29 minute read
Chapter 16
from Real and Right
Church and State
The struggle for Utah to be admitted to the Union was a long and arduous one, finally culminating in statehood in 1896. The primary barrier was widespread misperceptions about “the Mormons,” who had settled Utah fifty years earlier. Influential members of Congress believed that members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the proper name of the “Mormon” church) were not loyal to the United States. Specific language had to be included in the Utah Constitution giving assurances of a separation between the Church of Jesus Christ and the new state.
Members of Congress were not the only ones skeptical of this self-described “peculiar people.” In the heart of Salt Lake City, people who were not members of the Church formed The Salt Lake Tribune, a newspaper, to act as a watchdog of Church activities and ensure that its influence was not exercised improperly. Significant misconception has developed over time about the level of influence the Church attempts to exert in state government.
Once, during my time as governor, I invited Elder Dallin H. Oaks, a member of the Quorum of Twelve, to go for a walk one morning before dawn.1 He lived on Yale Avenue in Salt Lake City, just two blocks from our family home. Our families were assigned to the same ward congregation. In fact, I was his daughter’s Sunday School teacher. The invitation to go on a walk, however, had nothing do with either of our service. It was just an opportunity to deepen my friendship with a neighbor.
People think the Church tries to influence governments. The truth is, we spend 95 percent of our time trying to keep the Church out of political involvement.
That morning we laughed about how conspiratorial it would seem if a cynic saw the two of us wandering through the tree-lined streets of our neighborhood under the cover of darkness. At the time, Elder Oaks chaired the Public Affairs Committee, the forerunner to the Communication Committee where I now serve. He made the comment, “People think the Church tries to influence governments. The truth is, we spend 95 percent of our time trying to keep the Church out of political involvement.” My own experience as a Public Affairs Committee member squares with that assessment.
Respect for the Government; Respect for the Church
Most governors of Utah have been members of the Church, but not all of those former governors have been active, church-attending adherents. I was both a member and adherent. Frankly, I felt a bit sensitive to that fact. I didn’t want to be perceived as a practicing member just doing the Church’s work. On the other hand, I knew members of the Church were a large constituent organization and deserved respect.
Senior leaders of the church were invited to the inauguration, along with the leaders of other faiths in Utah. President Ezra Taft Benson was not well in January 1993, but his counselors, led by Gordon B. Hinckley, attended. We met briefly before the inauguration, and President Hinckley made the symbolic importance of their visit clear. He said, “We attend because we want it known that we are good citizens.” I interpreted it as a gesture of respect for the office.
During the first few months, two situations helped me understand that good communication needed to go both ways. The Church had an expectation that the governor would demonstrate a similar respect for the Church as they had shown to the governor.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints holds semiannual general conferences in Salt Lake City. I had not paid much attention to the fact that government leaders from most levels of government, whether members or not, attended the first session on Saturday morning. In fact, the governor, by tradition, sat on the front row of the historic Tabernacle where the meetings were held. At the point in the gathering when the officiating member of church leadership acknowledges the presence of federal, state, and local government officials, the television camera would flash on the governor and First Lady.
Not knowing the ritual, I had planned to spend Saturday and Sunday with my family, watching conference sessions on television. Midweek my office got a call, indicating that they had not received confirmation that Jackie and I would be there. Upon hearing that we didn’t plan to attend, they scrambled and discreetly called the chief of staff to explain the significance of the appearance.
From that conference forward, Jackie and I always attended the Saturday morning session, waiting for the words: “We are joined by government leaders.”
The second incident occurred a few months after the conference episode. A friend of mine, who was obviously carrying a message from the Church, came by to say that they would certainly enjoy a visit by Jackie and me. Appropriate arrangements were made, and we visited the counselors of the First Presidency, Gordon B. Hinckley and James E. Faust. It was a delightful experience.
You run the state and we’ll run the Church.
The discussion started out with a conversation about our family and the adjustment to life in the Governor’s Mansion and other changes in lifestyle. Then President Hinckley said, “Governor, we appreciate you coming to visit us. Often there is speculation about the relationship between the Church and state government. I have a proposal.”
I was all ears.
President Hinckley continued, “You run the state and we’ll run the Church.”
