June 18, 2025 • 52 mins
Carson was born to Nancy and Terry Hopkins in southeastern Idaho and is the second of five children. On several family lines, his ancestors have been members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for seven generations. Born into the faith, Carson has remained an active member throughout his life.
He spent his early childhood on farms until age 11, when his father took a job in Nevada’s mining industry and the family moved to Battle Mountain. There, Carson thrived in a vibrant Boy Scout troop and earned his Eagle Scout Award. He lived in Battle Mountain through high school before attending Idaho State University. During college, he received a life-changing call to serve a two-year mission in Zimbabwe.
After returning home, Carson worked in mining for a time before continuing his education, eventually earning a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from BYU. While at BYU, he met and married Jennifer Kunz—though it’s worth noting that she asked him out on their first date! Together, they began building a family and are now the proud parents of six children, ranging in age from 11 to 22.
Carson attended the UNLV School of Dental Medicine, graduating in 2009. He worked for Dr. Ron Ingram in Pratt, Kansas for 3 months before he purchased the practice and has owned Pratt Family Dental ever since.
Over the years, Carson has worked in a variety of fields including farming, retail, mining, surveying, landscaping, daycare, and dentistry. He has also faithfully served in many Church callings—sometimes more than one at a time. His service includes roles in Scouting, multiple Elders Quorum presidencies, teaching assignments, counselor in bishoprics, Young Men counselor and president, branch president in Pratt, and currently as a high councilor and second counselor in the stake Young Men presidency.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Hi friends, welcome to the Wichita KS State Podcast.
I'm your host, Paul Kitchen, a state history specialist.
This podcast is intended to helpbring followers of Christ closer
to him and to promote unity within the body of Christ by
listening to our state leaders share their personal stories of
faith. By reflecting on faith,
promoting experiences, we can strengthen our individual faith
(00:20):
in Jesus Christ together. Welcome everybody to our next
episode here with Carson Hopkins.
Carson was born to Nancy and Terry Hopkins in southeastern
Idaho. He is the second child of five
children. His ancestors have been members
of the Church of Jesus Christ ofLatter Day Saints for seven
generations on some lines. So he was born into the church
(00:43):
and has been an active member his whole life.
He lived on farms until he was 11 years old.
Then his father got a job in Nevada working in the mining
industry and the family moved toBattle Mountain.
While they're he enjoyed participating in an active Boy
Scout troop and earned his EagleScout.
(01:05):
Carson lived in Battle Mountain,NV until graduating high school.
After high school he attended Idaho State University until he
received his life changing 2 year mission call to Zimbabwe.
After his mission, he worked in mining until going back to
college to get his bachelor degree in Chemistry from BYU.
While attending BYU, Carson met and married Jennifer Coons.
(01:29):
For the record, she asked him out on the first date.
Together, they decided to start having a family.
Now they have six children aged 11 to 22.
Carson attended UNLV School of Dental Medicine and graduated in
2009. After school, he worked for
Doctor Ron Ingram in Pratt, KS for three months.
(01:51):
He then bought the practice and his own Pratt Family Dental.
Since then, through the years, Carson has worked in several
fields including farming, retail, mining, surveying,
landscaping, daycare and now dentistry.
He has had many callings in the church, sometimes 2 at a time.
(02:13):
His colleagues include differentpositions in Boy Scouts, a few
elders, Corn presidencies, teaching different classes,
being a counselor and Bishop Bricks, Young Men counselor and
Young Men President, Pratt, Branch President and now a high
counselor and 2nd counselor in the state Yeoman's presidency.
Welcome, Carson. It's nice to be here, Paul.
(02:35):
Thanks for inviting me. You bet.
Excited for our visit today? So let's start going way back
for you here. Of of all the things that you
learned from your parents, what do you feel is the most
important? Looking back to my early years,
I think the the lesson to pray stands out to me and also hard
(03:02):
work. And I've been trying to think
about a story that might illustrate this.
And I've it kind of takes me back onto the farm.
When I was a little kid that we were five, I was five years old
and we lived in southeastern Idaho and we lived on a farm.
My grandpa owned the farm and mydad worked for him and it was an
alfalfa farm and we had to move pipe every day in the summer to
(03:25):
irrigate the alfalfa. They were really rocky fields,
so we couldn't have wheel lines and we couldn't have pivots, so
we had to use hand lines and we had to move those hand lines.
As a little guy, I started moving those hand lines when I
was like 5 years old. I wasn't big enough to even pick
up an entire piece of pipe. I had to move it half at a time
(03:46):
across the field. So I was given, I was given the
responsibility of moving the shortest line.
You know, when I was really, really early and I remember
those days, would it be hot out in the field?
And I'd be so thirsty that I would, I would just remember
looking at the mud puddles and Iwould actually put my face down
(04:06):
in the mud puddles and drink outof them, be out in the field and
hot and tired. And it was hard at one time of
my life. I remember learning in in
primary and learning from my parent.
You know, we always had family prayer.
And I learned in Primary that ifyou pray and ask God that he
(04:28):
will answer your prayers. And I remember having that
lesson and I was a little bit older by then because I was then
on a very long hand line. I was in charge of moving the
longest hand line at this stage.And I remember that I was about
halfway through this line and itwas just hot and I was so tired
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and I felt like I just could notgo on.
And there was a, there was a little riser that that the
sprinkler would sit on. And I remember kneeling down
next to the riser and, and holding on to the riser and
putting my head against that riser and saying a little
prayer. I closed my eyes and I, I prayed
(05:11):
and not a little prayer. This was a big prayer.
And the prayer was, dear God, when I open my eyes, will you
please have moved all of these pipe for me and I will be on the
last pipe. And I prayed with real faith,
believing that I would get there.
(05:34):
And so when I opened my eyes, where do you think I was?
You're in the same. Spot.
I was in the same spot and I wasreally disappointed.
I remember thinking that, well, maybe God doesn't answer our
prayers, but I, I had prayed with real faith, you know,
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really believing that it would happen.
And I had to get up and finish moving the rest of that pipe by
hand. It wasn't until much later I
realized, you know, that God will do some, some things for us
and there's some things that he really needs us to do on our own
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and he expects us to get up and do the work.
So I, I remember learning President Hinckley, I remember
talked about this one time and it's like you get down on your
knees and pray as if everything depended on the Lord.
And then you get up and you workas if everything depends on you.
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And I feel like I have, I have learned that lesson in life.
I feel like we need to get up and and work as though
everything depends on us. And then God will fill in the
blanks. And he always does.
At least he always has in in in my life when I do, when I put in
the effort, which he loves, the Lord loves effort.
(07:03):
When I put in the effort, he helps me.
I love that more powerful lessonto to learn in your young life.
It it really could have so many other people probably could have
said, you know, at that point, prayers just don't work right.
(07:23):
But to to learn that lesson, there's so much, so much to
learn from praying. Get to land.
Going to work, right? Praying and going to work, yeah.
So what are some other formativeinfluences or memories that you
have family traditions growing? Up.
We worked a lot when I was young.
(07:45):
I, like I said, we lived on the farm.
I used to go out, I used to pick, I used to have to roll
bales to get them ready for the stacker again.
You'd be out in the, you'd be out in the field and getting the
bales all in line so that the stacker could come along and
pick them up. I remember picking up twine out
of the pasture, picking up baling wire in the spring after
(08:09):
we'd fed the cows all winter long.
You had to go out there and clean up all the, all the baling
wire and all the, all the twine from the bales of pay.
I did a lot of that early. I, I remember one time when we
lived in southeastern Idaho and I, I was a little older.
I was probably 9 or 10 years oldby the time this happened.
(08:30):
And there was a big windstorm that came to southeastern Idaho.
And we had, it was on a holiday because I think it was maybe 4th
of July. And we had gone to Craters of
the Moon in southeastern Idaho as a family.
And when we went out there, the wind was so windy, it was
blowing the cinders all around. And I remember I had, I had a
(08:53):
hat and I was holding it by the little strap at the back that
you can adjust. I was holding that hat in my
hand because it kept blowing offmy head and the wind was so
powerful that day. It blew the hat out of my hand
and I still have the straps holdmy hand.
It tore that the hat out of my hand.
And I remember it was just a miserable day that because the
(09:13):
wind was so strong and the centers we, we had to turn
around and come home. And as we drove back home, I
remember seeing that we had broken power lines as we
approached our house and the wheel lines out in one of the
fields had blown down into the river.
We lived right along the Snake River in southeastern Idaho and
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the end of the wheel line had had blown and pushed it down
into the river. So one of these occasions we
went out and had to take apart after the windstorm had stopped.
Obviously we, we had to go and take part that wheel line and
get it out of the trees and it was all broken and we had to
repair it. And it, it had broken all the
(09:58):
way up to the center of the, of the wheel line where the where
the motor was. So we had to take apart the
entire line to fix that center piece.
We'd fixed it and we were putting the line back together
and my grandpa gave me a job andit was to finish the last, I
don't know, 5 or 6 sections of, of wheel line and put them all
(10:22):
together. And there was bolts that held it
together and it was hard to get them lined up and it was hard to
get them all put together. And I had been out there working
for quite a while by myself after my grandpa left.
And I really needed to, to get adrink of water.
So I ran home to get a drink of water.
And I remember it was a Saturdaymorning when we were working on
this and there was cartoons whenI got home and my brothers, my
(10:46):
younger brothers and my little sister, they were watching
cartoons. And you know, I felt like I
should probably get to watch fewpart teens.
