LDS in Nigeria 1: 1960-1980

From News of the Church,  Feb1980, "A Miracle Precedes the Messengers," Janet Brigham.

African Christians in Ghana (green) and Nigeria (orange) had been writing to the church since at least 1960, asking for more information, for "holy books," and for any opportunity to learn more about the Church. While I was in Nigeria, my hosts noted that the two most popular types of book that you can find everywhere and anywhere are religion and self-help (aka get rich). Visa problems kept the Church from sending representatives until August, and then Nov 1978. Within 14 months, there were 1700 converts.

And the friendliness of the people in Ghana and Nigeria compensates for other difficulties. The couples reported to President Spencer W. Kimball: “We have never been anywhere in the world where it is so easy to engage a stranger in gospel discussion—opportunities [are] at every hand. One need not go from door-to-door—just have your tracts ready. Even busy people walking on the street will stop and talk. Workmen on construction jobs carry the tracts in hand for long periods of time. If you go by an hour or so later, it isn’t unusual to see them reading” (see Ensign, May 1979, p. 106).

The first missionary couples found a people who had been heavily prepared in many ways to receive the gospel:

Africans learned of the Church from other Africans who had studied in the United States. They came across some missionary pamphlets. No one now knows how those pamphlets got to Africa in the 1950s—but the effect was remarkable. Many who read them recognized the truth. Then—independent of each other and without knowledge of the other’s actions—several groups of blacks in both Nigeria and Ghana started their own religious organizations, patterned after the Church. However, visa problems prevented representatives being sent to officially establish the Church.

The groups built small meeting-houses and met regularly. They copied organization, doctrines, songs, and titles after the Church, as much as they were able to discern from the literature they received. Occasionally they had contact with members of the Church visiting Africa.

The Africans even proselyted. One man, after a stirring spiritual experience, “was constrained by [the] Spirit to go from street to street … to deliver the message which we had read from the Book of Mormon and from the pamphlets.” Despite some “persecutions” and sometimes being labeled as an “anti-Christ organization,” the “missionaries” were undaunted. 

“We persisted with the word and won forty people that day even to the admiration of the Muslims around,” one man reports.

Among the many letters sent to Church headquarters asking for more light and knowledge was this on

"We here are the true sons of God, but colour makes no difference in the service of Our Heavenly Father and Christ. The Spirit of God calls us to abide by this church and there is nothing to keep us out.”

The author of that letter, Anthony Obinna, was later to become the first black western African baptized and called as branch president.

Number Associations

On Sunday, a conversation happened without provocation:
"Daddy, you are number 2. Pop and Boo are number 7."
Who are you, Hyrum?
"I am number 1."
Who is Mommy?
"Mommy is number 3."
Who is number 4?
"Althea."
Who is number 5?
"Brother F____."
Who is number 6?
"..... Pop is number 6 and Boo is number 7!"
I see.

I asked him later in the day who each of the numbers were. He moved Bro. F___ up to #5 and his daughter (Althea) to #4. We give them rides to church on Sunday and he was thinking about them when he made the first numbering system. He held to the numbers on Tuesday.

The fun part is when I ask him:
Who is number 8?
"I don't remember!" *face palm*


Another day this week he and Joy got out his number puzzle. He pulled out the numbers one by one and said
"#1 How we got the Book of Mormon.
#2 Lehi warns the people.
#3 Lehi Leaves Jerusalem...."

And so on through as many chapters of his Book of Mormon stories book as he could remember. Every day for Jesus Time we've been reading from one of his scripture stories book, and lately Joy added to that letting him play on the computer (!!!!) with a Book of Mormon stories CD that will read the stories to him and let him click on words. He particularly likes #14 Abinadi and King Noah and #20 Alma and Nehor.

Today when the father of King Lamoni "got angrier and drew his sword to kill Lamoni" Hyrum recognized the word pattern and said it was just like Nehor who "got angry and drew his sword.and killed Gideon." Wow. His favorite Nehor picture is attached. He makes a point of telling us which pictures and which pages in books are his favorite.



Joy wonders what it will be like when we introduce him to The Prisoner! ROFL.

Life Lessons:

The last few weeks we've been teaching Hyrum about the priesthood and priesthood keys and how he'll get the priesthood some day and good things like that. I got a small payoff from that yesterday.

You see, when Hy is not quite on our schedule, we'll start counting. We are very lucky to have a boy who responds quickly to numbers. 1 ... "Stop counting! Daddy don't count!" he cries as he runs to do our fiendish bidding. (You'd think we believed in corporeal punishment instead of asking him to sit still for 3 minutes or carrying him to the car instead of letting him walk.)

Being a three year old and the son of people who try to not make any rules they don't follow too, he decided it was his turn to start counting at Mommy. He doesn't like practicing potty or changing clothes by himself, so he calls for us to come visit. Yesterday he called from the bathroom, "Mommy! Come here! 1 2 3."

Daddy's eyes got very wide and Mommy, seeing that, realized what had just happened. She laughed, but very quietly so as not to encourage him. Daddy was less pleased and went in to have a Word.

I tried several ways of explaining the situation, but didn't seem to quite be getting through. Then I remembered the keys. "Son, you do not have the keys to discipline your mother." I also explained that God does, that He holds Mommy and Daddy accountable for how we act as parents, and that if He counts 1, 2, 3 we had better listen. That got his attention.

He understood.

He understood well enough to tell Mommy this morning that he doesn't count at us, but God does.

LDS Symposium on the Bible

An annual religious symposium at Brigham Young University focused on the reverence Mormons show for the Bible, and the King James Version (KJV) in particular which turns 400 this year. Three of the talks referenced by the Church News stood out to me.

Prof/Brother/Mr. Millet discussed the issue of errors in transmission of the Bible:

"The question is not whether there have been scribal errors through the centuries; there have been," he said. "The question is not whether the Bible is the word of God; it is. The question is not whether the Bible can be relied upon with confidence if, in fact, there have been errors in the text; it can."
He said, "We do not believe the Bible must be translated perfectly to be spiritually normative and eternally valuable. ... For that matter, while we accept the Book of Mormon [and other LDS cannon] as holy scripture, we would not rush to proclaim their inerrancy. The marvel is the greater that an infinite and perfect God can work through finite and imperfect humans to deliver His word to His children."...
"Clearly, many factors impacted the prophetic message: personality, experience, vocabulary, literary talent," Brother Millet remarked. "The word of the Lord as spoken through Isaiah is quite different from the word of the Lord as spoken through Luke, and both are different from that written by Jeremiah or Mark. ... The LDS concern with the ancients is not the perfection with which such messages were recorded, but with the inspiration behind the message. ...
"In other words, knowing that God is the same yesterday, today and forever, and the fact that He spoke to them at all, however well or poorly it may have been recorded, attests that He can speak to men and women in the here and now. After all, the Bible is only black ink on white paper until the Spirit of God illuminates its true meaning to us."

 Prof/Bro/Mr Belnap discusses the use of King James language and prose in the Book of Mormon. Other cultures and languages do not use the KJV but because the Book of Mormon was written using KJV cadence, syntax, vocabulary, and often quotations (though several witnesses attest Joseph Smith never had a copy of the Bible with him while translating) the language of the KJV becomes the Church standard throughout the world. He also talked about Nephi's vision of the Bible in America and the probability that it was the KJV specifically to which he referred. The article closes with his suggestion that one reason the KJV was popular with the colonists was that, unlike the Geneva Bible that preceded it, it did not contain numerous annotations telling people what they were supposed to think about each verse, leaving them free to independent study and prayer.

Prof/Bro/Mr Tanner provides evidence that the KJV was written specifically in order to sound authoritative and scriptural, to have an ancient veneer about it, and was translated in part with its aural qualities in mind. The KJV was deliberately assigned to become the official church Bible of the time, to be read from the pulpit and give added authority to the preacher. While he points this out as a contrast with the Tyndale Bible which was intended for personal study, the KJV translators retained such enormous portions of the Tyndale translation (~90%) that it would be easy to overstate the contrast.

Yesterday's Training

For anyone who missed the Church's Worldwide Leadership Training Broadcast, one of the summary articles is here and it links to summary articles for the other presentations. Both the new second Handbook and the entire training video is (or soon will be) available here.

Helping in the Vineyard

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has given us a new way to serve and build up the kingdom. "Helping in the Vineyard" is currently a limited edition beta effort to crowd-source various tasks that will help the Church get the word out. More tasks will be added over time, I gather. At the moment you can (and I just did)

• Upload and/or tag photos and videos
• Proofread Church materials
• Translate materials to/from a variety of languages
• Help with family history

You sign in with your LDS Account (those of you in the Ithaca Ward, if you aren't set up yet, talk to me and I'll help you get set up) and select which jobs you are interested in and any foreign languages you speak. Any time you want, you can log in and it'll give you the next item they need help with.

I tagged a number of scenic pictures, mostly rocky, wave-crashing shorelines. I made sure that a number of paragraphs from the Ensign had been scanned properly, adjusted a Spanish language Primary manual's paging on using our talents, and proofread a German language lesson  manual on revelation. I translated instructions for the new FamilySearch website into German.

The crowd-sourcing is a particularly good idea for the translating, and they have a good system set up. You can vote on the translations of your fellow helpers to help confirm that a particular translation is accurate or offer your own edition. Once a threshold number of positive votes are scored, the page is approved. There are helps available throughout of approved terms, similar phrases that have been translated elsewhere, and a Google translation to help you out. You can also sign in to be notified when changes have been made.

I recommend it as a nice way to get in a few minutes of service easily - particularly for my insomniacally-inclined friends and family. Matt 20: "The harvest  truly is great, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest." Jacob 5: "Wherefore, go to, and call servants, that we may labor diligently with our might in the vineyard, that we may prepare  the way, that I may bring forth again the natural fruit, which natural fruit is good and the most precious above all other fruit. ... the servant went and did as the Lord had commanded him, and brought other servants; and they were few. And the Lord of the vineyard said unto them: Go to, and labor in the vineyard, with your might. For behold, this is the last time that I shall nourish my vineyard; for the end is nigh at hand, and the season speedily cometh; and if ye labor with your might with me ye shall have joy in the fruit which I shall lay up unto myself against the time which will soon come."

Pop n Boo's Revenge

When you grow up, I hope you have children Just ... Like ... You!

I have an undeserved reputation for being a "planner" at my parents' house. It all stems from the fact that I get hungry for dinner before Mom and Dad do. Left to their own devices, dinner happens around 7 or 8pm. I got accustomed to dinner at 5 or so at college. I quickly learned that the best way to get dinner happening when I wanted it was to go to Mom about 3pm and say, "So, Mom, what's the plan for dinner?" She would send me to Dad. (That gave me permission to invade his office, you see.) "So, Dad, what's the plan for dinner?" I maaaay have also sometimes asked them what the plan was more generally, trying to find out what they thought was happening that night and if there was any hope of gaming. Could be.

My parents, now Pop and Boo, came away from me asking that every day, all summer and every visit, thinking that I like to plan. Can't imagine why ;)  . Joy is ever so much more of a planner than I am, though. The odd thing is that she likes to plan, but "isn't good at it" and I don't like to plan but I'm good at it -- I think mostly so I can get it done quickly. When we got together with my brother and his wife last year for our anniversaries [right] I discovered that they wanted a Real Plan, complete with time schedules of when we'd arrive at each attraction, compared to my Vague Notion of a Plan that said we'd get there when we get there and do the most important things first. Joy says, "I like Steve and Emie's idea of planning. I'm just not very successful at it. They made the trip much more enjoyable." So I think I'm a flexible guy.

