Missionary Update, All Saints Day, The Grail Quest Fulfilled

Yes, I couldn't be happier with my senior service missionary experience. The Church History Library is amazing! I was trained on document delivery which I won't go into as we're all behind security barriers. I can assure you that everything is very well protected to the max. I agree there should be more and easier access to all, but I'm not in charge and I will attempt my long-suffering persuasion to the extent that I can.

It is the greatest joy that two themes in my life have merged and I find myself viewing the Grail after traversing the wasteland of my legal career. I'm finishing up Joseph Campbell's Romance of the Grail and all things become interrelated in his mythic synergy. Outside of his book, I still make connections as I near the Nirvana of the Ten Steps of the Bull. Here, I am at step 7. The Bull Transcended (Bull Forgotten, Self Alone).

A Glimpse of my 2nd-Great Grandmother Vaughn

They must have liked the hymn "How Firm a Foundation" in the Ogden Third Ward Relief Society. They appear to have sung it at least every other meeting.

My 2nd-Great Grandmother, "Sr. Isabella Baun was sustained into [their] society" on 1 August 1888, a year after her arrival from England. In those days, it wasn't automatic that LDS ladies would be members of the Relief Society. You had to join and apparently be "sustained" regardless of whether the secretary could spell your name.

The Ogden Third Ward had a meeting house on the Tabernacle square, but the Relief Society often met in the "vestry of the tabernacle." That was a grand building indeed!

Ogden Tabernacle, on the block where the Temple is today.

South Pass

Looking West from South Pass. Pacific Butte on the left.

"Top of the World," some say even if it is not a peak and hardly a pass in the traditional sense of crossing mountains. One does have a sense of a spherical earth dropping down in nearly every direction (Wind River Range on the north excluded).

My grandson and I had a wonderful trip exploring portions of the Overland Trail in Wyoming in commemoration of the day after Pioneer Day and my wife's birthday, as she is out of town. The OT refers to four recognized trails that crossed here although Native Peoples have crossed here for millennia. The trails are: Oregon, California, Mormon Pioneer, and the Pony Express. We could also add in the Astorians in 1812, Mountain Men, the Whitman-Spaulding Missionaries of 1836, some commercial stage lines, the overland telegraph, and many visitors, but only us two last Tuesday.

As one of our purposes was family history, I will illustrate a few sites with reference to the Ellsworth Handcart Company of 1856 with my direct-line ancestor, Elinor Jenkins Vaughan, her daughter Jane Vaughan Lewis, Jane's husband John Lewis, and their son, John Samuel Lewis. They crossed South Pass on September 13, the 96th day out from Iowa City. They camped three miles down this road at Pacific Springs which can't be seen but is at the base of Pacific Butte on the left, just before the small ridge, just left of center. My Grandson and I walked down and back to get a feel for the trail. It was a good walk and a better talk.

At one point, I explained that while pioneer children may have sung as they walked and walked, they were probably not always happy. I told him that he was big enough that he would likely have helped with the family handcart, but the younger children above toddler age would get up, have a breakfast of biscuits and tea (long before Pres. Grant started enforcing the Word of Wisdom) and head out on the road in a group led by adults while the others packed up the camp. Eventually, the handcarts would pass the children. Then, the two or three wagons with the company would pass as the oxen were slower than people with handcarts. Hopefully, the new camp would be ready when the children came in. We imagined that mothers might have gone back up the trail to meet their children if they weren't needed for cooking or setting up their camp. I also explained that the children were sometimes guided by the adults with long sticks, like a gaggle of geese. And they were poked or prodded (or worse) if they lagged.

Guest Post - The Camino de Santiago de Compostela, Part II

An Update from my friends on the pilgrims' trail:

Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Day 26 of Walking

Molinaseca, Spain

Despite bad weather and an incipient overuse injury, our walk of the Camino is going well. Our days have become predictable, repetitive and simple. I like it. 

By my GPS we have walked 280 miles in 26 days--almost 15 miles per day at a pace of 2.5 miles per hour or a little more. We now go a bit shorter and slower most days than we did at the start because tendinitis at the ankle is a problem. 

Guest Post - The Camino de Santiago de Compostela

This is a uniquely special guest blog from my old boss and friend (who's not really that old). He retired a few years ago and has been encouraging me to do the same ever since I was eligible. We'll see . . .

I sure to love and admire his sense of adventure. He and his wife, "B," are emailing and posting photos on Facebook of their current adventure. I'll let him tell his story:

Priesthood Leadership Training with President Russell M. Nelson

Our Ward Selfie. Left to right, the Bishop's Counselor, our Elders Quorum President, and this blogger.

