Robert Mortensen
Part 1 of 3 of the talk I gave at Grandpa's funeral (by Robert Mortensen):One morning when I was about 13, we walked out the front door to go to school, and saw grandpa's truck in the driveway. It was always exciting when grandpa came, and always unexpected. We all know how much grandpa loved to bike, and after school that day he took us on a bike ride. I remember Amanda and I went along with him. We biked through the neighborhood and down to Crestwood park nearby. There are some dirt trails behind the park and we had a great time biking through them. I remember it was a beautiful day. One of the paths led to a sort of gully that went down and came up the other side. Grandpa didn't know what was on the other side and didn't stop to check it out. He gained speed as he went down and came up the other side very quickly. At the top of the other side the path continued, but had a big log embedded in the ground. Grandpa's front tire hit the log and stopped. His back tire kept going, and he was launched into the air and did a full somersault before being thrown to the ground. Amanda and I didn't know what to do. Here is our nearly 70 year old grandpa crashing to the ground. We didn't know if he broke his neck or other bones. We quickly walked our bikes over to him. As we neared, we saw he had bloodied his hands, but still had a smile on his face. He got up laughing, dusted himself off, got back on his bike and kept going.It was around this time that Grandpa helped me learn to set and achieve goals. He made it clear that getting my Eagle Scout was a big priority to him and he incentivized me to do so. I was able to earn it when I was 14 and will always tie that achievement to my memory of Grandpa.As I said, Grandpa was always turning up when least expected. I remember coming home from work about ten years ago when we were living in Austin, Texas. Grandpa had come for a visit, had found us not at home and had left a message on our voicemail. I remember the exact wording and will try to say this in my best Grandpa voice: "Robert. This is your grandpa. Where are you?" We kept that message on our recorder for years and always had a good chuckle over it.At this time, I'd like to ask him the same question. Grandpa, where are you? Let me answer that question in several different ways. First, grandpa's body is here, in this casket. Grandpa is also here in the sense that he lives on in us and our memories. But the real grandpa, the person we all know, his essence, is still alive as a spirit.The scriptures teach us that "the spirit and the body are the soul of man." D&C 88:15 Grandpa's body has died and is still here with us, but his spirit lives on and is with us as well.In order to properly understand how this works, we need to have the right perspective. We need to put this life in context. We have a loving heavenly Father who has a plan for us. To help describe this plan, I'm going to read four paragraphs from a talk given by President Boyd K. Packer: