See here for overview.

IV.

Can You Manage Your Emotions?

Any awareness you have of unfulfilled needs, either physical or social, is usually through your feelings. You feel hungry when you need food. You feel tired when you need rest. So also you feel lonely when you need friendship and affection. You feel frustrated and angry when you are thwarted in something you are trying to do.

Sometimes when you feel restless, unhappy, or uncomfortable, you can’t tell what need is driving at you, but you are sure to do something to try to make yourself feel better. Your feelings, good or bad, have a great deal to do with your behavior.

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(Previous installment)

Friday, December 1, 1899

Leaving Bro. Brogh’s we walked up to Bro. Brock’s where we were invited to have dinner, after which we walked up to the school house where we stayed until 7 o’clock when the people began to gather in. We had a nice little crowd out and had a very nice meeting. After meeting we were invited to go home with Bro. Brock.

Saturday, December 2, 1899

We started out early in the morning to go to Geneva to get our mail, a distance of 9 miles. We got there at 10 o’clock. I was disappointed in not getting any mail but I soon drove that out of my mind and started back, walking 9 miles to Bro. Reeve’s where we stayed over night.

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For background, see here
previous episode
next episode (to be added when posted)

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At a country school the head master said: “Now, boys, I will give a penny to the first lad who can ask me a question I cannot answer.”

Several tried unsuccessfully until one boy asked: “Please, sir, if you stood up to your neck in soft mud, and I threw a stone at your head, would you duck?”

—oooOoooo—

Principal: “Well, Jimmy, you’re a pretty sharp lad, my boy.”

Jimmy: “I sure ought to be. Dad uses his razor strop on me two or three times a week.”

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A vignette: The charms of a rural turn-of-the-century childhood, with not a hint of the issues of “Expatriation.”

From the Relief Society Magazine, August 1952 –

Papa Took Us Fishing

By Christie Lund Coles

Papa wasn’t an outdoor man. He was a thinker, I guess, for he was a lawyer and sometimes traveled as far as the county seat to plead his cases. He was always meticulously dressed, tweeds and worsteds during the week, and the most beautiful of black broadcloths for Sunday. You’d think by looking at him that he was a city-bred man, with his rather slender build, and his lean, handsome face; his large, hazel eyes framed by gold-rimmed glasses; and his black handlebar moustache, which he touched up with some delicately scented pomade.

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Expatriation

By Hugh J. Cannon

Previous Chapter

Chapter 3

Rare indeed is the occasion when a passenger vessel leaves a Hawaiian port without having wafted after it the beautiful strains of “Aloha Oe.” Nell had made a few native friends during her brief visit in Honolulu, and these were on the pier to join in the farewell song, their natural jollity subdued by the sorrow of parting. They had affectionately hung numerous leis around her neck, so many, indeed, that she was well nigh smothered, and notwithstanding the brief acquaintance, it was with sincere regret that she said goodbye, even though after her farewell to Nate she had felt nothing in life could be hard again. Mrs. Conrad, who had cheered her so on the morning of their arrival, was there also to bid her bon voyage.

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I’ve spent many hours this week poring in fascination over the first two volumes of Royal Skousen’s 6-volume Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon. (Someone else posted about this recently in such an interesting way with so many examples, that that blogger is completely responsible for causing me to explore this set. I owe a thank you and a link to that article, but I cannot remember where it was – if you know what article I’m talking about, please  identify it.)

I am mesmerized by seeing how Skousen analyzes a difference between the original or printer’s manuscript or one or more printed editions, reasoning back to what may have been the actual word spoken by Joseph Smith as he read or received the text and dictated it to Oliver Cowdery or some other scribe. I’ll have a post ready in the next week discussing three or four of his analyses that lead to a meaningful (to me) insight.

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Let Me Remember

By Christie Lund

Dear God, when I look toward yon star
Let me remember how very far
He came for me.

Let me recall the price He paid
And the super-sacrifice He made
That we might see.

Let me practice the love He taught
Lest His noblest dreams should come to naught
And futile be.

Let me strive for that brotherhood
Which is the basis of all that’s good.
And makes men free.

Let me show my love and praise
By walking with Him along the ways
That lead to Thee.

(1930)

The annual shift in Sunday School focus from one book of scripture to another is a wake-up call for me as a Gospel Doctrine teacher. Like most others, I suppose, I fall into habits of teaching during the year, standard ways of framing lessons. But the patterns of teaching one book don’t necessarily transfer to the next – a habit of opening a lesson with the historic or social context of, say, New Testament epistles doesn’t transfer to the Book of Mormon year, where, after Lehi leaves Jerusalem, the narrative is seldom influenced by world events outside of its pages.

That disruption of habits is good for teachers and classes, I think, and forces me to think through the role I have as a Gospel Doctrine teacher.

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Here’s a kinder, gentler (albeit very much a ’50s) story of newlyweds, for readers who can’t stomach the current serial. I’ll give you something pleasant like this on the afternoons when the serial posts.

From the Relief Society Magazine, May 1955 –

Highly Organized

By Dorothy Boys Kilian

Jim Windon patted the inside pocket of his coat with happy anticipation as he strode up the front walk. By golly, he and Sally deserved this unexpected treat; the budget hadn’t allowed many frills lately.

Before he could get his key in the lock, young Mrs. Windon opened the door. Just looking at her, even after six months of marriage, Jim’s heart melted like ice cubes in hot water.

“Hi, lovely,” he said tenderly, pulling her to him. As he bent to kiss her, though, hew as stopped cold by that all-too-familiar look in her otherwise beautiful blue eyes.

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Expatriation

By Hugh J. Cannon

Previous Chapter

Chapter 2

The Maui was about to sail from its San Francisco pier for Honolulu. The hurry and confusion inseparable from such a departure prevailed. Porters were carrying the last of the luggage aboard, and the final sack of mail had been swung to the deck. Cautious ones had already taken farewell of friends on the wharf, preferring to lose a few moments of conversation rather than run the risk of being left.

Mr. and Mrs. Redfield and their adopted daughter were near the gangway. Silent and oppressed they stood, one of the girl’s hands in her father’s and the other in her mother’s. For Nell, after a tearful appeal from the woman who had cared for her with such tender love, had repented of the determination never again to address them by those sacred titles.

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Richard E. Turley Jr. and Brittany A. Chapman, eds., Women of Faith in the Latter Days, Vol. 1. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2011. 501 p. Index. $34.99.

The dedication of this volume reads: “To the Women upon Whose Shoulders We Stand.” That is an appropriate tribute– you will finish your first reading of this book with a bone-deep awareness that the Church and whatever we have become as a people rests as much on the lives of these women of our first generation as upon the lives and better-known careers of modern-day prophets and apostles. These are the women who responded to the gospel message without the example of family or social tradition, knowing in many cases that it would turn their lives inside out and rip them from every familiar anchor, who remained “valiant in the testimony of Jesus” in the beginning of this dispensation.

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If you haven’t yet read this morning’s post, read that before proceeding.

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The Understanding Heart

A Tribute to George Albert Smith

By Irene Jones
Society for the Aid of the Sightless

(Given at a reception at the Lion House, April 4,
in honor of his seventieth birthday)

When Life beats hard with stormy hands,
And bitter teardrops fall;
When friendless Winter chills my soul,
And empty echoes call –
‘Tis then I turn, with eager hope,
My steps though spent and lame,
To find an understanding heart,
Where burns a friendly flame –
A heart where gentle Wisdom dwells,
Compassionate and kind,
Whose faith in God and man has taught
A like faith to the Blind.

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The Mormon experiment of sending emigrants across the Plains pulling handcarts was short-lived: Ten companies, between 1856 and 1860, made the trek. The “down and back” companies, reported so well here by Kevin Folkman, took over at that point, with emigrants arriving by railroad once the Transcontinental Railroad was completed in 1869.

So it’s a little surprising to read a letter from one of Brigham Young’s agents in the Midwest *in 1877* asking about the feasibility of reviving the handcart plan:

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All right, my friends, we are about to embark — if you are brave enough — on the strangest serial we have ever shared. And by “strange,” I don’t mean in the soap opera-ish gothic glory of His Father’s Son. No, I mean “strange” in the sense of … well … of … words fail me. You’ll get a taste of … it … in this first installment, and it will grow stronger and stronger through the episodes. In fact, every time you think this story has sunk to the most appalling depths of … it-ness … you’ll find that the next chapter is even worse.

A few points: The author of this story, Hugh J. Cannon, was managing editor of The Improvement Era at the time this was published. He was the elder who had accompanied David O. McKay on his around-the-world tour of the missions in 1921, which is undoubtedly where he picked up many of the details of South Sea island local color that this serial contains. And the serial refers repeatedly to the devastation of a hurricane in Samoa. The details of that devastation appear to be accurate, although they occurred during the cyclone of 1889 rather than a storm of about 1905 as would fit the timeline of this story.

Let us proceed …

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If the type isn’t large or clear enough to read here, please visit the Conference Registration page to read it there –

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Walter P. Monson, president of the Eastern States Mission, headquartered in Manhattan, was interviewed by a reporter of the New York Sun early in 1915. Sitting at “the sunny front window of the mission assembly room, with its pictures of the Mormon Temple and the prophets,” President Monson provided information about the ongoing evacuation of non-European Latter-day Saints from parts of a Europe at war. In the words of the reporter:

The missionaries of the Church of Latter-day Saints are fleeing back to America from the war zone of Europe. They come in response to the message of recall to all Mormons on the Continent, cabled at the outbreak of the war by President Joseph F. Smith oft he Mormon Church in Salt Lake City to his son, Pres. Hyrum M. Smith of the European mission at Liverpool, who notified all Mormon conferences in the war zone.

Over 350 Mormons have hurried home from points of danger as rapidly as they have been able to take ship, leaving to face the perils at their mission posts in each European conference a president and two elders. Those in Great Britain, Scandinavia, &c., have remained.

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(Previous installment)

(Be aware that this installment contains the first uses of an unpleasant word which Elder Jones will repeat throughout his journal. I decided to reproduce his words as he used them, with apologies to those who may take them personally.–AEP)

Thursday, November 9, 1899

Reaching Athens at 5 o’clock we stayed there two hours and then started afoot through the woods to a place called Pilgrim’s Rest, a distance of 6 miles, where we met Pres. Ash and some more of the elders. Elder Hunsaker then took me over to Bro. Smith’s where I spent the evening.

Friday, November 10, 1899

I took breakfast with Bro. Smith, after which at 10 o’clock Conference began. Some of the elders took up the time. At 3 o’clock, in company with 10 of the elders, went to Bro. Foster’s for dinner. At 7 o’clock meeting began in which I had the privilege of speaking. After closing, in company with Bro. Horn I stayed overnight with Bro. Foster where we got some very good treatment.

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For background, see here
previous episode
next episode (to be added when posted)

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(more…)

A Good Turn

Talk about “miraculous” things now-a-days, just read this: Mr. Stone and Mr. Wood were standing on the corner talking when a good-looking girl passed by. Stone turned to Wood, Wood turned to Stone, they both turned to rubber and the girl turned into a drug store.

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From the Relief Society Magazine, October 1954 –

A Pair of Pants for Benjy

By Pansye H. Powell

I went to school that last day with my mind almost made up. I hadn’t yet signed my contract for the next year, and I was in the enviable position of having two jobs open to me – my present one as a teacher in the Central Junior High and a new offer from a publishing firm downtown that wanted me to become its representative, traveling with expenses paid – no more paper checking, no more disciplinary problems, no more worrying over other people’s children …

To me, jaded and worn by a difficult year of crowded classrooms and worrisome problems, the chance to remove myself from it all and go into a different experience seemed almost providential. But I had waited, accepting neither offer, until now the final day of school had come with its last classes and, in the afternoon, promotion exercises for the ninth graders who would be going into senior high in the fall.

I’ll mail my contract back unsigned tonight, I thought, as I walked to school.

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More Mormon jokes from the world’s newspapers. Gee, I wonder if anybody’ll say anything about polygamy?

-oOo-

1873

Brigham Young is now commencing to realize something tangible from his matrimonial investments. The anniversaries of those marriages are commencing to occur with astonishing frequency. First, there is a silver wedding, then a wooden wedding, and a tin wedding, and then another silver wedding, next a glass wedding, and then a tin wedding again, and the following night another silver wedding, and then a linen wedding, followed by a wooden wedding, which is succeeded by a glass wedding, and so on through the chapter. The effect on the Mormons – the rank and file of the faithful – can well be imagined, but a brush in a ten acre lot of marrowfat peas couldn’t paint it. The temple itself is warmed with three mortgages, and even the revelation bids fair to ascend the spout. It is no uncommon thing to see a healthy Mormon skimming toward headquarters, with a silver pitcher under one arm and a coal scuttle under the other, with a pleasing assortment of glass and wooden ware concealed about him. The government has concluded to withdraw its troops.

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“We” Not “You”

Elder Heber M. Clegg, South American Mission

They say the work done in the field will reap a large reward,
Assistance rendered a needy soul is lauded by our Lord;
The missionary’s happiness in his work is very great,
And just because he does his share that joy is adequate.

But what about the Mother with her mission far away
Who reared that boy for God’s great call, inspiring him each day;
Who now prepares her younger sons that they too might fulfill
Their mission when they’re called to preach from house-top or from hill?

And what about the Father who much more than does his share,
Who works and makes a sacrifice to keep his son out there;
Who tries to spare him anything that might discomfort give,
And help him with advice and love a better life to live?

His brothers and his sisters go without many things they’ve had;
It means more patches, fewer shows; yet they are all so glad
To do their best to help the work out where their Brother is
That ne’er a hint of cares at home are spoken of as “his.”

We can’t all tract and talk and preach – there’s other things to do,
The mission is abroad and home, each knows what he should do.
Oh, Mother, Father, Sister, Brother, Sweetheart, and friends, too,
The recompense is not for one – you must say “we,” not “you.”

(1928)

Several sites in the Bloggernacle have posted great material for teachers preparing to teach the Book of Mormon this year. As I have done for the past couple of years, I am posting my lessons, planned after having done the reading and study suggested by those bloggers, among other study. This year, though, I will try to have my lessons posted a few days before I give them, rather than after the fact.

Lesson 2: “All Things According to His Will”

1 Nephi 1-7

Purpose: To help class members see, through the examples of Lehi and Nephi, that safety and salvation come through obedience to the Lord.

Plan:

1. Establish that the events narrated in these chapters are not simply historical narrative, but were carefully selected by Nephi “for the instruction of [his] people … and also for other wise purposes.” His choices were made after decades of experience.

2. Examine two or three (depending on time) specific pieces of narrative to see what they can teach us about obedience to the Lord.

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From the Improvement Era, 1921 –

The Blunders of Percival

By Frank Steele

Minerva Mathews sat at her dressing table observing her pretty self in the mirror. She did not look into the glass to assist her in patting her hair or pressing a dimple into place or to touch up a colorless eyebrow. She simply observed herself as a fair daughter of Mother Nature, her thoughts seeming to soar far off into romantic dreams in which men play a part.

Minerva smiled dreamily as she tipped her shapely head a little to one side. Then the smile disappeared, her lips now registering tenderness and her limpid eyes looking into a vague, but albeit pleasant something in the great, moving world beyond the four walls of her room.

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So we all get a lesson next Sunday from the new Teachings of the Presidents of the Church:  George Albert Smith manual, and I suspect that many wards, like mine, used the first Sunday for a biographical overview. Teachers may have mentioned that President Smith was the namesake of his grandfather, George A. Smith, a cousin of Joseph Smith’s and an early church leader himself, especially during Brigham Young’s tenure.

Which gives me an excuse to go back to George A. Smith for a story you won’t hear in Priesthood or Relief Society …

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Latter-day Saints in lots of places — and I hope these summer pictures are welcome in January:

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Preston 3rd Ward, Idaho
Bonfire Breakfast

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What of Thy Victory, O Woman?

By Mary Foster Gibbs

“What doest thou, O woman, out in the market place,
The ballot in thy eager hands, a smile upon thy face?”

I come to sing a victory song for women everywhere,
I bring a troop of happy girls with flowers in their hair.

“What hast thou done, O woman, to win this battle so,
What weapons wast thou girded with; how fell thy bitter foe?”

I had my tears and laughter, my patience long and wide,
I had both right and justice, so God was on my side.

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See here for overview.

III.

The Star of Your Own Romance

In Chapter I, your attention was called to the importance of knowing yourself as you really are now and as you appear to others. In Chapter II some of the factors and influences were described which have helped to shape your personality and make you the girl you are today. Now you are ready to set down in quite definite terms your personality goals – your plans and designs for the “you” of tomorrow.

During your teen years your personality will grow and change a great deal whether you do any conscious directing or not, but if you take time now and then to think about how you would like to be, your desires will almost automatically guide your growth in that direction.

It isn’t enough, however, to decide that you want to be an attractive, popular, capable person. Attractive in what way? Popular with whom? Capable of what? people do not agree in every detail about what makes a girl attractive, about how she should behave or what she should be able to do. You need to be more specific in describing your ideal for yourself. But where, you might ask, do we get our personality goals and how can we describe them so they will help us? Here are a few suggestions.

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FAITH IS A HERITAGE

Christie Lund Coles

Previous Chapter

Chapter 10

As time went on, Enid made up, in every way possible, to Sharon for the lonely little girl years. There were barbecue suppers in the back yard, buffet suppers for the crowd, more formal dinners.

It did something to Sharon to know that she belonged, to know that she could carry her end in all her social contacts, that she needn’t be afraid to accept an invitation for fear she couldn’t return it properly.

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