Personal Information

Title

Elder

First Name

Robert

Middle Name

Joseph

Last Name

Raines

Bio

I graduated from Utah State University in Occupational Safety and Health, Married Julia Hammond on December 19, 1972. We have 7 children and 18 grandchildren as of September 2007. I entered the US Army and went to Germany and served as a 2nd and 1st Lieutenant in the Medical Service Corp. Returned to Fort Ord California and left the military in 1979. Worked South Vernal, Utah at the Bonanza American Gilsonite Mines as a Mine Safety Engineer until 1985. Then moved with Chevron (owners of American Gilsonite) to Casper, Wyoming as a Safety Engineer in the Oil Production Division. In 1986, the Casper Office was closed and I was transfered to Denver, Colorado. We lived in Littleton, CO for 2 years when the Northern Region was closed. I was then transferred to Tulsa, Oklahoma where I was a safety engineer for Warren Petroleum (a subsidiary of Chevron). We lived in Tulsa for 8 years and in 1996 was transferred to New Orleans, Louisiana back into Chevron. This was at the time that Chevron divested themselves of Warren Petroleum. I worked for Chevron in the off-shore production department as a Lead Safety Engineer until Jul 2004 when I took an early retirement package. I had had two bouts with Cancer in 1992 and 2003. I am a survivor and wanted to do something where we could serve others. We moved to the Salt Lake City area and in 2005-06 my wife and I went to China and taught English on the BYU China Teachers Program. It was the highlight of our lives. We now have 140 Chinese students whom we learned to love very much. Upon returning from China, I had my followup on my Cancer ahd had had back pain (similar to the pain that I had had in 2002 which was found to be caused by a tumor). My Doctor did not followup on my tests and I assumed that there was nothing in the tests. (Wrong for me.) In February 2007, I went back for another followup and found out that the September tests had shown a tumor growing and by then, the pain was getting much worse. I immediately started working on getting a specialist to remove the turmor and to beat the Cancer again. On April 27, 2007 I went in and had surgery to remove the turmor. It was a success and since then I have gone through Radiation Treatment and will be going through Chemotherapy again beginning in November. I am pain free and have regained all of my strength. I am doing well now.

Mission Information

Mission End Date

1971-12-20

Mission Start Date

1969-11-19

First Mission President

Charles Tod Broberg

Last Mission President

Charles Tod Broberg

Areas Served

Salzburg, Traun, Vienna, Vorarlberg (Dornbirn, Hohenems, Feldkirch)

History

Member for

4 years 18 weeks