Three and a half years ago Gérald Caussé, at that time Presiding Bishop of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, spoke in General Conference on “Our Earthly Stewardship.” He started with a family visit to a garden in Giverny, a little town in France. “This amazing place is the result of the creative passion of one man: the great painter Claude Monet, who, for 40 years, tenderly shaped and cultivated his garden to make it his painting workspace. Monet immersed himself in nature’s splendor; then, with his paintbrush, he conveyed the impressions he felt with strokes of color and light. Over the years, he created an extraordinary collection of hundreds of paintings, directly inspired by his garden.” Later in that talk Bishop Caussé quoted Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, best known as author of The Little Prince: “When by mutation a new rose is born in a garden, all the gardeners rejoice. They isolate the rose, tend it, foster it. But there is no gardener for men.”

Listening to that talk, my mind thought: “To some are given tales of rednecks getting themselves into trouble in the desert, and to others French culture, that all may be edified and find something to draw them into lending closer attention.”

Seven years before Bishop Caussé’s Conference talk, there was another in 2015. (more…)

Sunday I was talking with my 17-year-old daughter, my youngest child, about the shift to “All or Nothing” spiritual preparation and outcomes for youth in the Church. Before her time the young women had Personal Progress, a program that held a lot of meaning for my late wife and others of her generation. My late wife said that experience of coming up with goals and executing them was a helpful preparation for her life as an independent married woman every day deciding what ought to be done, mostly accountable only to herself for the use of her time. Today, instead of organizing such preparation in the teaching of the church’s young women and recognizing progress in that publicly, the direction is that what youth need to prepare for is to receive the endowment in the House of the Lord, and entering the temple for that purpose as soon as they can be considered adults is the capstone they need, not a lovely medallion.

What then of the 18-year-olds who are not ready to covenant in the temple?

(more…)

The photo above, downloaded from Wikipedia is of Amundsen, Hanssen, Hassel, and Wisting at the South Pole at the end of 1911. There was a fifth member of the team, Olav Bjaaland, presumably the photographer. The bare heads for identification purposes is a nice touch.

These Wikipedia paragraphs about Bjaaland are cool:

At the turn of the century, Bjaaland, together with the Hemmestveit brothers were among the best skiers in Norway. In 1902, he won the nordic combined at the Holmenkollen Ski Festival, to this day the classic event in nordic skiing. In 1909 Bjaaland, together with five others were invited to France to compete with the best skiers of Europe.

On this trip, Bjaaland by chance met Roald Amundsen. The already successful explorer invited Bjaaland to join his forthcoming expedition to the North Pole. Bjaaland was thrilled, and still believing that they were heading to the North Pole. However, they left Oslo, Norway on 7 June 1910 heading south to race for the Antarctic pole against Robert Falcon Scott.

Scott’s team arrived at the pole a month after Amundsen’s and perished on their return. All four in the photo above would die before men would again set foot at the South Pole 47 years later in 1958. Hanssen died in 1956. However, Bjaaland was still alive in 1958 and would be until 1961.

It comes to mind today as an astronaut crew is orbiting as much as 40,000 miles above the Earth, able for the first time since 1972 to view an entire hemisphere at once. Five of the twenty-four who previously had such a view still live.

The plan announced yesterday by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is that starting in September the ward Relief Societies, young women’s classes, priesthood quorums, and Sunday schools will meet twice as often for half as long. Motives for the change stated in the announcement are, “Gathering weekly in every [Sunday school] class helps deepen gospel learning by connecting it more closely to personal and family study,” and “There is additive strength that comes when we meet each week to counsel, learn, and support one another [in Relief Society].”

As I contemplate the change it is easy to turn to grumbling, murmuring mode, so I, and maybe you, will need to keep that in check as we consider what is going on and how this is going to work.
(more…)

The Artemis 2 rocket and spacecraft were rolled back out to the launch pad for another attempt at reproducing an Apollo 8 style mission to the moon. Its next launch window is April 1 through April 6, but I wouldn’t make any significant plans that depend on that happening. Last week was Ken Mattingly’s birthday. He died two and a half years ago and was born ninety years ago in 1936. He was the last born of the Apollo astronauts who travelled beyond earth orbit. Four more of his fellows have died since Mattingly did, including all three of the Apollo 8 crew. Five of the twenty-four are still among the living.

I’ve been presiding my ward’s elders’ quorum for almost four years now. It has been my aim that the quorum meeting be more than a lesson, and the quorum more than a meeting. One factor to work with is that half of the quorum are serving elsewhere during our usual meetings, either with the Primary children or Aaronic Priesthood youth, or attending other wards in the stake. Our quorum secretary, who is away this month refueling planes over Iraq and such places, has a name for this condition: “outside hide.” Members of his squadron are often attached to various other units in support of far-flung missions, so something must be deliberately done once in a while to bring them all together in order to maintain a group identity.

The idea started to form of convening an elders’ quorum meeting on a Sunday evening. I told the bishop what I wanted to do and asked if he wanted the preparatory priesthood invited too. He did, and thus I went about planning a Ward Priesthood Meeting. Like Stake Priesthood Meeting, but just our ward. (more…)

Today marks the birth 250th years ago in 1776 of Mary Pickersgill, who crafted with her household the gigantic Star-Spangled Banner that Major Armistead hoisted over Fort McHenry. Were you in Baltimore at mid-day you could have gone to her home for a piece of cake.

(The Baltimore Banner)
“Pickersgill’s story begins with that of her mother, Rebecca Young, who opened a flag-making shop in Philadelphia after her husband’s death. Young Mary worked alongside her.

“When Pickersgill’s own husband died, she followed in her mother’s footsteps. Pickersgill, her young daughter and her mother moved to Baltimore in 1806 to be closer to family. They started making flags in their brick three-story home at the intersection of Albemarle Street and what was then called Queen Street, but we now call Pratt.

“Pickersgill and her mother placed newspaper ads inviting ‘military gentlemen’ to purchase ‘Silk Standards & Cavalry Colors, and other Colors of every description, finished in compleat order.'”

With the addition of a third California native to the Quorum of the Twelve following the death of Jeff Holland, there are now five members of that quorum who were born in Utah. Looking at how that parameter has varied over the decades, the first native Utahn called to the Twelve was Heber J. Grant in 1882. A year before that Orson Pratt died, the last remaining of the Twelve called in 1835 with Thomas B. Marsh, Brigham Young, et al. (more…)

Just yesterday I was talking with a friend about Pres. Oaks’ devious plan. About the same hour we were talking, the Deseret News published an interview with Pres. Oaks where he laid out the plan openly, so it is not a devious plan anymore. It is a revealed plan.

For the last twenty years Dallin H. Oaks has been concerned about the future demographics of the church. Around 2007 he presided my stake’s conference, and told us (paraphrasing from memory), (more…)

With the death of Jeffrey Holland, I was thinking on the turnover in the Quorum of the Twelve since Elder Holland became one of that body in 1994, and Henry B. Eyring a year after him, and the decade after that when none of them died. Now, the longest serving in the Quorum has been there 21 years.

My thoughts turned to considering how Utahn or not the current church leaders are. Below is my ordering of that quality at the time of their call as General Authorities from least to greatest for the members of the Quorum of the Twelve or the First Presidency. Differing evaluations are welcome.

Soares – least Utahn, least experienced with America beyond the Church
Causse – better English at time of call, more US business experience than Soares
Uchtdorf – trained on fighter jets in American West
Kearon – his wife (a California girl) was a BYU student
Bednar – Californian, BYU student, adult life in Arkansas until BYUI president
Gong – Californian, BYU student, son of BYU student, adult life elsewhere until taking job at BYU
Eyring – childhood and youth in New Jersey, much of adult life in Utah
Christofferson – Utah born, adult life elsewhere
Anderson – Utah born, adult life in Florida
Cook – Utah born, adult life in California
Oaks – Utah born, adult life in Chicago until BYU president
Renlund – Utah born, some childhood years in Sweden, out of Utah for medical residency, bishop in Baltimore
Rasband – some time working outside Utah (for a Utah corporation)
Stevenson – whole life in Utah

So, 7 of 14 born in Utah, and only 3 of them stayed past their college days. The life patterns for Oaks, Cook, Anderson, and Christofferson are similar, but Cook feels to me more Utahn, maybe because he is older and probably because of the Cache Valley/Utah State University/Grandpa Crozier Kimball roots he has found useful to pull into his teaching; I have trouble picturing him as a stake president in San Francisco. Eyring was born and grew up elsewhere but is ethnically Utahn and was pulled back.

On January 26, 2024, the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints instructed, “Each year, Church services and meetings should be limited to sacrament meeting only on Easter Sunday and on a Sunday before or after Christmas Day. If Christmas is not on a Sunday, stake and district presidencies decide whether to hold this sacrament meeting before or after Christmas.” (Letter URL, and announcement URL)

I am curious what will happen in the Spring. Easter Sunday will next be observed by non-Orthodox Christians on April 5th, which falls on a General Conference weekend. This coincidence of Sundays is not unusual. They coincided 11 out of 50 of the most recent Aprils. The usual thing on recent Conference Easters had been for the Sunday morning session of Conference, the most outward-facing session, to proceed as normal, but more of the talks than usual are about the Resurrection, and the testimonies and preaching of Christ, present at any General Conference, are given with acknowledgement that they are being voiced on Easter. Two hours later when the Sunday afternoon session starts, Easter has been mostly out of the way. (more…)

Working under the car the other night, scraping off an old exhaust flange gasket to mate the catalytic converter with a new, not rusted and not leaking resonator pipe, I had a Merle Haggard album playing that I hadn’t listened to before. One song stood out as lyrically unlike anything I had ever heard anyone sing before. For those who uphold the family as a unit of production, here is a little tune to add to your collection.

The Singer is a widower keeping the family going, more wistful than bereaved with the loss of his wife at this point. He is well along into bearing singly the parental load meant for two, and pretty cheerful about it. As “the keeper of all that was yours”, leading my children in cleaning the house and keeping it in order was a significant piece of carrying on faithfully and nourishing the happiness and strength of the family my late wife and I had formed. That is the case for families not missing a mother as well. This is a true song. Enjoy.

=============

Spotify link
Youtube link

“Chores” sung by Merle Haggard

When I was a young man, I worked on my own
You had the big chore of makin’ a home
Now that I’m the keeper of all that was yours
I’m head of the family and I’m boss of the chores
(more…)

As I write, it is Tuesday morning. Russell Nelson, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints died Saturday night, Sept. 27. That was two weeks plus two days and a night ago. His funeral and burial were Tuesday, Oct. 7, which was seven days ago. When he died the quorum of the First Presidency was dissolved. Seventeen days since Pres. Nelson’s death and seven days since his burial, the First Presidency has not yet been reorganized. This is unusual.
(more…)

This story is not mine. I first encountered it reading a newspaper in 1987. A family traveling to the temple had perished in an automobile collision. Father, mother, a recently returned missionary son, and three more younger sons. They were survived by a daughter and sister who was at Ricks College when her family all died. It was an astonishing thing to think about, and if that had been the end of it for me, I think reading of that tragedy would still haunt some corner of my mind.

Three years later I found myself living in the small town that had been that family’s home. I didn’t know this at first, but now and then I would hear some remark that led me to realize that I had arrived at an intersection with the dead family I read about. Their deaths were somewhere in the back of everyone’s minds and sometimes those thoughts came to the fore. (more…)