WELL. Enter Hyrum and Joy.

Joy says to me, that she needs my help scheduling her time with Hyrum when he gets back from school. "He does well with structure." So we sat down two weeks ago Sunday night for and I helped her write a Real Schedule, with actual time lines and activities and Structure. She loves it. She lives it. It works. "I'm even becoming a little bit flexible with it."

"At snack time Thursday ... Snack time has become a time to talk about what is going to happen in the rest of our day or things about school.

Hyrum asked Joy if they could play with something. Joy told him, no, not yet. After snack time was Jesus time (when they would read his scriptures and watch a video) and after Jesus time was Hyrum Choose.

"So they he said: 'After choice time?'
"I said, 'After Hyrum Choose is Free Time, and you can play with xxxx then.'
"He said, 'After Free Time?'
"'Is dinner.'
"'After dinner?'
"Family fun time.
"'After family fun time?'
....

And they went on like that through SUNDAY! Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and through Church, he asked "After ....?" and Mommy told him. It was quite the little conversation. She commented at the time something to the effect of - Boy, no sooner do I get a schedule put together but he detects it and wants to know it!

Today we're in church. He asked to eat his lunch. I said no, not yet. It's time for the sacrament. You can eat lunch after the sacrament.
He said, 'After lunch?'
I anticipated: After lunch you go to nursery, and after nursery we drop off the Furies, and you go home and have snack time and a nap, then we have home teachers coming over and ....
He was happy.

"Oh, but you misinterepet. Because there's time between lunch and nursery when we're still in Sacrament meeting and..."
Yes, dear, I am still not the planner you are. I do not account for each minute.
"Yes, but he is expecting to go to nursery RIGHT after lunch, and it's been a problem."

So we have a literal son who cares about scheduling and a flexible Dad who helps schedule everyone else but wants to not have to go into detail and ....

The Curse Works!

Book Review: Understanding the Book of Mormon

For Christmas I got Grant Hardy's Understanding the Book of Mormon: A Reader's Guide. It came recommended by Bushman, a name I respect even if I haven't read his work yet, and looked like a different kind of scriptural study than I had done before. Hardy was the chief editor of the Reader's Edition of the Book of Mormon published a few years ago, so he is intimately familiar with it and its structure in ways few others are.

I like it overall and there are several parts of it that I'm going to take particular note of and jot in my own scriptures; but it also has some pretty large flaws (to my way of thinking) that prevent me from universally recommending it. In this post I'm going to talk about the book itself and in another I'll stick to specific things he talks about that I want to comment on or remember.

Miracle in Sierra Leone

I was most fascinated to read the following account today about some of the first Latter-day Saints (Mormons) in Sierra Leone. The first converts in Freetown were baptized in 1988. By 1990 there were a number of LDS congregations with chapels, including several in Bo, second largest city in Sierra Leone. But then in January 1991, Ezra Taft Benson - then president of the church - sent a letter to the local leadership, Brother Touray,

