The summer of 2009 a strong impression came to me, even urgent feeling, to go home to Colorado to transcribe and publish my parents and grandparents life stories. In Nauvoo, Illinois, 25 years earlier I videotaped my parent’s life story and they in turn videoed my grandparents.  I thought our family history documentation was complete.  

After transcribing my parents’ video I found the story stopped at their wedding, and half a century was missing. Completing my grandparent’s books before spring was a good start, but all the while I digitally recorded a multitude of personal stories of my mother and father. 

By summer my parent’s story was going through a second editing, which the amount of text was10 times more than my grandparents books.  Friday night September 10, 2010 my dad has a stroke and by Sunday morning he had passed away. 

The family gathers together to go through all his stories to pick one for their talks at the funeral.  The advice my father to his family would be read by a family friend at the end of the service. All the stories and pictures taken of regular family life are saved, and in that moment I absolutely knew why I came home. 

There is no other thing in my life I would accomplish greater than to document and record my mother's and father’s legacy. There would be nothing as precious after my father's passing as my dad’s recorded voice, the time I spent with him laughing and sharing every part of his life. I am so thankful for the Lord's urgent message to go home. This is a blessing to our family, but the sweetest tender mercy to me.