There was much more to this wonderful meeting last Saturday than the question I asked and the later, tragic connection.

Notice went out just a few days ahead of time that the Stake Presidencies, each Bishop-or a Counselor, the High Priest Group Leader-or an Assistant, and the Elders Quorum President-or a Counselor from each ward were invited to a muti-stake, Saturday morning training session with President Russell M. Nelson, President of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles and other General Authorities of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The call to me came from our Stake Exec Sec who happens to be my son-in-law's father. As a shortened relationship status, we refer to each other as Co-Grandpas.

The meeting involved seven or eight stakes and we met in a stake center in North Centerville filling the chapel with no overflow but packed in with a few extra folding chairs added. Just before the meeting began we were invited to file by, row by row, to shake hands with President Nelson and the others. I gave Elder Ulisses Soares, of the Presidents of the Seventy, a hearty "Bem-vindo, Elder Soares!" as he is native Brazilian. He conducted the meeting and noted in opening the warm greetings he had from several in Portuguese or Spanish.

Also present on the stand was a Seventy from our Area Presidency, newly called, Elder Gene Chidester, President Spendlove from the Salt Lake City North Mission, and President Winegar of the Bountiful Temple. Only later did I learn that their wives were at a similar training session with the women leaders of the same stakes and wards as my daughter went as part of a Primary Presidency. She said Sister Nelson spoke for two-hours straight!

My rough notes follow in my usual style, occasionally enhanced with notes shared by my bishopric counselor buddy:

Ancient Books Become More Real Ankhs to King Hezekiah

There was news this week of an amazing archaeological discovery in Jerusalem. A personal seal of King Hezekiah of Judah (about 739-687 BC) imprinted in clay.

Actual size about an inch across.
(Courtesy of Dr. Eilat Mazar; Photo by Ouria Tadmor)

According to Hebrew University, the writing says, "Belonging to Hezekiah [son of]Ahaz King of Judah." It depicts a winged sun with ankhs on either side. On the reverse there is evidence of strands of binding that likely went around some document.

The image of the ankh really astounded me. I knew it from my grade school fascination with King Tutankhamen and all things Egyptian. (There it is again right in the middle of King Tut's name!)  It is the symbol for "life." As it is often associated with gods, pharaohs, and funerary ceremonies (as most things are in Egypt), it is a symbol of "eternal life."

The winged sun is pretty interesting itself. It doesn't take a lot of extrapolation to interpret a celestial sun directed upward flanked by symbols of eternal life. Tell me if I'm stretching any here.

I'm no Hebrew expert so I have to trust the translation of the ancient script provided. The mix of Hebrew letters and Egyptians symbols are no surprise for the historical era as Egypt was rather dominant in the region with the Kingdom of Judah squeezed between it and Assyria.

And as much as I hate apologetics, I love Hugh Nibley. Am I going too far to notice "the learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians?"

Ride Bull At Six

Yes, I am a bit enigmatic and philosophical today. A matching clue is in the title of a Cat Stevens Album cover I used to stare at as I tried to figure out what it meant. That was in caveman days before the internet.

We went with some friends to see the Scottish play last night. The Cedar City Shakespeare Festival had its school-touring group at the Cultural Center in West Valley with an abbreviated version of Macbeth. They didn't seem to have cut out any of the murders or blood. It was a bit odd with an abbreviated cast with some playing several different roles. "Is that Banquo's ghost again? No, he's just a door guard."

Lady Macbeth was played well but by a short, light-haired woman. No one will ever match the one and only Lady Macbeth, my 11th-grade English teacher. Tall, dark, beautiful, and scary. That's the play we studied with her as my friends and I memorized all the lines with swear words in them. "Lay on, MacDuff! And DAMNED be him who first cries, "Hold, enough!"

Superstar Faith Crises - 2014, 1972, and 33 or so A.D.

My first true twitterpation was with a dear girl a year older than me. That made her within the Mormon cultural expectation of no-dating-before-16, but I, alas, was only fifteen. Of course she was Lutheran so the whole thing didn't matter from her perspective.

She wore a red velvet cape in cooler weather. She was into Mary Stewart's Hollow Hills and Egyptian mummies, especially how they took the brains out with a hook through the nose. She loved the word "goodly." What was there not to like? And she was a big fan of Andrew Lloyd Webber's and Tim Rice's Jesus Christ Superstar (1970).

Well aware that many consider the Rock Opera heretical and spiritually offense, I have no problem if you skip this posting. I worried about it back then. There was guidance from my church that it was irreverent and offensive. A girl in my ward, also a year or two older than I, once gave a talk about how she stood for her religious principles and refused to sing "Hosanna" from Superstar with the school choir. I had seen her down at Juanita Beach attempting a tan on her back with the top of her two-piece untied, so I didn't give much heed to what she said (Yes, I was very judgmental in those days for which I repent).

Sam Brown's Basic Principles and the Temple - The Body of Christ

There is an excellent review of Dr. Brown's book by George Handley at Patheos. I'm right there with George in his interpretation and recommendation. This is not so much a book review of Samuel Morris Brown's First Principles and Ordinances: The Fourth Article of Faith in Light of the Temple (Maxwell Institute, BYU, Provo, 2014), as it is a thematic introspection taking off from his ideas. Hopefully with the Holy Spirit, and a sharing with you, the reader.

The basic principles of the Gospel - Faith, Repentance, Baptism and other ordinances, and the Holy Ghost - all enduring to the end are very important to me. I think they are a process of a lifetime. And here we have Sam taking those basic principle pretty deep in his linking to the Temple and the idea I hadn't really thought about so profoundly how those principles and ordinances are not accomplished just individually but as a people. We need each other. And that stretches over families, generations, congregations, priesthoods, and a living Faith evidenced through our choices and actions in Hope that our meager efforts will accomplish good and affirm the Faith we strive for.

Brigham Young and a Letter on Apostasy

Some may be wondering with John Lewis lying dead on the floor of a gold-rush saloon. And we are not fully convinced yet, but are pursuing some pretty good leads that Jane (1827) remarried Abednego Johns in Jacks Valley, Nevada and joined the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And there is some indication that Elinor Jenkins Vaughan Hulet may have been with her, died between 1860-62, and was buried there. But the RLDS baptisms did not occur until at least 1865, after the Civil War.

1862 US Survey of Jacks Valley, Nevada. Courtesy of the Bureau of Land Managment, US Dept. of the Interior.
Abednego John's patent was for the S 1/2 of the NE 1/4 of Sec. 22, and the S 1/2 of the NW 1/4 of Sec. 23.
The surveyor, while getting all the land features pretty well (doncha just love these old surveys?) marked A. Johns's house as "A. Johnson."

There were a lot worse things than the RLDS Church (now "The Community of Christ). They had the Book of Mormon, a good part of the Doctrine & Covenants, the Holy Bible and a commitment to the Prophet Joseph Smith (w/o plural marriage). If you had landed in Utah in the midst of the Mormon Reformation, a very bad winter, and the upcoming Utah War, Springville was about the second worse place to be. I don't blame anyone for leaving. It's not my responsibility to judge. And it's not like we've not ever had anyone else in the family choose less activity in the church.

A Letter from Nephi to Abergavenny

While searching for other things, serendipity gave me a great glimpse into a Welshman's view of pioneer days in Utah. It appeared in the The Usk Observer, Abergavenny and Raglan Herald, Pontypool Messenger, and Monmouthshire Central Advertiser* of Saturday, July 25, 1857. That was the day after the 24th of July Pioneer Celebration up at Silver Lake when Brother Brigham learned that federal troops were on their way to Utah to put down an alleged rebellion of tyrannical despotism. Most of the newspaper articles published in Britain concerning Mormonism were more similar to President Buchanan's views of Utah.

MORMONISM,-The following letter is from a Patriarch in the Mormon Camp, to his Brother at Abergavenny.
Nephi City, February, 1857.

Fake Brigham Young - Real Wyoming Plains

My boy is going on Trek. I am so grateful not to be going. OK, maybe I am a little jealous because they are going on a real piece of the trail just west of Ft. Bridger. But having lived in Southwestern Wyoming for a year (that seemed like at least ten) I have had enough experience on the high plains.

Up there, they measure the snowfall on the sides of houses. They spread coal dust instead of salt on the roads. There are only two seasons- Winter, and if your lucky, July. In July, the afternoon winds whip up the dust, then the thunderclouds rain mud. You have no idea how much improved Rock Springs is now that they have a Walmart! Oh yeah, I love Southwestern Wyoming.

Currently, my aunt and uncle are serving as church missionaries up there in support of Stake Pioneer Treks. I've warned both them and my boy in case they find each other. Actually, this is one of my dear aunts who is like a big sister to me. Her husband is a retired judge and not a bad guy. They posted a picture of what the trek trail looked like last week:

Yup. That's Midsummer in Wyoming

The Doctrine of Non-Infallibilty

Anonymous D shared a great insight with me that he gave me permission to pass on:

Catholics have a doctrine of infallibility that many don't really believe, and Mormons don't have a doctrine of infallibility even if many think there is one.

Now, I mean no offense to my Catholic friends who belong to a great Christian tradition. Having survived schism, crusade, inquisition, reformation, revolution, and many difficulties in history, it is a mature church. They seem to be adjusting well to a new Pope who seems to be a sincere Franciscan and true Christian. I don't even think that's all that incompatible with my Faith.

I also mean no disrespect to my Mormon friends as the relatively young Church of Jesus-Christ of Latter-day Saints seems to be in its teenage years dealing with internal doubt and growing pains. It wasn't much fun for me going through my own teen angst. And somehow, in those difficult years and my young adulthood, I was able to face the fascinating aspects of Mormon history and doctrine that seem to be giving some so much trouble these days. I'm still surprised when members claim surprise this far along.

Gone to Zion

Winter Quarters just got a bit more real for me.

Winter Quarters, Nebraska Territory. Winter of 1846-47.

The LDS Branch established by Elder John Needham in Llanfoist, Monmouthshire, just couldn't have ended in failure! Well, my ancestors joined the church forty years later up in Durham after the example of their grandmother, Elinor Jenkins Vaughan, baptized in Llanfoist in 1841.

Conference Recap (and Disney)

We heard the Sunday Afternoon session on the radio as we had made it to Mesquite, Nevada. There was nothing in the deadly desert of California to pick up on the radio. Conference sessions and talks are all uploaded on the Church's website already. Transcripts will soon follow. There are also highlight clips of talks that I particularly liked. Click on the pics to see video and read the excepts:

President Uchtdorf, Sunday Morning

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Twelve

Bullies and Heroes

Scout-posted flag for Presidents Day, 2013
Washington's Birthday (and Lincoln's) on a Monday

Something is happening here. And with apologies to Buffalo Springfield, what it is ain't exactly clear.

I already committed to fight bullying in Scouting. There's not much I've done directly, but I try to influence boys for the good when I can. I'm now Troop Committee Chair so I do get involved in Boards of Review, Courts of Honor, and I help out when I can like with the flags on holidays.

My wife is working on BSA National Council committees to rewrite some handbooks and adult training curricula. She also teaches Science in Jr. High. We often talk about kids and bullying and maybe my influence is through her as she has so much more clout in these things. Although she hardly needs me to do the right thing to address bullying.

And then this seems to tie right back to the whole Scouting and Gay policy thing and the current review of the recent review that is now going on. I've stated my position that the BSA ought to at least accept the current official LDS Church position that same-sex attraction is not  wrong and to be concerned only with the behavioral aspects. There have always been Gays in Scouting, there are now, and always will be. I see no problem in acknowledging it and keeping proper behavioral standards. I mean, Scouting isn't supposed to be about any kind of sexual activity. And it shouldn't be about denying reality either. But I won't speculate further as to what the LDS Church or Scouting may do with this. I've made my views known to the local council leadership.

That Whosoever Believeth in Him

"Should not perish but have everlasting life." John 3:16

That was the assignment to speak on for my 10-minute Christmas talk today in Sacrament Meeting. A Sister just two houses down was assigned the first part of the scripture. I called her yesterday to make sure our messages were complimentary and mainly that she wasn't going to use the same scriptures I was planning to use. I think we're OK.

I post here to lay our my thoughts with a scheduled publication to match my approximate delivery - not that anyone in my ward reads this blog much. My wife said this all sounds a little self-indulgent. I tried to explain that was the purpose of blogging . . . .

My method is to concentrate on pondering the scriptures and the theme and my talk will likely come out a little different that what I write here. I hope any changes reflect the influence of the Holy Spirit and not just my human stumbling. (And I admit helpful input from my dear wife). But I'd better just move on to the talk:

Merry Conference Eve!

Tomorrow is a Saturday to sit back, listen, take notes, and amazingly share them with the world. The church is even encouraging this. So, here we are. [You can always find conference at this link.]

In Which We "Niggle" J.K. Rowling on Grand Themes from J.R.R. Tolkien

On watching Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 on Blu-ray (which is pretty cool by the way), the reminder came that J.K. Rowling was clearly influenced by Tolkien. I think she's admitted this, but it became fairly obvious in  Harry's great life-after-death scene in King's Cross Station  where Dumbledore uses a single word that connected me back to my favorite Tolkien story Leaf by Niggle.

In the station, Harry asks Dumbledore what is to happen to him now. Dumbledore responds, "We're in King's Cross, you say. I think if you so desire you'd be able to board a train."

"And where would it take me?"

"On."