in which he asked the Saints in Bo to abandon their meetinghouses and to gather again in their homes to worship. The young leaders were very discouraged, feeling that the buildings were such an important milestone for the Church in this part of Sierra Leone.
Uniformly, members were disappointed and unhappy about the request. Some members of the infant congregations were offended that the prophet in Utah would give such unwelcome advice. Others were heard to question whether or not the prophet understood their circumstances, and, lacking faith in the Lord's servants, they left the Church. Others felt the stirring of testimony and confirmation of the Spirit, and while they didn't understand why President Benson would ask such a thing, they knew him to be a prophet. They had also come to trust their mission president who they loved. President Touray spoke recently of those days with grateful appreciation. He was sad and discouraged, but "recognized that we had been given a formal commandment, and I had to obey. I realized it would be very important for us to obey although I did not know why at the time." The chapel doors were closed.
In March 1991, civil war erupted in Sierra Leone and this little nation became engulfed in a fiery battle that lasted more than a decade. Communities collapsed, infrastructures deteriorated, banks were shuttered, food was in scarce supply and repeated military coups left uncertainty as to who was a friend or foe. Churches were frequently targeted by the rebels with bullets and firebombs, and thousands of people lost their lives while sitting on pews hoping to pray and worship.
But the members of the Lord's Church were safe from this harm for they were home worshiping in obedience to a prophet's counsel.
President Touray spoke of the miracle that had come to the people because of their obedience. "No member of the Church died in Bo during the war — not one. The LDS Church was the only church that continued operating during the war in Bo — the only one. Every other church closed its doors. It was too dangerous for the people to walk to church and too dangerous to sit and worship. None of us (the Latter-day Saints) had any problem during the war. We worshipped through the whole war no matter how grave the situation was. Because we were obedient, our members received this great blessing."

The Christmas Bride

For our church Christmas party, each organization was supposed to come up with a song or a sketch or something to perform. As I told the elders, I LIVE for this stuff. So I was put in charge of coming up with a sketch. I pitched several ideas and the one that stuck was a parody of The Princess Bride. I got my food policy textbook off to the publisher by Thursday and wrote the script. The main players rehearsed it that night and we performed Friday. So the fight scene is completely impromptu. A friend recorded it and put it on YouTube. Sorry for the background noises of children, but you can hear us pretty well for the most part. The video is below the fold or linked here.

Hyrum really really sings

I know I've reported on Hyrum's progress in learning how to sing and called it Hyrum sings. Today he really did it!

He is currently enamored of the Hallelujah Chorus and Hark All Ye Nations, both with fairly recognizable rhythms. Today at church Hyrum ran up to a random member and sang, "Dun dun da-dun dun! Dun dun da-dun!" The fellow looked at Hy for a moment, and responded with the next line of the song, also in dun-duns. Hyrum looked very happy and ran off again.

In other cute news, Joy and Hyrum walked in to the chapel as the bishop was welcoming everyone. Hyrum looked up at him and said, "Hello." The bishop was surprised, but recovered quickly and welcomed Hyrum in particular, "Hello, Hyrum."

The number one part of going home or being at home is the Christmas tree lights. He just wnats to see the lights and talk about the lights and touch the lights and put toys in the lights (or talk about Mario - tonight the Angel Mario visited Mary, who then visited her cousin Peach who gave birth to baby Luigi. The Angel Gabriel visited Joseph Smith instead.)

One person's faith vs anti-Mormon literature

The person is Greg Smith. Last year he explained to a conference of people interested in the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that at one point in his life someone had thrown some anti-Mormon literature at him. He had to figure out what he was going to do about it. Below the fold is most of what he said about his personal journey to find answers.

In short, his prayed that he would trust God and not leave Him, then asked if following up a line of serious research and study on the question would damaging to his spiritual life. His spiritual life and commitment couldn't wait the years it would take to answer his questions thoroughly. So he had to make a choice first and trust God for the rest. It was a consecration of his mind. He testifies that that particular prayer was answered and that the results of his further prayer and study have more than repaid him for any sacrifice he might have offered along the way. The bottom line is: Do you trust Father?

Hyrum recites 1:1

At stake conference in my parents' ward, we heard the son of a general authority praise his mother for being a strict scriptorian. ... unless that's scriptorienne. In either case, he urged us all to begin memorizing scriptures post haste.

I realized this would be an ideal way to teach Hyrum. He enjoys repetition like nothing else, so our family fun time now includes a brief scripture recitation. ... But where to start? I know!

After one week, here is our 2.5 year old reciting his first memorized scripture with something not far from glee. [Blogspot is still having problems with videos. Hope this works.]

