In late summer of 1968, at age thirty, I was inspired to leave commissioned sales and pursue a university degree. This inspiration was validated by a line in my patriarchal blessing to get all the education I could for “my work in the world.” After much thought, prayer, and the encouragement of my wife, Betsy, I applied to Brigham Young University and was accepted. After we sold our house in Burnaby, British Columbia, and I left my job, we learned that Betsy was pregnant with our second child. This gave us pause, but we reasoned that since our decision was based on personal revelation, the Lord would provide.
And the Lord did provide! Six years later, I had a Bachelor of Arts degree and a teaching certificate from BYU and a Master of Arts Degree from Utah State University. My goal was to teach history at a junior college.
It was time for our family, which now included four children, to return to Canada. During our years in Utah, I had paid for my education by working summers as a commissioned salesman at Sears. Now that I had graduated, I could no longer work in the United States. It was imperative that I find summer work and a college position in Canada immediately. For months, I had been sending query letters to colleges without success.
Those post-graduation weeks turned out to be some of the most trying in my life. I skipped my graduation ceremony, left my family in Logan, Utah, and, with little cash and a Shell gasoline credit card, headed for Banff, Alberta, where I was offered a job as a tour driver. While considering the offer, I learned of an upcoming hiring fair for public school teachers in Vancouver, B.C. I turned down the driver position and drove the eight hundred kilometers to attend the fair.
At the fair, I had several encouraging interviews, and one that practically assured me a teaching position at a secondary school in the Okanagan Valley. The principal promised to phone me the following Monday to confirm the position.
The next day, I attended church at my old ward in Burnaby, B.C. A friend told me that the house we had sold for $17,000 six years earlier was now valued at over $100,000. Having little money, no job, and a family to support, this news hit me hard. I wondered, was it really personal revelation that had taken us to Utah?
All day Monday, I stayed near the phone at my mother-in-law’s apartment. The call never came! I slept very little that night, agonizing over what to do next.
A year earlier, I had turned down a sales job at Xerox in Calgary. In desperation, I headed back to Alberta. Xerox was in the middle of moving its corporate offices. After sleeping in the car overnight and tidying up somewhat at a gas station, I felt out of place entering the shiny, new building. I was rather brusquely asked to come back later.
I exited the building and stood on the sidewalk, paralyzed by the proverbial “stupor of thought.” I fiercely missed my family and wanted to head back to Logan. But how could I? My family was depending on me to find a job. I stood there for several minutes, pleading with Heavenly Father to show me what to do. Suddenly, the Spirit whispered, “Sears.” My heart leaped! Why hadn’t I thought of that? I didn’t need a work permit in Canada!
I filled out an application at Sears, emphasizing my summers with the company in the U.S., then asked if I could meet the manager. Perhaps sensing my desperation, the receptionist smiled encouragingly and took my application to him. He glanced at it, smiled, and invited me into his office. As it turned out, he, too, had worked at Sears to put himself through university. After a friendly chat, he said, “As it happens, we could use an experienced salesman in the hardware department. Would you fill in for the summer while I continue to search for the right person?” Needless to say, I jumped at the offer. I asked for a week to go get my family, and he agreed. I raced down the escalator two steps at a time and phoned Betsy.
On my fourth day at Sears, I was alone on the sales floor when the phone rang. The caller identified himself as the principal of a junior high school in B.C. “You’re a hard man to track down,” he said. He offered me a teaching position in English and social studies for the fall. The salary was so low I almost turned him down. However, since he was so friendly and had taken the time to find me, I told him I’d think it over.
That evening, I told Betsy there was no way I would accept the offer, as we couldn’t live on the salary. She surprised me by saying, “I think you should take it. You’ve worked for six years to become a teacher. It’s not what you want, but it is teaching. By the end of the summer, we’ll have saved enough to make the move, and we’re used to getting by.”
That night we prayed about it, and the next morning I accepted the position.
In late August, we moved to Castlegar, a small town near the Canada/ U.S. border north of Spokane, Washington. We survived the 1975-76 school year on my meager salary, augmented during the summer vacation by Betsy working in the local library. I stayed home with the children and worked towards getting my B.C. teaching certificate.
After two years at the junior high school, I was hired as one of ten original faculty members at a new community college on Vancouver Island.
As I look back on those post-graduation days, I realize that my “afflictions” were truly only for “a small moment” (Doctrine &Covenants 121:7) and that I was foolish to question the personal revelation that sent us to Utah. Not selling our house and continuing in commissioned sales would probably have been more lucrative. But the experiences my family had in Utah and the satisfaction of teaching college history for twenty-three years have strengthened my testimony in the power of prayer and the reality that God does direct our paths if we trust Him (Proverbs 3:5).