So I stood there and washed somecartoons for a few minutes.
And after watching a cartoon or two, I thought we really should
go back out there and get that wheel line put away.
And so I went out. I went back out and I continue
(11:08):
to work on it, but I was having a struggle and it took me a long
time and I, I wasn't quite done.And my grandfather came back up
on the, on the three Wheeler andhe, he looked at me and he says,
well, how come, how come we're not done?
You know, I've given you a lot of time to get this done.
(11:29):
And I think I gave him the excuse of, oh, this has just
been really hard. And, and he kind of knew that I
hadn't been working right. He, he knew that I'd taken some
time off in the middle and he looked at me and then he looked
at the pipe and he looked at me and he looked back at the wheel
line. And he says he just kind of
shook his head. And he says, you're Hopkins.
(11:52):
I expect better. And that has stuck with me my
entire life. I, I can never forget that look
of disappointment on my grandfather's face, you know,
and I, but I also learned a lot about what it was, what it was
to have a name, you know, and tocarry a name to, to make sure
(12:16):
that you live up to that name. It's even helped me in taking
upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
What does it mean to take upon his name?
There's so many things that thatdefine being a disciple of Jesus
(12:38):
Christ and taking on his name. And I, I think I learned from
that experience how important itis that we live up to his name.
And when we take that covenant, a baptism, and when we renew
that covenant every time we takeof the sacrament, it is
important to me and to us that that we live up to his name.
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And that in our daily life, people can look at us and say,
well, he's a member of the Church of Jesus Christ.
He's taken upon the Lord's name.I, I hope that people can look
at me and say I know that he does his best and that's up to
that name. Yeah, listen, those seemingly
(13:23):
small moments that that they those really combined together
to to build our character. Your grandpa could have done all
the work, left you inside to watch cartoons, right.
But he, I, I just think like a lot of farm families, he's not
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just raising crops, right? He's raising grandchildren,
raised his children this way andteaching them the importance of
many things. But that that taking a name.
Yeah. You know, there's some other
things too that I can think backnow that I've thought about that
story. I I remember working with my dad
one time and we were, we were building a fence at our house
(14:16):
and it was made out of cedar. We had moved to Battle Mountain
by this time and we were making a fence for us and he had a Co
worker at work that saw our fence going up and the Co worker
asked my dad to help him build his fence.
And before we were done with ourfence, I remember pulling off of
(14:39):
our fence to go help this other man build his fence because the
guy asked for help and my dad said yes.
And I remember pulling off of our fence to go do his even
though ours wasn't done. And I also remember that we had
stacks of boards for our fence that we'd already purchased.
(15:01):
And my dad went through and picked out the best boards to go
work on this other guy's fence. And I feel like that really
taught me a lot too about being selfless.
My dad is very selfless. My my dad is a kind, very
generous me. And I remember him pulling off
(15:24):
and us going to do that. I can remember similar thing
with my mom. My mom, my mom is a nurse and
she did home health for a long time.
She's retired now, but, and, butshortly after she had retired,
she still had people in her townthat even though she had
retired, these people were supposed to continue to get home
(15:47):
health. But the business, I think the
business went out of business orsomething.
And it left a lot of people in Battle Mountain, which is in the
middle of nowhere, stranded to where they didn't have the home
health services. And I remember my mom going in
and organizing medications for people.
(16:08):
She would go in and continually do wound dressings for people,
for especially for the elderly, for some of these patients she'd
seen for many years. She just continued to take care
of them up until they passed away.
So years of service of not beingpaid.
And she would, she would still do that.
I, I, I feel like those are all kind of some real formative
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things that I learned from my mom, dad, grandpa, my grandpa
Smith is the one that told me blossom where you're planted and
that I think that's stuck with me every time I've ever moved
anywhere. You know, you always hear these
things all there's nothing to dothere or why would you ever live
there? Why would you move that?
What, what made you decide to count?
(16:52):
Well, there's an opportunity and, and I, I feel like it's
very important that we blossom or were planted.
And that was that was my GrandpaSmith that always taught me
that. Great, great lessons there.
And it mean somebody just listening couple of minutes here
(17:13):
might think, well, Carson just didn't really have a choice.
He was going to grow up to be this great person with all these
wonderful experiences. But I think there are plenty of
other people that wouldn't take these as lessons.
They would take them as punishments or you know, I've
got to have a better life than this air quotes with the better
(17:35):
right and go try to find their own way.
Like it reminds me of gifts of the spirit that that some of us
have the gift of of learning from other people and and we can
build from there and recognizingthe those formative influences.
(17:57):
It sounds like it's a is a gift of the spirit in your life.
Yeah. So let's let's talk a little bit
about missionary service. Is there what?
What role is missionary service played in your life?
A big one I I was called to serve in the Harare, Zimbabwe
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mission. I went a little later.
I, I had gone to Idaho State University for a couple years
before I went and I also, you know, felt like I needed to pay
my way. I saved some money.
My, my parents ended up actuallypaying for my mission.
And when I got home, all that money that I saved for my
(18:41):
mission, they like I got back, but which was incredible that
they did that for me. But yeah, I served in, I served
in Zimbabwe, I think when I was there, I gained a really
powerful testimony of the Book of Mormon.
I remember one time I, I think it was in my second area.
(19:05):
Yeah, I, I, I'd already had a testimony of the Book of Mormon,
you know, but not, not really a,not really a very specific
instance. But, you know, I just kind of
knew that it was true my whole life.
And I had read it a couple of times before my mission.
I'd read it in seminary. I'd also read it on my own a few
times. I'd always just known it was
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true, believed it was true. But I, I remember it was in my
second area. It was in a little town called
Bandura, Zimbabwe. It was just me and my companion
out there. It was a hard part of my
mission. My, my mission was kind of
tough. I, I didn't know until the end,
but I was the mission babysitter.
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They titled me the mission babysitter and they sent, they
sent me companions that were getting ready to be sent home.
And if they couldn't make it with me, they would be sent
home. And I didn't know that the whole
time until I, until I got back to the, to the mission home on
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my way home and the couples thatwere there, they told me, oh,
well, I introduced myself and they said, well, you're, oh,
you're the mission babysitter. And I was like, what it?
What does that mean? And they said, yeah, you're the
one that they send you to, that they send all the bad ones to
before they get sent home. And if they can make it with
you, they'll, they'll keep them in the mission.
But if they don't, if they don'tmake it with you, they're going
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home. And I, I had no idea it was, but
it was hard. I was in this area all alone
with, with a companion at this stage.
We've been teaching a lot. And I, I remember I had to drag,
I had to drag these guys around like it.
It was always a battle getting him out of the apartment and get
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him to go anywhere. And I had been teaching, we
taught a lot. You know, Zimbabwe was ready for
the gospel and we taught a lot and we baptized a lot.
I remember the one morning I hadalready taught a couple of first
discussions early on because I think we had to teach somebody
(21:11):
before their work and we've goneout in the morning.
We taught them and then we came back to do our personal
scripture study and the stuff that we were supposed to do in
the morning first. So it was a little bit later in
the morning and I was reading in3rd Nephi chapter 17 and it was
where where the Lord is has invited everybody to come up and
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feel the Prince of the the nailsin his hands.
And I had taught that morning a first discussion where we and at
the time when I was doing it, there was number of discussions.
And that first discussion we talked about praying and asking
God if the Book of Mormon is true.
And we talked about Meroni's promise, where if you, you know,
(21:56):
read it and pray and ask God that the spirit can come and
teach you that the Book of Mormon is true.
And I taught that. I think I'd already taught it
twice that morning and we came back and I, we were doing our
personal scripture study. And I remember reading in 35,
chapter 17 about the Savior folding his hands out and asking
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people to come and feel the Prince in his in his hands.
And I just remember thinking, you know, I have been teaching
that this is true. And I believe that it's true.
But you know, I've never put Moroni's test, his promise to
the test. I've never done that.
I'd never asked God directly. Is this true?
(22:44):
I just have never done that. And so I remember going through
the process where I've been reading.
So I was reading it and I, I thought, OK, I need to ponder
about this. And I remember laying in my head
against the wall and just closing my eyes and just
imagining the people walking up to the Savior and feeling the
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Prince in his hands. And I, I had a very vivid
picture of what was going on. And then I just simply asked
God. I said, God, is this true?
Did this happen? And when I asked that the Spirit
came around me and I, I can feelit right now as I tell you the
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story. I, I felt the spirit come around
me and I just, it was almost so thick that I could reach out and
touch the Holy Spirit. I'd never have that experience.
Well, I'd had other similar experiences, but I'd never had
it about the Book of Mormon. And but at that, at that moment,
I knew, and I still know that the Book of Mormon is true.
(23:54):
I know that it is the most correct book on earth and I know
it is another testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Sometimes I go through doubts. I, I have doubts in life.
You know, I think we all do. Times when I'm higher
spiritually and times when I'm lower spiritually and sometimes
when I get low, I, I can always go back to that experience in my
(24:17):
life and remember, you know what?
I know the Book of Mormon is true.
There's I can never argue that point.
It cannot be argued with me. I know the Book of Mormon is
true. And whenever I think that, OK, I
have to go back and say, yeah, Iknow that Joseph Smith was a
true prophet. And then I can just kind of
rebuild the testimony on that. Every time that I feel like I'm
(24:40):
falling down, I can always go back.
