Brother Down! and other temple favorites.

One of my dad's favorite things of all time was the temple. Arguably the thing that made him happier than anything else in this life was when he was able to go to the temple with all of his children. He circled all of his children in a big hug in the celestial room and said that there was no greater accomplishment than that in his life. He would have been so happy to see Alicia go on to marry Ryan and David go on to marry Britta Bergstrom, but he will soon enough.

Now Dad was always interesting to go to the temple with. Here's one of my favorite stories as told by my mom when Davide first went through to take out his endowments.

"... The only thing David had to say for sure about the temple is that Dad isn't allowed in there anymore. I don't know if you can blame the stroke or not but since then he has become very careless about where he chooses to pass gas and he certainly doesn't try to keep them quiet anymore. Any time he strains trying to stand up or something out they rip. He ripped two or three more really loud ones in the temple and even David was so ashamed. Grandpa poked him in the ribs with his elbow in disapproval. Poor Dad. But I agree with David. He probably needs to be banned from the temple.
Let me tell you what happened last Friday. Michelle and I and your Dad decided to go do a session in the temple. Well, it takes Dad a really long time to get dressed and up to the chapel and he has a hard time walking all the snow and ice. So we dropped him off at the door of the temple and Michelle said, "Okay Dad, we're giving you a head start, let's see if you can get up to the chapel before us." Bad, bad thing to say to him. Se w park the car, go in the temple, get dressed and head on up to the chapel. We still wait another 15-20 minutes for Dad. Eventually he comes hobbling in with his "I did a bad thing" face. He sits down between the 2 of us and mumbles, "Competition isn't a good thing in the temple" Then he proceeds to tell us the whole sad story. As he was in his booth in the locker room trying to change, he was hurrying and lost his balance and fell down. He only had his white shirt and garment bottoms on. As he fell he slid along the wall and it pulled his bottoms down below his butt. He then fell on the door on his bad arm. He is on the floor and can't get up! There is a temple worker outside his door who sees that he has fallen and starts yelling, yes yelling, no quiet temple voice here, as loud as he can "BROTHER DOWN, BROTHER DOWN!!!!!" He probably yelled hit 9 times! Pretty soon Dad looks out from underneath the booth and there are about 14 feet standing there. Every temple worker from a 5 mile radius had come running! They couldn't get in to help him because he was laying against the door blocking it from opening. So they are just shoving on the door as hard as they can trying to get in to help him but they are only hitting him hard on the head each time they try to push the door open! Itwas pretty comical. Poor Dad. He is so humble and has such a great send of humor that he can laugh suchthings off.
He eventually makes it upstairs and he heads into the session. He has to ask the temple workers for help during the session because he can't put his temple clothes on by himself without his left arm. So an older gentleman sits down next to him and helps him throughout the session with his clothes. Pretty soon Dad is looking over at Michelle and I and pulling funny faces and nodding toward the man next to him. I couldn't figure out what he was trying to say. After the session he told us that L. Tom Perry, the apostle, was the gentleman siting next to him, helping him! It was pretty neat. He came and found Dad afterward in the locker room and talked to him. Dad was able to ask him it was alright for him to go up to the prayer circle without being able to do all the things with his left arm. It is something that Dad has felt really bad about. Bro. Perry said of course it was okay so tonight he went up with Michelle while I was with David. It was great. "

the trouble with clothes.

Dad certainly had problems with clothing. He once came home from the bowling alley with the bowling shoes still on! He claimed they were just so comfortable he hadn't noticed until he went to take them off that night!
He was heading to the temple once and had his shirt and tie on, he'd shaved, put on his black socks leg brace and church shoes, he'd gathered his temple bag and recommend and made his way to the front door when luckily somebody (probly Mom) stopped him and asked if he was missing anything.... LIKE PANTS! Seriously!
Another time he was complaining about difficulty getting his pants off going to the bathroom only to realize he had two belts on. How do you even do that?
He loved to wear the same three or four sweaters over and over with that dirty old Browning hat which was half sun-bleached and half preserved from sitting on his dashboard. I once gifted him a huge University of Utah sweatshirt despite his hatred for the U because I knew he'd wear it anyway! Sure enough he wore it til his dying day.
The old man has showed up to with one church shoe and one sneaker, different colored socks and possibly worse of all.... the dreaded pickle pants.

But my favorite dad story having to do with clothing is how he'd always wander around with just his garments on even when strangers or visitors were home. Mom writes this one to us when we were on our missions:
" Well I best be going. What's that you say? Just one crazy dad story? Okay, if you insist. I have time for just one crazy dad story. I swear your father is getting loonier by the minute. The other night he came walking out in his garments. Surprise, surprise huh. Not like that is something he did before.... huh? Anyway, he is still strutting around in his underwear but does it all the time in front of Michelle and her friends. So long story short I looked down at him and though Hmmmm something doesn't look right. Actually his garments seemed a little more sheer than usual and then I realized that he had his garments on backwards. I said "Dear, why are your garments on backwards??" He looked down and with a surprised look said "No wonder I have had a such a hard time going to the bathroom all day! I could never find the opening!" Let me tell you, never a dull moment!"

pants you like a turtle!

more famous words were never said! Here's the story as told by Mom:

"He is still as entertaining as ever. The other night he and David were going at each other as usual. (just teasing each other nothing serious) David made some idle threat to Dad and Dad came back with "Oh yeah?, well I'll pants you like a turtle!!"We had to pick Deedle up off the floor he was laughing so hard. It totally disarmed him! It has become our new favorite saying around here."

practical jokes

Possible Dad's favorite thing ever would be practical jokes. He lived to trick people. Take this letter I got for example. It caused all sorts trouble when I responded to it believing his lie!

