David B. Haight

April 2003
My first brush with the priesthood was when I was baptized. I was baptized in an irrigation canal in the little town of Oakley, Idaho. I was with my friends on the bank of that irrigation canal. We had on our bib swimming suits, which consisted of bib overalls with the legs cut out so you wouldn't sink and holes cut in the pockets. We had never seen a swimming suit made out of knit or of other fabric. My father came out from the First Ward meetinghouse with his counselors. He was carrying a chair, and he put the chair on the side of the irrigation ditch. My father said, "David, come on over here; we're going to baptize you."
I dove in the canal and swam over to the other side, shivering. It was in September and a little cold, and young boys get the shivers, you know, when you have only bib overalls on. My father got down into the canal. As I remember, he didn't take his shoes off or change anything but was just in his regular clothes. He showed me how to hold my hands, and then he baptized me. After I came up out of the water, we both crawled up on the bank of the canal. I sat in the chair, and they put their hands on my head and confirmed me a member of the Church. After that I dove in the canal and went over on the other side and joined my friends. This was my first experience, really, with the priesthood.

When I was 11 years old, my father died, and at his funeral I was very touched as I heard the people speaking about what a kind man he had been. At the cemetery as they were lowering the casket down in the grave and starting to throw those shovels full of dirt and rocks down on the casket, I stood watching, thinking he was my hero, and I wondered what would ever happen to me having lost my father. I saw good men exercising the priesthood and doing what was right — the men who had helped in digging the grave and taking care of things — and I saw a good man push a five-dollar bill back into the hands of my mother, who had offered him some money for helping to dig the grave. He pushed that money back towards my mother and said, "No, you keep it because you will need this later on."

! A few years ago, when I was in the navy during World War II, I received orders to report to the fleet headquarters at Pearl Harbor. My family took me to Treasure Island in the San Francisco Bay, where I boarded the plane there, an old sea plane called a Pan-American clipper. On board that plane were some high-ranking medical officers going out to prepare and build up the hospital support because the battle of Tarawa would be taking place within a few weeks. Because of my rank, I was assigned to sleep in a sleeping bag out in the tail of that plane, where I could see the starboard engines as we were flying over San Francisco, which was under military blackout. It was black as we were flying out into the Pacific, and I thought the starboard engine on that old Pan-American plane was on fire. I couldn't sleep as I watched it throughout the entire flight.
During that sleepless night I wondered about my own life and whether I had been living up to the opportunities that would be mine and the responsibility that would be mine as a holder of the Melchizedek Priesthood — the responsibility to be an example and to live the way I should so that I would be able to fulfill the calls that might come to me. In that sleepless night I took an inventory of myself, of my attitudes, wondering if I was doing all that I might. Even though I had always accepted my Church assignments, I wondered if I was fulfilling them with all of my heart, might, mind, and soul and living up to the responsibility, the blessing, that I received as a holder of the Melchizedek Priesthood and what would be expected of any of us who received this blessing.
Looking back on that sleepless night, I thank the Lord for His blessings today and for all that I have had the opportunity to be involved in. I try always to live the gospel to the fullest, to do everything I am called on to do with all of my heart, might, mind, and strength, to fulfill any call that might come to me so I may be qualified to do whatever I might be asked to do someday.

October 2001
If ye had but the faith of a tiny - I'm trying to think of the name of that little tree. [President Hinckley says, "Mustard."] Mustard! Thank you, President. (I keep the President around to help me.) If you had but the faith of a mustard seed. Perhaps not many of you have seen a mustard seed. A few years ago in Jerusalem we were in a car with a driver, and he said, "Oh, there's a mustard tree." And I said, "Let's see it." We got out to look at that mustard tree, and it had a little pod on it, and I was able to open the pod, which was like those on a locust tree, and see those tiny little seeds, not much larger than a grain of pepper.
Just imagine the analogy that the Savior was teaching the people. If you only had as much faith as that little tiny mustard seed, and I held it in my hand, and I could hardly see it, if you had that much faith you would say to the mountain, "Move hence," and it would move, if you had that much faith (see Matt. 17:20). "O ye of little faith," he told us.

