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We scheduled the Lewis cousins gift exchange on Monday the 26th in the middle of the day, rather than on the traditional time we have held it on Christmas later afternoon or evening. From my perspective, this had several advantages:
1) Allowing our nuclear families to have more time to celebrate Christmas in their own smaller group
2) Making Christmas Day (and this year, the Sabbath Day) less hectic
3) Making travel mostly in daylight
4) Giving the cousins and extended family a more relaxed time together.
5) Extending the joy of Christmas another day.
In our way to Ogden, we dropped Michael off in Salt Lake. Then we had a Christmas visit with my sister Dorothy for a few minutes at her home.
We arrived at Alison’s right at noon. There was a nice menu prepared, with some of the best home-made soups I have ever tasted as center piece–broccolli and cheese, Italian sausage and potato (like at Olive Garden but with more sausage), and taco soup. Nathan loved the soups, we think. He had a bowl of each of the varieties in turn. Then he finished with his fourth bowl which had some of all three kinds with a big plop of guacamole and sour cream all stirred together.
I was pleased to make this a book Christmas with our gifts to the grandchildren and hope that they will find the Church books we gave to be useful. We tried as best we could to pitch the particular book gifts their individual age and interests. I was also please to make a gift to each couple of our three volumes of Lewis family history that we just published.
The highlight of the day was connecting to David’s family in Massachusetts with Skype. With Scott helping on the set up, we used our laptop and projected the image onto a large screen. The whole group here in Utah crowded into the Soderquist’s family room and gave very happy and enthusiastic responses to things the Lewis boys did as they opened their presents from their cousins.
On our way back home in the early evening we spent a few minutes each with Brian, with Hilary’s family and saw Wendy’s mother, Annette.
--We had only sacrament meeting as per the Church's policy. I sang in the choir.
--After Church we went to the Blakes and saw their Christmas.
--In the late afternoon, we went to Matthew and Kim's for dinner and had a program. The kids acted out the nativity according to an outline I had prepared. Alyssa directed the performance. Megan read passages from the Bible to introduce three scenes, the birth of Jesus, the coming of the shepherds, and the visit of the wise men. After the littler kids had acted out each of these events, Erin led us in singing carols that pertained to each one. Present with us and Matthew's family were Nathan and Gloria, the Blakes, and Wendy's son Michael. [Pictured are 1) the manger scene with Brianna as Mary and Adam as Joseph; 2) the appearance of the angel ((Erin) to the shepherds (LIndsey, Joshua, Adams, sheep (Garrett)); and 3) wise men (Ethan, Justin, Jeremy)].
In our fair city, a lot of people set out and light luminaries in the Spanish Fork Cemetery. Luminaries are candles in some kind of container, including small lunch-size paper sacks, that give out a glow in the dark. It provides a way to recognize and in a way include family members who have passed away, in our Christmas celebration. We have done this for the several years we have been in Spanish Fork. It feels good to put luminaries by JoAnn’s and Michael’s graves, both of whom loved Christmas very much.
Early on Christmas Eve, we went to the cemetery along with Matthew’s and Emilie’s families. We also had Wendy’s son, Michael,with us. The weather was chilly, but the was no snow.
After visiting the cemetery, Matthew and Kim and family joined us to make Davenport fudge (pinoche and cream).
While on and recovering from our mission, we gave money for Christmas. This year we have repented and have gone back to my favorite gift--books.
I take pride in having children and grandchildren who are "readers." And I encourage each of these persons to develop a personal library of books, especially of church books, and to become acquainted with their contents.
My mother, Hazel, helped establish reading as a proud family tradition. She was constantly reading. She was not generally funny, but I do recall a comment she once made that still amuses me. At one time, as she was reflecting on her values and abilities, she said, "One of my talents is that I can sit down beside a whole pile of work and enjoy a good book."
I hope all of us can follow her example.