And that's one of the cornerstones I feel with my
testimony. Powerful experience.
I have a very similar experienceof knowing that the church is
the only true church. I don't know how much time we
have. Yeah.
Sure. While I was on my mission, we
(25:00):
had a handicapped man that we had been teaching and he was a
really smart guy. He worked for, he worked for the
Zimbabwean government and I don't really remember what his
job in the government was, but Iknow he worked in Ferrari and he
worked in this huge office building and he was on some top
floor and he was in charge of money.
(25:21):
He was a really smart guy, but he was handicapped.
He, he was in a wheelchair and he couldn't get around easily.
And we had been teaching him andhis wife had been bringing him
to church and he was getting ready to be baptized.
And what a really strong, powerful testimony he'd already
been building. And after he'd come to church
(25:42):
for a few weeks, his wife heard something about our church and
felt like she shouldn't, I don'tknow, maybe it wasn't we, we
weren't Christian or something to that point.
I can't remember, but she wouldn't bring him to church
after that. And we went to his house.
I remember going over to his house after that first Sunday
(26:03):
where she wouldn't bring him to church.
And we had, we had the third missionary discussion with him.
And we in that one, in that third discussion, we talked
about the Church of Jesus Christof Latter Day Saints being the
only true church upon the earth.And we talked about how the
church was built on the apostlesand using your revelation from,
(26:28):
from the Lord, we talked about the apostasy, how it fell apart,
and then how it had been restored to the Prophet Joseph
Smith. And as we had, we and we used
cups to like build the church and to illustrate this.
And we built, rebuilt the churchagain.
And my companion shared his testimony first and he, he
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shared that he, he knew that thechurch was the only true church
on the earth. And I, I felt the spirit really
strongly at that point. And I, that was, and then, and
then I, as I was saying the words, I also know that the
Church of Jesus Christ of LatterDay Saints is the only true and
(27:14):
living church upon the earth. The spirit came just like that.
And so I feel like I've, I've, I've been well prepared by the,
by my mission to, to come home, to live in the world, to face
challenges and to know that, that, that the church is true
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and that the Book of Mormon is true.
Both experiences by especially that that second experience
about the gaining A testimony orthat strong witness while you're
bearing the testimony that that goes back to our first story
(27:56):
that you shared that go to work,right.
You didn't gain that testimony by sitting in the missionary
apartment waiting for the Lord to testify to you.
You had to testify to someone else to gain that witness.
Yeah, it was out as it was coming out of my mouth.
And that, that man, I remember looking in his eyes and I knew
(28:18):
that he felt what I felt. And he, he ended up coming to
church that next week. He'd found a ride from somebody
else. I got, I got, I got moved out of
that area shortly after, or it may have been right at the end
of my mission. I, I just, I know I never, I
never know if he got baptized ornot.
(28:39):
But yeah, it was a very, very powerful experience.
Let's let's talk about your job a little bit here.
What's the best job decision that you've ever made?
Oh, well, just to become a dentist.
I remember before dental school,I, I did not get into dental
(29:02):
school the first time I tried, Ihad, I had pretty good grades.
I had a good GPA I'd take, I wasa chemistry major at BYU, so I
had a kind of a hard, hard Rd., but I did, I did pretty well.
But that first time I, my letters of recommendation got
tied up and AD SAS, which is the, which is an organization
(29:27):
that kind of collects your information and sends it out to
the individual schools. And I, I did not follow up to,
to make sure that they had all of my letters of recommendation.
They did have, I mean, I, I knewthat they had them, but I didn't
follow up with each of the schools to make sure that AD SAS
had sent them. And so big learning experience
(29:49):
for me. Yeah, always follow up.
That was a good thing. But I didn't get in that first
time. I got in the second time.
And I, I remember praying at after the first time asking with
my wife if, if we should go to dental school.
And we together received a really prompting, a really
(30:11):
strong prompting that that I would be a dentist.
It was right after that that I got my first denial, like the
denial that I wasn't getting it to dental school.
And I remember thinking, well, how did you know?
How is it the Lord told me that I would get into dental school
and I'm not getting in. How, how did that happen?
(30:32):
And it was the second time. So I think one of the best
things I ever did was apply the second time.
That was that was probably the the best thing that the other
best thing is coming to Pratt, KS.
That was kind of a long story, but it's a it's a, it's one I do
(30:54):
want to share too, how we got toPratt, KS.
It it's it was a miracle that weended up in Pratt.
There were, there had been a dentist in in Pratt, KS that had
his office burned down by the new associate, by the new
dentists coming in. So Doctor Van Blerkum was the
(31:16):
dentist in Pratt. He'd hired an associate named
Doctor Candy and he was selling his practice to Doctor Candy.
Doctor Candy had an associate named Doctor Raina.
She was an Indian. She was from India and she lived
in Wichita and she drove out to Pratt.
Well, Doctor Candy bought the practice from Doctor Van Blerkum
(31:39):
and he was a shady dentist and so word travels fast in a small
town and he lost his business really, really quickly.
Within a few months was spendinga lot of money buying the
practice from Doctor Van Blurkumto crashing it because he was
not. He was not doing a good job and
(31:59):
word got out that he was cheating people.
It was within a few months that it really crashed down.
And so he hired two people to come in and burn down the dental
practice so that so that he could claim the insurance money
on the building and on the equipment and so forth, so he
(32:21):
can recoup some of his lost money because he had crashed the
dental practice. Well, in the process, Doctor
Raina that was also working there, she lost her job and so
she decided to go back to schoolto be an orthodontist in Las
Vegas, where I was going to school to be a dentist.
(32:42):
One, one night late at I think it was 11 or midnight was late
at night. I had, I was in the lab, I was
pouring up dental models for my patients.
The next day I was in a rush andsomebody knocked on the window
and it was really late. I was the only person in the
whole building and she knocked on the window and I went to
(33:02):
check out who it was and she wasan orthodontic student.
She had a patient the next day. They were in the building next
to us and their building was closed and she couldn't get in
because it was so late. It was it was late at night and
they closed the buildings after a certain time.
So she knocked on the window andasked if she could come use our
lab so that she could see her patients in the morning.
(33:23):
So I let her in and we had just some short conversations and she
was asking me about where I planto practice.
And we'd already looked into Kansas as being an option and I
listed off states Nevada. We talked about Nevada where my
family's from or Oklahoma where my wife's family's from, or we
(33:46):
would pick some other state thatnobody was from.
And I was looking Kansas need a dentist.
They, they were, they had a low,low number of dentists compared
to the number of people. And so I, I looked into Kansas
and I told her that I was looking into Kansas.
And she says, really nobody goesto Kansas.
What, what's making you decide on Kansas?
(34:06):
And I said, well, it's kind of alow, you know, low number of
dentists compared to population.And she says, well, I lived in
Kansas. That's where I practice
dentistry. And she says I lived in this
little town called Pratt. And she says the the people were
the nicest people that I've evermet.
And she gave me the the information to get a hold of
(34:27):
Doctor Van Blericum, who was theoriginal owner of that practice.
She says, you know, he was the old kDa president.
He knows every dentist in that area.
She says, I can give you this contact information.
And so to make a long story shorter, I know, I know it's
already long, but she gave me the information and, and I
(34:48):
contacted him. We came out and he introduced me
to Doctor Ingram. It was shortly after that my
wife and I decided, you know, we, we came out to visit.
We enjoyed the town, thought it was great.
She, my wife, felt really good. And Pratt felt like this might
be the place for us. And so we went back to Las
(35:09):
Vegas. I was only a sophomore in dental
school when I was looking. I was so terrified I wouldn't
find a job. So I was a sophomore in dental
school. We went back to Las Vegas and we
were thinking about Pratt, you know, is on the list of areas we
might go. And I remember we have decided
we were going to go to the temple one time.
(35:30):
And before we went, I said, you know, Jen, we should really pray
when we're in the celestial room.
We should pray and ask God if, if we should move to Pratt on
this on this trip. And she says, yeah, yeah, that's
that's a good idea. And so we went there and when I
got to the temple, when we got to the temple, I went through
and I don't know if you've had this day in the temple, but
(35:53):
there was a day for me where I was.
I'd been going to the temple a lot.
And you know, I didn't really understand what a lot of the
things meant. It's a lot of symbolism and I
didn't really get it. And in that session, that day
that we went, I, I saw somethingand I thought, oh, wait, well,
(36:16):
if this is this, then this is this, and this is this, and this
is this. And I put this whole thing
together and I finally understood the endowment.
It was the first time I'd ever really understood what, what
this was all about. I was so excited and, and I felt
the spirit really, really strongly.
(36:37):
We get into the celestial room and I just start telling my wife
Jen, this is this and this is this.
And I explained everything to her and I was so excited that I
finally understood all these things.
And we felt really, really good in the temple.
And we left and I'm sitting, we change our clothes, I'm sitting
(36:58):
back outside in the foyer and I'm waiting for her.
And I realize, ha, the whole reason we came to the temple
today was to ask God if we should move to Pratt.
And I totally forgot to ask him,do we?
And so Jen walked out of the door, walked out and walked out
(37:19):
into the foyer and she came up and I said, Jen, guess what?
I said we forgot to pray about Pratt.
And as soon as I said the word Pratt, the spirit moved in
around us. And I, I felt it just like I
felt it the day that I learned the Book of Mormon.
That was true. It was so powerful.
(37:40):
And I looked at my wife and I said, Jen, do you feel that?
