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My conversion in 1962 did not sit well with my father, who was convinced I had entered a cult. After all, I was only 20 years old and an undergraduate at university in Winnipeg, Manitoba. What did I know? After some argument, he finally agreed to read the Book of Mormon, but got no further than I Nephi. One of the things to which he especially objected was the placing of Lehi’s Dream of the Tree of Life in Chapter 8 and the interpretation in Chapter 15. He maintained that it would have made more sense for Joseph to have placed the explanation in Chapter 9. Although I had received an powerful spiritual witness of the Gospel that led me to join the Church, I did not have the knowledge then to rebut the argument. Dad went away convinced that Joseph was a fraud. I had to wait ten years for an explanation. When John Welch’s article on the chiastic structure of I Nephi appeared in the February 1972 issue of the Era, it had a profound effect on my psyche. Not only had I been vindicated, but I realized that my father’s keen observation had made Welch’s discovery meaningful in a very personal way. I did not have a chance to share this information with my Dad, who died prematurely in 1965, but it would have impressed his thoughtful, inquiring mind. Two of my siblings believe our father has already accepted the Gospel in the Spirit World, and if so, we may one day come to know that it was John Welch’s discovery of chiasmus that started the conversion process.
I loved this article and already have shared it widely. As a 78-year-old neophyte in GOspel study, I have been a fan of Jack Welch since I first read about this discovery of Chiasmus, and that admiration has only grown as I have seen the prodigious width and depth of his interests and contributions over the years.