A few years ago, when Arturo Toscanini was musical director of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in New York City, he had a Saturday afternoon radio broadcast. And one day he received in his mail a crumpled little note on some brownish paper which read:
"Dear Mr. Toscanini, I am a lonely sheepherder in the mountains of Wyoming. I have two prized possessions: an old violin and a battery radio. And the batteries are getting weak and beginning to run down on my radio, and my violin is so out of tune I can't play it anymore. Would you please sound an A next Saturday on your program?"
The next week on the program, Arturo Toscanini announced: "To a newfound friend in the mountains of Wyoming, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra is now, all together and in unison, going to sound a perfect A." And they sounded the perfect A. Then that lonely little man was able to tune the A string and then the E string and the D and the G from that perfect A.
Isn't it interesting to reflect in our own lives and in the lives of the many people who may hear me at this time those whose violin or lives may be a little out of tune that we are able to come to a general conference of the Church and hear the marvelous messages that are spoken?

April 2001
Those blessings have come into my life from my parents and their parents and others who have affected my life—teachers and good people that I have been associated with.
When I was about 11 years old, a man came to our little town to teach at the Church academy. He played the violin a little, and we hadn't had anyone there for a long time that had played the violin. My mother was impressed and picked up a little violin, I guess at some little rummage sale somewhere, and decided that I should learn to play the violin.
Even though I had never seen anyone play the violin in public, he came to our house and started giving me some little simple lessons on playing the violin. I was coming along fairly well by the time we graduated from the eighth grade in grammar school, and for the graduation exercises held in the high school I was asked to play a violin solo.
I'd carefully practiced the little number "Traumerei," as I remember the name. My sister who was four years older than I and was then one of the popular girls in high school was my pianist. At the graduation exercises, Connie McMurray was the valedictorian. Girls are always smarter in school than boys. As she was giving the valedictory address, there was a little pedestal with a pitcher of water and a glass on it for the school board. The school board was on the stand, plus a little handful of us who were graduating from the eighth grade.
As Connie McMurray was giving her famous valedictory address, near the end of it we noticed the little doily under the pitcher of water on the pedestal was moving over a little bit towards the edge, and over it fell with the pitcher and glass of water! Connie McMurray fell in a dead faint.
In the scurrying around of cleaning the water off the stage and rearranging the chairs, they announced that we would now have the violin solo from David Haight. I walked over to the little old piano, and my sister came up from the audience. I took that little simple violin out of that wooden case as my sister sat down at the piano and sounded an A. I said, "Go ahead and play."
She said, "David, you'd better tune it."
I said, "No, no, I tuned it at our piano at home." We had an old Kimball piano at home. You know, homes in those days—if you had a piano and books, that's all you needed for the family. I had carefully tuned the strings by twisting those ebony pegs of that violin, but I didn't know that all pianos weren't the same. So as my sister said, "You'd better tune it," I said, "No, no, it's all tuned. I tuned it at home."
So she went ahead and played the introduction, and then I came down on the first note. We were off about two notes.
As she slowed down, I said, "Keep playing," because I couldn't imagine anyone would take the time of a famous audience like I was playing to—you know, 100 people in that little high school auditorium. You wouldn't hold up Carnegie Hall while you tuned your violin! That would be shop work. You would do that in the back room so that when you would start to play, why, you'd be all ready to play.
She slowed down. I said, "Keep playing." We finished it, and she didn't speak to me for days following that show.

. I had a letter only a few days ago from a man in Edinburgh, Scotland. His name is George Stewart. He'll be surprised at my mentioning this, but he wanted to thank me because when he was 15 years old (some 40 years ago), I was presiding over the mission in Scotland. He wanted to thank me for the missionaries' coming to their home in Thornliebank, one of the areas of Glasgow. He had joined the Church along with his mother.
He said that as he developed a testimony of the Book of Mormon, as he started reading it and as he kept reading it, he couldn't put it down because he knew it was true. He kept reading and reading and developing a testimony of the gospel as a young man. He told how he used to come over to the mission home and how we were kind to him and we would spend time with the young people because they were getting into Mutual, which we were starting in the branches.
Then he told of the blessings that had come into his life as a young man, that he had met his sweetheart in that little branch—his wife—and that they were married and that they had four children: a son who had finished a mission in the Washington D.C. Mission; a son who served in the England Leeds Mission; a daughter who was married in the temple; and one who is waiting for the return of a missionary. He voiced gratitude for all of the blessings that had come into his life and the lives of his sons who have been on missions and his daughters.
During the past 40 years, he has served as a bishop four times in four different units, and his wife has served as a Relief Society president on three occasions. He is currently serving as a counselor in the Edinburgh stake presidency. He said, "And I'm going to be retiring very shortly from the company I'm with. I've done very well, and we plan to go out on a mission together."
Then he said these words to me: "This amazing Church has woven a pattern of miracles in our lives." Let me say that again: "This amazing Church has woven a pattern of miracles in our lives."
And he says the gospel came into his life, to his wife, to all of his children, and to their children. The grandchildren are active in the Church, and he and his wife now have a great desire to go out into the world when they retire from their profession.

There was a Brother and Sister Andrus from Walnut Creek, California, who had served four missions, and then they were called to go to Zimbabwe and assigned to the district in Bulawayo in Zimbabwe. This was their fifth mission.
As they told of the marvelous things that they were able to do in reactivating people, she told a story of how there was a little portable electronic organ in the chapel and how she started showing some of the boys and girls in Bulawayo how to play the organ. There was also a little piano keyboard in another room, and she would have a class where the organ was and another one where this little keyboard was. She would teach these children to play the organ after school. They said they started a temple preparation class in the reactivation process, and before they left they were able to put 28 people on the bus to go from Bulawayo all the way to Johannesburg to the temple, 650 miles away—two days and one night. They said, "We've talked about how we are in our late 70s now—these two old people wandering around in Africa having the greatest period of our lives, the greatest excitement we could have."

October 2000
Last Sunday, Ruby and I attended a sacrament meeting of a ward here in central Salt Lake. The meeting was most interesting because in that ward there is some affluence as well as people who are living in halfway houses. Just before the testimony meeting, a young lady walked up to the bishop on the stand holding a little baby in her arms, wanting the baby to receive a blessing. The bishop stepped down and took the little baby, and the baby was blessed.
Later on, during the testimony meeting, a little seven-year-old boy, with his five-year-old sister by the hand, walked up to the pulpit. He helped fix a little stool there for her to stand on, his five-year-old sister, and he helped her as she bore her testimony. And as she would falter just a little, he would lean over and whisper in her ear, this little loving seven-year-old brother.
After she finished, he stood on the stool, and she stood watching him, and he bore his testimony. She had that sweet expression on her face as she watched him. He was her older brother, but you could see that family love and relationship with those two little children. He stepped down from the stool, took her by the hand, and they walked back down to take their seat.
Near the end of the testimony meeting, when there were a few moments for me at the end, I asked the young lady who had brought her child up to be blessed if she would come up and stand by me, which she did. In the meantime, while the testimony meeting was going on, I asked the bishop, whispering into his ear, "Where is her husband?" The bishop said, "He's in jail."
I asked, "What is her name?" and he told me her name.
She came up and stood with me by my side, carrying the little baby. As we were standing at the pulpit, I looked down at this little precious baby, only a few days old, and this mother, the mother of that little daughter who had brought her to receive a blessing at the hands of the priesthood. As I looked at the mother and looked at that precious little child, I wondered of what she might become or what she could be. I spoke to the audience and to this young mother about the proclamation that was issued five years ago by the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve, a proclamation on the family, and of our responsibility to our children, and the children's responsibility to their parents, and the parents' responsibility to each other. That marvelous document brings together the scriptural direction that we have received that has guided the lives of God's children from the time of Adam and Eve and will continue to guide us until the final winding-up scene.
As we talked about it and as I looked at that beautiful little baby, I thought of last summer. Ruby and I were up in Idaho for a short visit, and we met some people from Mountain Home, Idaho, the Goodrich family. Sister Goodrich had come to see us and had brought her daughter Chelsea with her. In part of the conversation that we were having, Sister Goodrich said Chelsea had memorized the proclamation on the family.
To Chelsea, who is now 15 years old, I said, "Chelsea, is that right?"
She said, "Yes."
I said, "How long did it take you to do that?"
She said, "When we were young my mother started a program in our house to help us memorize. We would memorize scripture passages and sacrament meeting songs and other types of things that would be helpful to us. So we learned how to memorize, and it became easier for us."
She said, "Yes, I can give it all."
I said, "You learned that when you were 12 years old; you're now 15. Pretty soon you'll start dating. Tell me about it. What has it done for you?"
Chelsea said, "As I think of the statements in that proclamation, and as I understand more of our responsibility as a family and our responsibility for the way we live and the way we should conduct our lives, the proclamation becomes a new guideline for me. As I associate with other people and when I start dating, I can think of those phrases and those sentences in the proclamation on the family. It will give me a yardstick which will help guide me. It will give me the strength that I need."

