"To the Welsh"

I finished reading Llyfr Mormon, The Book of Mormon in Welsh. My system was not to translate every word or understand every grammatical structure. I simply read it along with the original English translation of Joseph Smith which was done by the gift and power of God. Mine was more for the general sense of it and I cannot deny that I felt the Spirit of God witness in the language of my ancient fathers and mothers.

RHYDDID!

It seems important to state today if only to reassure my few readers, much less myself, that I still believe in God and in the United States of America. This is true even if I go to church today without a blazingly bold tie in red, white, and blue. I'm thinking of the one my Dad gave me some time ago with the Frank Lloyd Wright designs on it. That's a more subtle homage to the American Spirit as well as his Welsh ancestry.

Returning to Church - or not....

An email drafted for my Bishop and EQ President that I'm not sure if I should send. Comments?

I just got my second Covid shot and I'm feeling pretty good about that.

I posted on Facebook that I'm looking forward to meeting with friends again in a couple of weeks as long as they were also vaccinated and still wear a mask in public places (-pretty much the standard of my mission to be in the Church History Library). But if I were to apply that standard to meeting with the ward how long would it be? Am I wrong to assume that it's probably never?

Solstice 2020: Ebenezer II

"Here I raise my Ebenezer

Here there by Thy great help I've come
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure
Safely to arrive at home."

Stone of Remembrance.

My Grandson and I found it up on the side of the mountain when we were gathering smaller stones together for my latest rock garden. I've been trying to convince someone in the family quarantine circle to help me go get it. I had rolled it over by myself, but I knew I wouldn't get it into the car alone. Oh, on the day of discovery we were too dog-tired after a hike to lift it in.

My wife did not want to go fearing that I would drop it on her foot. She finally coordinated my eldest, her son, and our A-5 (fifth child) to go up there after the Juneteenth March in Centerville for racial equality and justice. (Probably deserves another blog post.) They seemed okay and the four of us lifted in in and out of the Rav-4 without any feet being smashed.

If only I had taken a photo of it in its natural habitat!

Already prepared my remembrances to lie underneath the stone.

The Water-Fall (Deuel Creek, Centerville Canyon, Davis County, Utah with my Grandson)

The Water-fall

BY HENRY VAUGHAN (1621-1695)

With what deep murmurs through time’s silent stealth

Doth thy transparent, cool, and wat’ry wealth

Here flowing fall,

And chide, and call,

As if his liquid, loose retinue stay’d

Ling’ring, and were of this steep place afraid;

The common pass

Where, clear as glass,

All must descend

Not to an end,

But quicken’d by this deep and rocky grave,

Rise to a longer course more bright and brave.

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).

Check out the Early Missionary Database!

This is a great resource I have previously consulted and offered up a couple of corrections or sources. At present, I may or may not be more involved (I'm still not sure what I am allowed to talk about in sharing my wonderful mission experiences on social media as Elder Uchtdorf has encouraged). See link HERE!

This is just a screen-shot of the publicly available site. Check out the link above! (or here)

So, let me say this. The project is now up to 1939, those missionaries having been born from 1914-1919 are up to their hundred-year mark so privacy concerns have diminished and the pictures we use to link up to the other missionaries in photos are already at least in the Church public domain as we get them from FamilySearch Memories pages.

Mission Training Days 4 & 5: Go Forth!

Our Group of Senior Service Missionaries with the Mission Presidency front, seated.

Yesterday went well. I was just to tired to blog after a day of training then an evening at the local Family History Library.

It's funny (or not) how they tell you only parts of what is happening when you come to it. They did say there would be a week of training to start. And now we hear that we will need a week of training in our assigned areas. Basic retirement was a lot easier. But this is good. And I'm still done by 4:00 so I can come home and take a nap.

The trainers did really well on "Merging," of all things. No crying or general break-downs. It went a bit slow and steady so I found one of my own to merge thanking the Heavens for good Dutch records. Someone had put in an individual as a female reading "Cornilus" as "Cornilia." I could easily check Dutch sources wonderfully laid out on-line recently by the Dutch government to confirm it was a male. We learned some good search techniques too (surprising me a bit with FamilySearch as I usually search with Ancestry).

Mission Journal,1st Day Training

Discrete selfie before devotional.

It still seems so odd to be on a mission without a companion. There was a brief moment where I felt close to my first companion whose funeral I attended last Saturday. I also felt like Grandma Elinor was at my right shoulder. Someone told a story that I can't verify in anyway that a figure from church history was standing over her left shoulder offering spiritual guidance. As I said, Grandma Elinor is on my right.

The setting is much nicer than walking into old Knight Magnum Hall on the edge of  the BYU Campus. The Joseph Smith Building is the Hotel Utah and was quite something in the old days. We opened with the Monday Mission devotional in an old ballroom on the mezzanine level that is now a chapel. The "Elijah" Choir was very good. I could join if I want to hang around Wednesday evenings for practice - and show up for every Monday devotional, I guess.

