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| Bunk
has been a member for just five years. When he was called to
the High Council he said, " I can't do it!" The thought
of speaking to the wards was a very frightening one but, he
added, "to grow and to be able to better tell others about
the gospel, I know that this is what I must do. I am grateful
for the Prophet and for the Atonement and for my wife who has
helped bring me close to the Church." |
"I Eat Missionaries
for Lunch": Frank "Bunk" Robinson's Conversion
by
Peggy Proctor
What a nice
place to grow up, sunny southern California. Dad was in insurance
in Culver City, but eventually the smog got to him. We moved to
Colorado. I was raised in a very strong Catholic family and attended
a small private boy's school then went on to college. The University
of Colorado was so incredibly large it was out of my league and
after attending for a time, I looked for a small college, more like
the parochial schools I had grown up with. My search brought me
to Westminster College in Salt Lake City.
Living in the
heart of Salt Lake, I was surrounded by LDS people, but going to
school mostly with those who were not LDS, misconceptions started
to build. I came to the point, as others, that I was developing
real "us and them" feelings. I must admit that for a while I was
probably a bit of a "hater." [Did I say that?] After Westminster,
I went to the University of Washington but then I was drawn back
to Salt Lake again to work in radio.
The misconceptions
about the church grew in my mind. There are some amazing misconceptions
among the people out there! To some degree the church has had a
reputation of, or at least it appeared to me to be, closed or private,
which created a very negative impression. My thinking began to be
tempered, however, while I was manager of a radio station where
I knew and worked with many members of the church.
During this
period I started to separate myself gradually from the Catholic
Church because of questions about some of the basic doctrines. Missionaries
periodically came to my house and I was always polite but explained
that I had my own religion. I joked with them but never was serious
about taking the discussions. For a while even, more in jest than
to scare them, I told them that, "I eat missionaries for lunch!"
Turning from
commercial radio for a time, I went into public radio for four years
at the University of Utah. There I became very close to Steve Hess
who was delightful and open minded. He expanded my thinking a little
bit, but not much. Still, though I would never have admitted it
at the time, we had a lot of wonderful discussions. About this time,
my wife decided to separate. She moved to Las Vegas with the two
children and eventually there was a divorce. I left the U of U and
went back to commercial radio. At this point, I knew Diane, who
was recently divorced and whose house had just burned down, on top
of that. She was just starting over again, struggling to pull everything
together, and then was laid off by the station because of a slow
down.
Friends suggested
that I should get together with Diane. I was working for her father
as the station manager. Diane is the one who finally put that together,
and we went to lunch. Since she was LDS, however, I wasn't quite
sure where things should go from there. (She had four children,
ages three and up, and I had two, ages twelve and fourteen, who
were living with me now. Their mother had decided that she didn't
want to be a mother anymore.) Diane and I dated for a while, but
then decided that we couldn't move forward., so we were just really
good friends. The challenge with both of us trying to raise our
children was just too much.
Years passed
and I moved to Oregon. My daughter Hillary, who had moved back to
Las Vegas, was planning to be married. I asked her to send me a
list of the people she was inviting to the wedding. Diane showed
up on her list! I didn't even know that she knew Diane!
Diane came to
the wedding, and it was the time for us to get to know each other
better. One thing led to another and soon we were married. I made
one thing clear,--- "I fully respect what you do, but when it comes
to religion, leave me alone." Suddenly, however, I found myself
head of a Mormon household and I was learning a lot. Dave Miller,
my best friend in radio, was our home teacher.
Diane was given
a calling in the ward, and the bishop came and asked if that was
ok with me first, which was pretty impressive to me. I went to meetings
from time to time, but, in my mind, nothing was happening to me.
I smoked a pipe
continually at the time and had a glass of wine every evening for
dinner. At one point, for no reason I can think of or explain, I
stopped drinking wine. After some time we moved from Oregon to Utah
where there were some pretty good missionary efforts. I would watch
videos and talk about the gospel but had no real interest. One day
a friend suggested that we kneel down and pray, but I told him that
I wasn't at that point.
