10. From Evan Ballard

Excerpts from a letter written by Evan Ballard in Laie, Hawaii, on Saturday, July 20, 1968. Evan lived across the hall from me in Stover Hall during the preceding school year at Brigham Young University. Having completed our freshman year of college, we were both waiting to receive our mission calls.

Time seems to play a very deceptive game of dragging, yet disappearing at a phenomenal rate. How clearly I recall the morning of your departure as I watched you battle the persistent tears and wished that I could express my feelings for you. As an Army brat, I have been uprooted repeatedly, and logically I should be well accustomed to good-byes. It just ain't so.

You have taught me a great deal, Dean, and I respect you tremendously. But beyond that, I love you as a friend and brother and confidant. To be able to share my thoughts and, more significantly, my emotions with you opened my blind eyes to a new dimension of brotherhood. I came to understand more fully that people around me are literally my brothers and sisters, and that they are no less valuable in the sight of our Father than I am.

From you, Dean, I feel a powerful spirit and faith, which often serves me as an example. I certainly appreciate the two letters you have written to me, and I beg your forgiveness for my tardiness in answering. I do think about you continually, despite my ostensible negligence. You have been a very special friend among friends. The late night and early morning sit-ins that we staged cling in my memory. I can't forget that we two humble souls struck down the mighty [Jeff] Boswell with bolts of ice water. Those talks were really great for me, Dean, and whatever I lost in sleep, I believe I gained in spirit.

I am convinced that our floor constituted one of the most complete gatherings of great men that I have ever encountered. The short school year that I spent there was indeed the happiest, most fruitful, most enlightening period that I have ever lived. I look forward now to brighter things than I had ever imagined before. The entire experience of that year was wonderful, but I believe I learned most from the lives and thoughts of the individuals.

Please be tolerant of my writing. I am an abominable letter-writer. My ability with a pen is entirely inadequate to open my thoughts and feelings. I become a little frustrated. I admire your talent of expression in writing; your letters are to me masterpieces of effective communicating yourself.

Dean, this letter does not convey a hundredth part of the things I long to share with you. I will try to write again soon.