain things to you, and I am afraid I was not listening the way I should have been, like the time I had to go to the hospital to give a blessing to a member of my ward."

"Yes, I remember that. I did want to know what that was all about, but I didn't want to pry."

"And I didn't want to preach or be unprofessional, but I ignored the feelings that told me to explain it to you, and you wanted to know, so I was wrong in ignoring those feelings, whatever excuse I told myself."

"Well, I found out, one way or the other. I think I listened because of what kind of a person you are. You had the opposite effect of Ted. Some of my friends warned my family when we moved here that the Mormons would try and get us, but nobody really came after me the way they said you all would, well except for the telephone repairman. I just thought Mormons were nice but weird, listening to talk in the break room.

“The first thing I remember was Cheryl telling Diane how many beehives she could fit in her mini-van. I thought that Mormons made their own honey. Isn't it the beehive state? It wasn't until she complained about having to take them to camp that I finally asked. And the Relief Society, I thought that was like the Red Cross or something, and that they'd be sitting around rolling bandages."

Rex laughed.

"Well sometimes we need to put the 'relief' back in 'Relief Society.' Not everything some of our members do is quite so altruistic as the name would imply."

"I'm sure I'll find out soon enough."

Rex stood up. "You are kindly letting me off the hook, but I know I didn't do all that I should have. Despite that, Camille, thank you for giving me the honor of baptizing you. It was a special day for me and for my family, and I know it was a special day for you."