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Conversion
of Roger Rohn
Edited
by Peggy Proctor
Editors'
Note: Submit your missionary stories to our Meridian Missionary
Journal editor, Peggy Proctor at missionaryjournal@meridianmagazine.com
Roger
was a reporter and editor for the Chicago Daily News and the Chicago
Tribune. He has experienced the atrocities of war and been spared
in an airliner crash in the everglades of Florida. Yet the greatest
story of his life was how the missionaries brought him the gospel
in the woods of Missouri. He is married to Shaye and is a ward clerk
residing in Arizona.
About the middle
of September in '82., after having moved to the Rolla, Missouri
area from Chicago, I was living in a frame house in a semi-rural
location, north of I-44 near the junction of E and HH, on a gravel
road. It was a bitterly hot and dusty day, and as I peered out my
kitchen window, facing east, I could see, at a distance of about
three-quarters of a mile, two men who appeared to be wearing suits
and were heading in my direction. I can only assume—I never
got around to asking—that they had been visiting the Barlows
(Rolla Ward members) and were taking the long way back to town.
I fetched my binoculars and, sure enough, it was a couple of guys
in suits, each of them carrying something.
Now the summer
of '82 had been a bad one for me; it had been an endless procession
of religionists and salesmen all of them earnest young men who were
trying to convince me to join them or buy stuff I neither wanted
nor needed.
Caesar, my Doberman,
was staked out along the side of the house and I rushed outside
to move him closer to the road so that, tethered to a 20-foot aircraft
cable, he could cover both the driveway and the porch, and thus
seal off access to all but the crazy.
The second part
of my plan was equally simple: duck out the back door and hike up
and over the hill behind my place to the general store that stood
at the junction, and have a nice cold Coca-Cola until these two
passed through the neighborhood.
The first part
of the plan completed, I paused briefly at the kitchen window to
check their progress and was surprised to see that they had entered
my neighbor's driveway, which was only about 50 feet away, and I
knew that my neighbors weren't home. It crossed my mind that if
I intended to escape unseen, I would have to do it immediately.
As I turned away from the window and was about to head for the back
door, the thought crossed my mind that, if these two wanted to talk
to me, then perhaps I ought to find out what they had to say. But
there was something immediately peculiar about that thought: I disagreed
with it and , besides, it seemed to me less a "thought" than an
actual voice.
I was seized
by the fear, now, that they wouldn't want to talk to me so I rushed
outside and attempted to move Caesar before he scared them off.
I was too late; as they passed this scary-looking animal who was
lunging at them at the cable's end (I had miscalculated, he couldn't
reach the porch) one of them reached out and patted him on the head
and added insult to injury by saying "nice doggy" as he did so.
They marched
up and introduced themselves as Elder Patterson and Elder Beacham
of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and announced
that they had an important message about Jesus Christ that they
wanted to share with me. At this time in my life I was a lapsed
and slightly-bitter member of a church that had stopped preaching
religion and was now preaching social reform, liberalism, etc. until
I was sick of it. It wasn't what I was paying my priest for. I was
paying him to scare the heck out of me on a regular basis.
Now, I could
not immediately place "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints" but I took a stab at it and asked "Are you guys Mormons?"
Elder Patterson said that indeed they were and that they were missionaries.
All of this occurred outdoors on a hot & dusty day and these
two looked like they could use a cold beer so, out of mere curiosity,
I invited them inside so that I could pick their brains and find
out something about the Mormons. I was in no way anti-Mormon; I
only knew from the papers that they practiced polygamy, suppressed
their wives and children, and were prejudiced against anyone who
wasn't of the white race. I had read all this
stuff in the
newspapers over the years so I knew it had to be true. Mormons were
... different . . .unusual. . .possibly strange...and I was not
all that eager to find out what a Missouri Mormon was like. I had
visions of polygamous car thieves, or worse. But these two piqued
my curiousity, so I invited them inside.
Once inside,
I offered them a cold can of Budweiser. No, thank you. Okay, how
about a Pepsi. Same response. Obviously the Mormons were worse than
I thought but finally they settled for cold water and proceeded
to put away about a gallon of it.
Immediately
after they were settled I brought up all the things I knew about
them and one by one, they knocked them down . . . all the while
being polite and, more important, unoffended. They explained about
these things and about the Church's history and then they asked
me about myself and since I am one of my favorite topics I more
or less told them my life's story, leaving out only the nasty parts.
This was getting
a bit interesting, and these two young men were definitely NOT your
average American teenagers, so I popped an important question: Does
your Church forbid your members to read anything that might be found
at a library or a newsstand? They said no. If the answer had been
"yes" I would have spun the conversation out to its end but I would
not have invited them back because my question was based on another
church's habit of telling its members what they could read and what
they couldn't, and believing strongly in the Constitution of the
United States and the general principles upon which this country
was founded, I hated the whole notion of a church telling its people
that they could not do something that was guaranteed by the Constitution.