And she says, yeah, I feel that.And I, I, I said, I think that's
our answer. And it was about a 45 minute
drive home. And we felt, we felt the
confirmation of the Holy Ghost that whole drive home.
(38:01):
And it was just really, really powerful.
And I said, guess we're moving to Pratt.
And so here we are. We've been here 16 years now and
it's been the best decision we've made.
Some of perhaps been a wonderfulplace to raise our family.
Yeah, just that the town has been great to us.
And I feel like it's a it's a good Christian town, Good
(38:24):
people, wonderful experience. And it just came to pass where
we are, right? God is definitely involved in
those seemingly small details ofour lives, but He really is if
we let Him. Thank you.
(38:45):
So then you mentioned earlier inyour bio that you have some
children and wife. What are some things that you
guys like to do for fun? Oh, my kids are going to hate
this, but one of my favorite things to do is family work day
and they hate it. But we, you know, we have a lot
(39:08):
of stuff going on and COVID, I think was when we really started
getting a lot of stuff going on.We got chickens and pigs and we
have rabbits and all kinds of farm animals and chores and
stuff to do and we get behind a lot and sometimes we just need
everybody to work. We built some fence in in that
(39:28):
COVID time. We've done, I don't know, we've
laid, we've poured concrete, we've build foundations, we've
built a greenhouse. We've done all kinds of stuff.
And so we do a lot of gardening.I love my favorite thing to do
with my family is is work day. That probably goes back to
(39:49):
that's what I did with my dad ofmy grandpa when I was little as
I worked with him and I have some great experiences with her,
but we also my wife loves to travel.
If I had my choice, I'd stay home and work, but my wife?
Has already been staying home and working a lot so she on her
days off she let me and when I'moff she likes to travel so you
(40:11):
know every every. When we first moved to to Pratt,
we found out there's a book called the 8 Wonders of Kansas
and it had there was a competition some time back where
they had this competition where what are the 8 wonders of
Kansas? It's kind of like the seven
wonders of the world, but there's 8 wonders of Kansas.
(40:31):
And so it's a book and it's thick and it has all these
different places, things in Kansas that you can go and see
that are wonders to know. The hand dug well in Greensburg
and the biggest ball of twine inCocker City.
And so when we first moved to Kansas, we visited, I think just
about every place in that book. I I don't know if there's
(40:55):
anywhere we haven't visited and we would just go on a day trip
and goes, you know, and that that was a great thing.
We've we love to travel. We love to see Kansas.
You know, we weren't from here, but this home now we've also
been to the Outer Banks a coupleof times.
My wife loves the beach, so we've traveled to the beach few
(41:18):
times. My kids, we, we like to hike.
This last summer we went out andvisited my parents in Nevada and
I took them up into the mountains and we hiked into a
couple of lakes where I went when I was a Boy Scout.
And they all complained, but butthey loved it.
By the time we were done, we hada great time.
And I mean, we really did it. We did backpacks and sleeping
(41:42):
bags and we got all the gear that we needed.
And you know, it was, it was a wonderful trip.
We had a great time. So we like to travel, we like to
camp, we like to be outside, love to fish, love to hike and I
don't know, just be outside and enjoy time together as a family.
We also like to watch movies. We watch a lot of movies
(42:03):
together as a family. My wife gets mad if I'm not
there while we watch them, you know, So we like to be together
and watch movies. And I shouldn't say she gets
mad, but yeah, we like to have. Family.
Together family, together time. Yeah.
Even if you're taking a nap. Yes, because you they finally
sat still, huh? Yep, I can definitely relate.
(42:24):
That's true. So, So what are some some of the
things that you're most gratefulfor?
I think I'm most grateful for mySavior Jesus Christ.
I am thankful that he is, I am thankful for his atonement and
I'm thankful that I can be forgiven of the sins I, that I
(42:48):
have made. I, I feel like I've made I, I've
only shared in this podcast someof my good decisions.
I feel like I made a lot of poorones a long way too.
And I'm thankful for the gift ofrepentance.
And I'm, I'm very grateful for my wife.
I remember when we were dating, I, we went up to visit the Salt
(43:11):
Lake Olympic sites. It was in 2002 when we were,
when we were dating. And I remember driving up to
Salt Lake from Provo. I was at BYU at the time.
We drove up and saw the torch and saw the rings on the
mountains and just saw some things.
And that night coming home, my wife was actually driving and we
(43:32):
had some friends in the back seat and I was sitting in the
front seat by her. We weren't really dating at the
time, but we were just friends. And I remember sharing that
evening with her and then driving home and I looked over
at her while she was driving andI had this impression that she
would be a really great mother. And I prayed for quite a while
(43:59):
to know like who to marry, things like that.
And I never got a solid answer. And it was more of a decision to
marry Jennifer. I, I liked her a lot.
She's beautiful. My wife is very beautiful.
She's beautiful, she's kind, she's hard working.
(44:20):
She had all these qualities thatI wanted, but I never received
that answer that I should marry her.
I never received it about anyone.
So it was kind of more of a decision like, well, all of the
check marks are here. I, I really should marry her and
I, I asked her to marry me now she asked me on the 1st date.
(44:43):
I want to put that down on, you know, and we, but before our
first scheduled date, I think I asked her out on three more
dates. Just once I found out that she
did like me, you know, I am grateful that I married my wife
Jennifer. She's been the best decision
(45:03):
I've ever made. And I'm also grateful that the
Lord didn't make that decision for me.
It was my choice. It was my choice to marry her
and the best choice that I've ever made.
And I'm grateful that I was wiseenough to do that.
(45:23):
She's brought me 6 beautiful children and she is a wonderful
mother. That prompting that I received
that she would be a wonderful mother has come true and I love
her a lot. Thank you so much.
That's been a a wonderful time visiting here today.
(45:45):
Will you end our episode with your testimony of Jesus Christ
and of his restored church? Yeah.
I'll share the time that I remember first learning that
Jesus was my Savior and it was during a in seminary.
It was it was my sophomore year.We had, we've been learning the
(46:08):
New Testament and it was the at the end of the year after
studying the New Testament, we had what was called Seminary day
in Northern Nevada. And we had all of the, all the
seminary kids from Elko, Winnemucca, Battle Mountain and
the surrounding areas all came together for it was similar to a
(46:30):
youth conference, but it was called S day, Seminary Day and
it was 2 days. It was very similar to a youth
conference where we had a dance the first night.
You know, we had activities on on Friday and then a dance on
Friday night and then Saturday more activities.
And at the end of it, there was a, it wasn't, it was a keynote
(46:51):
speaker. It wasn't a, it wasn't a
testimony meeting, but there wasa keynote speaker.
And I can't remember his name, but the speaker came and he had
been working on the, the film The Lamb of God.
And in The Lamb of God, he had afew clips from that film that he
(47:13):
shared, and it was before the Lamb of God came out, and it was
close to that time when it was going to come out.
But that that video, it showed scenes of the Savior's life and
it had a lot of things in it. And he took a few of those clips
and he played in the background the song His hands.
(47:36):
And this song was his hands. And it talks about all the good
things that the Savior has done with his hands.
He healed the blind with his hands.
He helped people with his hands.And it talks all about the good
things that he does with his hands.
And as as that song was playing,the speaker had this video
(47:57):
running in the background of pictures of what the Savior was,
all the good things. He was lifting the sick and he
was healing the sick and He was curing the healing the blind and
wonderful things. So Savior did with his hands and
perhaps it was special because my hands have always been my
(48:18):
favorite body part. That sounds weird, but I love
what my hands can do. And I, I loved that the Savior
use his hands for so much good. And I remember listening to that
and just feeling so great of allthe good things.
And then there's a line in the song and it says, and they took
(48:40):
his hands, these wonderful handsthat have done so much good.
And they pierced them. And they showed that on the
video, right as yeah, that they they put that the nail in the in
the palm of his hand. And then I think it shows a
hammer like swinging down and doesn't show all the detail.
(49:03):
But the idea was definitely there.
And I could not believe. I could not believe that they
pierced those hands, that it didn't sew much good.
And then I couldn't believe, youknow, I'd heard the story so
many times, but I I couldn't believe that they would do that
(49:25):
to know. And then I also thought, I can't
believe that he just took that here.
He is the, the God of the universe, the most mighty.
And he laid down and let them Pierce his hands.
(49:45):
And I had in my mind over and over, I just had this thought
that was like, wow, what a greatman.
He was so great. He just took that.
He let them do that to him. And I remember I was sobbing.
I was sobbing and I was sobbing and I couldn't stop sobbing.
It was just like, wow, I can't believe.
(50:06):
And the, the, the keynote speaker ended, we walked out to
the van. I remember it was my seminary
teacher's van. We went out and we got in the
van and I'm still stop. I'm sobbing for like 1/2 an hour
or something. I couldn't believe that they did
that to him. And I remember there was a whole
van full of people. And I was just, I felt very
(50:28):
alone. And I was sitting in that van
full of people and I'm like, wow, what a great man.
What a great man. I just kept going over my head,
what a great man. And as I was saying that what a
great man, I heard a voice as clear and I don't, I don't know
if it was a voice or a just pureknowledge coming into my soul.
(50:52):
And it said to me, but I, I heard a voice.
He was more than a man. He was more than a man.
He was God. And I know that he is, I know
that my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is more than a man.
I know that he is the God of this universe, of this world, of
(51:17):
my life, of of your life, of allof it.