Then in the
middle of August, I stopped smoking!--It was an out-of-the-blue
decision. I called and got some of those smoking patches. I had
not thought about it ahead of time, and I still had no thought of
joining the church. I went to church now and then though and always
supported Diane in paying tithingÖIn fact, I said, I'll give them
a tithing also; I need to be giving it somewhere! I went to the
Catholic Church a few times but found nothing there.
Then, one day
the doorbell rang, and I opened the door to find two sister missionaries.
One sister asked, with an English brogue, if I had a moment. I said
yes, but said my reputation was one of eating the missionaries for
lunch. Her response was. "Oh, good, when shall we eat?" This sister
asked questions that caused me to ask questions and examine my own
personal beliefs. Sister Powell was good at respecting where I came
from, and then asking me questions like, "What do you think about
this? What are your feelings on that? What do you believe? What
do you think the Mormon Church believes about this?" Then she would
say, "You're crazy, you have no idea!
How would you
feel if I told you it was this way? Would you have a problem with
that?"
She began breaking
down the misconceptions I had about the prophet Joseph Smith and
the temple. Some of these things had come from my father who was
a Vermont mason. What happens is that you get the story and build
on it and tell it to someone else who builds up the story a little
more and pretty soon it's not the same story.
The nice thing
about Sister Powell was that she was so good and so respectful of
what I believed but then she would take a situation and turn it
so nicely and say, "Okay, but what if I told you that it was like
this" or "How would you feel if I told you it was this way." She
would then, ask me what I believed and she would say, "That applies
to exactly what we're doing." Mostly I would just sit back and say,
"Oh!-- okay." We discussed the word of wisdom, which at that point
I was living, but I had a little problem with someone telling me
what I should or shouldn't do. Again, she explained that very nicely.
We met for some time, and she had perhaps four different companions
in process of time. I am not sure that we ever did standard discussionsÖsome
of it was almost like we learn in primary, but it explained the
concepts very clearly.
Sister Powell
had that wonderful warm sense about her. It was not like she was
reading something or reciting something memorized. There was something
really special about her; she had the Spirit with her so strongly.---It
was almost like there was a light around her, and she brought the
nicest spirit into our home, that I could not ignore. . Sometimes
when she came we would get off on a subject, and she would explain
it, and all of a sudden, I would feel this warmth as the Spirit
rushed in, and I would be almost in tears.
We talked for
four or five months before she ever asked if I was ready to be baptized.
When she asked, "Are you ready to be baptized?" there was no question,
I said, "Yes." After that, about two or three days into it,---I
said, "I can't do this." I remember telling Diane, "I'm not going
to do it; I can't do it."
Diane said,
"The adversary is working on you." He probably was. That was a very
difficult time. I postponed baptism for a couple of weeks, but knew
it was right and finally my step son, Ben, baptized me. Sister Powell
started teaching me in early summer and it wasn't until January
25th that I was baptized. Her transfer came two days later.
I still had
some questions afterward and visited with the bishop during this
period to discuss my concerns. His advice was, "Pray about it."
I would and it was amazing how I would get the answers so quickly.
My children
did not support my baptism at first, they thought that maybe Diane
had put pressure on me, but she never did push it. I learned, however,
that during the course of my conversion, she and the entire neighborhood
were praying for me and hoping that my heart would be open and receptive
to the gospel. Later on my children had no problem at all as they
realized that they had never seen me more happy.
I have two older
sisters, one 10 and one 14 years older. It took me over a year to
tell them I had been baptized. When I delivered the news they were
both thrilled to hear that I had done something that I really believed
in, and asked, "Why did it take you so long....?"
Note from
Peggy Proctor:
I didn't know Bunk before his baptism, but he is a gentle, genteel,
and guileless man whose eyes sparkle, and a warmth surrounds both
him and his wife. Missionaries don't usually take so much time with
one person nor are they in one area very long, but the Lord knew
the heart of this man and sent a special missionary who chipped
away with her chisel of light at the dark misconceptions which surrounded
him. As you look at his story, you can see how the hand of the Lord
moved in his life to bring him to the waters of baptism.
Bunk was recently
called to the high council in his stake.
Editors'
Note: Submit your missionary stories to our Meridian Missionary
Journal editor, Peggy Proctor at missionaryjournal@meridianmagazine.com
Click
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© 2001 Meridian
Magazine. All Rights Reserved.
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