Today, January 17, 2019 is our REAL 50th Wedding Anniversary. We were married in the Salt Lake City Temple on January 17th, 1969 after meeting at BYU as students in our early twenties.The Holy Ghost brought us together. It was love at first site. We were both first semester seniors when we met and married as second semester seniors just before we both graduated from BYU together to become Eternal Companions!
Wynnette and I are absolutely amazed at how fast the years have gone by. I Love Wynnette so much. She is a perfect wife and mother. They say only 5 to 6% of American couples make it to 50 years of marriage in the USA. We are looking forward to our next 50 years together!
We have 7 Temple married children with 30 grandchildren - 17 granddaughters and 13 grandsons all active in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. We love them all so much. We have worked on every continent except Antarctica. We have been on six LDS missions or church assignments overseas and have had many amazing joyful and miraculous experiences in life with our share of real problems. Most of our problems have been caused by other people. As a couple we have had very few problems together.
We both have strong and burning testimonies of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and know that Joseph Smith, Jr is the Prophet of the Restoration. We both love doing Temple work for our ancestors and in reading the Book of Mormon.
Wynnette is an amazing wonderful wife and mother. I have never met a woman who has the variety of talents that she has and works so hard. She is highly educated and has traveled to 45 countries working with me. Wynnette thank you so much for marrying me and in following the teachings of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I LOVE You with All my Heart and Soul. Your Husband - Dennis!
Dennis served in the British South Mission in the mid 1960s.
Dennis served in the British South Mission in the mid 1960s.
Montrose Elementary School:
Easter Story - Shanghai Jiao Tong University Spring, 2008
This is a special story about Easter that strengthened my testimony. When Wynnette and I were invited to China, with the BYU Chinese Teacher’s Program, we had to sign a contract with the government of China that we would not (1) talk about religion and (2) talk about governmental regime change. I was the only foreign sophomore English teacher out of 70 in the English department.
One of our assignments was to stand on the steps of the university’s library and gather interested students around us to speak English which was called English Corner. Sometimes we would get up to 50 students standing around us. One day a good looking male student asked in front of everyone, “we know our leaders are not teaching us the truth. What should we do?”
In my English classes my students would tend to get into controversial discussions because I am from America. And they would discuss religion and regime changes. And various times students would loudly say to the other classmates, “forbidden, forbidden, forbidden” knowing that they would be sent to re-education camp in the rice fields. They were also taught that they should not discuss religion and regime change with anyone.
So one day after class about 4:00 pm, after all the students had left, I gathered all my teaching materials together and began heading towards Wynnette’s class. I walked down a long empty corridor with open air pillars and to my surprise, there was one of my female students waiting for me secretly so she could talk with me privately. She knew that I being an American would tell her the truth. With tears coming down her cheeks, she looked at me and asked, “is it true what they are saying about this man Christ. Did he come back to life?” The spirit of the Holy Ghost was so strong. I looked her in the face and said, “yes, it is true. Jesus Christ was resurrected for you and me and you will be resurrected some day.” I knew at that moment that I could be deported but the spirit of the Holy Ghost was so strong that I knew that I had to bear my testimony to her of the truthfulness of Christ’s resurrection.
This experience showed me that Chinese university students are hearing about the Savior’s life and want to know more