For those of you who don't speak toddler [Mommy needed to hear it twice], that's the first article of faith "We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost." The first take was pretty hilarious. He said, "We believe in God the Eternal let me see the pictures please" as he reached out for the camera. The camera has a silent mode, but I prefer calling it the stealth mode: he performs much better when he doesn't know he's being preserved.

We think the next few will be short statements about each member of the Godhead. Not sure which we'll do for the Father [Mos 4:9? 2N 2:24? Matt 6:9-10?], but John 3:16 and John 14:26 are likely to be the next two. Section 130:22 may feature in there somewhere too. We'll see. There are so many good scriptures to choose from! Especially if you include short statements from longer passages.

Not that there's any rush. It's just exciting.

Are you in there?

Hyrum is sick today, so we're doing church via Mormon Messages and VeggieTales and seminary videos. We both really liked this one and it seemed particularly appropriate after the last post to include this one:

LDS in Europe

Pres. Monson's involvement with my former missionary stomping grounds is fairly well known. I did not know about Elder Nelson's responsibilities:

Elder Russell M. Nelson of the Quorum of the Twelve currently has "first contact responsibility" for the First Presidency over Europe — an assignment he first received a quarter century ago when open borders, recognition of religions and allowance of missionary work were unthinkable.
He recalled the first meeting of the First Presidency and the Twelve after President Benson succeeded President Kimball after the latter's passing in November 1985. At the meeting, the twelve apostles were given their new worldwide supervisory assignments.
"They started at the senior end of the circle and got around to the junior end where I was and said 'Brother Nelson, your assignment is to be in charge of the church in Europe and Africa, with a specific assignment to open all the countries that are now under the yoke of communism,' " he said.
"I'll never forget that day."

I bet he won't! You want me to move which mountain where?

Upon receiving the assignment, Elder Nelson made two lists of European countries — one of nations where the church was then established, and one where it wasn't. "There were more countries where it was not established than where it had been established, even though we as a church had been in Europe for 150 years," he said.
... "Brother Oaks and I told President Benson before he died (on May 30, 1994) that the assignment given me in 1985 was now completed, with the church established in every country in Europe."

As Pres. Monson said in 08, let's go move some more mountains!

There remain, however, areas of the world where our influence is limited and where we are not allowed to share the gospel freely. As did President Spencer W. Kimball over 32 years ago, I urge you to pray for the opening of those areas, that we might share with them the joy of the gospel. As we prayed then in response to President Kimball’s pleadings, we saw miracles unfold as country after country, formerly closed to the Church, was opened. Such will transpire again as we pray with faith.

A Baptism

One day at church, I was surprised to see a colleague with the sister missionaries. She was surprised and delighted to find a familiar face amidst a sea of unfamiliarity. She and her family had visited Temple Square where a sister had told them about eternal families and their hearts were touched by the Holy Spirit. They asked to know more.

I joined her and the missionaries when they met together; I stopped by her office occasionally to talk about religion and food policy; Joy and I had her over to dinner and she returned the favor. It soon became apparent that the question was not whether or not she would discover the truth of the gospel but when she would realize she already knew. Other members stepped in to support, answer questions, and befriend.

Then came the happy day when she declared that she had learned through prayer that Jesus Christ had spoken to Joseph Smith and called him as a prophet, that the Book of Mormon was translated by the gift and power of God, and that this is God's church on earth. She asked me to baptize and confirm her a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

This was a glorious and beautiful day to me. Though there were people I had taught as a missionary in Germany who were eventually baptized, I had not gone into the water to baptize anyone before. (In fact, even if one of them had asked me to do it, I would have tried to give the honor and the connection to a local member who would stay in the area longer than I.) It was a deep honor and an answer to over a decade of prayer.

The day of the baptism (the 14th) was a beautiful one. It felt like being at the temple. The bishop mentioned he had never been to a more Spirit-ually charged baptism. Her faith and courage are amazing. She is almost certain to face persecution for her choice among friends and other colleagues. But she stood valiantly and declared her willingness to answer to any person why she believes in the gospel. Many people were moved. Hyrum hasn't stopped talking about it either. How supremely thankful I am that we're still in Ithaca so that I could be there to be one part of supporting one of God's children, whom He had clearly prepared long before this to accept the truth when it was presented to her.

