skip to main |
skip to sidebar
We have great news from Mount Zion–Jeff and Debbie Pierce went to Raleigh Temple yesterday for their endowments and to be sealed as a couple. This is such wonderful progress for them. From the first that we met them, we were impressed by the love and bond that existed in that family. Now they have taken a step that will further enhance and strengthen that bond. Temple sealings are about love. Every good marriage deserves and needs the temple.
We had hoped to be with them at the temple yesterday, but could not get our connections worked out, partly because of late dates changes for the ceremony and finally because I ended up with a doctor’s appointment on Friday.
Good news from that appointment-- My cardiologist, Dr. Carter, seemed to assure us that my bout with pericarditis was past.
We still hope we can work out travel arrangements to be present at the Raleigh temple at the time when Todd and Tabatha Harrell get sealed.
Emilie and Scott had arranged for their wardhouse for Friday night to host the family for our yearly Halloween party and led in the planning for this event. Almost everyone was there including some of our BYU students. I am very grateful for the willingness of our South Weber families to travel the long distance over congested highways to be with our family for this occasion.
One of the highlights was the ice cream eating contest. The junior division resulted in a tie between Jeremy and Jonathon. In the senior division, Paul won the trophy for the second year with an astounding performance. He was finished so quickly, estimated at less than 10 seconds, that we couldn't get a picture.
All family members came down the catwalk to model their Halloween costumes. This picture shows Matthew and Kim who came as hot dog condiments.
There is a current fuss in newspaper reports that a Presbyterian church near Charlotte NC has reneged on an offer to use a volunteer couple as cub scout leaders, because they were discovered to be LDS. It is against the policy of that church to use people who are not “Christian” as leaders in their scout programs.
The BSA does not operate its own programs, but in a sense, contracts with other organizations who want to use its programs. It is clear that BSA understands and expects that these chartering organizations will use the scouting programs to meet their own organizational objectives. For example, in our church we use scouting to help young men to achieve Aaronic Priesthood objectives, i.e., build testimonies, prepare to be missionaries, etc. Accordingly, when BSA charters its programs to various organizations, it gives them the right to set their own policies about choosing leaders, within certain parameters that include being roles models for character, morality, and belief in a Supreme Being. In our church, our leaders would typically not call a non-member to be scoutmaster, although I have heard of exceptions. When I was scoutmaster, I had a non-member, Bill Shepard, who was a very effective Assistant SM. He was always supportive of things about the Church and religion for the boys. I believe he had also served as Cubmaster at one time. It seems to me that in our Church at least, the Cub program is the most nondenominational. We integrate priesthood/Church increasingly with scouting the older the age of the young men served, so might be less apt to use non-members as leaders for the older-boy programs. I believe it would be typical for Bishoprics to individualize the calling of non-members to scouting leadership in our church, seeking inspiration and assessing, in addition to the character issues mentioned above and the age-group of the boys, the existing need for leaders (do we have members who could do it?), the attitudes of the individual toward our church (is it supportive?), and the good that might come to the person and his/her family from the call.
So, when Christ Covenant church backed off from using the LDS parents as den leaders, they were within the rights granted by BSA to define their own criteria for choosing leaders for the scouting programs they sponsor. But now, the reason for this rejection, as not being Christian--
Christ Covenant church is using a sort of specialized, technical definition of being a Christian, not typically understood except by persons who have some theological background or training. It takes its meaning from 4th and 5th century attempts to define orthodoxy in Christian belief, at a minimum, by the acceptance of the Apostles Creed, and perhaps, other creedal statements. It is not the common sense or consensual definition that identifies Christians as believers or followers of Christ or perhaps persons who follow Christ’s example in how they treat other people (“that was a Christian thing to do”). At worst, it is deceptive and dishonest, because those making the accusation likely know that the typical hearer will not understand it as a specialized and uncommom usage of the term Christian.
Oddly, the Presbyterian church, when created by Calvin, Knox, and others over 10 centuries later, was rejected at that time as unorthodox by then mainstream Christianity (i.e., the Roman Catholic Church of that day, and, perhaps, the Church of England). Whatever orthodoxy it has acquired is self-awarded or at least achieved many years after the time of its creation. It is also interesting that Christ Covenant church claims to not include Catholics as acceptable candidates for scout leadership either, although they certainly meet the above definition (acceptance of the early, but post-apostolic, creeds) for Christian orthodoxy. So, this issue becomes a sort of club that is applied discriminatorily by some churches to use to beat us into submission or at least marginalize our church to unsophisticated hearers.
