Jaime had a friend who volunteered with the Lion’s Club Junior who approached Jamie one year to see if she could bring 15 high school students to the vineyard to help pick grapes just so they could know service. Of course he said they could. It was such a good experience for them and the lady was so impressed with how the vineyard works that the next year she asked if she could bring her minister and people from her congregation. While the pastor was there, he asked Jamie a LOT of questions about Church welfare. Jamie explained all about how all of the grapes are made into raisins and sent all over the world to help people in need whether members or not. He told how all the people there are volunteers and that the raisins are processed at the Church expense to be given out. The pastor asked, “then how do you make any profit?” Jamie said, it is not for profit – it is all charity. The pastor was silent and looking at the ground for a long time, then said, “I have to reassess my faith. You people are not what they told us. You are not evil. I felt the spirit here. People are singing and laughing and having a good time while they work tirelessly for free to produce something to benefit people worldwide in and out of your church.” He said that 7 or 8 times they had anti-Mormon sermons in their church and lessons on how to thwart the missionaries, etc. He began to take the missionary discussions, then was suddenly transferred to another area and Jaime never heard from him again.
Jamie’s great grandfather joined the Church in the 1840’s.
He was baptized in a hole that had been chipped in the ice. He said he didn’t
feel the cold at all – he was so filled with the Spirit.
He came to the United States in a ship that endured a 3-week
storm. The Dad and 3 siblings died on the ship. They landed in New Orleans and
took a paddle boat up the Mississippi to get to Nauvoo. The mother was sick and
grieving the death of her husband, so one brother went alone to Utah. He walked
the whole way by helping other families and they would feed him. In Utah he
became a mule skinner.
One ancestor, Marie Jensen was converted as a young girl so
her parents kicked her out. She went home to see all of her clothing and
effects on the front porch. She and an older lady crossed the plains together.
They got stuck in one area in the winter and couldn’t make it all the way to
Utah. Jamie’s grandfather was sent to rescue them and before they got back to
Utah, they were engaged. All of Jamie’s ancestors who went to Utah as early
pioneers were sent to other areas to settle them. This couple was sent to help
build the Mesa, Arizona temple. They lived in a dugout for two years.
When Wilford Woodruff was sent to England on a mission, he
was serving in ??? then sent to ??? by the Lord even though he had a lot of
people to teach where he was. When he went there, he found a whole congregation
ready to be baptized who had prayed for someone to come who taught what they
believed from the Bible. Two of the families of the 600 converts were Jamie’s
ancestors.
In the movie 17 Miracles, Jamie’s great grandmother, Rowleys
and Fosters were in the Willie-Martin handcart company.
When one ancestor was living in Manti or somewhere they had
been called to settle, the stake president went to him with 2 spinsters (they
were in their early 20’s but considered spinsters) who married Jamie’s
ancestor.
One ancestor, Norman, helped broker a deal and treaty with
the Indians to stop the fighting and stop them from attacking and stealing from
the Mormons. One brother gathered some men to go talk to the Indians and they
were taking gifts to give them and Norman got an impression on his own to go
talk to the Indians at the same time. He joined them and spoke for them. He
offered food – he had taken some fresh bread and BUTTER, which the Indians had
never tasted and gave it to the chief. The Indians loved the bread. Norman told
them they could have all the bread they wanted and butter, plus meat and other
things whenever they wanted if they stopped attacking the Mormons. There was
peace with the Indians ever after that.
Jamie’s grandpa had been sent to Nevada to settle it. One day
they had a busload of kids they were taking somewhere. There was a gorge with a
lot of water and very green where robbers hung out and always attacked
travelers. He was driving the bus when a tire blew and the bus rolled off a
cliff. It landed on the side where the door was, and they managed to get all
the kids out a window. But before he got out, he heard someone moaning. He found
2 girls. One had an arm out a window that was now pinned under the bus. The other
had been thrown out of the bus and was now under it.
He prayed for strength beyond his own and pulled a fence post
out of the ground (Jamie talked about how impossible this is – that once a
fencepost is set, even strong equipment can’t pull it out), but he did it with
brute strength with the help of the Lord. Then he lifted the bus while the boys
shoved the post underneath it to use as a lever to lift the bus off the girl’s
arm. As soon as they got it high enough, she got her arm out. Then they had to
lift it more to get the girl out.
The bus had broken most of the bones in her body and scraped
off part of her face and skull with the hair. He gave her a priesthood blessing
and was impressed to tell her she would grow to be a beautiful mother in Zion.
The story is in the Ensign, My Lifeline was Prayer. Their Bishop was one of the
few around there who had a car and was prompted to get in it and go. That’s how
he found them. They put her in his car to take to the hospital. At the same
time, her father had been on a cattle drive and felt prompted to leave it to go
to where the bus was. He got there just in time to get in the car with his
daughter. He told his horse to go home, which it did.
They went to a town to find a doctor but he was gone, so a
dentist volunteered to stitch up her face and head. Later when she got to a
hospital, they were amazed at how well it had been done. She had a broken back,
multiple cracks in her skull, broken ribs, and arm, etc. The doctors at the
hospital said she would be paralyzed from the waist down and would never walk again
but sent her home with instructions on physical therapy to do. It was a year before she was able to crawl and
she had almost no scars on her face. She raised lots of children. Jamie said
whenever he tells this story to the youth he impresses on them how his uncle
had to have been worthy as a priesthood holder to be able to give that blessing
without any preparation.
When Jamie was 4 years old his family lived in Chowchilla. During
harvest time at the vineyard in Fresno, his father would get them up before
sunrise, drive to Fresno and they would pick grapes from before sunup until
after sundown. They would go every Saturday and on Labor Day. It was about a 45 minute drive. They lived in a small branch
who had 8 rows assigned to them. The Hansen family had 3 rows assigned just to
them and when they would finish their 3 rows, they had to help other people
until all the work was done. (most wards now have only 3 rows assigned to them
and have a hard time getting that much done.) His father taught him the value
of hard work, or sacrifice, and of service to others.
His father used to visit an inactive family who wouldn’t
even let them in. He visited them 7 years before they let them in the door. Eventually
all the kids were baptized. The Dad became the ward mission leader. That family
sent Jamie money every month while he was on his mission. It was always a
different amount but was always exactly the amount that Jamie needed at that
time for something and always at the exact time he needed it.
Jamie’s great uncle was a prisoner of war in Japan. He had horrible
atrocities done to him that left him in such bad shape physically that he
resolved to never marry because he didn’t want to subject any woman to seeing
him. So instead he went on missions all his life. As soon as he got back from
one he would go to another. After the war he was sent on a mission to Japan. While
there, he saw one of the guards from when he had been a prisoner. This guard
had always been kind to him and had snuck food and water to him and his friend.
That guard had joined the church!
In the end, he served lots of missions. He served 3 missions
to Japan and one to the Japanese in Hawaii.
When Jamie was in college, he and his wife were looking for
a place to live. One family had a house that they needed someone to house-sit,
so they got to live there for free while in school. When they went there, there
was a Japanese man who met them at the house to let them in. When he met them,
and asked Jamie’s name, he asked if he was related to someone, and it turned
out it was Jamie’s uncle. He said that Jamie’s uncle had converted him in
Japan.
Jamie’s uncle always went to Oakland to attend the temple
(Fresno temple hadn’t been built yet). It is 2 ½ hours away. At the beginning
of one session, the officiator made a comment – “we never do this, but I have
to mention that this was the 100th session for this man in this
temple” – that was Jamie’s uncle.
He ended with his testimony that God lives, that Jesus is
the Christ and that the Church is led by prophets of God.
