Solving the Mysteries of Heaven
By Brandon Boey

This story comes from Mattie Eula Webb “Polly” Block. Polly Block was born in northeast Texas and joined the Church in 1942 in San Antonio. She met, converted and married her husband, Andrew, while on a stake mission in 1943, before he went to Italy during WWII. When he returned they were married in the Manti Temple. While Andrew was in Scouting for 52 years in Utah, Polly worked with the Digest of the Scriptures in Topical Form for 10 years, taught school, became a midwife for 28 years, taught seminary at a nursing home in Lehi, Utah, and continued to write for newspapers and published 23 titles of her own work. She also has written seven family histories.  She currently resides in the American Fork 3rd Ward in the Hillcrest Stake. If you have any missionary experiences you would like to share with Meridian readers, please send them to Brandon Boey at missionary@meridianmagazine.com. 

Mother and Dad — Gene and Pauline Webb — lived next door to my Grandmother Bales out on West Seventh Street. A garden plot of land divided their houses. My grandfather was the first house-mover in Northeast Texas, and he and my father had moved a little green, one-room schoolhouse onto that property and made a nice little home of it. I was mother's first baby, was born prematurely, and weighed four and a half pounds.

Probably the first significant step in my conversion was when we lived in Thornton, Arkansas, during the Depression of the Thirties. My Father had come from a long line of Primitive Baptist Preachers. They were called Predestinarian "Hardshell Baptists."

We attended a conference once a year, which they called the Primitive Baptists' Association meetings. They were two-day affairs, though their single church meetings were held only once a month and were served by itinerant preachers. Associations, on the other hand, were serviced by maybe five or six such preachers and their meetings lasted all day Saturday and Sunday — much like Latter-day Saint General Conferences.

The location was usually at a little country one-room church house with "paths," meaning they had separate Gentlemen/Women outhouses at the ends of the paths away from the church house.

The Associations were indeed social occasions as well. Large picnic pallets for the children's naps were found everywhere on the grass under the trees or in the hay-laden wagons. Long tables held an abundance of food and iced tea.

On the way to the Association in our horse-drawn wagon, Dad thought of a way to make us children sit still in church to listen and learn — no bathroom runs were ever allowed. That had to be attended to beforehand. Dad told my sister, Betty Gene, and me that on the way home from church we were to tell them three things we had learned from the preaching!

"What did you learn today, Sister?" my Dad dutifully followed through one Sunday afternoon ride home. I was called "Sister" because in the South the oldest girl, being a sister to the younger children, was expected to set examples and to tend the others without replacing the parents in authority.

Instead of an answer for my father, I had a serious question. "Daddy, do you remember when Elder So-and-so preached about such-and-such? Well, when Pappa Webb (my paternal grandfather, Elder Thomas Lafayette, or "T.L." Webb) got up to preach, he corrected the first preacher, and explained it away. He told us something different. Was he or the other Elder right? Why did he do that? What was that all about? What did he mean when he said ...?"  I continued on.

My father, who was the first male in the family who did not become a preacher, did not know the answer. He could not explain the doctrine or the differences held by the preachers. Instead, he sort of shifted on the springboard seat of the wagon, cleared his throat, spit his tobacco juice onto the dirt road, flipped the reins over the rumps of the horses and eventually said, "Well, Sister, we're not supposed to know all these things. We're just not supposed to understand all about religion."

That was the end of the report on learning that trip as we traveled toward home in comparative silence for a while — silence that allowed my eight-year-old mind to draw some definite conclusions. Finally, in utter dismay (but not in disrespect), I asked my father, "If God didn't want us to know or understand about things in the Bible, why did He bring it up at all? Why did He even talk about them? Why were these things written about in scriptures if He didn't want us to understand what He was trying to tell us?"

Again, my Dad had no answers. Mother made no comment. We just rode along.

The next pertinent step toward my conversion came when we moved back from Arkansas to Texas and the years later that I was in college. World War II broke out on December 7th and I went home to take care of my two younger brothers and Dad while Mother underwent some needed surgery during the holidays.

