Why is boyd k packer in a wheelchair

Most of his artwork is on display at a museum at Brigham Young University in Provo. Allan Packer said his father's legacy as a church leader will be that of being a great teacher of the gospel and church doctrine. Packer was known for being a staunch advocate for a conservative form of Mormonism, making him an idol for like-minded, devout Latter-day Saints but also a target of frequent criticism from gay rights groups.

Asked about those criticisms, Allan Packer said, "He was most concerned to do what Heavenly Father wanted him to do and to teach the gospel principles found in the scriptures. Quorum member Russell M. Nelson, 90, now becomes next in line to take Mormon President Thomas S.

Theirs was a family in which hard work and obedience to gospel principles were simply the way one lived. Ira was a skilled mechanic who owned an auto-repair garage in Brigham City, Utah, about 60 miles km north of Salt Lake City. Emma grew up with a love of nature and the outdoors that would carry over into the life of her son Boyd.

His love of the outdoors, nature, and animals was expressed in much of his artwork, particularly his detailed, sensitive carvings of birds. For members of the Packer family, it symbolizes two important things: first, their pioneer ancestry and, second, willingness and faith to take on the yoke of the Master see Matthew — We were always rich in the things most significant in our lives. At age five, Boyd contracted polio. His illness was diagnosed at the time as pneumonia, and he seemed to recover with no significant aftereffects.

But the polio would come to be a challenge later in life. Because of World War II, he was unable to serve a mission. He was trained to fly bombers and spent almost a year stationed in Japan after the war was over. Because of pain he suffered while serving as a pilot, X-rays were taken, showing evidence of his earlier polio in the malformed bones of his knees and hip.

In the last years of his life, the effects of that polio left him using a wheelchair. While in the military, he found ample opportunity to study the gospel, reading the Book of Mormon several times. He walked away from that bunker a different man because he knew. What had been a belief and a hope had crystalized into certainty.

He knew. Boyd baptized Chio Sato; her husband was also baptized that day. These were the first baptisms in Japan since He also found ways to be a missionary.

Boyd K. Packer was one of those Latter-day Saint servicemen who helped reintroduce the gospel in Japan in the mids.

He was instrumental in bringing Tatsui Sato into the Church, a man whose later work in translation helped many Japanese members enjoy the scriptures and temple ceremonies in their own language. President Packer always credited his wife for the success of their home life. Theodore Tuttle —86 , of the First Quorum of the Seventy.

He and President Packer served together as teachers and administrators in the Church Educational System. That is Donna. President and Sister Packer were wonderful examples of unity. If you see Mom, you see Dad. They influenced each other, especially, of course, in the home. His role as father was always a top priority, so he found time for his children. At age 5, young Boyd was laid up for six weeks with what was diagnosed as pneumonia, but later determined to be polio.

He was confined to his bed, mostly unable to move. When he finally recovered, he struggled to learn to walk again. That experience took a toll. In photographs taken after the illness, according to Packer biographer Lucile Tate, there was "an old look in a young face. Inner fear "became a reality to be reckoned with and eventually overcome," Tate writes.

He couldn't run and play sports. Instead, he developed a keen eye for detail and an ability to re-create images from nature. He crafted miniature farm, circus and jungle animals as family gifts. A deep love of birds took root. He belonged to a Brigham City pigeon club, Tate writes, whose members offered their homing pigeons to distribute and collect votes from far-flung Utah communities in the elections.

Once in awhile, the wild birds would make a home in the spires of the Box Elder Tabernacle. To retrieve them, Boyd and a friend would jimmy a window, climb to the attic, crawl on the catwalk, and then inch up to the top of the spire, the biographer explains.

These became Boyd's twin qualities — love of birds and fearlessness in the face of danger — that stretched into adulthood. So he enlisted in the military and was a year-old bomber pilot in Okinawa during the war's final days. While standing on a beach in Japan, Packer decided to become a teacher. After returning to Utah, he met and married Donna Smith, a beauty queen. He then graduated from Utah State University with a degree in education. The seminary experience pushed Packer's career away from university education and toward teaching religion, which he did with such gusto it attracted the attention of LDS leaders.

