During 44 years of marriage, Earl and Donna Monson have designed - then scrapped - several sets of plans for a dream house.
It's not that they're overly picky, just that other things repeatedly have come along to bump the dream house off from center stage.On one occasion in 1978, they had gone so far as to have a loan approved and a builder scheduled to begin on a Monday.
"And on the Saturday before, he was sustained to be the stake president" of the Salt Lake Kearns North Stake, Sister Monson recalled. "It was Elder LeGrand Richards [of the Quorum of the Twelve] who called him. We told him what our plans were."
Elder Monson added: "His comment was, `Oh, I think the Lord wants you to stay here; you can do that later.' "
The Monsons lived in Kearns in western Salt Lake County for 35 years, where they served the Lord and their brothers and sisters in the gospel, he as bishop and stake president and she as a teacher and officer in Primary, Relief Society and Young Women.
Though intending originally to stay only a short time in Kearns, "we met some marvelous, wonderful, humble, good people," he said. "It was a good place to raise our five children. So finally, when we sent the last one on a mission, opportunity seemed to open up. We found a piece of property [in Sandy, Utah], designed one more house plan and finally got to build it. And we've found the same kind of good, wonderful people here."
Obviously, though, the Lord is not finished with the Monsons. Last April 4, he was sustained in general conference as one of the newest members of the Second Quorum of the Seventy. (Elder Monson, whose ancestry is Norwegian, is not related to President Thomas S. Monson, whose forebears are Swedish.)
"When I retired from work, our intent was just to go on a quiet little mission together," said Elder Monson, 65. "I'm not sure what happened."
"It's a bigger mission than we'd thought," Sister Monson remarked.
Indeed, the couple's experiences illustrate what seems to happen so often when faithful people turn their lives over to God and find themselves channeled in directions they had not anticipated.
Born and raised in Salt Lake City, he attended the University of Utah, where, as a senior, he met incoming freshman Donna Mae Hill and endeavored to show her around campus.
"He's been showing me around ever since," she said. They were married March 19, 1954, in the Salt Lake Temple. Their yearlong "honeymoon" was at the Presidio in San Francisco, Calif., where he was stationed with the U.S. Army during the Korean War. After his discharge, he augmented a bachelor's degree in architecture with a master's in engineering from Iowa State University.
The Monsons moved into a small home in Kearns in 1957. Soon afterward, they learned an important lesson from Elder Joseph Fielding Smith, then of the Quorum of the Twelve, a visiting General Authority at stake conference.
"He said two things: one, financial debt is a terrible millstone, and two, you can never get the Lord in your debt," recalled Elder Monson. At a time when local units were responsible to fund building projects, the stake was heavily obligated.
Faced with educational debt and struggling to buy a home, the Monsons had opportunity to apply Elder Smith's counsel.
"We went to the bishop and said, `We heard the Lord's voice speak to us, and we want to commit to you that we're going to find a way to give a certain amount toward [alleviating the stake's debt.]' "
A bass fiddle player since grade school ("I was the only fourth-grader in the school band tall enough to reach the top of the instrument," he explained) he tried to supplement their income by playing in dance bands, but that didn't bring in enough.
Shortly thereafter, a friend called him to ask for his expertise on a project. The resulting extra income was within a few dollars of the couple's commitment to the bishop.
"We learned that when you commit to doing what the Lord asks, when you put your foot in the water, when you take the first step, He will bless you."
Does he still play the bass fiddle? "No, I finally sold it," he said. He was good, having been in junior and senior symphony orchestras conducted by Dr. Frank Asper, then Tabernacle Choir organist. But when one commits his life to the Lord, some interests diminish as others increase.
Such commitment took his career path in a direction he had not expected. He worked as a consulting engineer with a Salt Lake firm, then went to work for the Church in 1962 as a structural engineer.
"That was going to be a temporary, two-year part of my career path, and 35 years later, I finally retired," he said.
It began with helping stake presidents and bishops in planning their building programs. In the late 1960s, he was asked to organize what is now the operations and maintenance program of the Church, a duty that took him to many parts of the world. In 1982, with the retirement of the Church architect, he was asked to head a new Temple and Special Projects Division.
"That was when President [Spencer W.] Kimball was starting to announce six or seven new temples a year," he recalled. "We had to gear up to be able to handle them all."
While dedicated to serving the Lord professionally and as an ecclesiastical leader, Elder Monson still found time to be a father to the couple's five children.
"As the children got a little older," he said, "we could see that they would be leaving and getting involved in their own lives; our solution for keeping them together was to get a boat."
"And we've had some wonderfully spiritual experiences," he added. "One time on Bear Lake [on the Utah-Idaho border], the boat stopped. I looked back and saw part of the back outdrive had fallen off. It was a cloudy, cool day; no one else was out there. I had some of my grandchildren with me, and a granddaughter said, `Grandpa, this really looks serious. Should we pray about it?' "
They knelt and offered a prayer for help. Five minutes later, a boat came from the harbor and headed straight toward them. The driver tied a rope around their disabled craft and towed them back in.
"He said he didn't know why, but he just felt like he wanted to go out for a little cruise," Elder Monson said. "And I think my granddaughters have never forgotten that."
Nor have any of the Monson posterity forgotten the inviolable rule: The family boat was never to be used on the Sabbath.
It is consistent with the dedication that has kept Elder Monson and his family in safe harbors.
"We look back now on a life that's been blessed with wonderful children, marvelous friends and opportunities far beyond what we ever felt worthy of. We now say, Father, if there's anything we can do to help others or show our love for Thee, we want to do it."
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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Elder Earl M. Monson
Family: Born July 26, 1932, in Salt Lake City, to Charles Horald and Ortencia Hendricks Merrill Monson. Married Donna Mae Hill March 19, 1954, in the Salt Lake Temple. Five children - Michael, Julie Jones, Wendy Mower, Steven and Scott, 12 grandchildren.
Education: Bachelor's degree in architecture from University of Utah (1953), master's degree in engineering from Iowa State University (1957).
Military service: U.S. Army, 1953-55.
Employment: Retired director of Temples and Special Projects Division of the Church, former Church international operations and maintenance manager, consulting structural engineer.
Church service: Stake mission president at time of call, former stake president, bishop, high councilor, Sunday School President.