Finishing the job
E-mail story
It's easy. Send a link to the story you were just reading to a friend. Just fill out the form on this page and we'll send it along.
Your name and e-mail address are transmitted to the recipient. Otherwise, it is considered private information; see Privacy policy.
Building homes for the past three decades has taught Dean R. Burgess a priceless lesson: Always, always finish the job you start.
Seeing a housing project through to its completion is vital for success in the building industry. Life's most important matters — be they family or Church duties — are no different, said Brother Burgess, first counselor in the newly called Young Men general presidency.
Finish what you start.
It's a lesson young Dean Burgess learned as a boy, working alongside his father, Reid C. Burgess, on the family farm in Alpine, Utah. Now Brother Burgess and his colleagues in the Young Men presidency are charged with helping cultivate a generation of LDS young men into responsible leaders in their future homes.
"We need to find ways to build and strengthen these future fathers and priesthood leaders so they can have a gospel-centered home," Brother Burgess said.
The 57-year-old businessman is not afraid of a little sweat and toil. While a young man, he put spent countless hours harvesting alfalfa, potatoes and peas on the Burgess farm. Money raised from those crops helped finance his full-time mission.
Days spent laboring together on the farm or in Reid Burgess' mercantile store yielded more than an income. Work helped keep the family close during difficult times. When Dean was still a boy his mother, Ethel King Burgess, and a younger brother, David, were killed in a car accident.
"It was a traumatic experience to live through," admits Brother Burgess. The family's love and testimony — coupled with the support of their neighbors and fellow Church members — helped the Burgesses move forward. Three years after losing his wife, Reid Burgess married Marjorie Killpack. Dean Burgess said he never considered his father's second wife to be a "step-mother." She was his mother — the woman who raised him after his other mother died.
A basketball scholarship brought the 6-foot-4 Brother Burgess to College of Southern Utah for a year. He gave up his spot on the team to serve a mission to Brazil. When he returned he enrolled in Brigham Young University and claimed a degree in business management and marketing. In 1973, Brother Burgess married Annette Christensen. The couple has two sons and three daughters. In 1997, Brother Burgess returned to his old mission stomping grounds with Sister Burgess, presiding over the Brazil Belo Horizonte Mission.
Brother Burgess says the recent call to serve in the Young Men general presidency took him and his family off guard. But he prayerfully accepted to job and, yes, plans to finish. "I absolutely love the young men and the youth of the Church. That's what I bring to the Church."
Brother Burgess said he is "a believer in the Aaronic Priesthood program and its purposes in preparing and helping young men to be . . . who Heavenly Father wants them to be."
Brother Burgess emphasizes it is vital that every young man have an opportunity to recognize the Spirit. "Having a personal experience with the Holy Spirit will give (Aaronic Priesthood holders) the strength to work hard, overcome temptations and serve."
The Duty To God program, he added, is skillfully designed to invite such experiences into a young man's life via scripture study, personal prayer and other testimony-building activities.
The Scouting program also allows youth leaders to develop a one-on-one relationship with young men away from the Sunday quorum meetings, Brother Burgess said.
E-mail: jswensen@desnews.com