The message was a presentation on the special projects of the Church History Library that has missionaries assigned. Interestingly, I know three people currently working on three different projects. A woman married to a guy who still works in my old office is on the Emmeline B. Wells project. A guy in my ward is on the Missionary Database, and his wife is on some secret project. I hope I don't get a secret project or these postings will be very short-lived.

Before the devotional, we were handed our missionary name plates and our ID cards. After, we went to the main lobby for pictures with the mission president and then over to the COB ("Church Office Building") for Security to take our pictures and connect them to our cards. Then it was up to the Mission Offices on the 3rd Floor to the training room, a few rows of computers with our name tags on them. I am right up front and center. There's a nice guy on my right, a former advertising man--and a nice sister on my left who apparently has never married because I asked about her Welsh surname. I said I could help her track them down in Wales.

Here are the notes from Sister Sara M. Fenn and then President Jerry D. Fenn of the Mission:

Mission Journal, Part 2. Trying to Get Set Apart

Don't you just love bureaucracies? OK, I have to be less sarcastic to begin my new mission. And I think it's all working out. It is just a bit odd that this volunteering gets the cart a bit before the horse as the downtown mission is already for me to go with my local leaders still waiting for the paperwork.

With the instructions e-mailed to me from my mission contacts downtown confirming that my Bishop should be receiving instructions to set me apart (the spiritual blessing of laying hands on my head to authorize my work and receive guidance through inspiration), I checked with my Bishop's executive secretary to see if anything had been scheduled. He diligently put it on the Bishop's calendar and I passed that on to my family able to attend. Then the Bishop asked where the paperwork was. Well, no paperwork other than the e-mails.

My friends down the street who already serve with me as ward temple and family history consultants are already on a part-time, downtown mission. They had advised me that the paperwork follows the training, so I was expecting this. I told my Bishop not to worry about it as I would just go start training and let things work out.

Religion, Superstition, and Rationality in Scotland

Book Report: The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg (1824)

Flag of Presbyterian Covenanters, National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh

It's great to find a literary classic that I hadn't known before. Reading all I can devour about Scotland helps me be a better tour guide. This one intrigued me as it was listed as an odd book, a religious-psychological thriller that had served as inspiration to another Scot, Robert Louis Stevenson, in writing Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It has sword fights, murder, mayhem, and a couple of strange games of tennis. What's not to like?

The Holy Yew Becomes Holier

"That shady city of Palm Trees. . . ."

Palms don't grow in Britain. There are some surprising palmetto-types along the south and western coasts as the temperate climate is warmed by the Gulf Stream. And as Basil Fawlty explains, Torquay is the Riviera of Britain. . . .

So what do they use for Palm Sunday?

Yes, the Holy Yew!

My distant cousin, Henry Vaughan, knew this. And surprised I was to learn that when he wrote of the Palm Tree, it was the Yew! That poem makes so much more sense now so I share it here thinking of that peaceful resting place below the Yew in Llansantffraed Churchyard.

My Heroes: Widtsoe the Apostle and Vaughan the Silurist

While searching the online version of the British publication of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Millenial Star (1840-1970) for any trace of the Vaughans, I found a couple. Serendipity has its day because it was my distant cousin, Henry Vaughan the Silurist, Metaphysical Poet of the 17th Century. Apparently, LDS Apostle, John A. Widtsoe was a fan.

Just the other day, I was thinking on these same themes, the eternal nature of man and woman and the gift of Agency! And here is Widstoe and Vaughan right on point. I'll just let Dr. Widtsoe take it from here:

Free-Will Families

One of the things I did right when I was a Bishop in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 20 years ago, was to have some really good talks with the combined youth of the ward. One of my favorites was to talk about the joy there is in proper intimate expression between husband and wife and in creating families.

Not everyone has this opportunity due to circumstances of life - and we talked about that. We also talked about how rare it is in the world for a lot of reasons - mostly the unwillingness of males, mainly, to be responsible for sexual expression and the fact of much sexual activity outside of a godly marriage. Even in marriages supposedly done right, there is still a lot of abuse, hurt, and shame. Strangely, while all can sin, most of these are still male-caused problems.

To celebrate the positives and to try and promote agency, responsibility, and the male and female positives in life, I would have a young man stand up and read what Adam said after leaving the Garden and being instructed by the Angel of the Lord:

Emigrant Departure from Waterloo Docks, Liverpool, 1850

The bad news is that the Waterloo Dock in Liverpool was significantly modified in 1868 and is now blocked off by apartments and offices. But we know where it was at the lower end of Waterloo Road just north of Prince's Dock.

The good news is that I found an 1850 article from the Illustrated London News about emigration from Waterloo Docks. Grandma Elinor embarked on the Enoch Train from Waterloo Dock in 1856 for Zion. It couldn't have changed that much in six years.

