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.

Basic Principles of the Gospel -- in Japan

My Son, A-5, gave a talk in another ward as a "traveling elder" with the Stake High Counselor last Sunday. He shared the text with me so I could post it here:

Minasan konnichiwa!

A-5 on the left

My name is Aaron Vaughn. Recently, I've returned from serving a mission in Nagoya Japan. I grew up down the street in the Centerville 3^rd Ward. This summer, I've just been working with the Bountiful City Parks and Rec, and I will be going down to BYU this next week to play trumpet in the marching band and to study Physics and Japanese.

 

I'm grateful for this opportunity to speak and share some of the experiences I had on my mission regarding how the gospel changes lives.

 

First, I want to ask, what is the Gospel of Jesus Christ? The first answer that often comes to mind is the 4^th Article of Faith. “The first principles and ordinances of the Gospel are: first, Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; second, Repentance; third, Baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; fourth, Laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost.” While those are all very important parts of the Gospel, in True to the Faith, we can find a more compact definition. It reads, “The gospel is our Heavenly Father's plan of happiness. The central doctrine of the gospel is the Atonement of Jesus Christ.” In Japanese, the word for Gospel, 福音, is made from two characters. “福”which means happiness, and “音”which means sound. So literally, the gospel is a sound of happiness.

A-5 Returns from Japan: Christ, Covenants, & Gethsemanes

A-5 and Missionary Service in Japan

This is a companion piece to A-6's Missionary Farewell Address as A-6 gave his Homecoming Address in the same Sacrament Meeting:

皆さん, おはようございます! Recently, I returned from the Japan Nagoya Mission. I had the wonderful privilege to serve alongside amazing people. I am grateful today for the opportunity to speak and share some of my experiences. As I speak, I hope that the Spirit will be able to enter your hearts and share with you the message you need.

Before receiving my mission call, late one night at BYU, as I imagined where I would be called to serve, I remember thinking to myself, “I hope I don’t get called to speak Chinese. That would be impossible to learn.” Then I got my call to Japan. I was very surprised. Then quickly came the first day of the MTC. First, I received a name tag that had what looked like hieroglyphics that the Book of Mormon was originally written in. Then I went to my class where my sensei spoke nothing but Japanese to us. I felt like Chris Farley in the SNL skit where he is on a Japanese Game Show.

That Ol' Clown of Mine

My boy on a church mission in Japan sent me a special request:

Hey, could you send me via email a picture of JP Patches. I want to print it off for a member who loves clowns. It would make her way happy. Could you do that for me? Thanks!

So, of course I did.

Now, I've always tried to convince my family that J.P. is not just a clown. He is a real person with a real personality. People who grew up in Seattle from the late 50s to the 80s understand this. It simply can't be explained or experienced vicariously. You really "had to be there."

J.P. Patches and Gertrude
(AKA the late Chris Wedes and Bob Newman - my actual FB friend)

And my wife insists that the other one is a guy in a dress. And I say, "NO! That's Gertrude!" Nobody gets this. (Unless they're from Seattle).

The picture went by electronic 0's and 1's to Japan and I just got this response back this evening. (It's already tomorrow, Monday P-day or a sort of missionary day off, in Japan).

President Obama in Wales!

Just as Jonah of old . . . No! Not whales. There is a real country called Wales in English and Cymru to the Welsh or Cymry. Wales is not England but like England is one of the four countries in the United Kingdom consisting of Wales, England, Scotland (at least 'til next week), and Northern Ireland. This should be known to most people in world, but you'd be surprised.

Anyway, I found this picture of the President with some Saxon lady.

President Barack Obama talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel during the NATO Summit at the
Celtic Manor Resort in Newport, Wales, Sept. 4, 2014. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Interesting that the NATO Summit in Cardiff, Wales has its participants staying at a resort in Newport on the River Usk just below my ancestral lands.

Anti-Earthquake Tea Party Government

I hate hypotheticals. It was probably law school that did me in. I know the point was to create absolutely impossible factual situations to test our reasoning skills when there is no real solution. I just think that reality gives us clearer options in which to act. At least you can appropriately rely on the spirit or instinct when all else fails which is hard to do in a law-school hypothetical.

But I do ponder this question, and it's not entirely hypothetical. How does an anti-government philosophy deal with the real potential of a horrific earthquake? or tsunami? or nuclear reactor disaster? or all three?!! I don't think a free market emphasis, private property, and freedom from governmental intrusion have much relevance from what I see in those videos from Japan.