I know that he loves me. And I hope that I can be the man
that he needs me to be so one day I can return to live with
Hamidan. I know that God lives.
(51:37):
I know that Jesus is our Savior.I know that he has restored his
church in these days through a prophet.
I know that we have a living prophet on the earth today.
I know that Russell M Nelson hasbeen chosen to lead and guide us
in in these last days as and I know that it can bring us so
(52:00):
much peace and troubled times. And I'm thankful for this
knowledge. And I say these things in the
name of Jesus Christ, Amen. Amen.
I hope that this episode of the Wichita KS Stick Podcast helped
bring you closer to Christ. I invite you to take some time
today to write about or record one of your own faith promoting
(52:23):
experiences.
Hi friends, welcome to the Wichita KS State Podcast.
I'm your host, Paul Kitchen, a state history specialist.
This podcast is intended to helpbring followers of Christ closer
to him and to promote unity within the body of Christ by
listening to our state leaders share their personal stories of
faith. By reflecting on faith,
promoting experiences, we can strengthen our individual faith
(00:20):
in Jesus Christ together. Welcome everybody to our next
episode here with Carson Hopkins.
Carson was born to Nancy and Terry Hopkins in southeastern
Idaho. He is the second child of five
children. His ancestors have been members
of the Church of Jesus Christ ofLatter Day Saints for seven
generations on some lines. So he was born into the church
(00:43):
and has been an active member his whole life.
He lived on farms until he was 11 years old.
Then his father got a job in Nevada working in the mining
industry and the family moved toBattle Mountain.
While they're he enjoyed participating in an active Boy
Scout troop and earned his EagleScout.
(01:05):
Carson lived in Battle Mountain,NV until graduating high school.
After high school he attended Idaho State University until he
received his life changing 2 year mission call to Zimbabwe.
After his mission, he worked in mining until going back to
college to get his bachelor degree in Chemistry from BYU.
While attending BYU, Carson met and married Jennifer Coons.
(01:29):
For the record, she asked him out on the first date.
Together, they decided to start having a family.
Now they have six children aged 11 to 22.
Carson attended UNLV School of Dental Medicine and graduated in
2009. After school, he worked for
Doctor Ron Ingram in Pratt, KS for three months.
(01:51):
He then bought the practice and his own Pratt Family Dental.
Since then, through the years, Carson has worked in several
fields including farming, retail, mining, surveying,
landscaping, daycare and now dentistry.
He has had many callings in the church, sometimes 2 at a time.
(02:13):
His colleagues include differentpositions in Boy Scouts, a few
elders, Corn presidencies, teaching different classes,
being a counselor and Bishop Bricks, Young Men counselor and
Young Men President, Pratt, Branch President and now a high
counselor and 2nd counselor in the state Yeoman's presidency.
Welcome, Carson. It's nice to be here, Paul.
(02:35):
Thanks for inviting me. You bet.
Excited for our visit today? So let's start going way back
for you here. Of of all the things that you
learned from your parents, what do you feel is the most
important? Looking back to my early years,
I think the the lesson to pray stands out to me and also hard
(03:02):
work. And I've been trying to think
about a story that might illustrate this.
And I've it kind of takes me back onto the farm.
When I was a little kid that we were five, I was five years old
and we lived in southeastern Idaho and we lived on a farm.
My grandpa owned the farm and mydad worked for him and it was an
alfalfa farm and we had to move pipe every day in the summer to
(03:25):
irrigate the alfalfa. They were really rocky fields,
so we couldn't have wheel lines and we couldn't have pivots, so
we had to use hand lines and we had to move those hand lines.
As a little guy, I started moving those hand lines when I
was like 5 years old. I wasn't big enough to even pick
up an entire piece of pipe. I had to move it half at a time
(03:46):
across the field. So I was given, I was given the
responsibility of moving the shortest line.
You know, when I was really, really early and I remember
those days, would it be hot out in the field?
And I'd be so thirsty that I would, I would just remember
looking at the mud puddles and Iwould actually put my face down
(04:06):
in the mud puddles and drink outof them, be out in the field and
hot and tired. And it was hard at one time of
my life. I remember learning in in
primary and learning from my parent.
You know, we always had family prayer.
And I learned in Primary that ifyou pray and ask God that he
(04:28):
will answer your prayers. And I remember having that
lesson and I was a little bit older by then because I was then
on a very long hand line. I was in charge of moving the
longest hand line at this stage.And I remember that I was about
halfway through this line and itwas just hot and I was so tired
(04:51):
and I felt like I just could notgo on.
And there was a, there was a little riser that that the
sprinkler would sit on. And I remember kneeling down
next to the riser and, and holding on to the riser and
putting my head against that riser and saying a little
prayer. I closed my eyes and I, I prayed
(05:11):
and not a little prayer. This was a big prayer.
And the prayer was, dear God, when I open my eyes, will you
please have moved all of these pipe for me and I will be on the
last pipe. And I prayed with real faith,
believing that I would get there.
(05:34):
And so when I opened my eyes, where do you think I was?
You're in the same. Spot.
I was in the same spot and I wasreally disappointed.
I remember thinking that, well, maybe God doesn't answer our
prayers, but I, I had prayed with real faith, you know,
(05:57):
really believing that it would happen.
And I had to get up and finish moving the rest of that pipe by
hand. It wasn't until much later I
realized, you know, that God will do some, some things for us
and there's some things that he really needs us to do on our own
(06:18):
and he expects us to get up and do the work.
So I, I remember learning President Hinckley, I remember
talked about this one time and it's like you get down on your
knees and pray as if everything depended on the Lord.
And then you get up and you workas if everything depends on you.
(06:40):
And I feel like I have, I have learned that lesson in life.
I feel like we need to get up and and work as though
everything depends on us. And then God will fill in the
blanks. And he always does.
At least he always has in in in my life when I do, when I put in
the effort, which he loves, the Lord loves effort.
(07:03):
When I put in the effort, he helps me.
I love that more powerful lessonto to learn in your young life.
It it really could have so many other people probably could have
said, you know, at that point, prayers just don't work right.
(07:23):
But to to learn that lesson, there's so much, so much to
learn from praying. Get to land.
Going to work, right? Praying and going to work, yeah.
So what are some other formativeinfluences or memories that you
have family traditions growing? Up.
We worked a lot when I was young.
(07:45):
I, like I said, we lived on the farm.
I used to go out, I used to pick, I used to have to roll
bales to get them ready for the stacker again.
You'd be out in the, you'd be out in the field and getting the
bales all in line so that the stacker could come along and
pick them up. I remember picking up twine out
of the pasture, picking up baling wire in the spring after
(08:09):
we'd fed the cows all winter long.
You had to go out there and clean up all the, all the baling
wire and all the, all the twine from the bales of pay.
I did a lot of that early. I, I remember one time when we
lived in southeastern Idaho and I, I was a little older.
I was probably 9 or 10 years oldby the time this happened.
(08:30):
And there was a big windstorm that came to southeastern Idaho.
And we had, it was on a holiday because I think it was maybe 4th
of July. And we had gone to Craters of
the Moon in southeastern Idaho as a family.
And when we went out there, the wind was so windy, it was
blowing the cinders all around. And I remember I had, I had a
(08:53):
hat and I was holding it by the little strap at the back that
you can adjust. I was holding that hat in my
hand because it kept blowing offmy head and the wind was so
powerful that day. It blew the hat out of my hand
and I still have the straps holdmy hand.
It tore that the hat out of my hand.
And I remember it was just a miserable day that because the
(09:13):
wind was so strong and the centers we, we had to turn
around and come home. And as we drove back home, I
remember seeing that we had broken power lines as we
approached our house and the wheel lines out in one of the
fields had blown down into the river.
We lived right along the Snake River in southeastern Idaho and
(09:37):
the end of the wheel line had had blown and pushed it down
into the river. So one of these occasions we
went out and had to take apart after the windstorm had stopped.
Obviously we, we had to go and take part that wheel line and
get it out of the trees and it was all broken and we had to
repair it. And it, it had broken all the
(09:58):
way up to the center of the, of the wheel line where the where
the motor was. So we had to take apart the
entire line to fix that center piece.
We'd fixed it and we were putting the line back together
and my grandpa gave me a job andit was to finish the last, I
don't know, 5 or 6 sections of, of wheel line and put them all
(10:22):
together. And there was bolts that held it
together and it was hard to get them lined up and it was hard to
get them all put together. And I had been out there working
for quite a while by myself after my grandpa left.
And I really needed to, to get adrink of water.
So I ran home to get a drink of water.
And I remember it was a Saturdaymorning when we were working on
this and there was cartoons whenI got home and my brothers, my
(10:46):
younger brothers and my little sister, they were watching
cartoons. And you know, I felt like I
should probably get to watch fewpart teens.
So I stood there and washed somecartoons for a few minutes.
And after watching a cartoon or two, I thought we really should
go back out there and get that wheel line put away.
And so I went out. I went back out and I continue
(11:08):
to work on it, but I was having a struggle and it took me a long
time and I, I wasn't quite done.And my grandfather came back up
on the, on the three Wheeler andhe, he looked at me and he says,
well, how come, how come we're not done?
You know, I've given you a lot of time to get this done.
(11:29):
And I think I gave him the excuse of, oh, this has just
been really hard. And, and he kind of knew that I
hadn't been working right. He, he knew that I'd taken some
time off in the middle and he looked at me and then he looked
at the pipe and he looked at me and he looked back at the wheel
line. And he says he just kind of
shook his head. And he says, you're Hopkins.