Notable milestones

Except for the early years of the Restoration, there has been no nation in which a temple has been built within two decades after the Church was introduced.

Let's hear it for the Kyiv [that's Kiev to most of you] Ukraine Temple!

Pioneer Day: The Rest of the Story

I celebrated Pioneer Day by flying to the Rockies (one state to the east) in great comfort for a work conference. I walked a mile to church (and back), honoring my ancestors. Elder Marlin K. Jensen, as part of the celebrations in Utah, discussed the mostly forgotten stories of the Native American tribes who lived there before the pioneers arrived.

With villages and camps clustered primarily in the valleys but also in arid locations usually near water sources, the Indians regarded the land as sacred and were strongly attached to it, he said. "The land and its bounty were critical to their existence." Unfortunately, useful land was scarce, he noted. "From the day the 1847 pioneers first put their plows in the ground, "settlement" for them would mean displacement for Indians." 

Though there was sometimes conflict, he emphasized the attempts on both sides to respect, tolerate, and accommodate.

He quoted the reminiscence of Velate Richardson who, when interviewed at age 99, credited Indians with teaching Mormon pioneers how to survive: "Grandmother praised the Indians. [She said] they wasn't any meaner than we was."
Elder Jensen also quoted a written recollection of Lewis Barney regarding a dispute that arose after Indian women were allowed to glean grain from Mormon fields after harvest. A few of them took grain standing in the shocks, and the farmers then withdrew permission. After one farmer drove some Indian women off his land, an indignant chief approached Brother Barney, and said, "This is our land and this is our water, our grass, our valleys, and this is our wheat. I will have this field and this wheat."
The chief then said he would kill Brother Barney and raised his rifle. Brother Barney caught hold of the barrel. After several minutes of scuffling, the chief gave up, eyed his adversary, and began to laugh. They agreed to be friends. Brother Barney told him to send the women into the fields and glean all they wanted and they would not be molested.
"This account clearly reveals the differing points of view of settlers and Indians," Elder Jensen remarked. "In the settlers' view, the land was not theirs and the Indians needed permission to go on it and enjoy its fruit. The Indian view was that the land had been and still was theirs and having given the settlers permission to plant crops, Indians should now rightfully share in the harvest." ...

"In think telling the rest of the story requires one to acknowledge that Indians made sincere and often heroic efforts to absorb the tide of Mormon emigrants and to peacefully and even symbiotically co-exist with them," he said. Yet eventually, relations deteriorated and were similar to those in other parts of the West, he said.
"Regardless of how one views the equities of Indian-Mormon relations in those times, the end result was that the land and cultural birthright Indians once possessed in the Great Basin were taken from them," he said. "As tragic as that is, history cannot be unlived. What we can do, the least we can do from a distance of 160 years is to acknowledge and appreciate the monumental loss this represents on the part of Utah's Indians. That loss and its 160-year aftermath are the rest of the story.
"We can also work until the rest of the story becomes an integral part of the story; until Wakara, Wanship, Washakie and Black Hawk have their appropriate place in Utah's history books as well as Brigham, Heber and Parley; until Utah's history includes Indian history and July 24th commemorates everyone's contribution to our state's unique past."

Response to Canaries with Gray on Their Wings

Last month's home teaching message retold a story by Pres. Monson about a widow who had three canaries. When she died, she instructed that

Two, with perfect yellow coloring, were to be given to her friends. The third, Billie, had yellow coloring marred by gray on his wings. Sister McKee had written in a note to me: “Will you and your family make a home for him? He isn’t the prettiest, but his song is the best.”

