Another neat experience!!

It was a really good night at work. It had been steadily busy all night long. The night had started out with a vehicle fire and just kept going after that.


From there I dealt with a whole bunch of different things. Kids out past curfew, vandalism, and runaway juveniles. The night rolled by quickly and I was home and ready for bed. Lately I have been having trouble falling asleep with all the crazy shifts I have been working, so the Doc prescribed me some sleeping medicine. So I took me medicine and headed to bed. I had only been asleep for 30 minutes when Natalie was waking me up. Today was Stake Conference. I had not planned on going since I usually plan on going to bed during the day so I am ready to go for work the next night. Well Natalie wasn't waking me up to go to Stake Conference. There was a member of the Stake Presidency on the phone. Let me give you a little bit of background.

I posted previously about all the ward re-alignment of borders that had occurred and how it had affected our family. Well just to give you a general idea about what was going on. This Stake Conference was for ALL of Tremonton and the surrounding cities. The reason being is the church has authorized the creation of another stake. Too add even more to that, the two current Stake Presidencies had reached their time of tenure, so both of those were being re-organized. So the work to be done involved creating a new stake and the leadership of said stake. Also to call two other new stake presidencies. Because this was a major ordeal, the church sent two authorities to oversee the changes. They sent Elder Ronald A. Rasband (Senior President of the Presidency of the Seventy) and Elder Carl B. Cook (Area Seventy for Northern Utah).

Now back to my phone call. The Stake Presidency is aware I am a police officer. The conversation went a little bit like this. "Brother Marchant are you going to be coming to Stake Conference today?" I explained that I hadn't been planning on it due to my work schedule. "Would you consider coming, we have a little bit of a security concern, and Elder Rasband has requested that you attend. Despite my sleeping pill and 30 minutes of sleep there was no question about what I would say. I told them that I would be right there.

I hurried and got dressed, filled my pockets with weapons, handcuffs and bullets and headed to the Stake Center. I met in the Stake Presidents office and met with a person that I thought was church security. It turns out I was talking to Elder Carl B. Cook. He told me that Elder Rasband had met with an individual, and that he got a really "negative prompting". I was asked to not confront the individual, but to follow him and take appropriate police action if warranted. We went out into the lobby and the individual was discreetly pointed out to me. All of the sudden I got a really negative prompting and my warning bells went off. The individual was skinny, wearing a knee length trench coat and a backpack. The individual was pacing like a caged lion outside the Stake President's office. I grabbed an ushers badge in an attempt to blend in and kept an eye on the guy. Thankfully, Elder Rasband was already in the chapel mingling with the crowd so I didn't have to worry about a confrontation in the hallway. My next concern was that he was going to try and make a scene at the pulpit as the meeting began. But right before the meeting he made a bee-line to the back of the building. I followed the man and he went onto the stage at the very back of the meeting room. He picked a back row seat and I hid behind some curtains.

After waiting for about 30 minutes here, all the sudden the man got up and started walking towards the front of the church. I followed him and he set up in the lobby on the east side of the chapel. The man sat there until the meeting was almost over. It would take an idiot to not know he was being followed at this point, but I didn't care. I was glad he knew that if went somewhere, I was going with him.

As the closing hymn started the man got up and booked it around towards the stake presidents office. I thought he was going to wait for President Rasband, but he kept going. The man kept going around the building and exited on the north side of the building. He walked around the building to the east side of the church, got in a car and left. I ran the guys license plate on my iPhone and found out that the man was from Ogden

I really feel like the man knew I was following him, but I was grateful that nothing happened. I reported to Elder Cook when the meeting was over and told him what had happened. He thanked me, and was off to set apart new Stake Presidents.

Once again, I have been blessed with an opportunity to participate in a once in a lifetime experience because of my job. What a great opportunity to serve..