"Hello Elder Sparks,
I miss you face. They are still trying to kill me here. Almost daily. I fthey would leave me alone I'd probably get it done myself. Ha Ha! We loved you letter. Aint you glad you did this? You did it all on your own. HOT GOSSIP!! I caught Michelle making out with Paul Perkins! YUK! Ugly red headed grand babies! ..."

It seriously took weeks for people to realize it was one of dad's pranks.
My favorite prank he ever pulled though was when he was really sick and had been in the hospital. He had just gotten back and Mom's friends and family hadn't heard exactly what happened, only something about Bill needing to go to the hospital and it being serious. He saw all their questions and concerns in Mom's email. So what does he do? Put their hearts at ease and let them know he was gonna be OK?
no no no, not my dad. He instead replies to EVERYONE who already were fearing the worst "Please send flowers! This has all happened so fast!"
Everyone was convinced the old man had actually died! One person called and when Dad answered she thought that it was my mom's parents there consoling her so she immediately hung up and freaked out even more!

Dad was a jokester alright. He often ended his letters to me with "The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated"

Dave Libhard shared this hilarious story with me on my mission:
"Your dad has stories like this one... He was the best missionary I ever taught. And I taught missionaries for 8 years while I was in Provo. I probably taught more missionaries than anyone else in the history of the church (Pride goeth before the fall, so I'll stop here but you get the idea) I really don't know how he did it. Seems like ever time he wrote to me he was putting on the whites to go get somebody wet-- and that was Southern Germany, land of the hard hearts. I don't think Bill ever understood that German-speaking missionaries were "special"-- they were to go knock on doors and plant seeds, but not baptize. As usual, your pa did things his way-- he just loved everyone and then baptized their heinies. What a dude... He was incredible. At one point I thought he was copying names off the headstones of dead folk in the cemeteries so he could claim he had baptized them and then they died. He's not above that kind of thing you know. And the mission pres loved him... "Elder Sparks this; Elder Sparks that" He was the kind of missionary you got tired of hearing about. The mission president's Liebling... can you guess what that means??? ...
... Bill is always playing pranks on me. Is this another one of his pranks (refering to Alicia being in such a cushy mission). Are you like a cheerleader for real missionaries? One time... and this must have lasted about a year... I would get messages on my answering machine from "Special Agent Halversen" Get this: I'd come home from work, and I'd play my messages and I'd hear something like this: "Yes Mr. Libbert [he'd purposely mispronounce my name], this is Special Agent Halversen. We need to talk. I'll be in touch. " Click. That went on for a year!! Special Agents work for the CIA! I was dying a slow death. Who was this Halversen guy? His tone was serious as death. I got really excited because I though maybe the CIA needed my help withsomething, or that maybe I could get a job as an undercover agent or something.
But ... hehehe.. I got him back. Big time. He'll never mess with me again. I'll let him explain how I dissed him "

AND we all wonder WHERE we get our practical jokes from? The master that's where.

another funny letter

Another of my favorites...

"Dear Elders and Elerettes,
Taylor, did yo get beaten up again this week?
Michelle, how about those mud slides?
Ali, how's the tan coming along?
Taylor, I got a letter from Andy this week. He was verbally abusive as usual and expressed his undying love for you. He will be a good missionary. By now you have met intellectuals that just want to argue with you, Andy will give those types a run for their money.
As you know, your big sister will be home soon, she gets all your old stuff. Time goes by so fast when you are serving the Lord, Although there are sometimes days and weeks that last forever. We have all experienced those times. Be valiant young ones. These times make the good times even sweeter. It is always so much fun for us to tell people that you 3 are all out at the same time, by the time I add th stroke story, they are crying and reaching for their wallets. I could do this professionally if you guys would agree to stay out longer.
Mom is kicking me out of the house and rushing me back to work. I can't use my fingers well enough yet to button my pants. I don't think that's going to go over well at work when I ask co-workers to button me up. Maybe I'll stay with panhanding the old people in the ward... By the way I have developed relationships in the ward with the older folks. Old folks have had strokes and they like to share stories with me. I has given me empathy for senior members of the ward. I have been mouth kissed by several of them. It's not bad until they start usingthetongue. Generally it's not too bad, but old people have a tendency to use too much slobber. You get used to it.
Michelle, Mark Iverson asked for your address Sunday. I gave it to him, I like him, he doesn't use too much slobber, but you would know this already Miss Hot lips. We haven't seen much of letterJ since "the potential boyfriend endurance trial" when I met him at the front door with a shotgun and told him his first test was to make it back to his car before the buckshot. Strangest thing, he hasn't come back.
We look forward to enjoying your wonderful spirits. Work hard and keep all of the rules and BAPTIZE!
Love
Dad"