By the summer of 1944, I was seventeen years old, living in Denver, owned a car, and had literally and figuratively taken over the running of my life. I was also cornering into the wrong turn at the crossroads of maturing puberty.
The preceding October, Spencer W. Kimball, from Arizona, had been called as an Apostle by President Heber J. Grant. During that same summer of 1944, I visited relatives in my native state of Utah, where my grandmother informed me that she was a one-half first cousin to the new General Authority, making me a one-half first cousin twice removed. That was all the excuse I needed to try to secure an appointment with Elder Kimball.