There was one
more trap I had waiting for them: if they asked me for money, I
would ask them to leave. Things continued in this vein until I ran
out of questions, at which point Elder Patterson had some for me.
In retrospect, the last question on the list was bizarre and, so
far as I know, no other missionary of my acquaintance had ever asked
the question. To this day, the question, and the answer I gave and
the circumstances under which the answer came to me, causes me endless
wonder. I later asked Marc [Elder Patterson] about it and he couldn't
remember any of it.
It went this
way:
Elder Patterson:
"Brother Rohn, is there anything in your life of which you're especially
proud?"
And I answered:
"Yes, I guess I'm especially proud of my son and what he has done
with his life, especially since he lost his mother when he was 11
and we had a few years of hard times between us before we could
adjust to it."
THE QUESTION:
"Brother Rohn, wouldn't you like someday to be able to give your
son a priesthood blessing?"
Now, at this
point nothing whatever had been said about the priesthood, whatever
that was, nor was anything said about blessings, whatever they might
be, but nonetheless I was seized immediately by the thought that
if I could one day give my son a priesthood blessing it probably
would be the most important thing I could ever do in my life. To
this day, I still think of it as one of the oddest experiences of
my life. We talked some more. They gave me a Book of Mormon. I was
beginning to like these guys and I began calculating how much money
I had in my pocket and that, if they didn't ask more than $2 for
it, I would give it to them in spite of my earlier decision.
They asked if
they could come back. I said yes. We set a date. As they were walking
out the door I said "Wait a minute, you forgot this" and held out
the Book of Mormon. Marc smiled and said " Oh, that's yours to keep.
Try to read some of it before we see you again."
Then began two
weeks of the discussions, they coming by about every other day,
so that I saw them at least three, and sometimes, four times a week.
I read the Book
of Mormon; I found it somewhat confusing because I was trying to
read it as history and I kept getting sidetracked by the wars which
never seemed to solve anything and these stupid people, just when
they had a good thing going, would backslide and get on with the
wars as such, so I wasn't sure if this stuff was scripture or not,
but as I turned the pages I began to glean nuggets of very interesting
ideas, beginning in 2 Nephi: "Adam fell that man might be; men are
that they might have joy." I couldn't quite verbalize even to myself
why I found that to be so profound, but I did. And there was king
Benjamin: "The natural man is an enemy to God. . ." and, little
by little, it was beginning to pile up.
About this time
Elder Beacham was transferred and Elder Brady arrived. All along
they had been telling me about this mysterious thing called a "testimony"
and how it came by prayer through the Holy Ghost, and I really wasn't
understanding much of it because, so far as I knew, the Holy Ghost
and I were strangers! They explained to me about the "burning in
the bosom," which sounded like heartburn to me, and about "the still,
small voice."
While all these
explanations were going on they were also urging me to do two other
things: to pray aloud with them, on my knees, and to come to church.
I refused to do either; in the first instance I was unfamiliar with
personal prayer and was afraid I'd make a fool of myself in front
of a couple of really nice guys of whom I was growing fond; and
in the second instance, my excuse was that I didn't want to be influenced
in my decision, whichever way it went. I didn't want to join the
church because I liked the members on the one hand; and on the other,
I didn't want to NOT join the church because I DIDN'T like the members.
Actually, I
had a dark secret and I didn't want to share it with the Elders
and look like a fool, but the fact was that although I loved the
Ozark countryside very much, I was not particularly enchanted by
many of the Missourians I knew. One near neighbor, who lived just
north of me on E, supported himself by finding things before other
people lost them. His property was a fenced compound patrolled by
German Shepherds who seemed even crazier than my pussycat Doberman.
Another neighbor had a nice little marijuana patch that he insisted
was "strawberries" - I had never seen waist-high strawberries before.
So there was
the dilemma: I already knew that in general I was not impressed
by the people around me, and on the other, while the Elders were
a couple of impressive young men, I didn't recall ever meeting an
actual Mormon in my life and I was scared to death to find out what
a combination of the two, on their native ground, would be like,
but they kept bugging me about coming to church and I kept saying
no. They kept asking me to pray with them and finally I relented
and actually said a prayer out loud, on my knees, in the presence
of people who until recently had been strangers. It got worse when,
after finishing the prayer and looking up, I found Elder Patterson
in tears and barely able to choke out the words "The Holy Ghost
is with us now." I looked around the room and decided that this
boy was strange and possibly in need of professional counseling.