Sunday, April 1999
Some years ago, near the end of a plane trip that I was on on an assignment, the stewardess came along asking what we wanted as a refreshment, as a drink. And I told her that I would take a 7-Up or some lemon drink.
As she brought it to me and handed me the drink, she noticed my tie pin. And on my tie pin, which I have here in my hand — we were using these in the Scottish Mission years ago — there was the crest of the royal family of England. But in the center of that crest we had emblazed the London Temple. And so on this tie pin was the temple with that crest around it. As the stewardess handed me the 7-Up, she said, "My, that's an unusual tie pin. What is on it?"
And I said, "That's a temple."
And this young lady said, "A temple? A temple of what?"
And I said, "A temple of the Lord."
And she said, "A what?"
And I said, "It's a temple of the Lord."
And I could see some interest in her, and she said,"What church do you belong to?"
I told her of our Church, and then I said to her, because I could see there was some interest, "If you will give me your name and address, I will have some young men come by and call on you, and they will tell you about this temple and about temples."
She looked at me rather strangely and walked away. Then in a few moments, she came back and handed me a little slip of paper with her name, Penny Harryman, with a Los Angeles address.
I called the mission president and I told him, as we always do, "Send two of your best. I want you to go out and visit with this young lady," because I had said to her, "I'll have some young men come and see you, and if you do what they will ask you to do and listen to them, I promise you that you can have the greatest blessings that could come into your life."
A little over a year later, a telephone call came into my office one day, and a girl's voice said, "My name is Penny Harryman. Do you remember me?"
And I said, "Of course I do."
She said, "Could you arrange to marry my fiancé and me in the Salt Lake Temple if we could arrange the time?"
I said, "Of course I would."
And while I was sealing this young lady to this young man that she had met during that course of events, I found that her mother was walking around Temple Square in Salt Lake wondering what we were doing to her daughter in the temple, because she wasn't permitted to be there.
As time goes on, it is the love that we give and the service that we render that becomes so important in our lives.

Hymn of the Obedient: "All Is Well"
Sunday, October 5, 1997

When I was a young boy, about 12 years old, I loved to play baseball. The only piece of athletic equipment that we had around our house was an old baseball mitt. We didn't have footballs in those days. We didn't have a lot of other things. I thought the great moment in my life would be that I would be playing baseball for the New York Yankees, and this was back in the days when the Yankees were a great team. I would be playing for them in the World Series, the games tied three and three. Now in the deciding game, guess who would get up to bat? As I stood at the plate, the pitcher would pitch the ball exactly where I'd want it, I'd knock it out of Yankee Stadium, and I would become the hero of the World Series. I thought that would be the great moment of my life. But I want you to know that that isn't true.
A few years ago I sat in the Los Angeles Temple in a little sealing room with my wife, Ruby. We had our sons there with their wives-they'd been married just for a short time-and our sweet daughter was kneeling at the altar, holding the hand of the young man she was to be sealed to. And as I looked around the room I then realized that this was the great moment of my life, because I had in that room everything that was precious to me-everything. My wife was there, my eternal sweetheart and companion. Our three children were there with their eternal companions. And I thought, David, in your youth you had things all wrong. You thought some worldly event of some kind might be the great event of your life. But now, I was witnessing that great event. I was there, I was feeling it, I felt a part of it, and I knew in that little white sealing room-clean, sweet, pure, in that room-with all of my family there that this was the great moment of my life.

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Successful Living Of Gospel Principles
October 1992
I am indebted to Elder Dallin Oaks for an account, a modern-day parable which I refer to as the parable of the bushy-tailed squirrel, the tree, and the dog, which illustrates my concern: As two men walked across an eastern university campus, they were attracted by a crowd of people surrounding a large maple tree. As they approached, they noticed that the crowd was being amused by the antics of a fox-talled squirrcl circling the tree, climbing it, and running back down again. A red Irish setter dog crouched nearby, intently watching the squirrel. Each time the squirrel ran up the tree out of sight, the dog would slowly creep toward the tree. The squirrel paid little attention as the dog crept closer and closer, patiently biding its time. People watching this entertaining drama unfold knew what could happen, but they did nothing until in a flash the dog, catching the squirrel unaware, had it in the grip of his sharp teeth.
The people then rushed forward in horror, forcing the dog's mouth open to rescue the squirrel. It was too late. The squirrel was dead. Anyone could have warned the squirrel or held back the dog. But they had been momentarily amused and had watched silently while evil slowly crept up on good. When they rushed to the defense, it was too late.
We see around us daily that which is portrayed in this parable. We sit idly by, watching as an insidious stream of profanity, vulgarity, and demeaning behavior, a mocking of righteous ideals and principles, invades our homes and lives through most types of media, teaching our children negative values and moral corruption. We then become upset when our children perform differently than we would wish and social behavior continues to deteriorate.