–We have had a yucky inversion here for the last few days, cold that settles to the valley floor and is trapped along with smoke, smog, etc., for us to breathe. The temperature has been mostly in the high 20s, night and day. The sky is gray and we cannot see the mountains or the sun. A light frost has been falling and has accumulated enough to make things white. Part of the time the humidity in the air has made frost (rime) stick on tree branches and other plants and is kind of pretty. This picture from our front steps shows how it looks outside this morning.
Sometimes the Spanish Fork canyon wind saves us and blows the bad air back toward the north end of Utah County, but not this time.
–We took Ryan to the Salt Lake airport on Sunday morning to catch a plane to go home for the holidays. His plane was supposed to leave at about 9:25 am so we had plans to pick him up at about 7 am at his apartment at BYU. The phone rang at 4:30 am and Valerie was calling to say that his flight had been cancelled, and he was now scheduled on a flight that was to leave just after 8 am. So we go up, got ready, and picked him up just after 5:30 am. The going was a little slow because Utah County was foggy this morning. Thankfully traffic was light and we found a couple of taillights to trail up through the I-15 reconstruction. Salt Lake County had no fog, just smoke, so we dropped him off at the American Airlines gate at close to 6:30 am. Then we came home and had naps.
–Yesterday we got up early to go to Matthew and Kims to see the kids off to school, while they took Jeremy at an early hour to have a procedure to open up and clean out his infected sinuses. We arrived at 6:30 am and had morning prayer with the three big girls before they left, then later helped get Brianna and Josh up and ready and dropped them off at their elementary school.
–I had another medical adventure this past week. Last Monday morning we were headed for the Provo temple to meet matthew and Kim and do some couple sealings, but I wasn’t feeling so good, sort of achy and uncomfortable in the chest, and just generally a little miserable. As we got into Provo we were concerned that this feeling might indicate the start of a heart attack, so we diverted to Utah Valley ER. What it turned out to be was that I was having some arrhythmia. The ER doctor gave me some medication that got it back in rhythm and we went home after a couple of hours. I saw my cardiologist on Wednesday and things were still OK but he is keeping me on a small dose of the medication as a protection.
--A second thing that the ER doctor noticed from the bloodwork was that I was testing a little high for blood sugar. I saw my family doctor yesterday for some more testing and it looks like I have become borderline diabetic. At this point it does need treatment but we will monitor this (Wendy has the equipment to do the test) every few days to make sure it doesn’t get worse, and I am supposed to cut down on refined sugar intake and get regular exercise.
In an article in the latest issue of Mormon Studies Review (Vol 23, Number 1, 2011), Brant Gardner proposes that Nephi was trained to be a Scribe, which helps explain or give meaning to a number of Book of Mormon happenings and shows as with many other things that the deeper you dig in the Book of Mormon, the more truth and insights you find. Here are some of the highlights:
--Lehi was well-to-do financially, possibly drawing resources from land holdings and from a trade of metalsmithing or metal-working. Evidences: 1) Nephi had these skills, as shown by the fact that he didn’t pray to know how to make the tools to build the ship, just to locate ore; 2) Lehi left behind gold and silver, the possesing of the former being rare and perhaps indicative that he was involved in goldsmithing/making precious jewelry.
–Laban would have inherited his father’s business, not Nephi, so the latter would have needed another trade or profession.
–Indicator that Nephi trained for another profession–he could read and write. (Literacy was not the norm in that day.)
–Beyond that, the production of two complex writings (1 Nephi and 2 Nephi) show writing skills beyond what even most literate people of his day could do.
–What Nephi accomplished in the creating of these books and other facts suggest that he had received the scribal training of his day.
–The great civilizations (Egypt, Mesopotamia) of his day had formal scribal schools, as did Israel.
–Only the higher social classes (money, status) were acceptable sources for scribes.
–The curriculum of these schools included languages (mastery of at least one foreign), writing systems associated with these languages, study and explication of classic texts, public speaking, and perhaps travel to broaden one’s experience.
–Note the extraordinary skill level in combining the phonetics of one language (Hebrew) with the symbolic representation in another language (Egyption).
–For Jewish scribes, there was heavy emphasis on making them scholars of the Torah (the books of Moses and the prophets). For Nephi, note 1) his familiarity with and love of Isaiah; 2) his use of literary parallels with earlier Hebrew scriptural examples, such as the children of Isreal in the wilderness, David and Goliath, Joseph in Egypt. Also there is this telling incident in 1 Nephi 15, in which Laman and Lemuel come to Nephi (a younger brother, whom they resent, no less) for interpretation of their father’s religious teachings. The author suggests that they recognized that Nephi had been trained in the interpretation of symbolic content of religious matters.
Its Saturday. The day was sunny but cold (about 32 degrees), but comfortable enough for us to do some outside Christmas decorating. I suspect our neighbors think that we haven't any Christmas Spirit, since our house has been so light-less.
So here is our lighting scheme for 2011. It makes Wendy nervous to see me climbing around on the roof or on ladders, so we decorated our two Hibiscus plants with net lights.
Interpreting the prophecy of Malachi 4:5-6 about turning “the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers,” else the earth would be smitten with a curse, the Prophet Joseph Smith taught that there must be a “welding link of some kind or other between the fathers and the children.” That link was baptism for the dead (or temple work/temple ordinances). Or in a sense, we ourselves are the links between the “fathers and the children.”
This concern for past and future in families is expressed in the Prophet’s prayer of dedication for the Kirtland Temple: “We ask thee, Holy Father, to establish the people that shall worship, and honorably hold a name and standing in this thy house, to all generations and for eternity” (D&C 109:24).
The word "establish" might mean to create a foundation, stabilize, straighten, set a course resolutely, to be firm, true, strong, courageous, or faithful as regards the Gospel of the Savior. I ask myself, “What do I need to do, to stand in my place in the generations of our family, and serve as a welding link to help establish our family in the Gospel, both those of past generations and also future generations (including persons now living and those yet to come)
1) Past generations
Early in my efforts at family history research, I concentrated on finding direct ancestors, but was later persuaded to broaden my search to identify direct relatives and their families, all persons who are descended from end-of-the-line ancestors. For example, as possibly the first descendant of John Lewis to be a member of the Church, to hold the Melchizedek Priesthood, and to receive temple blessings, I might stand in a sense as proxy for John, and have equal interest in performing temple work for all of his descendants. Family history work can also be seen as a way to connect (link) scattered relatives now living.
I experience a powerful confirming spirit when I perform family history research and resulting temple work for the persons identified. It is like the capstone for every other joy derived from trying to live the Gospel of Jesus Christ. There is a sense of wholeness, of completion, of fulfillment. It is found in the combination of finding and then doing the temple work for kindred dead. It seems to me that this sense is not fully present in genealogical research alone or in doing temple work for non-family temple extracted names.
2) Future generations
Linking future generations is much more complicated and multi-faceted, but I think, at last equally satisfying and joyful. With the living, it certainly involves the quality of relationships, example, how we perform as parents and grandparents, teaching moments, family traditions, being there for family moments, extended family events and projects, visits, reaching out, forgiveness, tolerance, patience, and especially, our ability to communicate interest, concern, and love.
We try to set a pattern for the future through the Lewis Family Creed: “We seek successive generations of grandparents, parents, and children who are grounded in the Gospel of Jesus Christ and sealed in His Holy Temple.” ("Grounded" might be a synonym for "established.")
Keeping records of the present through journals, personal histories, blogs, photographs, videos and recordings, and other writings might extend our influence into the future.
As an example, JoAnn has written to the grandchildren in this family:
“As I see the many temptations that face young people today, I fear for you. I pray that you will early develop a testimony of the truthfulness of the Gospel and know that by following it's teachings is the only way for you to safely move through the trials and challenges you will face. You received the blessing of membership in Christ's true church when you were born. It was a gift to you because of noble ancestors who heard and accepted the Gospel and in many cases, left their families, country and language so that their posterity would have all the advantages of membership in Christ's Church.
