I attened the funeral of Wally Rupp on Friday.  He was in his late 80s.  It is always hard to lose a mentor.  I learned a lot from him and measured a lot of men by what he did.  He was a colorful Mormon.  The first time I remember ever being sworn at was by him.  We have a picture of him and all my brothers with our eagle neckerchiefs.  I feel like I'm required to give back to young men due to my experience with Wally.  I can think of 4 other men from the 20th Ward I consider as mentors.  Bishop Daniels.  Bishop Porter. Keith Rupp. Mark Olsen.  Mark was the YM President when I was a Priest.  President Rupp was the Stake President in Dad's first time in the Stake Presidency.  I was struggling to get an adult to go Home Teaching with me.  I was attempting to set appointments and get the adult to go.  It didn't work too well.  Dad heard about it and asked that I get someone who will go and I was assigned to be a companion with President Rupp.  We visited all the old people in the Ward.  We would talk about all the aches and pains they were experiencing and then he would turn the lesson over to me.  It was good to have a partner who was willing to go.  I learned a lot from President Rupp.  Whenever Dad needed to do some service for his families he took me.  I was never his companion so I think he felt that I needed to have some hands on experiences with him.  We would mow lawns, clean homes, and do whatever was needed.  I never minded hard work so it was easy to go with him.  I found that he purchased a few rooms worth of carpet for a few of his families.  He did a lot of things like that and we never heard about it.  I paid for many from my rec basketball team.  I did not know about this until I was much older.

Wally's funeral was great.  He has had two of his boys earn the Silver Beaver award for scouting.  his sons told many stories about his life.  how he was a simple farmer and married a very educated woman.  Gloria was awesome.  She passed away many years ago.  It was good an awkward to meet some of the old friends from the 20th Ward.  most of them were very interested in talking to Tiffany but not necessarily me.  I'm fine with that and I thought it was funny.