Some evenings I went down to a Civilian USO to listen to classical music and get away from my responsibilities for a while. One night my favorite record player was being used by a young blond-haired man who quickly invited me to sit and listen to the records with him. We became acquainted and he began to telephone me on the other evenings and tell me all about his telephone conversations with his mother in Utah.

This young man from Nephi, Utah, had not been accepted into the Armed Forces because he had injured his elbow seriously during childhood and could not completely straighten one arm. He had taken his bar exam in law and while he awaited the results, had applied for and been hired, at age twenty-four, as the payroll auditor of the Lone Star Defense Plant at Texarkana, Texas, where bullets and bombs were made.

By now I had a job at the plant in the scales department, and soon we were dating occasionally. Once, after riding home on the commuter bus from the plant, we got off at a corner drugstore to get a drink. I ordered a Coke. My friend quickly interrupted and said, "Oh, you don't want a Coke — let me order for you."

He ordered a milkshake for each of us and he briefly explained the bad effects of coke and said the milkshakes would be better for us.

This began a series of unusual observations. He never swore, did not tell off-color jokes, didn't personally like Cokes or anything stronger, didn't smoke, seemed extraordinarily wrapped up in his family in Utah, and was a “Mormon” — whatever that was!

The only thing I knew about Mormons then was that a leader named Brigham Young had colonized the Western United States with them. I was unaware that religion had anything to do with "Mormonism."

But how about this guy? Too good to drink Cokes, or coffee or tea? Just about everyone else in the world did. What was so wrong with that? In fact, I wondered if he thought himself better than everyone else. He seemed strangely arrogant, almost. (Oh, that all of us could believe our bodies are too precious to harm!)

Then one evening he said he had to leave early because he wanted to study for a talk he was to give in church the next day. My silent reaction to this was, "Oh no! Is he a preacher too?" Although it would not have mattered to me at that point in our friendship, it still would’ve been another surprise.

"It’s just my turn. I've been assigned to give a sermon."

Well! I immediately thought that if I could just go to this "Mormon" Church and listen in, I might understand more about these peculiarities that made my new friend so different. I dared to ask him if other people were welcome to come to his church.

He answered, "Of course."

"Well then, is it all right if I come to visit and hear your sermon?"

"Of course — however, you won't find things in Texarkana like they are in Utah. At home we have lovely chapels and everybody goes to church. Here we meet in an Odd Fellows Hall downtown over a grocery store."

He got no response out of me if he expected one. My feelings, after having been reared in humble church houses off and on, were, "So?"

He continued, "There will probably be only twelve to fifteen people."

No reply from me again.

"In fact, there may be a few barefooted children running around," and he quickly added, "but they'll be clean. If we are the first ones there we might have to pick up a few beer cans from the Odd Fellows' meeting the night before, so we can have Church." He waited for my reaction.

“Okay, I'll go for that."

"All right then, I'll pick you up in the morning."

The little children were not barefooted and were well-behaved. We introduced ourselves and sat down so my friend could look over his notes — which he didn't even use for his talk! While he studied his notes, he wondered if I would hold a book he had brought along? I asked permission to thumb through it. Extremely preoccupied with his notes, he hardly thought about it and simply just nodded away and said, "Huh? Oh, sure."

The Articles Of Faith, by Dr. James E. Talmage, lay in my hands. I didn't thumb through it, but began at the beginning and was drawn to the book as a magnet. I knew I needed time alone with that book. It had to have some answers.

I do not remember my friend’s talk, but I recall that a sweet, wrinkled, bent, little gray-haired grandmother spoke on the efficacy of prayer. I empathized with her slight nervousness at first, but weighed her every word. I also remember an eighteen-year-old convert who had come from a Catholic school, played an out-of-tune piano, unashamed, with two fingers while we sang the hymns. The first Mormon hymn I ever heard was “Oh, My Father.” The words to the hymn were a sermon that stood tall.

