Elder Loren C. Dunn

April 2000
"Because My Father Sent Me"
A father succeeds when he steps forward and accepts his commitment as a father, always loving, praying for and doing what he can for his family, and never giving up.
I was in a busy airport last week and there, amidst great numbers of people rushing to catch their planes, was a father kneeling down by his son, patiently feeding him an ice cream cone which the son was too small to hold himself. The little boy needed help because his snowsuit, which kept him warm, also made it impossible for his arms to bend. I thought to myself, What a great dad!
I have had the honor of working with the missionaries of the Church for over three decades, and I know that a great many of them were able to get through those first shaky minutes and hours and days of their mission because of their fathers or mothers. I remember one experience of a fine young man who spent his life on the ranch, just as his own father did. When the boy got into the mission field, it was all strange: too many people, not enough open spaces. He wanted badly to go home. Finally, the mission president had the young missionary call his father. The father listened patiently as his son said how homesick he was, and then the father spoke in terms that his son could understand, and as I heard about this, it brought a smile to my face. He said with firmness but love, "Son, you're just going to have to 'cowboy up.'" The boy knew exactly what that meant, and he is hanging on as the spirit of his mission begins to come. He knows his father will not give up on him.
Innumerable are the numbers of those young people who did not quit and go home during those first days of being away at school or away from home the first time because of the good influence of fathers and mothers. When I sat across from President David O. McKay and was first called to this calling some 32 years ago, I remember that after he discussed with me what would be expected, he then charged me to serve by asking me to carry out this calling in a way that would be pleasing to my own father. That was enough of a challenge for a lifetime. President McKay knew my father, who had been a stake president for 20 years, and I looked on my father as one of the greatest men I knew. My first understanding of how important I was to my father and how real the Savior was, was when I heard him pray for us in family prayer.