Comments on: Gaston L. Braley: Leaves from a Life’s Journal (5)

By: Bruce Crow

Bruce Crow — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 16:38:30 +0000

Tracking ~~miles~~ kilometers on my mission (Hong Kong) would have been a waste of time, and certainly would not have added up to his total unless you counted the plane ride there and back. Each of my areas were seldom more than a ~~couple miles~~ few kilometers across. I probably walked more distance in stairways than along sidewalks. But we tracked lots of other [in my opinion] equally useful stats.

By: CurtA

CurtA — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 15:57:50 +0000

What an amazing narrative. His mileage may have been underestimated, considering how much of the area he covered. I’ve got to get back to my Revolutionary War history books and find Fort Dearborn, named after Henry Dearborn a patriot general although fortified by Cornwallis.

Later, Braley comes back to Idaho, stopping by Oxford, my wife’s birthplace, and where the first bishop was her grandfather’s brother and a famous pony express rider. He was the first bishop, but the presiding elder before was a son-in-law of Jefferson Hunt of Mormon Battalion fame. Hunt was visiting there when he saw the marshland grass and moved there and established a cattle ranch a few miles north at the location where Lake Bonneville drained into the Columbia basin via the the Snake River. Hunt died there and is buried behind a knoll where the geoliogical event is commemorated by a sign and monument.

History is everywhere and it is all a great network.

By: Paul

Paul — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 15:41:43 +0000

We used to report families visited and discussion taught, but it never occurred to me they might track miles walked. (Driven, yes, for those who ever had a car, though I did not.) That’s because, of course, I’ve assumed that things have always been as I now know them.

By: Ardis E. Parshall

Ardis E. Parshall — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 15:40:17 +0000

Understandable, Bruce — I wasn’t interested in my OWN mission stats — it’s hard to be attracted to the weirdly tracked stats of someone else’s miss– Ooo, I see the shiny thing, too!

By: Bruce Crow

Bruce Crow — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 15:25:22 +0000

In the Liahona/Elders Journal and the Southern Star I have seen these kind of statistics collected biweekly and monthly by mission conference. I have made some feeble attempts at transcribing them, but I quickly lose interest when something else pops up (Ooo, Shiney!!)

By: Ardis E. Parshall

Ardis E. Parshall — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 14:49:40 +0000

I don’t know about Braley specifically, but I’ve seen missionary diaries and read reports to mission presidents that track to the mile the distances walked and distances ridden during missions. Although I couldn’t point to a particular collection now, I’m sure I’ve seen forms for weekly reports from some period that included the number of families visited and miles walked. In other words, it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if those were actual figures tracked by Braley during the course of his mission. Amazing.

By: Paul

Paul — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 14:06:36 +0000

I’m amazed he knows how many families he visited on his mission. It would never have occurred to me to keep track of such a thing on mine. And the miles walked — I wonder if he kept track or estimated it at the end.