As I look back now, what I got was a very unpolished, unobtrusive introduction to the beautiful simplicity of the Gospel. It had a most impressive effect upon my soul. I certainly could never say anything but that bare necessities influenced me during my initial exposure to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. There was no towering cathedral, no evidence of wealth, no elaborate trappings or eloquent orators. No symphonic orchestration or rapturous organ overtures swept me off my feet; no money plates were passed around. Instead, there was a calm, quiet spirit that was richly pervasive.

The trappings were the honest in heart who renewed covenants with their God, sang praises to the tune of an instrument played by a brave soul who gave everything she had to give. Sincere testimonies were spoken with dignity but humility from the pulpit and my spirit was deeply touched. There was order, a quiet reverence and purpose in what they did and how they did it.

While we waited at the corner for the cab to take me home, I dared again to ask about the book I still held. "If I take very good care of it and promise to return it next Sunday, would you let me take it home to read?"

Only then was the fox out of the box! Somehow he knew I would ask that question. At least he hoped he had not been pushy, and that I would be tempted to read the book. He looked straight into my eyes and a Colgate smile stretched from ear to ear, and said yes.

I took the book home and read it twice during the week while on my knees by the big rocker in the living room. I cried all the way through it with utter amazement that here was the Gospel on the earth, the real thing, and it seemed no one knew about it. I had never heard about it! With astonishment my repeated exclamation was, "This is the way it should be, the way it ought to be! Why don't you tell people?"

About three weeks later my grandmother asked if I might come to San Antonio to live with her because she was alone during the week while her two unmarried daughters were on important government jobs for the state of Texas. I went to live with her instead of going back to college.

When I found the Church in San Antonio, I asked someone to point out the lady missionaries. No one could ever say that handsome young male missionaries turned my head. I didn't know they existed at the time. I learned later they had been called home because of the outbreak of WWII.

When I got the attention of the lady missionaries, I asked them if it were possible — if they might find the time, and if they didn't mind — would it be all right if they came to see and teach me the Gospel?

They modestly assured me they could find the time, did not mind at all, and would be happy to come teach me.

When we sat down together, after a prayer, the first thing they said was, "Don't be afraid to interrupt us and ask questions as we go along. If we don't know the answers, we'll find them and bring them next time, because there are answers to our questions about the Gospel. They are found in the scriptures by former-day (or Biblical-era) and latter-day prophets!"

The long-ago hayride home from the country church along a dusty road in Arkansas loomed before me as a vivid picture! I knew it!, I thought. God wouldn't have given us the scriptures if He hadn't intended for us to know and understand them. Here indeed was His church because it had the answers I somehow knew would have to be part and parcel of a true church.

I began paying tithes, attending church regularly and staying just as long as anyone else would on the Sabbath or Mutual (Mutual Improvement Association) nights, talking and listening and thirsting after every morsel. The Savior had said in the scriptures that when His sheep hear His voice they will recognize it. I did! It was as if I were home at last.

I loved reading the second witness of the Christ, The Book of Mormon. I rooted for the good guys and rejoiced when the bad ones were ineffective in the long run. To this day it is my testimony that Heavenly Father delights in revealing all His mysteries to us, and indeed will do so when we give Him the opportunity by searching His words and by living the gospel. I still love The Book of Mormon.

With all my heart I beg all of us to lay down those parts of our lives that run contrary to the laws of God. Even in the midst of challenges and trials which come to try us and give us strength and power, we must turn our hearts in gratitude to Him for the good things of life and follow His way so that we may have the more abundant life. Real peace and real joy can only come when we let go of the things of the world and cling to His words of promise, cling to the kind of love we should have for Him and for each other.

The Gospel is true, true, true.

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Wall Streeter by day and artist by night — Brandon Boey wrestles with numbers as a mergers & acquisitions banker for a living, and with words as a writer of plays, fiction, essays and poetry for recreation. While attending New York University, he was an associate editor at Washington Square News, the university’s daily newspaper, where he managed the features and business pages. Brandon earned his degree with a double major in economics and communications and worked as an investment banking analyst before serving a full-time mission in the Taiwan-Taipei Mission of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.