In , at age 37, the seminary teacher became an assistant to the Quorum of Twelve Apostles, a full-time church position, and was tapped to help supervise CES while he still was completing a doctorate in education at Brigham Young University.

Packer and his friend A. Theodore Tuttle, who would become a member of the Utah-based faith's First Quorum of the Seventy, were determined to stop a secular movement within CES.

Some of the church's teachers had been trained at the University of Chicago, and they wanted the system to be similar, except with a Mormon bent. Packer and Tuttle saw such a movement as a sellout, trading faith for academic credentials. Within four years of his assignment to full-time church service, Packer was sent into a hotbed of the s anti-war movement, Cambridge, Mass.

If a missionary had a problem, Kenney said, the key question for Packer was not how to help the individual but how to forward the work. Packer's predecessor was the late Truman G. Madsen, a garrulous intellectual who taught philosophy at BYU until his death in Elder Packer sent none. Truman had several missionwide fasts, Elder Packer had none," Kenney said. Elder Packer said get out the door and teach. Packer's style was a form of "tough love,'' pushing young people into peak performance, Kenney said.

He also launched religious education for college-age Mormons and taught several classes himself. He felt overwhelmed, observers say. That feeling of inadequacy never left, but neither did his determination to do all he could to further what he saw as God's kingdom on Earth. Tate called her biography, "A Watchman on the Tower," alluding to a biblical passage urging believers to be on the lookout for approaching enemies, which speaks to Packer's self-perception.

The young apostle came to see his role as keeping the church pure from outside influences and to warn the members, especially young people, of the threats around them. The world's values are "spiritual crocodiles," Packer once said, dangerous ideas that "you can't see that are lying in the mud What was missing was an appointment by God.

None of the Twelve possessed the keys of prophet, seer, and revelator, so hard as we may try to want to believe they held those keys as a group, the facts just don't support it. Brigham wasn't even ordained to the priesthood by Joseph Smith. There simply is no connection. James Strang had a tighter claim to succession, because at least he produced what he claimed was a letter of authority from Joseph. Brigham had nothing going for him except a strong personality. Continued below. To Mark Foree continued You bemoan my disagreement with the official narrative, convinced as you are that by dissenting from the conventional wisdom I am putting myself in jeopardy.

But I am motivated to question the approved narrative precisely because I wish to keep myself out of jeopardy. How certain are you that the story we've been handed is the true one? I certainly was. I was certain enough to testify boldly "with every fiber of my being" that the things I had been taught were true.

But not everything I had been taught WAS true. This itself is a matter of historical record, as one of those assigned to doctor the record spilled the beans. We can still look to some of the original documents and see how they have been altered once they were published in the DHC.

So it is my desire to be meticulous about what I accept as gospel truth, especially regarding the claims of those who would claim authority to act in the name of God. I would expect most honest seekers of truth to want to make absolutely certain they were following the will of God when following the words of those who claim to speak for him. So I ask you, Mark: Can you testify to your beliefs from a perfect knowledge? Or have you folded your beliefs regarding authority into your testimony of Joseph Smith.

It is well that we obtain a testimony of the basic truths. But I think we do ourselves a great disservice by assuming that if something was true as regards Joseph Smith, it naturally follows everything else is true. That is what motivates me to write: the realization that I can be wrong, and the recognition that I HAVE been wrong about many of my deeply held assumptions. This blog is not titled "Pure Mormonism" because I believe I am in possession of the truth of my religion.

It's titled that way because I have found that there exists a "true" narrative about Mormonism, and a false one. I am searching for the truth within my religion and learning to let go of the false traditions handed down from the fathers. To Mark Foree continued , I well recall your patronizing counsel warning me that my membership in the Church is more important than any blog.

As Log questioned you in his comment above, "because Rock can't possibly be doing what God has asked him to, can he be? Membership in that body may be more important to you than life itself, Mark, but it is not to me.