We both smiled at the humor of his expression, but it clearly defined our future interactions. Very rarely did I hear from the Church. Our most frequent interactions occurred when I called them to ask for their involvement.
Actually, I only remember one time when President Hinckley called me directly. It occurred during my first legislative session as governor and involved my veto of a tax increase for public education and the subsequent pressure that it created to find additional school revenues elsewhere. I had proposed a complete review of all tax exemptions granted by the state to offset the revenues the tax increase would have generated. One of the most sensitive tax exemptions was a sales tax exemption on purchases by the Church; another was the deductibility of tithes paid to the Church.
President Hinckley called to say, “Governor, as you consider the tax exemptions the state provides various businesses, I’d like you to consider the amount of social services and welfare we provide to citizens of this state, and ask yourselves, ‘If we had to pay it, would it be done as skillfully or as inexpensively to the state?’ If the answer is no, we’re hoping you will not propose its discontinuation.”
It was a compelling argument. Frankly, it also was a valuable one to me because I had not naturally thought about the exemptions in that light. The discussion made me realize that the granting of an exemption should be viewed as an investment on behalf of the state. We are, in essence, giving an organization permission not to pay taxes that everybody else pays. It should be done on the basis that the entity being exempted can do more good with the money than the state can.
Church Involvement
President Faust made clear that there were three topics on which they would continually have interest. He called them “the three sisters of sin.” He went on to define them as gambling, prostitution, and liquor.
True to their commitment, the Church did routinely pay close attention to those subjects. The one where they were most active was liquor. Particularly, they wanted to provide feedback on who the liquor commissioners would be.
In 1994, I had a vacancy coming up on the State Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission. This is the body that oversees the sale, regulation, and enforcement of liquor in Utah. Pressure was building because all five commissioners were active members of the Church. Nobody on the commission used alcohol. It seemed quite obvious that nobody was well served by that alignment. A local radio personality, Tom Barberi, went on a public-relations crusade to have himself appointed. I actually don’t think he wanted the job and likely would have hated doing it, but he had a big megaphone and was using it.
I had Charlie Johnson, my chief of staff at the time, contact Bill Evans, the Church’s lobbyist, and explain to him our desire to find a drinker who would be responsible in their actions but give both the Governor’s Office and the Church some cover on this one. It was my first time through this drill, and I knew people in Utah saw this as a symbol of what kind of governor I was going to be.
We assembled a list of names we could be comfortable with. When I appointed a drinker to the Liquor Commission, Vicki McCall, it was treated by several news organizations like the Berlin Wall coming down. By working with the Church in advance, they came to feel good about it.
A similar situation occurred on the Board of Regents, the governing body of state-run colleges and universities. For decades, a general authority of the church had served on the Board of Regents. It became known as the “Church’s seat.”
Having served on the Board of Regents with Elder Robert Hales, I understood the high value these people brought. Before Elder Robert D. Hales had served, people like Elder Neal A. Maxwell and Elder Marvin J. Ashton had served. However, the Church, in an effort to cut down outside time commitments of members of the Twelve Apostles, indicated they would prefer a member of the Quorum of the Seventy be appointed.
I felt that if we broke the tradition of having a member of the Quorum of Twelve serving in that role but then appointed a less prominent member of church leadership, it really would confirm the existence of a sweetheart relationship. It seemed like a bad idea for the Church as well as the governor.
Ultimately, I concluded to simply discontinue the pattern. I’m not sure we ever got to the point of gaining the Church’s “agreement.” However, that was the point. There should be no agreement.
Presidents of the Church
During my time as governor, there were three men who served as president of the Church of Jesus Christ as Latter-day Saints. Ezra Taft Benson was the first, though for health reasons he was not able to conduct business outside the formal councils of the Church. President Gordon B. Hinckley and President Thomas S. Monson were his counselors. A third counselor, President James E. Faust, was named at that time because of the shorthandedness that President Benson’s health created. I dealt mostly with President Hinckley and President Faust. President Benson passed away in May 1994. I attended his funeral on behalf of the state.
President Benson was followed by President Howard W. Hunter. I interacted several times at public events with President Hunter but recall few, if any, beyond those. He did not serve long, passing away in November 1995, just eighteen months after assuming the presidency. Again, I attended his funeral, representing the state.