My first thoughts and the discussion we had when our home teachers came over to tell us about it centered on identifying our strengths and making them shine. I heard several other people respond to the story in a very similar vein. We all have at least one talent, though some are more visible than others, and we need to let them shine.

We do well to focus our attention more on our strengths than our weaknesses. We do better to focus our attention more on other people's strengths than on their weaknesses. Give praise and thanks where it's due and all that.

There's one little thing we forgot: this is Pres. Monson we're talking about. The young Tommy raised pigeons. PIGEONS, for crying out loud. Compared to canaries they aren't merely "not the prettiest," they're downright ugly. Outwardly, they are failed doves. They fail as songbirds too: having never learned to whistle, they are content to hum. They scavenge in cities and poop on statues and ... for some reason, Tommy loved them.

The canary had nothing to prove. It did not need a "strength" or a "talent" in order to be loved, accepted, appreciated, and honored in the Monson household. Not because it was any better than the pigeons, but because the Monson household was one of love where birds and people could be accepted in and through and because of their weakness, rather than despite it.

The canary couldn't do anything about the gray in its wings. There is no canary Rogaine. Some of our weaknesses are going to be very long term, and the fact is that our weakness (not weaknessES, but weakness) is part and parcel of our mortality.

The sooner and more fully we can love ourselves in and through - yes, even because of - our weakness, the happier we will be. The more we can love others in their weakness, the happier we all will be.

The Redeemer chose imperfect people to teach the way to perfection. He did so then. He does so now—even yellow canaries with gray on their wings. He calls you and me to serve Him here below. Our commitment must be total. And in our struggle, should we stumble, let us plead: “Lead us, oh lead us, great Molder of men, out of the darkness to strive once again.

Inspiring Experiences That Build Faith

Joy got this book for Christmas and I just finished reading it today. Inspiring Experiences That Build Faith: From the Life and Ministry of Thomas S. Monson is a collection of Pres. Monson [who?] anecdotes organized by general topic. The two most plentiful are service and missionary work. Other sections include faith, prayer, testimony, stories about other people (aka examples of the believers), and humor. People who have paid attention to him will recognize many of the stories, but given the number I could rattle off that weren't included, it's still only a small sampling of his wit and wisdom. Rather than describe his stories, I wanted to share a few of the reactions and things I learned in them.

As I made my way through the service section, I had two questions that kept coming predominantly to my mind: Why don't *I* have experiences like that? and Why *don't* I have experiences like that? :)

One answer from the Spirit reminded me that in all of his stories, there are at least two people. Even if I couldn't see myself in Pres. Monson's shoes, I could readily see myself in the hospital bed, the priest in the grease pit, or the widow in the rest home, all visited by God's tender mercies. He has often been mindful of me and, in special ways, let me know He was aware of me. These stories aren't about what a great guy Pres. Monson is, but rather how God knows each of His children and loves them. Gratitude replaced guilt and ended envy ... or at least moved the emphasis in my question from myself to a sincere question.

Another answer came from reading a story where, rather than simply being instructed to stop his car at someone's home or having a phone call come to him from someone in the distant past, he mentioned how much he had prayed for and about the family he had visited. The question came to me: How often have you prayed about your sheep? Not nearly often enough. I've been repenting.

One of the stories he told from the mission over which he presided reminded me of difficult days from my mission. Though I had loved the people in that area, I loved them to sorrow as strife, hurt feelings, and apostasy slowly tore the unit - and families - apart. I have been reluctant to think about that area in the years in between, preferring to reminisce about my first area where I loved the people to rejoicing. His story helped me reach out again, though, to learn what has happened to the people I prayed and wept over. Though the news hasn't been good so far, Pres. Monson's stories helped me to rekindle love and feel the healing that has happened over the years.

Most of the stories are from his own life and are in roughly chronological order, so this can be a good reference tool for teachers. The number one thing I missed was a collection of his sermons about death and resurrection. As perhaps the Church's most requested funeral orator, he has spent a lot of time pondering and preaching about these most important topics.