One bishop taught his new deacons quorum presidency these duties. So the young presidency began to talk about what that might look like in their quorum and in their ward. They decided they should start visiting elderly ward members to see what they needed and then do that.
Among those they served was Alan, a rough, often profane, and sometimes hostile neighbor. Alan’s wife, Wanda, became a member of the Church, but Alan was, as we say, something of a piece of work.
Still, the deacons went to work, comically ignoring his insults, while they shoveled snow and took out trash. Deacons can be hard to hate, and Alan eventually began to love them. At some point they invited him to church.
“I don’t like church,” he responded.
“Well, you like us,” they said. “So come with us. You can just come to our quorum meeting if you want.”
And with the bishop’s approval, he came—and he kept coming.
The deacons became teachers, and as they continued to serve him, he taught them to work on cars and to build things. By the time these deacons-turned-teachers became priests, Alan was calling them “my boys.”
They were earnestly preparing for missions and asked him if they could practice missionary lessons with him. He swore that he would never listen and never believe, but, yeah, they could practice at his house.
And then Alan got sick. And he softened.
And one day in quorum meeting, he tenderly asked them to pray for him to quit smoking, and so they did. But then they followed him home and confiscated all of his tobacco stash.
As his failing health put Alan into hospitals and rehab centers, “his boys” served him, quietly exuding powers of priesthood and of love unfeigned (see Doctrine and Covenants 121:41).
The miracle continued when Alan asked to be baptized—but then he passed away before it could happen. At his request, his deacons-turned-priests were the pallbearers and the speakers at his funeral, where they—fittingly—warned, expounded, exhorted, taught, and invited all to Christ.
And later, in the temple, it was one of “Alan’s boys” who baptized that erstwhile deacons quorum president in proxy for Alan.
Everything John the Baptist said to do, they did. They did what deacons, teachers, and priests do all over this Church and all over this world.
Steven J. Lund
"Divine Authority, Sublime Young Men", General Conference April 2025
