Comments on: The Two Roads

By: BruceC

BruceC — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 12:53:30 +0000

I have to agree with William. This was well written. Most of the mission diaries I have read have been far less successful at conveying the feelings of their author. This was a pleasure to read, as well as to try to follow along the path of the counties he describes.

By: Ray

Ray — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 22:43:35 +0000

#4 – Amen.

By: Steve Jones

Steve Jones — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:52:40 +0000

This brings back a memory from my mission in the Southern States in the late 60′s. Martin Luther King had been killed in April of 1968. Later there was a march from Selma to Montgomery to commemorate his life and the freedom march of 1965. As missionaries we did not know anything of the march. Our apartment was on the border of the segregated black area. We were going to Maxwell AFB. It was 6 or 7 miles around the black area or 3 through it. We we walking down Day Street and saw the sidewalks and porchs packed with people, many holding weapons. We had walked a couple of blocks when we heard a horn blarring. We looked and saw a mail truck driving towards us. The driver was a man whom we had taught and had just baptised his wife and daughter. He screamed at us to get in. We did so and he drove off telling us that just over the hill were 50,000 people marching towards us.
A few weeks later we received a referral from the Hawaii temple vistors center for a prominant black attorney in Montgomery. We met him at his office and he asked where and when our church met. We told the branch president about this and mentioned it to another prominant attorney, whose wife and children were members. The second attorney later joined the church and was later the Stake president in Montgomery and a regional representative. He told us he knew the black attorney and that he was not interested in the church but in bringing a demonstration to the doors of the church in protest of the church’s then position on blacks and the priesthood. He told us he would talk to the other attorney, which he did and the protest was called off.

By: Edje

Edje — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 15:38:52 +0000

“You may be sure we were, but we didn’t know it” encapsulates many of my most treasured missionary experiences.

By: Mark IV

Mark IV — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 14:41:59 +0000

I served a two year hitch as scoutmaster in central Virginia, and we often went camping and hiking in the Appalachians. It is easy for me to visualize what this elder is describing.

The part about makeing moonshine also hits close to home. Once we took the troop on a campout and I stopped at a local store to buy a topographical map and ask a few questions about the trail we were planning to hike. The store owner warned me that if we went in a certain area, under no circumstances should I allow any of the boys to stray so much as a few feet from the trail. He explained that lots of people in that area cooked ‘shine and had been known to shoot at intruders. This was in the late 1980s.

By: Ardis E. Parshall

Ardis E. Parshall — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 13:47:57 +0000

This from a man who responds to good writing while I’m still focused on the data it carries. Thanks for pointing that out, William.

By: William Morris

William Morris — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 13:38:48 +0000

What a wonderfully written account.