I suggest that you close down and take your blog off line. It may be easier said than done but you won't do anybody any good, especially not yourself, if you are blogging as an ex-Mormon. You'll just be one of those hundreds that couldn't take instruction from priesthood leaders and left because of pride.

Your blog is not the most important thing in your life and is not nearly as important as your membership. You obviously can choose. That I won't have credibility with active Mormons if I'm blogging as an ex-Mormon?

Someone should introduce my friend Mark to the internet. The more people who stumble across my blog and the many others out there like it, the more they come to realize they are not alone in their concerns with the direction the modern LDS Church is heading.

These people are not anti- Mormon, and neither am I. I'm not going to suddenly turn against the church of Christ just because they kick me out of the corporate version; I'll simply go on as if nothing has changed. Because nothing will have changed.

As far as my blog being more important than my membership in the church, of course it isn't. My membership in the church of Jesus Christ is the most valuable thing I possess. Which is why I'm glad no group of men have the power to take it from me. I am satisfied I'm currently in good standing in His church. What care I for the anemic counterfeits of men? I have yet to hear from anyone as to what errors of truth or doctrine I am guilty of promulgating.

As far as I can tell, that seems to be the issue. Someone in the Church hierarchy is clearly irked that I would advocate following the admonitions of Christ over their uninspired demands. If taking such a position is contrary to revealed scriptures, please let me know. And what's this about my leaving because of pride? Let me say it again: I have no plans to leave. I suppose it would seem a bit prideful if I got all huffy and took my ball and went home.

But that isn't the way this thing seems to be playing out. I'm not turning my back on either my church or my religion. All that has happened here is I've been informed I'm not wanted.

Up to seven times? As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. He grabbed him and began to choke him. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt.

When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened. Have you ever been forgiven? If you've never experienced his forgiveness, maybe it's hard to turn around and forgive another. If you have, just remember that. What a scary thought! That we would invite God to forgive us to the same extent that we forgive other people!

Forgiveness and trust are 2 very different things. While God does want us to forgive people, he has commanded us to 'not' trust or listen to them if they have not proven worthy of our trust and have not repented and repaired what they have done. If he has so commanded, I have been unable to locate where, when, or to whom he said it. What is your source? Log, were you addressing me? If so, here they are: Peter asking how many times we should forgive Matthew The parable Matthew "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

For me it's not just words. When I reached that point where I knew I was a sinner, and then when I experienced God's mercy and forgiveness, knowing that I didn't deserve it, it made me more compassionate toward others. There has really been a change. Can I share one more parable that I think relates? I won't be long winded about it. Just read it and see if it makes sense: A Pharisee invited Jesus to have dinner with him.

When a sinful woman in that town found out that Jesus was there, she bought an expensive bottle of perfume. Then she came and stood behind Jesus. She cried and started washing his feet with her tears and drying them with her hair. The woman kissed his feet and poured the perfume on them. He would know that she is a sinner. One of them owed him five hundred silver coins, and the other owed him fifty. Which one of them will like him more? But she has washed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair.

So I tell you that all her sins are forgiven, and that is why she has shown great love. But anyone who has been forgiven for only a little will show only a little love. I don't know about you guys, but every answer opens up more questions. I guess for those who abandon the whole LDS church and just follow Jesus without it or go to another church , there won't be as many. However, trying to figure out how it all works with the LDS church is pretty mind boggling.

The implications of what people like Rock are saying is staggering. It's mostly to do with priesthood authority. But I for one believe people in the church do have priesthood authority. I'm not going to bear my testimony here, but I felt it work from time to time, both through me and through another priesthood holder to me or a third person. I don't know how the whole line of authority from Brigham Young works, if he was not righteous. I believe God has sorted it out somehow.

As for a prophet, I believe God can call a prophet at any time from the ranks of apostles or anyone, for whatever tasks He asks of them. So as I see it there are three problems that Rock talks about in his blog. They seem to interconnect and feed off each other. While there is still a lot that is good and true, there have been big changes to the church such as being more about making money, not focusing on helping people as much, a hierarchical system instead of a flat organisation and unjust excommunications of faithful members.

I'll continue with my questions on my next post. So due to the three main problems, I have to wonder certain things. Priesthood authority In the view of the LDS church, It is what is needed to perform or authorise others to perform ordinances and provide others with access to Jesus Christ's teachings and His atonement. This includes the partaking of the sacrament and participating in temple ordinances.

Now, if people get unrighteously excommunicated, they won't be allowed to partake in the sacrament, baptize anyone or go to the temple. Rock said he continues to take the sacrament at home or he said he will and I therefore assume he is.

Even before his excommunication, he wasn't allowed under the LDS church's view to do that without the Bishop's permission. Of course, Rock believes he is still part of the church, according to the Lord's definition and therefore still holds the priesthood. I'm not just picking on Rock, btw, but some of my concerns pertain to him and those like him who have been unfairly excommunicated.

So how about baptizing someone? Or going to the temple? I read about brother Kloosterman who was denied access to the temple for comments he made basically congratulating a gay-couple who got married. I'm not in a position to say if it was a fair judgment to revoke his temple blessing, but I'm using him as an example of someone who was devastated to not be able to attend the temple. Those who have been unfairly treated cannot exercise their priesthood or attend the temple, under the eyes of the LDS church.

So do they continue to teach and perform ordinances anyway? Do they ignore the temple? Or continue to desire to attend but realise they may not unless they fall in line and may not want to? What if they have children? Do they bring them up in the church so they can have the essential ordinances before they get excommunicated for example for being like their parents?

How does one receive the priesthood anyway? Is it able to be given to another, if that bearer has been exed? Lastly, just to clarify, I'm being, I suppose, hypothetical really.

As in, if all of what people like Rock Waterman have said is true, then these are the implications and the concerns I have as I see it. There's no need for anyone I mean my bishop for example to question my membership status over this. Hopefully, that's a clear disclaimer :.

Homo Kayakus, I believe Log was referring to DeeLyn's comment about God commanding us not to trust or follow those who have not proven worthy of our trust and repented of their wrong doing. I too would like to see a source for this, if you please, DeeLyn. The closest thing to this that I can think of is when Jesus tells us not to do after the works of the Pharisees. To apply this to our day, we should not do the wrong things that others do, whether their political or religious leaders.

So I can see how you can fit that around what you said about not following unrighteous leaders. I think everyone is assuming one must be worthy to have priesthood authority, priesthood authority has nothing to do with worthiness, it has to do with someone placing their hands on your head and giving you the priesthood authority.

As an example, if a person is baptized by someone who has the authority but is unworthy, does it make the ordinance invalid? No because it was done with the authority of the priesthood. If someone blesses the sacrament who has the authority but is unworthy, does it make the ordinance invalid? Now Power in the priesthood is something totally different, when one is worthy, has studied and fasted then they can heal the sick, raise the dead and move mountains with the power of the priesthood.

Where does any scripture say "priesthood power" is anything other than this? In fact, what does the scripture say about priesthood and worthiness? So apparently worthiness is critically important to the priesthood. I think y'all haven't thought this through, just as the United 15 Apostles didn't think through the content of their latest Encyclical. I think y'all don't know what you're talking about. Log, What is the latest encyclical you refer to?

Not that it would be news they have declared something they haven't thought through. In recent months Church leaders seem to be tripping all over themselves. But I guess I'm out of the loop because I can't recall their latest declaration. To Rock, Ha. No fire bombs. These will be my last comments on your blog. You say that much of what you learned through the church was wrong. I assume you speak of the details of church history that you complain about in your blog posts. They are all minor issues compared to the beauty of the gospel.

Brigham and prophets since haven't been perfect but the lord has done amazing things using them as tools. There is more substance and importance in one Gospel Principles chapter than in all your blog. The gospel of Christ, that He is the son of God and that we can look to him for salvation is what the church is all about. You are stomping on ant hills when you could be climbing the mountain.