(11:52):
I expect better. And that has stuck with me my
entire life. I, I can never forget that look
of disappointment on my grandfather's face, you know,
and I, but I also learned a lot about what it was, what it was
to have a name, you know, and tocarry a name to, to make sure
(12:16):
that you live up to that name. It's even helped me in taking
upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
What does it mean to take upon his name?
There's so many things that thatdefine being a disciple of Jesus
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Christ and taking on his name. And I, I think I learned from
that experience how important itis that we live up to his name.
And when we take that covenant, a baptism, and when we renew
that covenant every time we takeof the sacrament, it is
important to me and to us that that we live up to his name.
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And that in our daily life, people can look at us and say,
well, he's a member of the Church of Jesus Christ.
He's taken upon the Lord's name.I, I hope that people can look
at me and say I know that he does his best and that's up to
that name. Yeah, listen, those seemingly
(13:23):
small moments that that they those really combined together
to to build our character. Your grandpa could have done all
the work, left you inside to watch cartoons, right.
But he, I, I just think like a lot of farm families, he's not
(13:51):
just raising crops, right? He's raising grandchildren,
raised his children this way andteaching them the importance of
many things. But that that taking a name.
Yeah. You know, there's some other
things too that I can think backnow that I've thought about that
story. I I remember working with my dad
one time and we were, we were building a fence at our house
(14:16):
and it was made out of cedar. We had moved to Battle Mountain
by this time and we were making a fence for us and he had a Co
worker at work that saw our fence going up and the Co worker
asked my dad to help him build his fence.
And before we were done with ourfence, I remember pulling off of
(14:39):
our fence to go help this other man build his fence because the
guy asked for help and my dad said yes.
And I remember pulling off of our fence to go do his even
though ours wasn't done. And I also remember that we had
stacks of boards for our fence that we'd already purchased.
(15:01):
And my dad went through and picked out the best boards to go
work on this other guy's fence. And I feel like that really
taught me a lot too about being selfless.
My dad is very selfless. My my dad is a kind, very
generous me. And I remember him pulling off
(15:24):
and us going to do that. I can remember similar thing
with my mom. My mom, my mom is a nurse and
she did home health for a long time.
She's retired now, but, and, butshortly after she had retired,
she still had people in her townthat even though she had
retired, these people were supposed to continue to get home
(15:47):
health. But the business, I think the
business went out of business orsomething.
And it left a lot of people in Battle Mountain, which is in the
middle of nowhere, stranded to where they didn't have the home
health services. And I remember my mom going in
and organizing medications for people.
(16:08):
She would go in and continually do wound dressings for people,
for especially for the elderly, for some of these patients she'd
seen for many years. She just continued to take care
of them up until they passed away.
So years of service of not beingpaid.
And she would, she would still do that.
I, I, I feel like those are all kind of some real formative
(16:31):
things that I learned from my mom, dad, grandpa, my grandpa
Smith is the one that told me blossom where you're planted and
that I think that's stuck with me every time I've ever moved
anywhere. You know, you always hear these
things all there's nothing to dothere or why would you ever live
there? Why would you move that?
What, what made you decide to count?
(16:52):
Well, there's an opportunity and, and I, I feel like it's
very important that we blossom or were planted.
And that was that was my GrandpaSmith that always taught me
that. Great, great lessons there.
And it mean somebody just listening couple of minutes here
(17:13):
might think, well, Carson just didn't really have a choice.
He was going to grow up to be this great person with all these
wonderful experiences. But I think there are plenty of
other people that wouldn't take these as lessons.
They would take them as punishments or you know, I've
got to have a better life than this air quotes with the better
(17:35):
right and go try to find their own way.
Like it reminds me of gifts of the spirit that that some of us
have the gift of of learning from other people and and we can
build from there and recognizingthe those formative influences.
(17:57):
It sounds like it's a is a gift of the spirit in your life.
Yeah. So let's let's talk a little bit
about missionary service. Is there what?
What role is missionary service played in your life?
A big one I I was called to serve in the Harare, Zimbabwe
(18:20):
mission. I went a little later.
I, I had gone to Idaho State University for a couple years
before I went and I also, you know, felt like I needed to pay
my way. I saved some money.
My, my parents ended up actuallypaying for my mission.
And when I got home, all that money that I saved for my
(18:41):
mission, they like I got back, but which was incredible that
they did that for me. But yeah, I served in, I served
in Zimbabwe, I think when I was there, I gained a really
powerful testimony of the Book of Mormon.
I remember one time I, I think it was in my second area.
(19:05):
Yeah, I, I, I'd already had a testimony of the Book of Mormon,
you know, but not, not really a,not really a very specific
instance. But, you know, I just kind of
knew that it was true my whole life.
And I had read it a couple of times before my mission.
I'd read it in seminary. I'd also read it on my own a few
times. I'd always just known it was
(19:26):
true, believed it was true. But I, I remember it was in my
second area. It was in a little town called
Bandura, Zimbabwe. It was just me and my companion
out there. It was a hard part of my
mission. My, my mission was kind of
tough. I, I didn't know until the end,
but I was the mission babysitter.
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They titled me the mission babysitter and they sent, they
sent me companions that were getting ready to be sent home.
And if they couldn't make it with me, they would be sent
home. And I didn't know that the whole
time until I, until I got back to the, to the mission home on
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my way home and the couples thatwere there, they told me, oh,
well, I introduced myself and they said, well, you're, oh,
you're the mission babysitter. And I was like, what it?
What does that mean? And they said, yeah, you're the
one that they send you to, that they send all the bad ones to
before they get sent home. And if they can make it with
you, they'll, they'll keep them in the mission.
But if they don't, if they don'tmake it with you, they're going
(20:29):
home. And I, I had no idea it was, but
it was hard. I was in this area all alone
with, with a companion at this stage.
We've been teaching a lot. And I, I remember I had to drag,
I had to drag these guys around like it.
It was always a battle getting him out of the apartment and get
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him to go anywhere. And I had been teaching, we
taught a lot. You know, Zimbabwe was ready for
the gospel and we taught a lot and we baptized a lot.
I remember the one morning I hadalready taught a couple of first
discussions early on because I think we had to teach somebody
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before their work and we've goneout in the morning.
We taught them and then we came back to do our personal
scripture study and the stuff that we were supposed to do in
the morning first. So it was a little bit later in
the morning and I was reading in3rd Nephi chapter 17 and it was
where where the Lord is has invited everybody to come up and
(21:35):
feel the Prince of the the nailsin his hands.
And I had taught that morning a first discussion where we and at
the time when I was doing it, there was number of discussions.
And that first discussion we talked about praying and asking
God if the Book of Mormon is true.
And we talked about Meroni's promise, where if you, you know,
(21:56):
read it and pray and ask God that the spirit can come and
teach you that the Book of Mormon is true.
And I taught that. I think I'd already taught it
twice that morning and we came back and I, we were doing our
personal scripture study. And I remember reading in 35,
chapter 17 about the Savior folding his hands out and asking
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people to come and feel the Prince in his in his hands.
And I just remember thinking, you know, I have been teaching
that this is true. And I believe that it's true.
But you know, I've never put Moroni's test, his promise to
the test. I've never done that.
I'd never asked God directly. Is this true?
(22:44):
I just have never done that. And so I remember going through
the process where I've been reading.
So I was reading it and I, I thought, OK, I need to ponder
about this. And I remember laying in my head
against the wall and just closing my eyes and just
imagining the people walking up to the Savior and feeling the
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Prince in his hands. And I, I had a very vivid
picture of what was going on. And then I just simply asked
God. I said, God, is this true?
Did this happen? And when I asked that the Spirit
came around me and I, I can feelit right now as I tell you the
(23:29):
story. I, I felt the spirit come around
me and I just, it was almost so thick that I could reach out and
touch the Holy Spirit. I'd never have that experience.
Well, I'd had other similar experiences, but I'd never had
it about the Book of Mormon. And but at that, at that moment,
I knew, and I still know that the Book of Mormon is true.
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I know that it is the most correct book on earth and I know
it is another testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Sometimes I go through doubts. I, I have doubts in life.
You know, I think we all do. Times when I'm higher
spiritually and times when I'm lower spiritually and sometimes
when I get low, I, I can always go back to that experience in my
(24:17):
life and remember, you know what?
I know the Book of Mormon is true.
There's I can never argue that point.
It cannot be argued with me. I know the Book of Mormon is
true. And whenever I think that, OK, I
have to go back and say, yeah, Iknow that Joseph Smith was a
true prophet. And then I can just kind of
rebuild the testimony on that. Every time that I feel like I'm
(24:40):
falling down, I can always go back.
And that's one of the cornerstones I feel with my
testimony. Powerful experience.
I have a very similar experienceof knowing that the church is
the only true church. I don't know how much time we
have. Yeah.
Sure. While I was on my mission, we
(25:00):
had a handicapped man that we had been teaching and he was a
really smart guy. He worked for, he worked for the
Zimbabwean government and I don't really remember what his
job in the government was, but Iknow he worked in Ferrari and he
worked in this huge office building and he was on some top
floor and he was in charge of money.
(25:21):
He was a really smart guy, but he was handicapped.
He, he was in a wheelchair and he couldn't get around easily.
And we had been teaching him andhis wife had been bringing him
to church and he was getting ready to be baptized.