Following President Hunter’s passing, President Gordon B. Hinckley, as the senior member of the Quorum of Twelve, was sustained as president of the Church. He retained President Thomas S. Monson as a counselor, as well as President Faust.
I had a very good working relationship with these men. President Faust, with whom I would interact most frequently, used a nickname for me, “Prince Michael.” He had served in the legislature with my dad, so I started from a good place with him. He was always looking after me a bit. Once he called to ask if Jackie and I would like a blessing. It was a well-timed lift.
President Hinckley was a giant of a man in my estimation. He had a sense of humor that was constantly evident and a gentleness and ease that seemed to transcend judgments about people. He dealt with matters in a very common-sense way.
Once he became president of the Church, he opened himself to the media much more than his predecessors. He was brilliant at it. He did a full one-hour interview in 1996 with Mike Wallace, the hard-hitting investigative reporter from the news program 60 Minutes. It was a high-stakes interview for the Church, and President Hinckley responded with such ease to all the controversial subjects. One cannot watch that interview without marveling at his perspective.
He also had a memorable interview two years later with Larry King on CNN. A media frenzy had just occurred over remarks I made about prosecuting polygamy cases. King discussed the issue with Hinckley for a while and then asked about me.
“Tell us your thoughts about this governor,” King pressed.
President Hinckley did not miss a beat. “Well, the governor is a native of Utah, young man, part of the economy in the insurance business and other things, grew up there. I know his father and mother well. Know him well. I regard him as a good man doing a good job.”
The polygamy brouhaha occurred in late July of 1998. I had been at the ranch with the family for an extended time. Long enough that my head wasn’t in the game fully. My first day back, I had the Governor’s monthly news conference on my schedule. Generally, we would spend some time reviewing the issues I was most likely to be asked about. We did so this time, but missed an important one.
Polygamy had been making headlines due to the start of a trial in Brigham City for John Daniel Kingston, a polygamous man who had severely beaten his daughter over her refusal to marry an uncle.
Halfway through the news conference, a reporter asked why polygamy itself isn’t prosecuted in Utah.
I hadn’t really thought about it, and then made a big mistake. I began to speculate, essentially thinking out loud in front of a bunch of reporters on a very sensitive subject.
I responded that I didn’t really know why. Good answer up to that point. If I would have stopped there, no problem. However, I went on.
“Maybe it is because some prosecutors worry that if it went to court, the First Amendment issue might get in the way,” I said, in reference to the religious freedom and expression protections of the amendment.
I further said that I had worked around polygamous people and knew them to be hardworking people.
As we walked out of the session, Vicki Varela, my communications deputy, said, “I think we may have some cleanup to do on the polygamy question.”
I thought the way I had spoken about it was fairly clear that I didn’t know and was speculating.
Within two hours, I could tell we had a major problem on our hands. The big lead story coming out of the news conference was, “Governor Says Polygamy Protected Under the First Amendment.”
There was no getting it back. Within twenty-four hours it had become a national story. By seventy-two hours the international media was all over it. It just kept escalating.
Within the first day of the controversy, I realized the only way to deal with this was to simply say I was wrong and hadn’t intended to communicate a belief that it was constitutionally protected religious freedom or was not prosecuted for that reason.
My practice after that was to always say the same words whenever I was asked about polygamy. My answer—no matter the question—was: “Polygamy is against the law, and it ought to be. Prosecution of polygamy is the responsibility of local law enforcement and prosecutors.” I learned a lot from the controversy—starting with don’t speculate on questions like polygamy.
President Hinckley’s interview with Larry King occurred about a month later, and he handled it with characteristic aplomb.
As mentioned earlier, I interacted with the Church fairly often, and mostly it was me approaching them to help with something. One such situation was when the state Division of Child Protective Services was struggling to find enough foster families.
I went to all the churches in Utah, including the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and said to the respective faith leaders, “We are simply not getting the numbers or the quality of foster parents we require. These children, and the people who are not caring for them, are part of your congregations. We have the legal authority to deal with these matters, but you have the moral authority. People will do hard things when asked by those to whom they contribute tithes and offerings. They will not respond to those who compel them to pay taxes.”
The Church of Jesus Christ Latter-day Saints responded in a very admirable way. They instructed bishops and other leaders to seek out volunteers who met the state’s criteria. At the same time, we established the Utah Foster Care Foundation, an organization designed to be a bridge between the churches and the state.