To Deelyn You were active in the church for 50 years and never read the New Testament? You probably were skipping Sunday school because we go through the New Testament every four years. I also read it for Seminary during high school where it was an assignment to read it front to back. I've read it several times since. The New Testament was a key building block to my testimony of the correctness of the gospel I learned through the programs of the church including baptism, faith, priesthood authority, miracles, resurrection, three heavens, new names given, baptism for the dead, the sealing power, the importance of charity, the apostasy and need for a restitution, two divisions of priesthood, and many others.

Yes, I learned to follow Christ. Corbin Volluz over at RationalFaiths. While declaring Jesus a sinner. Oy vey. The only way to play the infallibility card is to Shut. Mark Foree, we seem to finally have found something to agree upon! Everything else does indeed pale in comparison to the beauty of the gospel of Christ. I don't see myself complaining about Church history so much as showing that the flaws in the narrative most of us were taught growing up does not matter in the big scheme of things.

We can easily reconcile the differences between "the Church" and the gospel by separating the two into their respective spheres. The sad fact is that most of us were taught growing up to develop a testimony of the Church, when we should have focused on a testimony of the gospel of Christ. Once I learned the gospel and the earthly Church were not one and the same, it all began to make sense, and I was able to embrace the one without holding an unhealthy allegiance to the other.

All I'm about here on this blog is following the admonition of the apostle Paul: "Prove investigate ALL things; hold fast to that which is true.

Don't be overly concerned about the Church or its leaders, but instead have an eye single to the glory of God. Log, Thanks for that clarification.

I recall you bringing that up here before. And I second your recommendation once again of Dee Volluz' essential piece on the current apostasy. Absolutely essential reading for anyone concerned about how wrong things are going in the corporate boardroom, and why.

The leaders have been painting themselves into corners for years. Now, in an attempt to figure a way out of their fix, they have adopted the very mechanism they once rightfully decried in the Catholic Church once it was clear revelation in that organizaton had long ceased. It's a trick that's bound to fail. Seems to me they're just painting themselves further and further into that corner they'll never be able to get out of.

It's like a husband who loves his wife and she's cheating on him. He sees the signs - lies and contradictions and inconsistencies - but, because of his love and faith in her, he doesn't connect the dots; he believes her excuses and doesn't press all of this is perfectly sincere. He cannot conceive of her betraying him because he loves her. Until one day, someone says to him that she's cheating on him.

Then all the dots fall into place and the pattern becomes crystal clear - he realizes she's betrayed him, and oh, how he begins to hate her, as much as he loved her before. That is the place many are being driven by the Church.

The leadership will not admit some of the Church's key claims are, and always have been, false. Those false claims - the appearance of faithfulness to her husband - are the key to her power. And why won't they admit this? Because they don't know it themselves. The leadership are the husbands whose eyes have not been opened, but these don't really have much love for her either; it's more of a marriage of convenience for them - so much time and effort invested.

And they have a vested interest in the appearance of faithfulness of their wife, so rather than investigate contrary claims, they attack the messengers. Truth isn't their objective, but neither necessarily is lies, you see? As long as everything's kept discreet, of course. Willful blindness, more like. The consumption of alcohol could be against God's law and Jesus not be a sinner if that law was given only for us in our time and not before.

In Jesus' time, it was against God's law to consume meat from certain animals, while that is not the law for us today. If Jesus was walking among us today in the flesh, he could eat, say, pork and not be in defiance of God's law. However, if He drank alcohol, he would be. Now, there is the matter of whether it is God's law not to consume alcohol. Fairly early on in my membership in the church I've asked the question of how come beer I think it was came to be against the word of wisdom when Joseph Smith drank beer.

It was explained to me that God did not give the word of wisdom as a commandment to begin with but afterwards did. He gives things line upon line and precept upon precept and He afterwards gave the commandment through a later prophet.

I don't recall who that prophet was or whether I ever came across the name of him and it also begs the question of where is the revelation? Why would God give the instruction as a word of wisdom, and not a commandment, by revelation and cause it to be written down but not do this when He gave it as a commandment to a prophet later on?

If He never gave it as a commandment, then why are people able to be barred from entering His holy house because they do not comply with a man-made law? I understand that God may let people make their mistakes even when others suffer, but for how long? I have no doubt that God will fix things eventually, but what are we to do in the meantime? If this is all true, then I feel like I'm one of those people during the Great Apostasy waiting for a restoration to happen, while trying to make do with what we have at the moment.

Miguel, There's always an excuse - a seemingly plausible alternative narrative - for the cheating wife's lies, inconsistencies, and contradictions. In the end, it's "that was then, this is now, so get with the program and follow the Brethren; they cannot lead us astray.

Because we got the keys, that's why. Two words: "we can damn you to hell. To even ask if it is God's law or not is to miss the point, brother. Get with the program and follow the current Brethren. What came before is no more. According to Jacob , the Lord's servants, laboring in the vineyard for the last time and the natural fruit began again to grow and thrive, plucked off and cast away the wild branches.

They kept the root and the top thereof equal, accoring to the strength thereof. It was a process requiring time. If the wild branches were removed all at once, the root would become too strong for the natural branches. The Lord of the vineyard also explains that is for the roots themselves to gain strength. He says: "59 And this I do that, perhaps, the roots thereof may take strength because of their goodness; and because of the change of the branches, that the good may overcome the evil. We no longer have polygamy.

Black men can hold the priesthood. God is taking out the wild branches, one by one. But there was originally only ONE olive tree.

The House of Israel. God's true church. After it became corrupted, the Lord of the vineyard caused grafts to be taken from this natural tree and put into other trees in the vineyard. They grew and produced fruit at first. The Nephites and Lamanites are represented by one of these trees. After they too became corrupted during the Great Apostasy the Lord caused the grafts to be put back into the mother tree and more branches for the mother tree to be grafted into the other trees if I'm reading it right.

So, if one of those trees represented the Nephites and Lamanites earlier on, does it still do so now? What about the mother tree then? Have the grafts gone into it yet? Does it have something to do with the Gospel going to the House of Israel after the Gentiles have rejected the gospel as Jesus taught in 3 Nephi ?

Log, Ah yes, of course. The United 15 Brethren can't go wrong, even when their words are contradicted by a future United 15 Brethren, because they were right at the time but not anymore because the future United 15 Brethren will speak and their words will be infallible, just as the words of the previous United 15 Brethren were or "are" if we go back to the present. However, we are not to consider the words of previous United 15 Brethren unless the current United 15 Brethren quote them.

We are also to be ever watchful in case any future United 15 Brethren quote these past United 15 Brethren, for we will be expected to abide by their words, which were the words of previous United 15 Brethren, even if they are not the words of our current United 15 Brethren.

Now to make things even more confusing, we are, every once in a while, expected by a leader somewhere in the church hierachy or even a teacher in a class somewhere to follow the words of a previous United 15 Brethren, even when they're not repeated by the current United 15 Brethren.

This leader or teacher may also teach us to follow the words of any individual member of the current or past United 15 Brethren, even when his words weren't the words of the United 15 Brethren then or now. Miguel, Just so. Now, let us listen to one of the dead prophets explain HOW the vineyard became corrupt. Jacob And it came to pass that after many days [the tame olive tree] began to put forth somewhat a little, young and tender branches; but behold, the main top thereof began to perish.

The branches at the main top a curious phrase, isn't that? Oh, mystery of mysteries, who can explain to us what it means for the main top of the tree to die?

Jacob 48 And it came to pass that the servant said unto his master: Is it not the loftiness of thy vineyard—have not the branches thereof overcome the roots which are good?

And because the branches have overcome the roots thereof, behold they grew faster than the strength of the roots, taking strength unto themselves. Behold, I say, is not this the cause that the trees of thy vineyard have become corrupted?