Nevertheless, I continued my own prayer and kept on reading about
all the wars and the contentions and all the pamphlets, etc., and
it got to the point that I was beginning to think that maybe there
might be something to this stuff after all, but I was missing that
vital link, the "testimony", in which God Himself would say "Now
listen up, Brother Rohn, because you have been trying my patience
and I, God, am going to say this only once: The Book of Mormon is
true, Joseph Smith Jr. is my Prophet, the Church is true, and if
you don't get your act together I am going to smite you with a mighty
smite."
Finally, about
the first day of October, the Elders were back. This, if memory
serves, was a Thursday, and they said, "Brother Rohn, this week
is different. This weekend is general conference and we don't have
our regular services. This weekend we'll be gathering in our chapel
to listen to our leaders in Salt Lake City."
Well, that at
least had the virtue of novelty and for some reason I said, "OK,
I'll come on Sunday." Their cute little faces beamed with joy. And
then the thought came to me that, who was I kidding, I had nothing
planned on Saturday either so I said "Hey, I guess I can come both
days." They were REALLY beside themselves with joy. You'd have thought
it was Christmas the way they carried on. This conversation happened
on the porch and as they were leaving they said they'd stop by again
that same evening and tell me more about this general conference
business but they were already thirty minutes late for their next
appointment, so I leaned against the porch railing and waved while
they backed out of the driveway.
At this precise
moment a very clear, and not-so-still voice asked me a very plain
question:
"Why are you
fighting against these things which you already know to be true?"
And he was right.
I realized at that moment that I DID know the Book of Mormon is
true, and if that was true then all the rest followed: it was translated
correctly, and if it was translated correctly then Joseph Smith
Jr. HAD to be a prophet, and if Joseph Smith Jr. was a Prophet then
the Church was true also. It all fit together. And not only that,
the Holy Ghost's question was grammatically impeccable.
I raced outside
yelling at the car as it turned left onto E; "Hey wait a minute.
It happened! I need to be baptized !!!," --but they couldn't hear
me. The next few hours until they returned were sheer agony. That
night I told them what had happened; we had a kind of party, I guess,
but without the refreshments. Still, one small problem remained:
What are Missouri Mormons going to be like?
That Saturday
morning when I walked into the meetinghouse the first person I met
was a ruddy-faced gentleman who introduced himself as Paul Proctor.
He in no way resembled a moonshiner or a poacher, and rather than
the expected attire, he was wearing a tweed jacket, flannel pants,
shirt and tie, shined shoes . . . the works! After telling him my
name I asked him what he did for a living. I was stunned. A Mormon
AND a college professor?
The other people
I soon met, Bishop Darrell Ownby, David Swank, Gene and Mary Alice
Beemer ... they all seemed to be normal ordinary people that one
would not likely find in a police lineup. Several years would go
by before I discovered that Paul D. Proctor is as likely to wear
a necktie on a squirrel hunt as he is in church!
I had to wait
three weeks to be baptized because the rules said that in my case
it was necessary for me to be interviewed by the mission president,
an august personage who lived in St. Louis and who would personally
make the trip to Rolla to do the job. The reason for the personal
interview with the president was over an incident that occurred
while fulfilling my millitary duties in the service in Korea. I
think the missionaries were, during the interim, in even more agony
than I was.
Pres. Hartshorn
and I spent about 45 minutes together while the Elders (including
about five he brought along, all of them looking like members of
the Osmond family) played outside with my pooch who hadn't had so
much attention and rough-housing in years.
Pres. Hartshorn
called everyone back inside and as Patterson and Brady filed in,
Marc mouthed the question: Did you pass? I shrugged, because I truthfully
didn't know. We talked some more and Pres. Hartshorn eventually
addressed one of his assistants, saying, "Well, Elder, come over
to this table and fill out a Baptism Recommend for Brother Rohn."
I was baptized
on 24 October 1982 and have had no problems since, except for Bishop
Ownby, whom I was never able to convince that I should be exempt
from tithing. He seemed totally unable to say anything except "Well,
I want to bear you my testimony that the paying of tithing is a
blessing," and he kept smiling while he was saying it.
After thinking
about it for many years, and even allowing for the fact that I believe
with all my heart that the Spirit preceded Elders Patterson and
Beacham by a good half-mile, it wasn't until last summer that the
full import of what actually happened really hit home. The missing
link was a principle stated often in the Book of Mormon that I had
consistently overlooked and therefore did not apply until now. It
is simply this: that if we have our heads on straight, and especially
if we pray for the blessing, then the Holy Ghost will precede us
wherever we go. For anyone, but especially for missionaries, it
is a vital and priceless blessing, but we must open the door and
ask for it. I am convinced that the Holy Ghost was waiting I am
convinced that the Holy Ghost was waiting for me to make a REAL
commitment ----like actually going to church---until he rang my
chimes and told me to get on with it. That's my story.
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