Another remarkable example was the Church’s response to my call to give our state a house cleaning in advance of the upcoming Utah Centennial Celebration, marking one hundred years as a state. By proclamation as governor, I declared May 14, 1996, as “Take Pride in Utah Day,” asking churches, schools, civic organizations, businesses, neighborhoods, the Utah National Guard, and families to undertake a cleanup project.
The Church got behind the project, turning out groups in every part of Utah. I spent the day going from project to project, helping out and bringing good cheer. By the end of the day, I was simply overwhelmed by what I had observed. It was estimated that over 300,000 people participated. If that were the number, I would estimate that the majority of them were mobilized through wards and stakes.6 Everywhere one went, there were people working. People walking along the highways with garbage bags, others cleaning a vacant lot or raking an elderly neighbor’s garden.
At the end of the day, I flew to Tropic, Utah, a tiny little town in Garfield County. Nearly one hundred volunteers from Provo had driven Friday night, slept in the church and set out in the morning to make the town, to use a phrase from the musical Annie, “shine like the top of the Chrysler Building.” By afternoon, a town that had looked a bit shabby was now fresh and neat.
I spoke to local people whose yards had been groomed by strangers. They were overwhelmed with delight. The effort brought the goodness out in everyone—in one neighborhood, people who had not spoken to each other for years came out and socialized. It truly was one of the most remarkable days I spent as governor.
I am, and always have been, a far-from-perfect but dedicated, believing, and practicing member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. While I tried not to wear my religion on my sleeve in public, it is an inseparable part of who I am.
At the end of the day, I felt compelled to find President Hinckley by phone in order to thank him on behalf of the state. I told him no state in America had a resource like the Church.
Social Interactions
In 2000, after George W. Bush announced that he would seek the presidency, he came to Utah for a visit. Candidates often visit the First Presidency as a courtesy. I accompanied him.
At the end of the meeting, I said, “I know Governor Bush is a man of faith. Would it be appropriate to end our meeting with a prayer together?” President Hinckley agreed and called upon President Monson to offer the prayer. He asked for heaven’s blessings on Governor Bush. As we left Bush said, “Leavitt, thanks for doing that.”
Occasionally, there would be purely social occasions where Jackie and I interacted with church leaders. We invited the First Presidency and their wives to have dinner at the Governor’s Residence after the reconstruction had been completed. My parents joined us. It was a spectacular night. The mansion’s dining room has a long stately table. A large crystal chandelier lights the room, creating a festive glow as the light reflects from the cherry mahogany used to cover the walls and cabinets. We used the silver from the USS Utah, a battleship that had been torpedoed and sunk in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The silver had been given to the state by the U.S. Navy.
The conversation at dinner was stimulating but lighthearted. I remember asking President Hinckley if there was a singular population in the world that had been able to avoid an erosion of their values. He responded by mentioning his admiration for the devotion of the Amish people.
On occasion I would invite people I wanted to get to know better to have lunch with me at the mansion. Once, I invited Elder Henry B. Eyring, then a somewhat junior member of the Quorum of Twelve. I had known his father, Henry Eyring, a world-renowned scientist, from the time our family lived in the Monument Park II ward. I related stories his father had told me and experiences we had together working at the Bonneville Stake Farm. Also, I had mentored Elder Eyring’s son Henry Eyring, and we discussed that.
After lunch we talked about matters of spiritual importance to me. Elder Eyring offered encouragement. We prayed together. It was a nice lift to my spirits on a day when I needed it.
Values and Ideology
I am, and always have been, a far-from-perfect but dedicated, believing, and practicing member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. While I tried not to wear my religion on my sleeve in public, it is an inseparable part of who I am. Consequently, my religious beliefs have naturally been an influential part of the experiences and thoughts that have shaped my values and ideology.
For example, I believe work and self-reliance is a social principle of importance. Likewise, I believe in compassion. I know the teachings of my religion have influenced those views. My belief in the rule of law must have been supplemented by the biblical clarity that mercy cannot rob justice. My foundational belief in freedom was influenced by my understanding of agency. The commitment I feel toward fiscal conservatism has been, in part, affected by my church’s teachings of thrift.
We all get our values and ideologies from someplace. I feel grateful to have been raised by parents in an environment where the Church, its leaders, and teachers have helped me gain the perspective upon which my views are based.
In 2007, after I was in Washington serving as Health and Human Services Secretary, a Utah news organization made a discovery of some transcripts held in the Utah State Archives regarding small scripture study sessions I organized as governor in 1996. We symbolically referred to those as, “Early Morning Seminary.” The participants were close friends who had been part of a study group I belonged to prior to becoming governor. Because some participants were state employees and we were studying scriptures in the Governor’s Residence, it created a lot of stir.
Here’s the backstory. President Clinton had used an executive order in September 1996 to set aside millions of acres of land in Southern Utah as a national monument (See Chapter 8: Successes and Failures on Public Lands in part two of this volume.). It was big national news and my administration pushed back hard over the process involved. A summer festival in Chautauqua, New York, subsequently invited me to speak about public land issues to an audience of three thousand attendees.
It occurred to me that I had never actually attempted to articulate my environmental beliefs in a succinct way. This speech provided a high-profile forum for me to do it. The speech would be carried on several hundred radio stations and reproduced by the institute sponsoring the event.
I had six months to prepare. At various times in my life, I have selected a particular topic to study and used my scripture study as a part of that process. It was my pattern to break the subject into questions. I would read non-scriptural material, of course, but when I did read the scriptures, I would look for insights on the subject of my focus. I decided to follow this process with the idea of defining my own environmental philosophy.
I’ve also found that I learn best when I’m discussing the subject with a group of people with whom I feel safe in trying out new thoughts. In the midst of discussions like that, words or phrases get used that effectively frame or describe an idea, only to be lost or misremembered if not written down. So we decided to record and transcribe these sessions in order to capture any usable language without being slaves to note-taking.
Periodically I assembled a group of friends and a couple of staff members, and we would meet early in the morning to study public policy subjects, searching the scriptures for insights. The discussions often produced new thoughts, and I’m certain the language found its way into my thinking, speaking, and writing.
It is an interesting question as to whether the transcripts should ever have been included in the state’s archive. If asked, I would have insisted they not be. Oh, I understand the argument that we were sitting in a state-owned building at the time. Others might argue that there were employees of the state present. However, I would push back and say these were not public deliberations on a specific policy matter. It was a group of friends during nonwork hours, sitting in the residence, studying together in order to learn where their consciences lead them on various ideological subjects.
I was irritated when informed the Tribune intended to print my private thoughts on the front page and pressed—unsuccessfully—to have the transcripts removed from State Archives. Was I embarrassed that I studied the Book of Mormon for that purpose? No. However, I did feel like it was an invasion of my privacy and more importantly, an invasion of the privacy of my friends.
“Leavitt Looked to Faith for Philosophy of Government,” the initial Tribune story blared.8 Columnists and editorial writers followed up with headlines such as: “Leavitt’s papers show dual faces;” “Leavitt and LDS study go too far;” “Too early in the morning to mix church and state.”
The incident played out over several quite painful days. Since I was a cabinet officer at the time, the Washington Post and other news sources picked it up as well. It revealed a fascinating policy debate about the role of faith in the public square.
To most, it was not a surprise that a public official turned to the scriptures to gain insight. In fact, to many it was reassuring. However, the freedom-from-religion crowd pointed to this as a smoking gun that Mike Leavitt’s religion was being imposed on them. They reasoned that if I was populating my thoughts about policy from religious teachings, any decision I made imposed those religious values on the total population. The implication of such sentiment is that no person of faith is welcome in the public square.
We all learn values from one source or another. If society were to eliminate religious teaching as a source of wisdom and the inculcation of moral values, the results would be devastating. The longer I operate in this world, the more I understand that the opponents of religious freedom clearly and unapologetically hold precisely that purpose as their objective.
Public Official and Religious Man
While I have never felt sensitive about being a person of faith, there were moments when religious practices and my public duties felt slightly awkward. For example, I attended funerals occasionally in my capacity as governor. When asked to speak, particularly at funerals for members of the Church, I felt a need to distinguish when I was speaking as a secular leader and when I was expressing my personal feelings.