And what a really strong, powerful testimony he'd already
been building. And after he'd come to church
(25:42):
for a few weeks, his wife heard something about our church and
felt like she shouldn't, I don'tknow, maybe it wasn't we, we
weren't Christian or something to that point.
I can't remember, but she wouldn't bring him to church
after that. And we went to his house.
I remember going over to his house after that first Sunday
(26:03):
where she wouldn't bring him to church.
And we had, we had the third missionary discussion with him.
And we in that one, in that third discussion, we talked
about the Church of Jesus Christof Latter Day Saints being the
only true church upon the earth.And we talked about how the
church was built on the apostlesand using your revelation from,
(26:28):
from the Lord, we talked about the apostasy, how it fell apart,
and then how it had been restored to the Prophet Joseph
Smith. And as we had, we and we used
cups to like build the church and to illustrate this.
And we built, rebuilt the churchagain.
And my companion shared his testimony first and he, he
(26:51):
shared that he, he knew that thechurch was the only true church
on the earth. And I, I felt the spirit really
strongly at that point. And I, that was, and then, and
then I, as I was saying the words, I also know that the
Church of Jesus Christ of LatterDay Saints is the only true and
(27:14):
living church upon the earth. The spirit came just like that.
And so I feel like I've, I've, I've been well prepared by the,
by my mission to, to come home, to live in the world, to face
challenges and to know that, that, that the church is true
(27:34):
and that the Book of Mormon is true.
Both experiences by especially that that second experience
about the gaining A testimony orthat strong witness while you're
bearing the testimony that that goes back to our first story
(27:56):
that you shared that go to work,right.
You didn't gain that testimony by sitting in the missionary
apartment waiting for the Lord to testify to you.
You had to testify to someone else to gain that witness.
Yeah, it was out as it was coming out of my mouth.
And that, that man, I remember looking in his eyes and I knew
(28:18):
that he felt what I felt. And he, he ended up coming to
church that next week. He'd found a ride from somebody
else. I got, I got, I got moved out of
that area shortly after, or it may have been right at the end
of my mission. I, I just, I know I never, I
never know if he got baptized ornot.
(28:39):
But yeah, it was a very, very powerful experience.
Let's let's talk about your job a little bit here.
What's the best job decision that you've ever made?
Oh, well, just to become a dentist.
I remember before dental school,I, I did not get into dental
(29:02):
school the first time I tried, Ihad, I had pretty good grades.
I had a good GPA I'd take, I wasa chemistry major at BYU, so I
had a kind of a hard, hard Rd., but I did, I did pretty well.
But that first time I, my letters of recommendation got
tied up and AD SAS, which is the, which is an organization
(29:27):
that kind of collects your information and sends it out to
the individual schools. And I, I did not follow up to,
to make sure that they had all of my letters of recommendation.
They did have, I mean, I, I knewthat they had them, but I didn't
follow up with each of the schools to make sure that AD SAS
had sent them. And so big learning experience
(29:49):
for me. Yeah, always follow up.
That was a good thing. But I didn't get in that first
time. I got in the second time.
And I, I remember praying at after the first time asking with
my wife if, if we should go to dental school.
And we together received a really prompting, a really
(30:11):
strong prompting that that I would be a dentist.
It was right after that that I got my first denial, like the
denial that I wasn't getting it to dental school.
And I remember thinking, well, how did you know?
How is it the Lord told me that I would get into dental school
and I'm not getting in. How, how did that happen?
(30:32):
And it was the second time. So I think one of the best
things I ever did was apply the second time.
That was that was probably the the best thing that the other
best thing is coming to Pratt, KS.
That was kind of a long story, but it's a it's a, it's one I do
(30:54):
want to share too, how we got toPratt, KS.
It it's it was a miracle that weended up in Pratt.
There were, there had been a dentist in in Pratt, KS that had
his office burned down by the new associate, by the new
dentists coming in. So Doctor Van Blerkum was the
(31:16):
dentist in Pratt. He'd hired an associate named
Doctor Candy and he was selling his practice to Doctor Candy.
Doctor Candy had an associate named Doctor Raina.
She was an Indian. She was from India and she lived
in Wichita and she drove out to Pratt.
Well, Doctor Candy bought the practice from Doctor Van Blerkum
(31:39):
and he was a shady dentist and so word travels fast in a small
town and he lost his business really, really quickly.
Within a few months was spendinga lot of money buying the
practice from Doctor Van Blurkumto crashing it because he was
not. He was not doing a good job and
(31:59):
word got out that he was cheating people.
It was within a few months that it really crashed down.
And so he hired two people to come in and burn down the dental
practice so that so that he could claim the insurance money
on the building and on the equipment and so forth, so he
(32:21):
can recoup some of his lost money because he had crashed the
dental practice. Well, in the process, Doctor
Raina that was also working there, she lost her job and so
she decided to go back to schoolto be an orthodontist in Las
Vegas, where I was going to school to be a dentist.
(32:42):
One, one night late at I think it was 11 or midnight was late
at night. I had, I was in the lab, I was
pouring up dental models for my patients.
The next day I was in a rush andsomebody knocked on the window
and it was really late. I was the only person in the
whole building and she knocked on the window and I went to
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check out who it was and she wasan orthodontic student.
She had a patient the next day. They were in the building next
to us and their building was closed and she couldn't get in
because it was so late. It was it was late at night and
they closed the buildings after a certain time.
So she knocked on the window andasked if she could come use our
lab so that she could see her patients in the morning.
(33:23):
So I let her in and we had just some short conversations and she
was asking me about where I planto practice.
And we'd already looked into Kansas as being an option and I
listed off states Nevada. We talked about Nevada where my
family's from or Oklahoma where my wife's family's from, or we
(33:46):
would pick some other state thatnobody was from.
And I was looking Kansas need a dentist.
They, they were, they had a low,low number of dentists compared
to the number of people. And so I, I looked into Kansas
and I told her that I was looking into Kansas.
And she says, really nobody goesto Kansas.
What, what's making you decide on Kansas?
(34:06):
And I said, well, it's kind of alow, you know, low number of
dentists compared to population.And she says, well, I lived in
Kansas. That's where I practice
dentistry. And she says I lived in this
little town called Pratt. And she says the the people were
the nicest people that I've evermet.
And she gave me the the information to get a hold of
(34:27):
Doctor Van Blericum, who was theoriginal owner of that practice.
She says, you know, he was the old kDa president.
He knows every dentist in that area.
She says, I can give you this contact information.
And so to make a long story shorter, I know, I know it's
already long, but she gave me the information and, and I
(34:48):
contacted him. We came out and he introduced me
to Doctor Ingram. It was shortly after that my
wife and I decided, you know, we, we came out to visit.
We enjoyed the town, thought it was great.
She, my wife, felt really good. And Pratt felt like this might
be the place for us. And so we went back to Las
(35:09):
Vegas. I was only a sophomore in dental
school when I was looking. I was so terrified I wouldn't
find a job. So I was a sophomore in dental
school. We went back to Las Vegas and we
were thinking about Pratt, you know, is on the list of areas we
might go. And I remember we have decided
we were going to go to the temple one time.
(35:30):
And before we went, I said, you know, Jen, we should really pray
when we're in the celestial room.
We should pray and ask God if, if we should move to Pratt on
this on this trip. And she says, yeah, yeah, that's
that's a good idea. And so we went there and when I
got to the temple, when we got to the temple, I went through
and I don't know if you've had this day in the temple, but
(35:53):
there was a day for me where I was.
I'd been going to the temple a lot.
And you know, I didn't really understand what a lot of the
things meant. It's a lot of symbolism and I
didn't really get it. And in that session, that day
that we went, I, I saw somethingand I thought, oh, wait, well,
(36:16):
if this is this, then this is this, and this is this, and this
is this. And I put this whole thing
together and I finally understood the endowment.
It was the first time I'd ever really understood what, what
this was all about. I was so excited and, and I felt
the spirit really, really strongly.
(36:37):
We get into the celestial room and I just start telling my wife
Jen, this is this and this is this.
And I explained everything to her and I was so excited that I
finally understood all these things.
And we felt really, really good in the temple.
And we left and I'm sitting, we change our clothes, I'm sitting
(36:58):
back outside in the foyer and I'm waiting for her.
And I realize, ha, the whole reason we came to the temple
today was to ask God if we should move to Pratt.
And I totally forgot to ask him,do we?
And so Jen walked out of the door, walked out and walked out
(37:19):
into the foyer and she came up and I said, Jen, guess what?
I said we forgot to pray about Pratt.
And as soon as I said the word Pratt, the spirit moved in
around us. And I, I felt it just like I
felt it the day that I learned the Book of Mormon.
That was true. It was so powerful.
(37:40):
And I looked at my wife and I said, Jen, do you feel that?
And she says, yeah, I feel that.And I, I, I said, I think that's
our answer. And it was about a 45 minute
drive home. And we felt, we felt the
confirmation of the Holy Ghost that whole drive home.
(38:01):
And it was just really, really powerful.
And I said, guess we're moving to Pratt.
And so here we are. We've been here 16 years now and
it's been the best decision we've made.
Some of perhaps been a wonderfulplace to raise our family.
Yeah, just that the town has been great to us.
And I feel like it's a it's a good Christian town, Good
(38:24):
people, wonderful experience. And it just came to pass where
we are, right? God is definitely involved in
those seemingly small details ofour lives, but He really is if
we let Him. Thank you.
(38:45):
So then you mentioned earlier inyour bio that you have some
children and wife. What are some things that you
guys like to do for fun? Oh, my kids are going to hate
this, but one of my favorite things to do is family work day
and they hate it. But we, you know, we have a lot
(39:08):
of stuff going on and COVID, I think was when we really started
getting a lot of stuff going on.We got chickens and pigs and we
have rabbits and all kinds of farm animals and chores and
stuff to do and we get behind a lot and sometimes we just need
everybody to work. We built some fence in in that
(39:28):
COVID time. We've done, I don't know, we've
laid, we've poured concrete, we've build foundations, we've
built a greenhouse. We've done all kinds of stuff.
And so we do a lot of gardening.I love my favorite thing to do
with my family is is work day. That probably goes back to
(39:49):
that's what I did with my dad ofmy grandpa when I was little as
I worked with him and I have some great experiences with her,
but we also my wife loves to travel.
If I had my choice, I'd stay home and work, but my wife?
Has already been staying home and working a lot so she on her
days off she let me and when I'moff she likes to travel so you
(40:11):
know every every. When we first moved to to Pratt,
we found out there's a book called the 8 Wonders of Kansas
and it had there was a competition some time back where
they had this competition where what are the 8 wonders of
Kansas? It's kind of like the seven
wonders of the world, but there's 8 wonders of Kansas.
(40:31):
And so it's a book and it's thick and it has all these
different places, things in Kansas that you can go and see
that are wonders to know. The hand dug well in Greensburg
and the biggest ball of twine inCocker City.
And so when we first moved to Kansas, we visited, I think just
about every place in that book. I I don't know if there's
(40:55):
anywhere we haven't visited and we would just go on a day trip
and goes, you know, and that that was a great thing.
We've we love to travel. We love to see Kansas.
You know, we weren't from here, but this home now we've also
been to the Outer Banks a coupleof times.
My wife loves the beach, so we've traveled to the beach few
(41:18):
times. My kids, we, we like to hike.
This last summer we went out andvisited my parents in Nevada and
I took them up into the mountains and we hiked into a
couple of lakes where I went when I was a Boy Scout.
And they all complained, but butthey loved it.
By the time we were done, we hada great time.
And I mean, we really did it. We did backpacks and sleeping
(41:42):
bags and we got all the gear that we needed.
And you know, it was, it was a wonderful trip.
We had a great time. So we like to travel, we like to
camp, we like to be outside, love to fish, love to hike and I
don't know, just be outside and enjoy time together as a family.
We also like to watch movies. We watch a lot of movies
(42:03):
together as a family. My wife gets mad if I'm not
there while we watch them, you know, So we like to be together
and watch movies. And I shouldn't say she gets
mad, but yeah, we like to have. Family.
Together family, together time. Yeah.
Even if you're taking a nap. Yes, because you they finally
sat still, huh? Yep, I can definitely relate.
(42:24):
That's true. So, So what are some some of the
things that you're most gratefulfor?
I think I'm most grateful for mySavior Jesus Christ.
I am thankful that he is, I am thankful for his atonement and
I'm thankful that I can be forgiven of the sins I, that I
(42:48):
have made. I, I feel like I've made I, I've
only shared in this podcast someof my good decisions.
I feel like I made a lot of poorones a long way too.
And I'm thankful for the gift ofrepentance.
And I'm, I'm very grateful for my wife.
I remember when we were dating, I, we went up to visit the Salt
(43:11):
Lake Olympic sites. It was in 2002 when we were,
when we were dating. And I remember driving up to
Salt Lake from Provo. I was at BYU at the time.
We drove up and saw the torch and saw the rings on the
mountains and just saw some things.
And that night coming home, my wife was actually driving and we
(43:32):
had some friends in the back seat and I was sitting in the
front seat by her. We weren't really dating at the
time, but we were just friends. And I remember sharing that
evening with her and then driving home and I looked over
at her while she was driving andI had this impression that she
would be a really great mother. And I prayed for quite a while
(43:59):
to know like who to marry, things like that.
And I never got a solid answer. And it was more of a decision to
marry Jennifer. I, I liked her a lot.
She's beautiful. My wife is very beautiful.
She's beautiful, she's kind, she's hard working.
(44:20):
She had all these qualities thatI wanted, but I never received
that answer that I should marry her.
I never received it about anyone.
So it was kind of more of a decision like, well, all of the
check marks are here. I, I really should marry her and
I, I asked her to marry me now she asked me on the 1st date.
(44:43):
I want to put that down on, you know, and we, but before our
first scheduled date, I think I asked her out on three more
dates. Just once I found out that she
did like me, you know, I am grateful that I married my wife
Jennifer. She's been the best decision
(45:03):
I've ever made. And I'm also grateful that the
Lord didn't make that decision for me.
It was my choice. It was my choice to marry her
and the best choice that I've ever made.
And I'm grateful that I was wiseenough to do that.
(45:23):
She's brought me 6 beautiful children and she is a wonderful
mother. That prompting that I received
that she would be a wonderful mother has come true and I love
her a lot. Thank you so much.
That's been a a wonderful time visiting here today.
(45:45):
Will you end our episode with your testimony of Jesus Christ
and of his restored church? Yeah.
I'll share the time that I remember first learning that
Jesus was my Savior and it was during a in seminary.
It was it was my sophomore year.We had, we've been learning the
(46:08):
New Testament and it was the at the end of the year after
studying the New Testament, we had what was called Seminary day
in Northern Nevada. And we had all of the, all the
seminary kids from Elko, Winnemucca, Battle Mountain and
the surrounding areas all came together for it was similar to a
(46:30):
youth conference, but it was called S day, Seminary Day and
it was 2 days. It was very similar to a youth
conference where we had a dance the first night.
You know, we had activities on on Friday and then a dance on
Friday night and then Saturday more activities.
And at the end of it, there was a, it wasn't, it was a keynote
(46:51):
speaker. It wasn't a, it wasn't a
testimony meeting, but there wasa keynote speaker.
And I can't remember his name, but the speaker came and he had
been working on the, the film The Lamb of God.
And in The Lamb of God, he had afew clips from that film that he
(47:13):
shared, and it was before the Lamb of God came out, and it was
close to that time when it was going to come out.
But that that video, it showed scenes of the Savior's life and
it had a lot of things in it. And he took a few of those clips
and he played in the background the song His hands.
(47:36):
And this song was his hands. And it talks about all the good
things that the Savior has done with his hands.
He healed the blind with his hands.
He helped people with his hands.And it talks all about the good
things that he does with his hands.
And as as that song was playing,the speaker had this video
(47:57):
running in the background of pictures of what the Savior was,
all the good things. He was lifting the sick and he
was healing the sick and He was curing the healing the blind and
wonderful things. So Savior did with his hands and
perhaps it was special because my hands have always been my
(48:18):
favorite body part. That sounds weird, but I love
what my hands can do. And I, I loved that the Savior
use his hands for so much good. And I remember listening to that
and just feeling so great of allthe good things.
And then there's a line in the song and it says, and they took
(48:40):
his hands, these wonderful handsthat have done so much good.
And they pierced them. And they showed that on the
video, right as yeah, that they they put that the nail in the in
the palm of his hand. And then I think it shows a
hammer like swinging down and doesn't show all the detail.
(49:03):
But the idea was definitely there.
And I could not believe. I could not believe that they
pierced those hands, that it didn't sew much good.
And then I couldn't believe, youknow, I'd heard the story so
many times, but I I couldn't believe that they would do that
(49:25):
to know. And then I also thought, I can't
believe that he just took that here.
He is the, the God of the universe, the most mighty.
And he laid down and let them Pierce his hands.
(49:45):
And I had in my mind over and over, I just had this thought
that was like, wow, what a greatman.
He was so great. He just took that.
He let them do that to him. And I remember I was sobbing.
I was sobbing and I was sobbing and I couldn't stop sobbing.
It was just like, wow, I can't believe.
(50:06):
And the, the, the keynote speaker ended, we walked out to
the van. I remember it was my seminary
teacher's van. We went out and we got in the
van and I'm still stop. I'm sobbing for like 1/2 an hour
or something. I couldn't believe that they did
that to him. And I remember there was a whole
van full of people. And I was just, I felt very
(50:28):
alone. And I was sitting in that van
full of people and I'm like, wow, what a great man.
What a great man. I just kept going over my head,
what a great man. And as I was saying that what a
great man, I heard a voice as clear and I don't, I don't know
if it was a voice or a just pureknowledge coming into my soul.
(50:52):
And it said to me, but I, I heard a voice.
He was more than a man. He was more than a man.
He was God. And I know that he is, I know
that my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is more than a man.
I know that he is the God of this universe, of this world, of
(51:17):
my life, of of your life, of allof it.
I know that he loves me. And I hope that I can be the man
that he needs me to be so one day I can return to live with
Hamidan. I know that God lives.
(51:37):
I know that Jesus is our Savior.I know that he has restored his
church in these days through a prophet.
I know that we have a living prophet on the earth today.
I know that Russell M Nelson hasbeen chosen to lead and guide us
in in these last days as and I know that it can bring us so
(52:00):
much peace and troubled times. And I'm thankful for this
knowledge. And I say these things in the
name of Jesus Christ, Amen. Amen.
I hope that this episode of the Wichita KS Stick Podcast helped
bring you closer to Christ. I invite you to take some time
today to write about or record one of your own faith promoting
(52:23):
experiences.
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