"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.

Surprised by Peace

The Library of America and I have a long-term relationship. In its early days, I had a subscription and was collecting and reading great American authors. The editions are beautiful and well edited by experts in literature or history. Thin pages carry a lot in one volume.

In later years, I've purchased an book or two now and then. Recently I ordered what looked like an interesting anthology:

I haven't gotten to it yet. It was still in its plastic wrap when I picked it up to move it somewhere and noticed an interesting name on the back list of authors, Joseph Smith, Jr.!!!

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, Training Day 3

This ain't Paradise yet, Baby!

OK. I had church sexual-harassment training, so I'm not supposed to use the word, "Baby."

It had to be done twice, or maybe not. Remember that bureaucracy thing? I was doing just fine with the training on FamilySearch "Sources" and "Memories" picking up a few good tips as I tried showing off my prowess next to the guy who apparently wasn't just in advertising but was a software engineer and a certified genealogist. Sigh. Then the full-time "tech" Elders taught us how to get on to our new church email accounts for the Mission. Only it wouldn't work for the four of us sitting in a row right in front. We went from my buddy on the right to the nice Sister with a Welsh surname on the left and next to her another Sister with a Welsh surname whom I'm afraid to ask how she got it as she otherwise appears to be African-American. And we're all in this tech mess together.

The young Tech Elders took phone photos of our error messages and presumably sent them off to Church IT. When I got home, I had two emails from Church IT. One told me that I had to take annual sexual-harassment training. The other was to get my email fixed. As a former fed attorney that practiced personnel law, I couldn't resist the training. The online course was a little better than the fed courses. And the rules are pretty much the same. The main differences are that the Church can require a temple recommend as a condition of employment and church employees can date but have to report it to HR first. I don't think I'll try it because whatever HR were to say, my wife would likely object. Oh, and the temple recommend thing.

Baptism for the Dead: Getting to Know You

Volume 7 of Documents in the Joseph Smith Papers is out. (I seem to have skipped a few so my collection is not yet complete.) My purpose is acquiring this volume was to learn as much as I could about Joseph Smith's first teachings on Baptism for the Dead. (See Doctrine and Covenants, Section 128 for a fuller, scriptural background.)

Joseph first mentioned baptism for the dead at a funeral for Seymour Brunson on August 15, 1840, but there is not much recorded from that discourse. He then addressed it at the General Church Conference in Nauvoo in early October 1840 when hearers were so motivated they immediately left for the Mississippi to perform baptisms for their dearly departed. And, once again, some of his teachings were not fully recorded. Still, there are footnotes to contemporaneous reports such as a letter from Vilate Kimball to Heber C. who was on a mission in England. This would be how the British Saints and missionaries such as Richard Steele would have heard about the new doctrine so early.

And there is a very important aspect of what Vilate tells Heber. Here is the section of her October 11, 1840 letter from online, digital sources at the LDS Church History Library:

Not Live-Blogging LDS General Conference, Sorry

I haven't left the church. I'll be watching conference to the extent I stay awake. But I'm still in recovery from walking pneumonia and tire easily. Also, I am working on a project of scanning family photos that I can work on at my own pace as I listen.

For real-time and post-time internet access, you can watch conference now from pretty much any where in the world at: LDS.org.

I will be blogging later on some themes. I expect we'll here more about aiding refugees as we've already heard in the first session last week, traditionally Women's Conference, and as recently as yesterday from Mormon Newsroom on refugees in Italy.

Joseph Smith on The U.S. Constitution - A Call for Protection of Minority Rights as in the Fourteenth Amendment

I've written some on this before including a guest opinion piece in the Salt Lake Tribune. Now that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' Historian's Office has published the Council of Fifty Records, we can see for the first time, the full quote from Joseph Smith as recorded in that Council.

Joseph Smith on 11 April 1844:

Thomas Vaughan and the "Magic" of Adam

You can find this online here.

We're going a little Nibleyesque here as I was startled by some passages I read in the writings of my distant cousin, Thomas Vaughan, the 17th Century Alchemist. The point is, Cousin Thomas draws some very interesting conjectures about the first man, Adam, and his knowledge of the Second Adam, Jesus Christ.

First, I must explain that Thomas Vaughan was a very religious man and his study of Alchemy, while a bit unorthodox, fit within his religious faith as he defined Magic in this manner:

Magic is nothing else but the wisdom the the Creator revealed and planted in the creature. . . . Magicians were the first attendants our Savior met withal in this world, and the only philosophers who acknowledged him in the flesh before that he himself discovered it. I find God conversant with them, as he was formerly with the patriarchs; he directs them in their travels with a star, as did the Israelites with a a pillar of fire; he informs them of future dangers in their dreams, that having first seen his Son, they might in the next place see his salvation.*

Joseph Rising

A while back I saw this rather provocative posting from Wales on the Merthyr Rising Facebook Page:

Merthyr Rising

February 20 at 5:06am · 

8 years on and we're still paying for the greed, arrogance and incompetence of the bankers.

