Friday, July 18, 2014
An Unexpected Pleasure
Chris Heimerdinger has been a favorite author of mine and a good friend for many years, as well as one of the inspirations for my desire to become an author myself. Recently on his blog, he announced that he was offering a special deal for pre-ordering his newest book, which will be hot off the presses on October 1. I was elated to hear this, but somewhat despondent, because, with our current financial situation, I knew it wouldn't be practical for me to pre-order it, or perhaps even to purchase it when it comes out. When I explained my dilemma to my sweet wife, her answer was immediate. She said: "I know how much this means to you. Go ahead and order the book. We will be just fine." With her encouragement, I placed a call to order the book and spoke to Chris directly. This was the first in-person contact I'd had with him. I had interacted with him on his websites and via e-mail but never before spoken to him. He couldn't have been nicer. He patiently took my information, then took time to ask me how my writing career was going. (I had told him about it before.) He acted as if he didn't have any other concerns or calls waiting. He and I spoke for 12 minutes. He called back a couple of minutes later with a follow-up question. And if that wasn't fantastic enough, he called me again the next day apologizing that he'd forgotten one additional question. I was overwhelmed with gratitude for the attentiveness with which he took my order. My wife encouraged me to write this experience down in my journal. And since this blog is now my journal, I thought I'd post this experience to share with everyone. It was one of the best experiences I will ever have in my life.
I have had a lifelong love for Church history, which has extended to ongoing reports of the ministry of our apostles and prophets, General Conference, and all temple developments. This blog enables me to share that love with all who read my thoughts on these developments, which are sometimes reported multiple times per day as needed.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment
In addition to my life-long love for the subjects which I cover in the posts of this blog, I have long held the belief that we can disagree without becoming disagreeable. Differences of opinion are natural, while being disagreeable in expressing those differences is not. And in that sense, I have no desire to close the door on anyone who earnestly desires to contribute to the ongoing dialogue on subjects covered in the posts on this blog.
At the same time, however, I recognize that we live in a time when incivility, discourtesy, unkindness, and even cyber-bullying has regrettably become part of online interactions. With that in mind, while anyone who wishes can comment on anything if they choose to do so, I hereby reserve the right to immediately delete any comments which are critical, unkind, lack civility, or promote prodcuts, services, and values contrary to either the Church, or to the rules of online etiquette.
I'd also like to remind all who comment here that I try to respond personally to each individual comment as I feel is appropriate. Such replies are not meant to end the conversation, but to acknowledge earnest feedback as it is submitted.
And in order to better preserve the spirit and pure intentions for which this blog was established, I also hereby request that anyone not commenting with a regular user name (particularly those whose comments appear under the "Unknown" or "Anonymous" monikers, give the rest of us a name to work with in addressing any replies. If such individuals do not wish to disclose their actual given names, a pseudonym or nickname would suffice.
Any comments made by individuals who opt to not give a name by which they can ber identified may, depending on the substance and tone of such comments, be subject to deletion as well. I would respectfully ask that all of us do all we can to keep the dialogue positive, polite, and without malice or ill-will. May the Lord bless us all in our discussion of these important matters.