Part one of Elder Cleveland’s inspiring personal testimony

Hartland Spring Convocation 2017

<p>Part one of Elder Cleveland’s inspiring personal testimony</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Hartland Institute of Health and Education

Charles Cleveland

A Teenager Sailor Finds Jesus

It's a privilege to be with you during this Convocation.

We're in the last days, we believe that very much.

We need to be sure our inventory is correct and our relationship with God is solid in shaking times before us.

I want to share a story of my own personal experience with you tonight, not to glorify myself, but as an example of the marvelous way God is willing to work with anyone.

God cares about every 1 of us and we are each to have our own story.

I had just turned 17 years old in 3 days when I joined the US Navy.

You normally think you have to be at least 18, but If 1 parent will sign, they can send you in.

That's awful young to go into the service.

But nevertheless, that particular day for me was exciting because after 6 months in the Navy, I was assigned to ship duty and I'll never forget the day I walked down the pier in Long Beach, California and saw before me this huge steel vessel, the USS Frontier, and realized I was going to be part of that sailing crew in just a few days.

That may not mean much to you, but it's the mother ship that takes care of the destroyers overseas.

And we were going to sail the ocean blue together.

But Satan was there also, as he longs to influence young people, particularly at that age.

So I had different buddies that I got acquainted with.

But the day I walked up the gangway into the USS Frontier, I wasn't thinking of those things.

It was just an exciting time for me as a young man.

And my excitement for that ship was to work in the mechanical department, the engine room, the heart of the ship, sometimes just the belly of the whale.

It wasn't my preferred job, but then what could you expect a high school dropout to be assigned anyway.

And putting my duffel bag of clothes away and looking over the 3 tiers of bunk beds, I got a message to report to the executive officer and the chaplain.

I thought they were the people you went to when you were in trouble.

So I didn't know what to think of it, but I knew I needed to get there soon.

Before I tell you about that experience, I want to back up and let you know a little bit about my family, or I wouldn't have been there at 17.

Our name wasn't Cleveland, it was Claven.

But when he immigrated to this country, he made it simple.

During the Depression in the early 1900s, when he was growing up as a boy in Norway, the oldest of 8 children, his father would come to America and work in the northwestern logging industry to try to get funds to support his family back at home.

He promised my father that if he would hold the farm together outside of Bergen, which we still have there and family still there, that someday when he was at least 20, he'd bring him to America, and he too could find a job over here.

And the day came that my father came to America, my grandfather Clavin got him started in the logging industry, but soon my father found his way into the business world and came to California, northern California, met my mother at a dance, and the last day that my grandfather stayed in America was the day my parents got married.

And he left on the ship to go back to Norway.

The economy began to improve and my father was able to send money as well.

In time, My father in the business world became employed with Sears and Roebuck, which was the premier company at that time, well before Walmart.

You could buy everything through Sears catalogs.

I had 2 sisters, 1 3 years older and 1 3 years younger.

My dad was the department manager for Sears and Roebuck and we became pretty comfortable there in the Bay Area.

We were a Sunday-going church family, but it wasn't for the right reasons.

My father thought as an immigrant and a good American, you just go to church because that's what American people do.

When you don't practice your religion, you damage young people who are watching on.

You know, we'd go to church on Sundays but it was an argument in the car on the way and 1 on the way home.

We weren't a happy family, and so I compensated not having a brother.

I was a busy boy mowing lawns and all kinds of things.

I liked to work, but I needed to be more on my own.

I didn't realize some things that were happening in my home.

My 2 sisters suffered sexual abuse all their growing up days.

We just didn't talk to each other about those things.

When I was 15, I got a job on a farm in Colorado.

I took the train and headed out to work with an old couple that had a farm and sheep and a lot of haying to do in the summertime.

And it was just a relief to get out of the city and be in the country and take care of the sheep and help to bale hay and put it up and so forth.

1 day when I was working, there was another young couple that came, a young man, a younger married man came.

He was, Dan was 26 at the time, as I remember.

Weimer was old enough, he really couldn't handle all his hay, and so he had agreed, as often farmers do, if you'll put up the hay, you can have half of it, put it up mine and you can have the rest.

And so Dan came over and was a very positive person.

And so we were several weeks in Hain together.

It was during that time, late in that summer, I received a letter from my mother telling me that she was divorcing my father, leaving California and moving to Oregon, taking my younger sister.

My older 1 had gotten married and left the home just before I went to Colorado.

I knew, of course, there was a lot of tension in our home.

I knew the talk of divorce had come up before.

Somehow I just wasn't expecting it there.

And when the news came, it hit me pretty hard, of course, as a young man, 15, 15 and a half years old.

If I'd known the background, perhaps I would have understood it should have happened sooner.

But for me, from my point of view, I knew I couldn't go back to California to live with my father.

I was angry with my mother because I didn't really understand the whole situation.

And suddenly I was without a home, in my opinion.

Dan stepped in at that time, this other man that had the farm nearby, And he said, you know what, if you aren't going home and you need a place to stay, I've talked to Betty and our kids and we'd like to have you come stay with us.

We can't pay you, but we can give you room and board.

They had 4 little kids, 4, 5, and 7, and I was 15.

A Teenager Sailor Finds Jesus

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