Ardis: Please, please, please let me know what you said in your 20 minute talk to get out of serious callings for 28 years!

I am not familiar with the Odgen area and had to look up Plain City. Looks like a Mormon community! And Heber Nephi — what a perfect late-19th century Mormon name.

Thanks for the interesting post, Kevin!

(And it looks like Johnny Cash sang these words, more or less, in a number called “Mean as Hell.”)

His missionary diary is interesting, and not just for the accounts of the Galveston hurricane. He’s rather brief, to the point, and most daily entries are two or three sentences about miles traveled, where they stayed for the night, and the meetings they held. Every so often, he drops some interesting details, like going alligator hunting on a day off.

He also included a few poems, including this one about Texas in his journal. It’s certainly not written by him, but perhaps after the hurricane, malaria, bedbugs and mosquitoes, it probably represents how he felt about Texas overall. He certainly had great love for a number of families that he met or stayed with on multiple occasions.

Here is the poem. If anyone has seen it before, it would be interesting to know the author:

Hell in Texas

The devil in Texas, we’re told, was chained
And a thousand years he there remained
He never complained nor did he groan,
But determined to make a good hell of his own,
And the devil then said I’ve all that is needed,
To make a fine hell and then he proceeded,
He began to put thorns on all the trees,
And mix up the sand with millions of fleas.
He scattered triantulas along all the roads,
Put thorns on the cactus and horns on the toads,
He lengthened the horns of the Texican steer,
And put additions on each rabbit’s ear.
He put a little devil in the broncho’s steed,
And poisoned the feet of the centipeed,
The rattle snake bites you, the scorpion stings,
The mosquito often delights you with the buzz of his wings.
The sand burrs prevail and so do the ants,
And those who sit down need half soles on their pants,
The devil then said throughout all the land,
We’d manage to keep up Texas own band.
All would be mavericks unless they bore,
Washing of scratches, bites, and thorns by the score.
The heat in the summer, one hundred and ten,
Thought for the devil too warm for the men.
With all these the wild boar roams through the black chapperall,
So you see it is a suitable place for a hell,
Come to Texas all who wish to dwell,
Here with the devil in this kind of a hell.

I did get to speak for 10 min the next week at my brother’s farewell.

Then I was back to college, never to do the high council speaking tour. I never even reported to the HC…

I at least got to speak the standard 20 minutes or so, Paul. Nothing else on the program was geared to my homecoming, though. (But then I didn’t get any serious church callings again for 28 years, so clearly 20 minutes of me was TOO much!)