I met him when I was on my mission. He was a new apostle and visiting the various missions around the world. I was in the Philippines (86-88).
At the time I thought he was the smartest man alive. He quoted the scriptures backwards and forwards. He seemed to know every verse that mentioned the savior. Jesus was your friend, companion, God, advocate...etc. It seemed that was his thing.
Looking back I think he liked to show how much smarter he was than everyone else. Clearly, he was god's chosen because he took the time to memorize a few hundred verses.
He was all smiles and yet very serious. I do think that at the time he really believed in the church. Perhaps he still does on some level. The best con-men do tend to believe their own hype.
Nelson was born a few days after my father in 1924. My dad was a high school senior on the day of the Pearl Harbor bombing and after graduating he and all of his classmates at Davis High School became eligible for the draft. The oldest guys who were drafted first were being taken in by the Navy to serve in the Pacific, many of them in the marine corp. Lots of boys like my father volunteered and signed up for Army Air Corp so they would have some choice in their assignment. My father showed me his high school yearbook when I was a senior in high school and told me what he remembered about the fate of all of his male classmates, that he new about. All but a handful were taken up into the war, it was pretty sobering. Nelson on the other hand went to the U, instead of the Navy or Marines, or Army, and eventually medical school. Perhaps it was the hand of god or some powerful connection somewhere that kept him safely at home during the war. Yes I know he was a doctor in the Korean war, and served safely in Japan.
My Aunt used to work with him at the U of U hospital. She was a nurse. She doesn't like him. Basically, like many surgeons, he was arrogant, overbearing, condescending, and treated everyone he worked with like shit.
If I was completely stuck and saturated in LDS-ism or MormØŽ-ism or whatever it might be called next year, I'd be probably be both fake fake fake and nasty nasty too.
What do they say as maybe an incredibly popular slogan?
Doesn't "When It All Filters Down From The Top!" seem to fit perfectly for Nelson as he pilots such a lone and rusty creaking ship into the sunset while immersed in an ocean of lies?
Any passenger departing down the dock ramp might all be heard muttering the same thing,