RULON ASHER: AN IMPOSSIBLE DREAM OF MY GRANDSON

Best Wishes for Rulon Asher on His 9th Birthday

by: Norberto Betita

When he was about five years old he started to learn about the value of prayer. After one of our family home evenings, the closing prayer was offered by our foster daughter Angelica. In her prayers were sincere petitions to bless each member of the family. He was busy playing something. We thought he was not listening. But after the prayer he complained why Angelica did not include in her prayer to ask Heavenly Father to heal him from coughs and colds that he was then suffering. From him we learned a lesson that even when little children seemed to be just snubbing or not paying attention to our spiritual family activities in the home, yet they are learning.

During our family prayers he would seek the assistance of his father to help him pray when it is his turn. Since then he has started to learn how to pray himself. 

RULON ASHER GARCIA BETITA, our beloved fourth grandson, is now celebrating his 8th birthday and is baptized by his father. His receiving the ordinance reminds me of the day, 26 years ago when I baptized his father. He told us he is very excited about receiving his ordinance of baptism. As a grandfather I am very proud of him to have such a desire at a young age for an ordinance that will give him entrance to the gates of the Celestial Kingdom. After baptism, he will be on his personal trek to his mortal journey into eternity. Of course he will be guided by his mortal parents along the way. While he is blessed with righteous parents, yet his life’s battles will be a personal one. He is now to exercise his moral agency to choose right from wrong. This is where he will start to grow and develop and progress towards his divine destiny. He is the only one that bears my name---BETITA amongst my grandchildren. And I’m confident he will bear that name with honor.

His name Rulon was described thus: “You are a law unto itself. Your tendency is to finish whatever you start. You are tolerant and like to help humanity. You are very active. You are generally warmhearted and gives freely of your time, energy, and sympathetic understanding. You have tolerance and acceptance of the frailties of others. Universal and humanitarian in outlook. This is very compassionate name. Emergencies may raise your intuitive abilities in order to resolve conflict or situation. You become very creative under the pressure, and have quite original ideas to make the best out of it.

“Position and social status is very important for you and you are always looking for way to improve your position in society. You have power and ability to choose your own destiny and achieve anything you want in life. You can expand in any direction according to your will and the set of values. You have passion for justice and belong to the position of authority. You have an inherent courage and endurance to accomplish "The Impossible Dream". With the power comes responsibility. You hold keys to the material world, but with this gift comes high spiritual responsibility to be fair and true to others. You are philosophical and mature, determined and intense with a desire to endure, often religious.” (http://www.sevenreflections.com/name/rulon/).

Asher on the other hand means happiness or blessed both in America and in Hebrew. It is well known that Asher is the son of Zilpah, Leah’s handmaid and of Jacob in the Old Testament and the ancestor of one of the twelve tribes of Israel (see Genesis 35:26).

These meanings and descriptions of his names seemed to correspond fittingly even in this his early life. His parents had very hard times getting him to eat good food, but his energy just seemed never exhausted. His generosity is well shown even in his childhood. He doesn’t fight nor retaliate even if stricken by other boys. He is tolerant of others faults. He is a very happy boy. He has that ever yearning desire to create something and to enjoy his boyhood. He is trained to do his assignments by his own and his parents’ role is just to check the accuracy of his work. At times his mother wanted to hire a tutor for him, but his father would rather want him to enjoy his free time after all he only has a short time as a kid to build happy memories with classmates and neighborhood friends. When asked to study for periodical examinations, he would just tell his parents, “Don’t you worry I have stock knowledge.” Such phrase became a mantra in the family circle. He is very much younger than most of his classmates in the third grade. He is not in the honor roll but as a grandfather I observed innate talents in him which I believe will be developed in proper time. 

At home and in church he is such a good boy. However, like all other children he has his own frailties. Too much energy and untiring mobility at times irritates his parents, yet he is ever willing to be corrected. When he knew he is wrong he accepts parental chastisement with tears in his eyes. When he felt reasonably right he confronts with his parents. I love Rulon Asher as much as I love all my grandchildren.

Many times in our conversations with him together with his grandmother he would tell us, and he has repeated it several times, that he wanted to be an engineer so that he could build a beautiful house, and buy a car or two of the latest model so that it will not be difficult for us to go to church. What an impossible dream for a child! Yet I believe it is attainable as he reaches maturity. When his father was about four years old, we had occasional rides in the car of our District President who is a doctor. Then back home he would tell me, “Pa, I would like to be a doctor so that I could buy a car.” Although his interests changed as he grows older, yet that simple childish dream of buying a car probably became his motivation to do better in his quest for learning and education as he reached adolescence. He could have attained his simple childhood dream earlier. However, as his life moved towards responsible maturity, priorities changed as he learned to “…seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness”. But I know that necessary goals for material things will come for the Lord has promised, “and all these things shall be added unto you (see Matthew 6:33).”

I write this personally for Rulon Asher as my life is now in its final stretch. My life might not be long enough to constantly remind him that not only do I believe in the expressive description that his name brings, but I have real faith in his ‘inherent courage and endurance to accomplish the impossible dream’, upon which ‘power comes responsibility’. I do have confidence and profound conviction that one day he will ‘hold keys to the material world’, from which ‘gift comes high spiritual responsibility to be fair and true to others’. When for me tomorrow no longer comes, I will have left no lasting memory for him than this simple reminder that as a child he dreamed an impossible dream and my best wishes as a grandfather together with his grandmother is for him to follow that vision for surely that childhood dream will connect him to the future and doors will eventually open for the physical attainment of his wishes and aspirations.