The article is mostly about Irish emigration because of the potato famines and general conditions of abject poverty. There are important confirmations in the article that ships sailing to and from the United States used Waterloo Docks and that steerage passengers were boarded 24 hours ahead of sailing to be organized below decks and likely to clear space before the saloon (first-class) passengers boarded.

More on Historical Mormon Emigration from Liverpool Docks

Anonymous D and I continue on our project to link up the Mormon Emigration departures to the specific docks at Merseyside in Liverpool, England. D has linked up some old maps with new, public digital maps. We plan to have the docks linked and listed with the ships that departed from them.

Recently while Googling around the Liverpool waterfront, I found four dock markers that are visible to passers-by, possibly in a tourist coach along the Mersey. The route swings by new condos on Prince's Dock where Heber C. Kimball leaped ashore in 1837 then on to Waterloo Road.

We are happy to share with all. I think it would be most fun to take people there, perhaps a coach passenger would be seated high enough to see over the walls into the dock areas. Here's the map:

South to North from the wonderful Liverpool Waterfront public places, we could circle 'round Prince's Dock. Then on Waterloo Road, we could see the old stone markers for Victoria and Trafalgar Docks (across from Costco):

A Star for "The World"

When you consider the Christmas Star this night, think upon this poem by my distant cousin, Henry Vaughan, Silurist (1621-1695):

I saw Eternity the other night, 

Like a great ring of pure and endless light, 

All calm, as it was bright; 

And round beneath it, Time in hours, days, years, 

Driv’n by the spheres 

Like a vast shadow mov’d; in which the world 

And all her train were hurl’d. 

The doting lover in his quaintest strain 

Did there complain; 

Near him, his lute, his fancy, and his flights, 

Wit’s sour delights, 

With gloves, and knots, the silly snares of pleasure, 

Yet his dear treasure 

All scatter’d lay, while he his eyes did pour 

Upon a flow’r. 

Ghosts of Missionaries Past

In Dickensian fashion, the missionaries of the Restored Gospel to the British Isles noted the great calamities resulting from the rich oppressing the poor. Their work began in 1837. I will quote them using as my source Truth Will Prevail: The Rise of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the British Isles 1837-1987, Editors: Bloxham, V. Ben; Moss, James R.; Porter, Larry C. (LDS, University Press, Cambridge, England 1987) (TWP). I will attempt to transcribe the quotes as the missionaries wrote them leaving out the [sic]s and original sources:

Heber C. Kimball:

Wealth and luxury abounded, side by side with penury and want. I there met the rich attired in the most courtly dresses, and the next minute was saluted with the cries of the poor with scarce covering to screen them from the weather. Such a wide distinction I never saw before. TWP, 52.

Oh! When will distress and poverty and pain cease, and peace and plenty abound? When the Lord Jesus shall descend in the clouds of heaven - when the rod of the oppressor shall be broken. 'Hasten the time, O Lord!' was frequently the language of my heart, when I contemplated the scenes of wretchedness and woe, which I daily witnessed, and my prayer to Heavenly Father was, that if I had to witness a succession of such scenes of wretchedness and woe, that He would harden my heart, for those things were too much for me to bear. This is no exaggerated account: I have used no coloring here. They are facts which will meet the Elders of Israel when they shall go forth into that land [Britain], and then I can assure them that they will not be surprised at my feelings. TWP, 53.

A Prayer for Election Day

Dear Father of All,

We thank Thee for the blessings of living in a land of liberty where are free to govern ourselves for the good of all.

We pray that we can elect honest and wise people to assist us in our self-governance, that the purpose of the Constitution may be established that man not be in bondage one to another.

We are grateful for the inspired Constitution to protect us in our rights to worship Thee and to join with others in free assembly of all varieties for doing good and for open discussion of ideas and petitions to our government.

We are grateful for the results of a tragic Civil War for a more perfect Union that allowed our forebearers to prohibit slavery and establish that all people of the United States share the same rights of equality and fair treatment regardless of their station and conditions of life.

My Double-Date As a Missionary

It's time to tell this story. . . .

My missionary companion and friend gave me his permission some time ago. My policy remains to avoid naming names to preserve some privacy, at least to avoid my friends' names turning up on an internet search linked to my blog. And it does protect the innocent as we all were in this unusual circumstance.

Mormon Missionaries are supposed to be celibate for their missionary terms of service which is nearly always successful. We aren't even supposed to date or socialize with romantic intentions as our time is totally dedicated to the Lord's work. This is quite an amazing accomplishment for young men and women in their late teens and early twenties as they learn that the spiritual aspects of life can be more powerful than natural, human behavior.

Language Training Mission (LTM) and Provo Temple, Fall 1976

In the preparatory Language Training Mission ("LTM" now, Missionary Training Center) in Provo, Utah, they drilled into us how we needed to be cautious because young women in Brazil could be very, uhm, tempting and some would be interested in snatching up a young North-American if they could. My companion friend was "snatched."

Still, it was all innocent if some of it slightly outside of regular missionary rules of decorum.