This should be a really interesting talk on alternatives to the banking system as it it.

Why don't we own the banks and make them work for us, instead of the other way around?

Now, that seems like a solidly Socialistic proposal. Imagine, the People in charge of the banks!

It also goes farther than any breaking-up of the banks and Wall Street power that U.S. Democratic Socialist Bernie Sanders proposes. Pretty radical, some might say.

Then I read Mormon Prophet Joseph Smith's ideas about a National Bank for the U.S. set forth as he became a candidate for the Presidency in 1844:

Original Intent and Original Witnesses

Apologies for borderline apologetics here, but I was cruising the interwebs and came across a very basic and forehead-slapping idea:

When it comes to the Book of Mormon witnesses, the question is which historical documents is one willing to trust? Those whose faith has been deeply shaken sometimes find it easier to trust lesser evidence rather than the best sources or the overwhelming preponderance of the evidence. But that choice is not a foregone conclusion. It is neither inevitable nor irreversible. . . . Why not opt to believe in the direct statements of the witnesses and their demonstrably lifelong commitments to the Book of Mormon? This choice asks us to have faith in the marvelous, the possibility of angels, spiritual eyes, miraculous translation, and gold plates, but it does not require us to discount the historical record or create hypothetical ways to reconcile the compelling Book of Mormon witnesses with our own skepticism.

(Steven C. Harper, "The Eleven Witnesses," in The Coming Forth of the Book of Mormon, 128–129.)

Of course! Just like the original intent of the U.S. Constitution is set out up front, loud and clear in the Preamble and does not require us to go digging deep into 18th Century word analysis of the Federalist Papers or some off-hand remark made by one of the founding fathers to a drinking buddy at the local tavern, we need look no further than the published testimonies of the witnesses to the Book of Mormon, including Joseph himself, for an explanation of its origins.

Father's Day Talk: The Refiner's Fire

Posting before we leave for Church to test if anyone in the ward reads the blog - or they can read along to see how I stray from my notes:

Nantyglo, Brynmawr, Wales. 19th Century "Refiner's Fire"

 

Side Channel of Dulas Brook at Cusop Mill By Jaggery (c) licensed for free use under Creative Commons License

No jokes

Happy Father’s Day

Not happy for all

Family history – 9 generations back to Wales – troubles. Oh, yeah

A Visit from the Prophet

OK. This is not a really bad April Fools joke. And it is all absolutely true.

Just as I don't support modern polygamy (FLDS) and still respect my ancestors for their historical, religious practices, I can respect my relatives who did not stay with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) but left and became members of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (RLDS). Yes, you may need a score card to keep track of this one.

Joseph Smith III

It is still of significant historical interest that Joseph Smith III, the son of the Prophet Joseph Smith, Jr., visited some of my ancestors and apparently stayed in their home in Jacks Valley, Nevada. The year was 1867 and this is from Joseph Smith III, the President and Prophet of the RLDS Church at the time:

"On the first of November we bade Sr. Lincoln and her family, Brn. William Anderson, Job Hall, Thomas J. Andrews, Peter Canavan, A. C. Bryan, and others farewell, and left the city of San Francisco, in company of Bro. Daniel S. Mills, who accompanied us as far as Sacramento, where we bade him good-bye, he bound for Salmon Falls on an errand of mercy; and we en route for Reno and Carson City. We reached the latter place early Thursday morning; and in the afternoon reported to Bro. A. B. Johns, president of the district, and spent a night and a day in Jack's Valley. On Saturday we returned to Carson, and on Sunday morning and evening we addressed those of the citizens of the city who chose to gather at the court-house to hear us; the attendance was good, on both occasions, and the Saints seemed to be pleased with the effort made.

Book Report "of a Different Color"

Click on the pic for Amazon's link to buy

I finished my copy of W. Paul Reeve's Religion of a Different Color: Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness. (Oxford University Press, New York, 2015)

It did not disappoint, even if my translation from the Portuguese of our "extra" discussion on race from my mission in Brazil did not get cited. There were still other personal connections to the book. My friend, Ardis, from Keepa, gets special mention in Reeve's acknowledgements as well as the son of a good friend, Christopher Rich, Jr. (I work with his dad, C.R. the Senior). And Reeve already seems like a friend even if I haven't yet met him. He is cited in my pieces here on Mormonism and Race.

The book is very readable and well referenced. It is amazing how the premise makes so much sense once you see so many illustrations from the 19th and early 20th Century forms of political cartoons. The idea is simply that Mormons were considered so far outside of "mainstream" American culture since the beginnings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, that they were considered a different race - a sub-race frequently linked to Native Americans (no surprise) and African-Americans (some surprise, but the evidence is all there!). This began even before polygamy was established and linked the Mormons to "degenerate" Asian practices. Then, there were the European "dregs of society" who, upon joining Mormonism, confirmed their depraved and ignorant nature separate from respectable American Society (i.e., white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant).