Stephen E. Robinson provides a great anecdote on this subject that happened while he was a doctoral student at Duke University. He had been invited by a large Protestant church to present a lecture on LDS beliefs. Some of his professors were members of this congregation. When he completed his presentation one of these men asked: “Why do you call yourselves Christian, when you are not?” Knowing something of this man’s personal beliefs, and that the congregation mostly would interpret his question to mean that Latter-day Saints do not believe in Jesus Christ, Brother Robinson quizzed him along these lines:
“Do you believe that Jesus was the literal Son of God?"
“No.”
“Do you believe in the divinity of the historical Jesus?”
“No.”
“Do you believe that Jesus had the power to perform miracles?”
“No.”
“Do you believe that he took upon him the sins of the world, as a real transfer of real guilt?”
“No.”
“Do you believe in the literal bodily resurrection of Jesus?”
“No.”
“Do you believe in a final judgment?”
“No.”
“Are you a Christian?”
“Of course, because I am a member and ordained minister of a denomination that traces its heritage back to the New Testament in an unbroken way.”
“As a Latter-day Saint, I believe that Jesus Christ is the literal Son of God; that he was and is divine; that he had the power to work miracles; that he took the sins of the world upon him in Gethsemene and on Calvary; that he died for us; that he was literally, bodily raised up on the third day; and that he will raise us up to judgment and a glorious afterlife. Now am I a Christian?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Why not?”
“Because you are a member of a church that is not theologically derived from and dependent on the councils and creeds of the historical church, and because you reject traditional Christianity and its theology after its second century.” (ARE MORMONS CHRISTIAN?, pp. 31-33)
When full information is forthcoming, fair-minded people will easily make the correct judgment as to who is the real Christian (and many in that congregation did).
We appreciate Gloria’s efforts to help Nathan celebrate and be recognized for his 31st birthday. We went with them, and Matthew, Kim, Emilie and Garrett to Olive Garden and had dinner Saturday afternoon.
There was cake (with orange Marmalade center) and ice cream (extreme moose tracks) on Monday night to finish off the celebration, even though Gloria had to work.
Notice how I was able to get the traditional family puffy cheek picture as he blew out the candles. (These are more of my superb cell-phone images.)
I enjoyed and was impressed by the sacrament meeting talks Paul and Daniel gave Sunday. The styles were different, but both showed a lot of depth, commitment, and preparation.
Paul’s talk on the Holy Ghost was quite scholarly. He provided a comprehensive review of scriptural instruction and insights about the Spirit. He also demonstrated a quiet and humble sincerity that I think will be persuasive to investigators as he serves his mission.
Daniel was more animated. He talked about several of the principles and commandments of God that we should be living and boldly challenged us to keep these commandments. He challenged us that each week we should pick out one specific principle that we need to improve on and work on it during the week. I think this boldness will serve him well on his mission.
(Thanks to Matthew for the picture. Mine were not very good.)
A conversation with Alison a few days ago jogged my thinking about taking photos, about using the capability in my cell phone when a regular camera wasn’t available or practical. A major motivation is that I often have wished, after the fact, to have a picture to support the text in a blog but none is available. So, last week I did some reading on cell phone picture-taking on the web and in my phone manual, bought a micro USB cable for off-loading cell pictures to our computer, and started practicing on my cell phone photography.
What I have learned is that I can now handle the mechanics (take a picture, take another picture quickly, setup and perform the off-load to a computer). It turns out that the latter process is almost identical to off-loading digital camera pictures, so was easy to master. The photographing process (with my cell phone, at least) reminds me somehow of taking pictures when I was little boy with my mother’s Kodak Brownie, the prototypical “box-camera” of yesteryear– you need lots of light and you have to make sure you don’t wiggle the camera. Differences are that you don’t have to pay for processing bad shots (which most of mine have been), you can get images in lesser-light conditions and you get color (sort of, but “Photoshopping” the shots after transferring them to your computer is helpful to get a semblance of quality.
Here is a comparison of my best cell-phone shot of the Soderquist family, as we were together with them Sunday for Paul’s and Daniel’s pre-mission sacrament meeting talks, with one from Matthew’s big Canon digital SLR (borrowed from Facebook–thanks Matthew).
We spent most of the week at the cabin, except that we came home Wednesday night to go to our temple shifts on Thursday and then went back up on Thursday evening. I worked on blogs and indexing the Guy Lewis records. We walked a couple of days when it wasn’t raining and as I have started to feel stronger. I took my 600 mg Ibuprofen every 8 hours and made sure that I was drinking 7-8 glasses of water.
The really big rain storms kept rolling through from the south and I took lots of pictures throughout Tuesday of the effect on Mt. Timpanogos. There was a the first snow of the season high on Timp in the morning and some lingering cloudiness. During the morning the sun broke through and we saw some blue sky. Then another front appeared over the mountains to the south and west. At first the clouds were white. Then they got blacker, the mountain became obscured, precipitation started, an finally we totally lost our visibility of anything out the picture windows. The final picture shows additional snow on Timp on Wednesday morning.
Saturday was a full day. We picked up Nathan and attended a session at Mt. Timpanogos temple where Heidi received her endowments. We saw there Alison, Quin, Paul, Andrew, LeRoy and LePriel Soderquist, and Aunt Gretta. Then Wendy dropped us off at the BYU stadium where we had tickets for a 4 pm football game with SDSU. Greg had promoted this and was there along with Scott and Ethan, and Matthew and all six of their kids. Greg and Matthew led the cheers, but the loudest fan was Gloria. It was lots of fun to see the game with the family and it was enhanced by a BYU victory, 24-21.
The Book of Mormon presents a number of models, examples, or types regarding the paths persons follow to become fully converted to the truths of the gospel. In a recent blog (THE BOOK OF MORMON, A MEMBER MANUAL, September 24, 2010.), I listed several persons who were Church members that returned to a life of faith after having experienced a period of what today in the Church we would call being “less-active”:
“The process of returning to living faithfully (reactivation) on the part of members of the Church after engaging in such things as apostasy (Alma I), rebellion (Alma II), worldliness and materialism (Amulek), indifference and apathy (Enos), immorality and other serious sins (Corianton).”
These are all models of members who only become converted in their adulthood after wandering in wrong paths for a period of time. And in becoming converted, they all became powerful leaders and advocates for the Lord and his gospel. Some years ago, I wrote in more detail about these persons and their conversions or reconversions (THEY CAME BACK: BOOK OF MORMON STORIES OF REACTIVATION, http://www.lewisfam.com/nearertogod/html/they_came_back.html).
I want to add some more conversion types:
1) Member, faithful from childhood (Nephi). Although there are many other examples, Nephi seems to epitomize the member who never strayed, but from childhood, followed his righteous parents’ examples, internalized their teachings, and came early in his life to experience for himself the spiritual gifts associated with the gospel.
2) Member, good person but with shallow or social conversion (people of King Benjamin). These people appear to have been members who were keeping the commandments (Mosiah 1:11), but still King Benjamin seems to imply that they were self-satisfied with their level of obedience and had not really internalized the covenants of the gospel or experienced the redemptive power of the Spirit (Mosiah 2:13, 24, 28, 37; see also Rust, pp. 103-104).
3) Non-member convert, rich and powerful (Lamanite King, Lamoni’s father–Alma 22).
4) Non-member convert, doubting, argumentative and intellectual (Zeezrom–Alma 12 to15).
5) Non-member convert, impoverished and persecuted (Zoramites–Alma 32-35).
I see at least one more type, for which I have not found a model in Book of Mormon persons, but rather in the life of Abraham:
6) Seeker for gospel blessings, that recent ancestors had left (Abraham). He states that his “fathers, [had] turned from their righteousness, and from the holy commandments which the Lord their God had given unto them, unto the worshiping the gods of the heathens...” (Abraham 1:5). Therefore he left the residence of his fathers in the land of the Chaldeans to seek for himself “mine appointment unto the Priesthood” (v. 4) which was his right based on his lineage, but not available from his fathers because of their apostasy. His motive was to find “greater happiness and peace and rest..., [to] be ordained to the [blessings of the fathers], to be a greater follower of righteousness, and to possess a greater knowledge, and to be a father of many nations, a prince of peace...” (v. 2). I have pondered what informed Abraham’s faith in the face of his fathers’ apostasy, and had the thought that his mother may have stayed faithful and been the instrument to teach him the gospel. Abraham’s travels eventually took him to Canaan where he received the priesthood from Melchizedek (D&C 84:14), whom he also recognized as his superior in authority by paying him tithes (Alma 13:15).
How did you become converted to the gospel? Who is your model and exemplar? Are you a Nephi, an Enos, or like the people of King Benjamin?
In a small way, I feel some spiritual kinship to Abraham. While not apostates (and Abraham’s father even sought his life at one point--Abraham 1:30), my immediate Davenport ancestors took their families away from the safety and blessings of the Mormon Utah-Idaho-Arizona corridor before the Church stopped advocating gathering (which occurred about 1899).
Immediately after I was baptized in June 1954, the week after my high school graduation, I felt a new and strong prompting to attend BYU in order to affiliate with the Church in its strength and receive its blessings. I canceled my plans to attend Washington State and started working and saving money to go to BYU the following year. (Going in a year would also put me back with my age group, which I thought would be desirable socially.)
Oddly, at this time I had very little concept of such things as priesthood and temple. President Burles kept talking about giving me some priesthood. My first thought was “I am now baptized–what more do I need?” Of course, I later came to learn that there was much more.
Alison gave me some interesting feedback in a phone conversation this week. Thinking about our family general conference evening gathering, I tried to compliment her and Quin on how many of their children had come having made notes on each of the conference talks.
She said, “It’s the family meeting that does it. They know that they will have to appear before the family and their cousins and report something on conference.”
I said, “I always thought this was a result of good parenting.”
She said, “No, good grandparenting.”
Whether true or not, this conversation does give me more incentive to persevere with this part of the family calendar. And how might we assist the boys of Bentonville and Boston to have this same blessing with general conferences?
In our blog of May 15, 2009, I reported on getting reacquainted, in the Raleigh Temple, with Richard Rust, who I knew a little at BYU. He is a retired UNC English professor, and is also considered one of the experts on the literary aspects of the Book of Mormon. While at the cabin this week, I have been rereading his book on this topic (FEASTING ON THE WORD: THE LITERARY TESTIMONY OF THE BOOK OF MORMON, Deseret Book, 1997). In a chapter where Brother Rust describes the Book of Mormon as epic literature (long heroic poem or narrative that covers extended time and grand scope like The Odyssey , The Iliad, Paradise Lost, Beowulf, etc.,–among other things these epics usually involving larger-than-life characters) with particular reference to the identity of Lehi’s descendants, he makes a statement that caused me to ponder our family: “To truly understand their identity, a people must know who they are, where they came from, and what their destiny is.” (Rust, p. 47)
Although not written at this point as epic poetry, I thought about how much our Church doctrines and practices help us with our identity. It positions us as spirit children of God, our Heavenly Father, coming to earth under his great Plan of Redemption worked out by greatest of heroic figures, Jesus Christ, and with the story spanning life before and after our existence on this earth. There is the ancient gospel, which tells and provides the way to access the Plan, first given to Adam, reintroduced through various prophets, by Christ himself when he lived, and then restored in our day through the prophet Joseph Smith. The latter is itself filled with heroic deeds, Josephs’ faith and martyrdom, the pioneer trek and building the kingdom in the West, missionary experiences and miracles, etc.
Positioned within this context is the identity of our own family. Who are we, where did we come from, and what is our destiny? We research our ancestry, compile our family history, and do temple work with the expectation of meeting and accounting to these persons in the next life. We love conversion stories of our ancestors and to hear of their faith and sacrifices. We gather together to maintain our association and relationships. Our Lewis Family Creed tries to establish some future family goals. Are we producing our own family heroic characters? What more should we do as a family to provide the basis for our own family epic?
Our family met in the evening of general conference Sunday for dinner, to do some calendaring, but mostly to remind ourselves of the messages we had just received and of the most significant conference themes. We heard from the smaller kids about something that impressed them each about conference and then the older teens and adults each identified important messages they heard. Here is our summary of some of the important themes of this conference:
1) Increasing our gratitude, both feelings and expressions (President Monson and also Elder Holland). Being grateful to God and to other persons is an antidote to pride and selfishness and helps us become Christ-like.
2) Getting direction from God, through the Holy Ghost and through the Church and its prophet (Elders Bednar, Oaks, Duncan, Jensen, Pres. Eyring)
3) Staying on the path, obedience, faithfulness, using our agency to make good choices, avoiding specific sins (including pornography, homosexuality), follow divine principles and not the fads of the day (many speakers)
4) Using are time wisely, simplifying, doing the most important things (Pres. Ucktdorf, Elder Christofferson) .
We cut short our stay at the Missionary Reunion because I was experiencing some symptoms that we were afraid were those of a heart attack. I had quite a bit of and increasing discomfort in my shoulders, upper back and upper chest. We went to Emergency at the Altaview Hospital which was just a few miles away from the chapel where the reunion was being held and announced that I might be experiencing a heart attack. That seemed to get their attention and they got me right in and started some tests. The enzyme test that indicates heart issues was not conclusive but showed the possibility of a heart attack. They eventually decided that I should transfer to the cardiac unit at the new IHC hospital (IMC) in Murray, so I got a nice ambulance ride there at about 11 pm. Wendy followed us over in the car.
They initiated some more tests and since, I suppose, things seemed stable, they let us go to bed at about 1:30 am (there was a sort a bed for Wendy on the far side of the room).
By morning, the cardiologist on duty, Dr. Walsh, let me know that they had probably ruled out a heart attack, and about about midday Saturday, he came back saying that I had pericarditis, an inflammation of the sac that surrounds the heart. He thought the cause was viral. He thought the inflammation would go away in about a week. He also identified that there was some concern with my kidneys. They started giving me an anti-inflammatory drug through my IV and also upped the amount of fluid being given intravenously. The medical staff kind of lost interest then and let us watch conference. They let me be released Sunday afternoon, so we were able to come home and host the family for dinner on conference evening. I have a prescription for a heavy-duty Ibuprofen to take for a week and made a commitment to be sure to drink 6-8 glasses of water daily. (I think I have gotten a little careless and let myself get dehydrated, especially as I have increased my exercise level recently.)
Thankfully, this episode was not more serious than it was, that I am feeling better, and that we were able to have the joy of being with our family as planned on Sunday evening.
We had been really looking forward to our first mission reunion on the Friday night before general conference, especially to see missionaries again that we had enjoyed and learned to love. It was held in a ward house in Sandy.
Among the people that we enjoyed seeing were: President and Sister Wallis, Sisters Myers and Bloomgren, the Gunnells, Elders Gaylord, Post, McVey, Sheffler, 2 Jensens, Bigalow, Croft, Henley, Stewart, Johnson, Barker, Clark, Godfrey, Cannon, Howell, Sisters Baker and Michaels.
For a reason not usually considered, the Book of Mormon is unique among the standard works for the Church and, for that matter, any book that thus far has ever been written. This reason provides, perhaps, a major explanation for why prophets such as Ezra Taft Benson have emphasized the special need for its study by Church members and how and why its message was written specifically for our day. This reason is that the Book of Mormon is the record of a people who possessed the fulness of the Gospel (D&C 20:9; 27:5; 42:12) for over 1000 years. As such, it provides a very important model for members of the Church to follow, since we also exist in this same kind of religious setting.
I take the phrase “fulness of the Gospel” to mean:
1) Men with the authority and keys of the Melchizedek priesthood are in leadership.
2) Members are taught and understand the plan of salvation (see PREACH MY GOSPEL, 2004, pp. 55-56) as including:
–Knowledge of where we came from, why we are here, and where we will go after this life
–Knowing that a loving Heavenly Father instituted this plan to help us progress in this life, be happy, and live successfully, so that we can return to his presence and become like him
–The mission and atonement of Jesus Christ was central to the plan, overcoming physical death and providing a way for us to be cleansed and forgiven for our sins so that we can return to live with a holy God
–Forgiveness and cleansing are available through faith in Jesus Christ, repentance, baptism by authoritative administrators, the receipt of the Holy Ghost, and “enduring to the end” faithfully.
3) Ordinances of salvation, including baptism, and bestowal of the gift of the Holy Ghost were administered, by proper authority.
Other standard works, while containing important truths, do not have this background of a people trying to live the gospel for over a millenium:
The Old Testament is mostly about a people who had rejected the fulness of the Gospel when offered it by Moses and were given, in its place, a preparatory and lesser law and structure, the Law of Moses. Only the Book of Genesis gives a brief glimpse of earlier times when the fulness of the gospel was present.
The New Testament, after the testimonies of the life and mission of the Savior, describes a kind of Kirtland Church (Reynolds, EARLY CHRISTIANS IN DISARRAY, pp 8-9), increasingly characterized by dissension and wickedness, which existed only briefly before disintegrating into full apostasy.
The Doctrine and Covenants contains revelations to modern prophets, largely in the first few years of the Restoration.
The Pearl of Great Price contains a few brief and added insights about the early times portrayed in the Old Testament.
On the other hand, the Book of Mormon gives rich detail about the efforts and struggles of individuals and groups to live the gospel as members of the ongoing Church of Jesus Christ, that we can and should relate to, as members of a church which has been administering the fulness of Gospel for over 180 years:
1) Wonderful examples of day-by-day faith, valiancy, and how these choices were made, by committed followers of the Lord, often in the face of trials and opposition (Lehi, Nephi, Abinadi, Helaman, Nephi II, Mormon, Moroni, etc., etc.).
2) The fruits of rebellion against the teachings of the Lord through his prophets and leaders, by persons who undoubtedly had been taught and/or been part of the gospel, even to the point that these persons became violent and murderous in their opposition (Laman and Lemuel, Zeezrom, Amalickiah, Zemnarihah, etc.), how as a member to deal with such opposition.
3) The process of returning to living faithfully (reactivation) on the part of members of the Church after engaging in such things as apostasy (Alma I), rebellion (Alma II), worldliness and materialism (Amulek), indifference and apathy (Enos), immorality and other serious sins (Corianton).
4) How baptized members may increase their spirituality to the point of knowing they have forgiveness and retaining a remission of their sins (the people of King Benjamin, in Mosiah 1:11; 2-5).
5) Ways to transmit the faith across generations, such as write a record of your spiritual experiences, teach from the scriptures, understand and learn from your family history, hold family councils and gatherings, give father’s blessings, be an example, bear testimony, give one-on-one counseling, give positive affirmation, be patient. (I have references for all of these)
6) Dealing with wayward children (Lehi; Alma I and Mosiah with their sons; Alma II with Corianton)
7) The covenant nature of the ordinances of salvation (Mosiah 8:8-10, 3 Ne 18:1-11).
8) Acquiring faith, hope, and charity as measures of a member’s spiritual progress (faith–Alma 32, Ether 12:6; hope–Ether 12:3, Alma 22:15-16, Moro 7:40-43, Moro 8:26; charity–Moro 7:44-48, 8:26)
9) How the Spirit is felt and experienced by a member (Alma 36, 32; 2 Ne 31, etc.)--how it can be driven away, how it can return.
10) The process and importance of true repentance, as experienced by members (Alma 34, 39, 42, etc.)
11) The need to sustain and support our leaders, to follow the prophet (many places).
12) Dealing with fighting in a war, as a member.
13) Being a missionary.
14) How the Church should function and be conducted.
15) Conducting the ordinances of salvation.
Etc.
Truly, among its many wonderful features, the Book of Mormon is a Member Manual, helping us since our baptisms 1) to progress in our personal spirituality and righteousness, 2) to bless and teach our families the Gospel, and 3) to support the growth of the Kingdom.
Wendy took her mother with her and left for most of this week for the cabin, for Girl’s Week. This is a fall get-together with a long history for Wendy, her mother and her sisters, and some aunts and cousins. This is going to be a little change of pace, as Wendy and I have not been apart much since we got married and especially while were served in NC. Wendy did a lot of preparations, so I would not suffer too much, such as loading the fridge with food. I am going to try to implement a daily schedule to exercise, work on Guy Lewis records index for an hour a day, continue to search for Lewis family records on Ancestry.com, blog and phone family, work some in the yard, and try to keep some kind of order in the house. There are grand-child soccer and football games and I have some Scout boards of review to help run on Tuesday night.
On Monday evening we did our monthly Skype visit with David, Rebecca and boys.
We saw soccer games played by Brianna, Joshua and Jeremy. The latter was a very interesting game. Matthew is the coach. A mistake was made between the Mapleton and Springville rec departments, which caused teams of Mapleton 5-6th graders to play against Springville 7-8th graders. They were playing Springville team this night whose players must have averaged being about a foot taller then them. In a prior meeting they lost to this team 12-0. Matthew had worked with them on defense in the meantime and they were able to bottle up the other team’s attack for the most part. On offense they got some scoring opportunities. We saw the last two goals which they scored on penalty kicks (6th graders tend to fall down when a boy a foot taller pushes on them when they are on a breakaway) and they won a great moral victory at 4-4. Lots of fun.
Joshua is grasping what the game is all about and played some sturdy defense.
We spent our now-again-usual long Thursday in the Provo temple. We did two endowment sessions, one on Wednesday afternoon at Provo and a second Friday mid-day at Jordan River. Earlier Friday we spent some time with Gert Foerster, our CPA, to finish our 2009 taxes (we had sent in estimated payments but he had arranged extensions until we could look at everything this summer).
Saturday, thankfully, SFCN did not broadcast the BYU-Florida State game, but I watched a lot of football including Utah’s blowout of New Mexico.
I taught the 15-16 year old’s Sunday School lesson for they last time as our replacement has now been called.
I came home from NC carrying lots of extra weight and severely out of condition. We were so busy, it was hard to schedule exercise (besides, where we lived was not a very good or safe place to walk). We were on the road a lot and eating a lot of fast food. When I stepped on the scales the morning after arriving home, I weighed 242 pounds.
I began to try to eat lighter and to avoid eating out as much as possible. We started to try to walk regularly for exercise. The first day, we walked 20 minutes, and I had to take a nap afterward to recover. Over the last three months, I have gradually been able to increase my endurance, and can now go for 60 minutes without being totally debilitated.
This morning, for the first time since we returned home, I did what was one of our favorite walks–walk northwest past the Jr. High and the cemetery to 200 E and 300 S, then south to the start of the River Bottoms Road and follow it to the turn-off road that climbs back out of the bottoms at 1400 East. I stopped in at Emilie’s for a drink of water and short visit, then returned home. The total route is about 5 miles. And I am feeling pretty good. I am now weighing in at about 227-228, which is what I weighed when I left for NC, so I am down about 15 pounds. I think that I would be healthier long-term if I got under 210, and that is my hope to achieve by the end of the year.
We have had Wendy’s mother, Annette Ridges, with us this weekend. We are giving Wendy’s sister Shannon a break. Annette is 92 years old. While she can still walk some and appears to have pretty good physical health, she is nearly blind, has very poor hearing, and considerable dementia. Once in a while her memory kicks in, but in general, there isn’t much communication anymore. When she senses she has an audience, she will sort of wake up and try to entertain people with funny statements and faces.
In regard to her attitude, her later years have been exemplary. She has not complained about her health or other problems.. She always sees the bright side and is happy and positive. She enjoys the attention of family members and others.
She was born Annette Newman Salt Lake City, 30 Apr 1918, to William Gold Newman, from Tennessee , and Elizabeth Johnson, whose family were Danish converts to the Church. She married Kenneth P. Borg, 8 Oct 1937, in the Salt Lake Temple. They had six children, a son Kenneth Jr. (b. 1939). then five daughters, Sue (b. 1941), Kathy (b. 1946), Wendy (1948), Bonnie (b.1951), and Shannon (b. 1954). All married and raised their families in Salt Lake. Ken Jr. was a dentist and all of the daughters home-makers. Ken Jr. served a mission in England and all six of the children were married in the temple.
Annette was an accomplished artist, and produced many fine oils, water colors, and sketches, particularly after her children were grown. Paintings include still-life and outdoor scenes from Utah and also Europe. One of her paintings is housed in the Jordan River Temple.
Sadly, after 33 years of marriage, Annette’s husband left his family. Annette helped to provide support by working as a floral designer and with a wedding reception center. On 4 May 1972 she married Melvin H. Ridges in the Salt Lake Temple. He was a widower and a successful insurance executive. He also had been blind since he was a young adult (his condition became evident and worsened while he was serving as a missionary), but in spite of his handicap, was a very capable and solid man. Annette and Melvin served as senior missionaries at the San Diego Visitors Center from 1979-1981. He passed away in January 1997.
We were very grateful for an invitation from Soderquists to join them for Heidi’s mission call opening last Wednesday evening. The anticipated mail arrived in South Weber early in the afternoon. Alison let us know that the Official Opening (and to the best of our knowledge, there was no unofficial prior opening) would take place at 6:30 pm on the BYU campus, on a little grassy hill (mound?) that Heidi has a particular affection for, just outside the east entrance to the Talmage Building.
Heidi was on the little hill with some friends, then Britain showed up, and after a period of time here came Alison, Quin, and all of the younger Soderquists. Britain went into the Talmage Building to get Andrew (he is working part-time in a computer lab just inside that building), and then, with the appropriate amount of drama, Heidi slowly opened the envelope, and read “Spain Bar
cellona.” There was a considerable level of whooping, hollering, and hugging. Meanwhile, Jonathan, Aaron and Chris made good use of the hill for rolling and wrestling, and Daniel found a lightpost to do pushups from.
We all finished off the evening in celebration by going to BYU Dairy’s Creamery on 9th East for ice cream. I am very proud of Heidi and wish her well on her mission.
It wasn’t more than about 3 weeks ago that we were having hot temperatures. This morning, see the snow on the base of Mt. Loafer, on the towns of Woodland Hills and Elk Ridge, and on West Mountain. That black cloud in the last picture is predicted to be the start of an even colder storm that will bring snow lower on the benches and a foot or so more in the mountains over 7,500 feet.
Emilie and Scott had arranged for their wardhouse for Friday night to host the family for our yearly Halloween party and led in the planning for this event. Almost everyone was there including some of our BYU students. I am very grateful for the willingness of our South Weber families to travel the long distance over congested highways to be with our family for this occasion.
There is a current fuss in newspaper reports that a Presbyterian church near Charlotte NC has reneged on an offer to use a volunteer couple as cub scout leaders, because they were discovered to be LDS. It is against the policy of that church to use people who are not “Christian” as leaders in their scout programs. 
We really like the River Trail. We try to walk it as often as we can, like at least weekly. The trail runs along the north side of the Spanish Fork River, starting on the southeast end of the sports complex just west of Hwy 198 (old highway to Salem-Payson) and continuing along the river westward to near the freeway. Here are some shots which show bright fall colors along the trail and the river. The river is reflecting a recent rainstorm and is muddier than normal. Notice also the leaf patterns on the asphalt. The asphalt is not wet, but these are stains from chemicals in the leaves lying on the walk-way.
We appreciate Gloria’s efforts to help Nathan celebrate and be recognized for his 31st birthday. We went with them, and Matthew, Kim, Emilie and Garrett to Olive Garden and had dinner Saturday afternoon. 
I enjoyed and was impressed by the sacrament meeting talks Paul and Daniel gave Sunday. The styles were different, but both showed a lot of depth, commitment, and preparation.
A conversation with Alison a few days ago jogged my thinking about taking photos, about using the capability in my cell phone when a regular camera wasn’t available or practical. A major motivation is that I often have wished, after the fact, to have a picture to support the text in a blog but none is available. So, last week I did some reading on cell phone picture-taking on the web and in my phone manual, bought a micro USB cable for off-loading cell pictures to our computer, and started practicing on my cell phone photography. 
We spent most of the week at the cabin, except that we came home Wednesday night to go to our temple shifts on Thursday and then went back up on Thursday evening. I worked on blogs and indexing the Guy Lewis records. We walked a couple of days when it wasn’t raining and as I have started to feel stronger. I took my 600 mg Ibuprofen every 8 hours and made sure that I was drinking 7-8 glasses of water.
The Book of Mormon presents a number of models, examples, or types regarding the paths persons follow to become fully converted to the truths of the gospel. In a recent blog (THE BOOK OF MORMON, A MEMBER MANUAL, September 24, 2010.), I listed several persons who were Church members that returned to a life of faith after having experienced a period of what today in the Church we would call being “less-active”:
Alison gave me some interesting feedback in a phone conversation this week. Thinking about our family general conference evening gathering, I tried to compliment her and Quin on how many of their children had come having made notes on each of the conference talks.
In our blog of May 15, 2009, I reported on getting reacquainted, in the Raleigh Temple, with Richard Rust, who I knew a little at BYU. He is a retired UNC English professor, and is also considered one of the experts on the literary aspects of the Book of Mormon. While at the cabin this week, I have been rereading his book on this topic (FEASTING ON THE WORD: THE LITERARY TESTIMONY OF THE BOOK OF MORMON, Deseret Book, 1997). In a chapter where Brother Rust describes the Book of Mormon as epic literature (long heroic poem or narrative that covers extended time and grand scope like The Odyssey , The Iliad, Paradise Lost, Beowulf, etc.,–among other things these epics usually involving larger-than-life characters) with particular reference to the identity of Lehi’s descendants, he makes a statement that caused me to ponder our family: “To truly understand their identity, a people must know who they are, where they came from, and what their destiny is.” (Rust, p. 47)
Our family met in the evening of general conference Sunday for dinner, to do some calendaring, but mostly to remind ourselves of the messages we had just received and of the most significant conference themes. We heard from the smaller kids about something that impressed them each about conference and then the older teens and adults each identified important messages they heard. Here is our summary of some of the important themes of this conference:
Wendy and I drove up Diamond Fork this afternoon to see if there were fall colors. One of the brightest yellows was the bloom on the sage. And I got a shot of a butterfly on the bloom. 
arch. We love it.
For a reason not usually considered, the Book of Mormon is unique among the standard works for the Church and, for that matter, any book that thus far has ever been written. This reason provides, perhaps, a major explanation for why prophets such as Ezra Taft Benson have emphasized the special need for its study by Church members and how and why its message was written specifically for our day. This reason is that the Book of Mormon is the record of a people who possessed the fulness of the Gospel (D&C 20:9; 27:5; 42:12) for over 1000 years. As such, it provides a very important model for members of the Church to follow, since we also exist in this same kind of religious setting.
I came home from NC carrying lots of extra weight and severely out of condition. We were so busy, it was hard to schedule exercise (besides, where we lived was not a very good or safe place to walk). We were on the road a lot and eating a lot of fast food. When I stepped on the scales the morning after arriving home, I weighed 242 pounds. 
We have had Wendy’s mother, Annette Ridges, with us this weekend. We are giving Wendy’s sister Shannon a break. Annette is 92 years old. While she can still walk some and appears to have pretty good physical health, she is nearly blind, has very poor hearing, and considerable dementia. Once in a while her memory kicks in, but in general, there isn’t much communication anymore. When she senses she has an audience, she will sort of wake up and try to entertain people with funny statements and faces.
We were very grateful for an invitation from Soderquists to join them for Heidi’s mission call opening last Wednesday evening. The anticipated mail arrived in South Weber early in the afternoon. Alison let us know that the Official Opening (and to the best of our knowledge, there was no unofficial prior opening) would take place at 6:30 pm on the BYU campus, on a little grassy hill (mound?) that Heidi has a particular affection for, just outside the east entrance to the Talmage Building.
cellona.” There was a considerable level of whooping, hollering, and hugging. Meanwhile, Jonathan, Aaron and Chris made good use of the hill for rolling and wrestling, and Daniel found a lightpost to do pushups from. 