“Those noble ancestors gave much so that you could be born here in this choice land and have the Gospel teachings to guide you. You can repay them, to some extent, by accepting the gift they have given and by living the Gospel as they would want you to do. I know, without question, that gaining a testimony, obeying parents and Church leaders, and committing your life to following the teachings of Christ is the way for you to find true happiness and be truly successful in this life. By doing so you win bring honor and credit to your ancestors, your parents and your Heavenly Father.” (Letter to grandchildren, 22 Feb 2004)
Thanks to JoAnn for the wonderful foundation she laid and direction she established for our family. Thanks also to Wendy for filling a void and loving us all, especially the grandchildren. We will continue, to the best of our ability, to try to make this a celestial family and hope others will also pick up this torch and continue and improve upon our efforts.
President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, in his October 2011 conference talk, spoke of a “paradox” regarding mankind in relation to God and the universe: “This is a paradox of man: compared to God, man is nothing; yet we are everything to God. While against the backdrop of infinite creation we may appear to be nothing, we have a spark of eternal fire burning within our breast. We have the incomprehensible promise of exaltation—worlds without end—within our grasp. And it is God’s great desire to help us reach it.”
A paradox is opposite ideas or inconsistencies that are seemingly both true, “a statement that is seemingly contradictory or opposed to common sense and yet is perhaps true” (Miriam-Webster); “a statement or proposition that seems self-contradictory or absurd but in reality expresses a possible truth” (Dictionary.com); tensions in a culture that appears to be logical contradictions” (Terryl L. Givens, “People of Paradox: A History of Mormon culture”, pp. xiii-xiv).
Characterizing particular gospel principles as paradoxical may initially strike us as a little strange and inconsistent with what we may have been taught about truth, that truths have consistency with other truths, that “there is right and wrong to every question.” Yet Brother Givens, a the highly regarded LDS scholar, has recently published a book that focuses on four other “paradoxes” for Latter-day Saints or tensions that seem to him to drive the development of a distinct Mormon culture (“habit of mind”).
1) Authoritarianism in the structure of the Church vs. individualism/free agency
2) The certainty of religious knowledge vs. the eternal quest for learning
3) Collapsing the distance and differences between the sacred and the human (seeming opposites in juxtaposition), without diminishing the former
4) Alienation from the larger society/chosen/peculiar people vs. a desire for acceptance and integration
Having this introduction, a couple of more paradoxes come readily to my mind:
1) Salvation by the grace of God vs. our needing to work out our salvation (where should the credit be given?);
2 ) How we relate to other institutions/churches--abominations in the sight of God (1 Ne 14; P of G P Joseph Smith–History 1:19) vs. respecting the relative truths they have (Alma 29).
This first has some common elements with President Uchtdorf’s paradox of man; the second has a connections to Given’s #4.
Here are two questions that come to my mind about the existence of these (and probably also other) paradoxes:
1) What is their source? I would suggest the answer is, God. It seems to me that they would not exist in God’s Church unless he placed or allowed them to be there,
2) What then is their purpose? Is it possible that these doctrinal paradoxes build and bless us? If so, how?
(Image: Nephi and Laban, by Walter Rane)
--
We might call this the Year of the Reluctant King. Somehow, Garrett discovered an almond in his cherry cobbler even though he was unwilling to eat this dessert and then stated that he didn’t want to be called “the king.” He did seem, however, to like the cuddly bear that he was given as a prize and led the Grand Parade in a happy chase from the Great Room, out around the balcony and back several times until everyone was winded. He also seemed to enjoy handing out the dollar gifts we had prepared for the grandchildren. So, all’s well that ends well.
--Until Brandon gets old enough or unless Ben or Henry happen to be here for a future version of this party, we seem to have used up all of the grandchildren who have not had the opportunity to be King or Queen at least once (I don’t remember about the Chandler guys). Bruce has the honor of being the only adult who was a King, back in the days when the selection was more truly random. (Please don’t tell this to Daniel and Paul–they still believe everyone has an equal opportunity each year.)
--Most of our Utah contingent attended, except that we were missing some of college students and our three missionaries, Alyssa was with a school group in California, Bruce was ill, and Gloria had to work. We appreciated Ryan’s presence as the token Chandler. We thought that people enjoyed the Piñata (thanks to Amy and friends for turning Pedro into Kris Kringle), and the White Elephant Gift Exchange (conducted expertly by Matthew, who had recently done some research on WEGE options). We heard quite a lot of Christmas music from the player piano. The favorite activity seemed to be putting jigsaw puzzles together until the wee hours of the morning. Thanks to Wendy and helpers for a wonderful dinner (Build-your-own-Mexican-fiesta) and breakfast (apple pancakes). And the sun on the snow on the mountains was beautiful in the morning.
--Lots of people were singing "Am I a man or a muppet?" It made me think that I had missed something in my reaction to the Thanksgiving movie that some of us attended.
--We learned that Jeremy will have surgery later in the month to try to have corrected a persistent sinus infection problem.
--Kimberly heard Friday afternoon that an aunt had passed away. At the party, she and Matthew were making arrangements for her to fly home to Missouri Saturday morning to be with her family for a few days for the funeral. We give our condolences.
--Valerie called Saturday morning with the news that Jaron had passed his Eagle board this morning. Congratulations!
--On Sunday evening, Nov 20th, we had a full-scale Thanksgiving dinner, with as much of Wendy’s family as could come. Michael and Hilary, Andrew and kids. At the last moment, Brian had to work, and John is in school in Colorado. Michael actually came down Saturday and stayed through Wednesday. We had a lot of food left. We couldn't stand the thought of having Thanksgiving left-overs for three days before the holiday, no less, so we took them to a home teaching family that doesn’t have so much.
--Thanksgiving Eve at Matthew-Kims: The Soderquists including Rachel and a roommate from BYU-I, , Andrew and Britain, Ryan, Nathan and Gloria, the Blakes, and Wendy and I. We sent out for pizza, played games and watched a movie. We got home just before midnight. The Soderquists and the Blake kids stayed overnight.
--Thanksgiving Day at Matthew-Kims: The above minus the Soderquist contingent. Eat, more games, then all went to see the current Muppet Movie (I wasn't very impressed).
--Day after Thanksgiving: we sure were tired and stayed in bed until after 10 am; then shopped the Dollar store for some gifts for the grandkids for Christmas Kick-off. Watched the Utes lay an egg in their football games with Colorado and BYU basketball team win in a tournament in Chicago. Thanks to Wendy for making a mincemeat pie which we were able to mostly bring home from the Thanksgiving dinner. For me it was the highlight of the meal and every meal since. I have been eating a piece for desert every meal since.
--Today we are working on decorating for Christmas.
Here is a definition of faith, based on my own observation and study and upon instructions given by Elder David A. Bednar ("Seek Learning by Faith," Ensign, Sep 2007, pp. 60-68 and a satellite broadcast address to Church Educational System educators given on February 3, 2006.):
"Faith is following a course of action that is prompted by a beginning assurance of what is right and true, and afterwards confirmed by the Spirit, resulting in an increased ability to exercise faith."
Or, following the time sequence of this process, FIRST–a person gains a beginning assurance (or a desire, or hope, or prompting) regarding the correctness of some principle or doctrine SECOND–the person acts upon this initial assurance THIRD–the Holy Spirit confirms the correctness of the action.
The Book of Mormon has much to say about faith. Let’s look at three major passages in the Book of Mormon that teach about faith, to see how the elements of the above definition are present.
Alma 32:27-43
1. GAIN A BEGINNING ASSURANCE: v.27 “Experiment upon my words... exercise a particle of faith... even if ye can no more than desire to believe.”
2. TAKE ACTION: v. 28 “give place, that a seed may be planted in your heart”; v.37 “nourish it with great care” v. 41 “nourish the tree...by your faith, with great diligence, and with patience”; v.42 “because of your diligence and your faith and your patience... in nourishing it.”
3. RECEIVE A CONFIRMATION: v.28 “if you do not cast it out by your unbelief; that you resist the Spirit of the Lord, behold, it will begin to swell within your breast... it beginneth of enlarge my soul; yea, it beginneth to enlighten my understanding; yea, it beginneth to be delicious to me.” v. 35-36 “ ye also know that it hath sprouted up, that your understanding doth begin to be enlightened, and your mind doth begin to expand...O then, is this not real? I say unto you, Yea, because it is light, and whatsoever is light, is good, because it is discernable; therefore ye must know that it is good...”
Ether 12:3-31
1. GAIN A BEGINNING ASSURANCE: v. 3 “believe in God...”; v. 6 “faith is things which are hoped for and not seen...”
2. TAKE ACTION: v. 3 “believe in God UNTO REPENTENCE...[my caps]” v. 4 “sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works...” v. 31 “after they had faith and did speak in thy name...”
3. RECEIVE A CONFIRMATION: v. 4 “ might with surety hope for a better world v.6 ...ye receive no witness until after the trial of our faith.” v. 31 “after they had faith... thou didst show thyself unto them in great power.”
Moroni 7:
1. GAIN A BEGINNING ASSURANCE: v. 16 “Spirit of Christ is given to every man, that he may know good from evil..” v. 25 “by the ministering of angels, and by every word which proceeded out of the mouth of God, men began to exercise faith in him...v. 26 ”Whatsoever thing ye shall ask the Father in my name, which is good, in faith believing that thou shall receive, behold, it shall be done unto you.”
2. TAKE ACTION: v. 28 “they who have faith in him, shall cleave unto every good thing...” v.33 “if ye have faith in me, ye shall have power to do whatsoever thing is expedient...” v.34 “Repent all ye ends of the earth...”
3. RECEIVE A CONFIRMATION: v.15-16 “ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of God.”
Summarizing, the Book of Mormon doctrine of faith is not passive, or a mere intellectual assent or understanding. Faith is dynamic and involves choice and action. It also exist in interaction with the influence of the Holy Ghost, both in giving an initial desire or assurance that leads to action and in providing confirmation that the action was correct and the will of God.
[Picture: By faith "The Brother of Jared Sees the Finger of the Lord", by Friberg]
At about 11:30 this morning I got the last files successfully uploaded to Lulu.com for what has become a three-volume work on our Lewis ancestors going back to John Lewis and Elizabeth Sams and also including their descendants, and ordered a proof copy of each of these three books. I hope to see these books within a week or so to be able to check out whether I have put them together right. I reached a stopping point with the research about Labor Day, and since then have been working on the manuscripts. I think back in some amazement that there were so many issues to resolve--formats, organization, wording, editing of the text, compiling indexes, page numbering, etc., etc.. I had a lot of file troubles, which I think now had to do with trying to work with the text as a single manuscript of about 1600-1800 pages. WordPerfect just didn’t seem to function well with that big a document. Finally I determined a way to break the volumes up logically. I had problems in using Lulu also. I lost a week or so working with the Help-line for Ancestral Quest, WordPerfect, and Lulu.
Thinking back over the last few months, it was a time that required higher levels of faith and prayer–faith that this was a project that the Lord wanted me to finish and prayers asking for solutions to the specific problems of the day. Again, thinking retrospectively, there were an amazing number of instances where I felt some kind of spiritual insight or direction. Often this would happen in the night, and the next day I carry out the insight, and it would work, so that I could move to a new step. Also in these night-time sessions, wording of particular passages seemed to flow when I needed to write about such things as future research issues or book purposes or how to thank people as contributors. I feel a little like the Lamanites mentioned in 3 Nephi 9:20, who received of the Spirit, but at the time “knew it not.”
It is now comforting and gratitude-producing to have arrived at the sense that the Spirit had a lot to do with my finishing these volumes and perhaps that they have an importance beyond my understanding.
Wendy and I have begun our review and study of talks from the October Conference. We were prompted with the following insight based upon Barbara Thompson’s talk on “Personal Revelation and Testimony.” A basic teaching about a particular mission of the Holy Ghost in our lives brackets the entirety of message of the Book of Mormon. This is that the Holy Ghost will provide to each individual their own personal witness of God’s work and the actions that each should take in relation to this work.
This truth is taught early in the Book Mormon in a discussion between Nephi and his brothers and then repeated by Moroni in the closing chapter. Notice the close relationship between the ideas in these two verses:
I Nephi 15:11-----------------------------------------------Moroni 10:4
___________________________________________________________________________________________
not harden your hearts-----------------------------------ask with a sincere heart
ask me [the Lord]------------------------------------------ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ
in faith, believing that ye shall receive---------------having faith in Christ
with diligence in keeping my commandments----- with real intent [fully committed to obeying whatever direction is received]
Any other doctrines taught in the Book of Mormon would be ineffectual in a person’s life without a personal testimony derived by revelation from God.
For an in-depth treatment of how the Book of Mormon challenges existing understandings of revelation from God, see the discussion in chapter 8 of Terryl Givens, “By the Hand of Mormon,” regarding what he terms dialogic revelation–“revelation is a personalized, dialogic exchange [between an individual and deity]” (p. 217)
“[The Book of Mormon] hammers home the insistent message that revelation is the province of everyman. As a consequence, concepts like revelation, prayer, inspiration, mystery find powerful and substantive redefinition [as contrasted with ideas in conventional modern Christianity]. That may well be the Book of Mormon’s most significant and revolutionary...contribution to religious thinking. The particularity and specificity, the vividness, the concreteness, and the accessibility of revelatory experience–those realities both underlie and overshadow the narrated history and doctrine that constitute the record. The “knowability” of all truth, the openness of mystery, the reality of personal revelation find vivid illustration within the record and invite reenactment outside it.” (p. 221)
We were inspired and excited by the Payson Temple ground-breaking service on the morning of Saturday, October 8th. The personal references to family connections and the history of the Church in these south Utah county communities by Elder Oaks and other speakers were very interesting to us. I felt some of the same connection through the Evans, Averetts and others in our family who had lived here for many years. As requested, we attended at our Stakehouse, sent to us as a satellite broadcast. We were glad for Megan who represented the Laurels in her ward by ushering at the actual location, helping to dry the water off the chairs and seating people, but were glad for our nice dry, warm view of the proceedings.
We decided that we wanted more participation in this event, to give our excitement and commitment more expression. So, so early in the afternoon, we put a shovel in our car and headed for Payson. We were all alone at the temple site, except for a couple of workmen finishing the clean-up. We turned over a couple of shovel-fulls of dirt. Then carloads of families started to arrive, wit
h the same idea, to let their kids experience the ground-breaking for themselves. We had the only shovel, so stayed for a few minutes watching families take pictures of their kids turning over the dirt, using our shovel. Finally someone else arrived with the foresight to bring a shovel of their own, so we were able to leave.
We have been trying to come up with a name for the temple that will be constructed in the restored Provo Tabernacle–Tabernacle Temple, Provo Heritage Temple, MTC temple, Cougar Temple, Provo Peak Temple, Provo Temple South, Provo Temple #2, Rock Canyon Temple, Slate Canyon Temple, Squaw Peak Temple, Provo River Temple, Rise Up Temple, We’re Invested Temple. None of these br
ainstorms seems quite right. I guess we’ll keep working on it unitl we find a name that fits.
I hope and suspect that our excitement for these temple will equal that of the Kansas City Temple Chasers expressed through their blog. Have you seen this? Its at http://kcldstemple.blogspot.com. Latter-day saints sure love their temples, both existing and especially prospective ones. We keep waiting for the announcement of new Bentonville temple.
[Picture: Looking WNW across the temple site toward West Mt.]
We scheduled the Lewis cousins gift exchange on Monday the 26th in the middle of the day, rather than on the traditional time we have held it on Christmas later afternoon or evening. From my perspective, this had several advantages:
