He remembered his first talk in church, a 2 1/2-minute speech about the story commemorated by the Seagull Monument on Temple Square. As a young deacon, he remembered speaking on the Word of Wisdom. One church leader told him it was a fine talk, and added, "you have the ability to deliver one without reading it." The boy took his advice seriously, and from that point forward, never read a talk.

One day, his father told him they would attend priesthood meeting together to hear Elder LeGrand Richards, then a member of the Quorum of the Twelve, speak. "This was one of the only times in our lives when we went to such a meeting together," he wrote, adding his father's influence on him came in other ways.

Each Sunday, his father would pick up his uncle, who was disabled, and drive him around the city. "Dad never wanted any thanks or commendation for this type of gesture, but his lesson was not lost on me," President Monson later wrote.

"Mother also taught me lessons relative to the Golden Rule, rather than by preachment." He remembered a man named Robert whose home was demolished in the name of city progress, leaving him with no place to go. His grandfather Condie gave Robert a key to a house he owned, and never charged him rent to stay there.

"From that day forward, Robert became almost a member of our family." On Sundays, President Monson's mother would fix a large dinner and send a plate of food with her son to Robert's home. "Mother would also insure that no person who ever knocked at her door in search of food would go away hungry."

The family home was near the railroad tracks during the Depression, and she would invite transients who came in on the train and were looking for something to eat to sit at the kitchen table while she made them a sandwich and served it with a glass of milk.

By the time young President Monson turned 16, duck hunting, canyon camping and fishing had become hobbies that would remain favorites pastimes. He worried about the future as World War II played out during his years at West High School, where "each young man knew that if (the war) continued, he would be in the military," and go off to distant battles from which some would not return.

Shortly after he turned 17, he enrolled as a student at the University of Utah, working part-time in his father's print shop. His father paid the tuition, which he remembered at that time was "$40 or less," and he enjoyed the fact that "there were about eight girls to every boy on the campus."