One such occasion occurred in 1994 when a member of the Utah Highway Patrol, Doyle Thorne, was killed in a helicopter crash. Doyle, a Vietnam War pilot who joined the UHP and became pilot of the Department of Public Safety’s helicopter, often picked me up on the front lawn of the Capitol and flew me to various events. We enjoyed each other’s company and he would often let me fly the helicopter under his watchful eye.
Before his memorial began, the bishop of the ward asked that I make remarks at the end. The funeral was attended by law enforcement people from all over the country. I wanted to share my testimony of the plan of salvation and a belief of life after death, but felt that since I was there in an official capacity, and the funeral was being attended by media, I needed to be careful. Another unique dilemma was presented regarding how a person concludes a talk on such occasions. Normally at a meeting for the Church of Jesus Christ, the speaker would conclude remarks by declaring the expression as being done, “in the name of Jesus Christ, amen;” but this is not a typical ending for a government official. So the question was, should I end my remarks in this way as governor?
I came up with a solution: As I opened my remarks, I said, “I am here today representing the people of Utah as its elected representative.” I then spoke of the appreciation we all feel for the devotion of law enforcement and the dangers they face on our behalf. When I had concluded my thoughts as governor, I said, “This concludes my thoughts as governor. I would now like to express some personal thoughts to Doyle’s family.” I told a story of how Doyle would let me steer the helicopter and related how it was a comfort knowing his hand was close by to guide me and help me recover from any mistakes. I drew a parallel with the atoning sacrifice of the Savior.
I continued, “The last time we flew together, we were approaching the Capitol and Doyle said to me, ‘You better let me take it from here.’” I spoke of the grief that comes from losing a loved one and added, “I’m confident that those who pass on are not devoid of worry about the well-being of their loved ones. I can imagine the comfort Doyle must have felt to receive the same reassurance in the loving arms of the Savior, ‘Doyle, you better let me take it from here.’” I then expressed my specific beliefs about the existence of a life after death and closed by saying, “These personal expressions, I leave in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.” I was never criticized when I made clear when I was speaking as governor and when I was speaking for myself.
There were many times I felt guided and bolstered in my service. When I made important decisions, it was not uncommon to feel some uncertainty. I would nearly always make the decision and then pray for a feeling that the decision was rational. Seldom did I feel powerful confirmations, but I would often feel a discernible peace, which I learned to interpret as, “It’s fine.” Not all the decisions when I got that feeling turned out to be great decisions, but they were “fine.” Things worked out. The experience caused me to believe that Heavenly Father doesn’t wave us off all mistakes but allows us to make them and learn from the experience.
Occasionally, I would be steered away from a decision. In one instance, a State Senate seat had been vacated. The law required that the governor choose a replacement, using a list of three names provided by the party of the vacating member. In this case, I knew all three of the candidates, but I was much closer to one than the others. My friend had also received the most votes at the party’s special meeting. After interviewing all three, I told my staff that I would appoint my friend, but I wanted to sleep on it.
I prayed for confirmation about the decision, but a feeling of uncertainty about the decision hung over me. In the morning I decided I should change my mind and choose another candidate. I also prayed for confirmation of the new decision. I didn’t suddenly feel a discernible change, but over the morning I realized that I felt much better about the decision.
The man I chose went on to be a leader in the State Senate and to do years of public service. I made a better decision because of my reliance on religious habits. The spiritual communication is subtle, but real. Over time, I have learned to rely on it in making better decisions.
While most of my encounters with the Spirit have been more along the line of those I just described, on a significant number of occasions in my life I have felt a more profound engagement. Interestingly, those occasions generally happen at unpredictable times.
One day after a cabinet meeting, I was exiting from the Governors Board Room into my private office. Craig Zwick, the Executive Director of the Department of Transportation, asked if he could see me privately for a few minutes. We closed the door and as we sat down, before he could say a word, I felt spiritual communication that conveyed what he had come to tell me. It was accompanied by a warm reassuring feeling I recognized.
Craig then told me what I already knew. He had been called to be a General Authority of the Church and would need to resign in April. President Hinckley had authorized him to tell me, but asked that I keep it in complete confidence—which I did.
I recognized that I had been blessed by a unique spiritual moment. What was less evident to me was why. There was no reason I needed to know thirty seconds before I would be explicitly told verbally by Craig. Perhaps on that day, Heavenly Father just wanted to send me a gift to remind me he was there. If so, it worked.