To Us, the Bloggernacle Is a Mass of Confusion

In a recent email exchange, Anonymous D expressed some frustrations with a couple of posts and endless comments on some "other" blogs of a "different" disposition. In expressing his general contempt for the Bloggernacle he goes on:

We seem, in our modern Mormon intellectual smugness, to be doing the same thing that was done in the 1930's, and which is fashionable every once in a while, which is de-mystifying the scriptures, removing any trace of the supernatural.  (Think Thomas Jefferson's Bible).  It's a nice easy way to have it both ways, to say, well, I like the Book of Mormon I think it teaches great things, but all that nonsense about the angel and golden plates?  If the origin stories are not true, especially of the Book of Mormon, why bother with it at all? There are plenty of nice moralistic stories you can use to lead a better, happier life. I wouldn't bother with the Book of Mormon or the Church if I didn't actually believe it, or Jesus for that matter if I thought He was just a great moral instructor.    

 

So with that, I wave goodbye to the Bloggernacle forever.  I'm sure I'll be missed what with my zero comments and postings.

 

 Then, me, and so forth: 

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.

Book of Mormon Proof

A representation of Nephi fashioning the plates for what became part of the Book of Mormon
(From LDS.org. Thanks, Elder Bednar!)

I'm in a good mood just back from Temple service. So without even asking (it's late), I'm just going to cut and past Anonymous D's email message in here with minor edits and a final comment or two:

I was just thinking about proving the Book of Mormon. Of course I know it's not possible. That seems to me to be the point. Just imagine for a minute that you're God, and you are trying to get the point across that the only way you can get your children to come back to you is to trust you? So you give them a book of instruction that essentially explains their situation and pleads with them to trust you. If the whole point is trust, would you give explicit, irrefutable evidence that your book is true or you would ask them to experiment upon it themselves and learn that they can trust you because it works? Especially in the light of the fact that trust/faith seems to be essential in really learning something for yourself, and changing from a fallen/dark being into an enlightened being.

Some Just Want Hell

Two things in Mormon History & Doctrine just struck me. I think they make a connection.

I'm still finishing up the really good history, Hearken, O Ye People: The Historical Setting of Joseph Smith's Ohio Revelations, by Mark Lyman Staker. The author makes a compelling case with contemporaneous sources and later reports from first-hand witnesses that the motivation for the mobbing, tar & feathering, and near murder of Joseph Smith in March 1832 had absolutely nothing to do with any form of polygamy or sexual impropriety of any kind. It seems Fawn Brodie carried over a mistake in history that the Eli Johnson involved was the son of John Johnson concerned about his sister's honor when he was actually John Johnson's brother, uncle to Marinda Johnson, who was opposed to Mormonism on doctrinal grounds. Several others in the mob were disaffected or former Mormons, even former leaders. The revenge motivation of speculative psychology dissipates and the only thing left may be religious persecution.

It's the chronology closely following The Vision, now known as Doctrine & Covenants, Section 76 that nails it. The mobbing in Hiram, Ohio happened just a week or so after The Vision became public. The controversy was the new doctrine with its near Universalism, dispensing with the either/or of heaven and hell in mainstream Christianity of that day. Well, just read The Vision and think about it for yourself. Some with interests in the Disciples of Christ, the Baptists, or having left Mormonism, took offense at the new doctrine and their religious fervor, resentment, and fury may have led them to violence.

Black History Month

One example of 19th Century African-American Christianity

Before you start, I've heard the whine before, "When are we going to have White History Month?" It is true we don't have White History Month, the principal reason being that we already have twelve.

Case in point: I'm reading a great book, Hearken, O Ye People: The Historical Setting of Joseph Smith's Ohio Revelations, by Mark Lyman Staker. The author is not some radical, black-panther type, just a historian working for the LDS Church.

The Doctrine of the Temple

Vaughn Family about 1895. Thomas died in 1894 leaving a widow and 8 children.
My Great-Grandfather is at right front with half a smile.

In Stake Conference a few weeks ago, I was startled to attention when a speaker referenced "the Doctrine of the Temple." I have been looking for a straightforward way to explain it for some time. The speaker went on without such a definition, so maybe it isn't so simple.

To Weigh a Man's Soul

Dan Jones - Welsh Missionary

Long ago when my Portuguese Professor at the Y inquired about my Welsh surname, he also shared with me an excerpt from the diary of his ancestor, the famous riverboat captain and Welsh missionary, Dan Jones. At the time and with my limited knowledge of my family history, I didn't connect to the Welsh stories. All I know is that my family with the Welsh surname had come to the US from northern England and arrived too late on faster steamship and train to be considered pioneers (they would have had to arrive in Utah between 1847 and 1869 before the railroad was completed).

The story was still a powerful one. It helped form the basis of my commitment to follow those ordained of God even with faults - theirs and mine. The story follows, "hics" and all: