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.

How Thick Is Family Blood?

Back sometime in the lost, golden age when Barack Obama was President of the United States, I was engaged in a political discussion on the internet with a member of my extended family. This person said that Obama was the most racially divisive president ever, but that because I was blood family we would always be connected. I wanted a divorce.

Recently, that is since white-nationalists marched with torches chanting their antisemitism in Charlottesville, and since the LDS Church responded with a statement clarifying its first that "white-nationalism," "white-supremacy," and promotion of "white-culture" were sinful and unsaintly, another member of my extended family left voice mails for me saying that I was full of hate and a disgrace to the family name. I want another divorce.

It is odd that the only person you can divorce in your family is your spouse. I suppose you can disinherit your children and kick them out at some point from your basement. But I love my wife and kids. My wife is still with me going on 38 years of love amid life's challenges and my kids have pretty much moved out for good. Or, at least we can hope.

The concept of family honor and "blood thicker than water" strike me as pretty creepy when they are used to attack my beliefs and my personhood. It's probably a small fraction of what some minorities feel when under attack by antisemitism or white supremacy.

Helping Hands - Projeto do Brasil SUD

Maybe I'm not paying enough attention, but I didn't realize that the Mormon or LDS service project for local communities at large, "Helping Hands," originated in Brazil. I was watching this video (in Portuguese) and it said that the internationally used, yellow vest, with hands in blue and green, represent the national colors of Brazil as an acknowledgment of the program's Brazilian origins!

Que coisa!

Then I realized that I had the evidence in pictures of my two youngest children as LDS Missionaries in Japan and Ohio, USA, wearing the yellow, green, and blue!

My son, A-5, shoveling snow in Japan wearing the "Helping Hands" or "Mãos que Ajudam" vest.

My son, A-6 (second from right), recently returned from Ohio, wearing the Brazilian "Helping Hands" colors on a t-shirt with a few others.

A Scout Is Kind, and Friendly

With less reluctance and more patience developed over the years, I accompanied my wife to the Great Salt Lake Council business meeting and dinner. As we entered the familiar yet slightly upgraded Camp Tracy Lodge (I think it's now Layton Lodge for the donors), I suggested that we go sit by the one Scout that we saw because I get tired of adult Scouters when the program is supposed to be about the boys (and girls).

It was not a shocking surprise, just the typical thing one experiences with my wife, that the Eagle Scout who is the youth representative on the Council Board was one of her former Science students. Yeah. That's how our life goes. Either we get more than our share of favorable coincidences, or the universe is simply unfolding as it should.

My wife getting the updates on her former student's ongoing successful life.

Less Militia, More Dieter!

Yes, I have been a little obsessed with the armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, the far right-wing views of the Militia with their "sovereign citizen" philosophies, and the tragic death of an old friend caught up in all that.

As I've tried to explain, my work includes legal support for the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. I was also born in neighboring Malheur County Oregon. So Malheur Country has been with me all my life. I even have a boy who served a LDS Mission in Oregon with part of his time in Burns. Part of his missionary service was assisting with the roping and castrating of calves. How's that for missionary work!?

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:

Elder Larry J. Echo Hawk at Our Stake Conference

Elder Larry J. and Sister Teresa Echo Hawk

We had Stake Conference in the Centerville, Utah South Stake this weekend. That's when all the members in each of 11 wards or local congregations of 300-400 members each meet together wih the leadership of the Stake for religious instruction and inspiration. These days, we don't always get visitors from the General Authorities of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and that's not because we're just a few miles north of international HQ. There are just many more stakes these days all over the world than there are GA's to go around.

Elder Echo Hawk indicated in the Saturday evening session for adult men and women that he sees the stats from a Stake before he visits a conference. Ours look pretty good, probably the best he's seen in his travels. That probably does come from being a few miles up the road from HQ. We're well settled in. It's not that we don't have room for improvement; he noted that we weren't ready to be translated beings and lifted up into heaven. In fact emphasis on basic principles of faith and the atonement of Jesus Christ and seeking after all our friends and neighbors who do not fully participate in the principles was a strong challenge.

Scraping Away the Thin Veneer

I made a terrible mistake. It took me a long time to think about it. It was that in  my pre-blogging days I wrote a guest opinion piece for the Salt Lake Tribune in which I celebrated the signing of Obamacare (no, that wasn't the mistake) and went on to challenge modern Mormons on their wrong-headed beliefs in States Rights (no, that wasn't the mistake either) arguing that many seem to cover their political beliefs with a "thin veneer of religion" to justify them.

That was very offensive to some in my family who expressed it to me in no uncertain terms. They let me know that they are guided by their deeply held religious beliefs that frame their politics. The odd thing is, so am I.

Recently, a person of significant public and private trust who shall be unnamed here proposed a new perspective to me. He said that the sometimes extraordinarily odd and conservative political views of Utah did not represent the true nature of its people. He said something to the effect that if you "scrape of the veneer," and I think he used that word, the "veneer" of politics, that people of Utah really were good at heart.

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.

Grant V's Big Adventure

In Washington DC for a work-required conference, I had to travel to Main Interior to meet with someone on another work matter and call a Judge. So I hopped in our agency limo and headed downtown.

It wasn't really that big of an adventure as I started out at Main Interior some 30 years ago and somehow managed the commute back then. It's just that as I age, my life takes on more epic meaning and I have a Samsung S-6 to document the epicness:

Aparrently they are still working on our federal employee limo service

No Dystopian Present Thirty Years Past 1984

Our first-born, Christmas 1984

Scanning family photos to put them on the OneDrive (I liked "SkyDrive" better), I just finished 1984. While I know that dystopian novels and movies are more a commentary on the current day rather than predictions of the future, our 1984 was really nice.

We ended up living in three different places that year as I had seen a guy waving a handgun in the parking lot of our apartment complex. We were in a suburb of Baltimore transitioning from a Jewish to an African-American neighborhood. We shopped at Shapiro's and were in a distinct minority in our apartment complex that was mostly African-American. We got along great with our neighbors, but I didn't like the handgun.

We spent that summer renting the upstairs of a beautiful ancient house on Old Court Road, out in the woods, with an address of Granite, Maryland - named for an abandoned quarry. The owner was one of my wife's school-teacher friends who spent most of the summer away except for the few weekends he spent at home. When he wasn't home, we had the use of the whole house and when he was home, we pretty much stayed upstairs and even left when he had his parties as we had inadvertently come across his cannabis supply. We didn't turn him in. We didn't with the guy and the handgun either.

M's place in Granite, Maryland on Old Court Road

Servi no Templo EM PORTUGUÊS!

Boy, am I jazzed! That is, if it's OK to be spiritually jazzed!

Campinas, São Paulo, Brasil Temple - Not the one I served in tonight, but it felt like it.

Tonight was my Friday to serve in the Bountiful Temple, and while my Welshman friend wasn't there, I heard the shift coordinators talking about doing some temple work in Portuguese. I let them know that I could help if they needed. I had done it in Spanish before (in a bit of a panic), but Portuguese was my No. 1 second language.

They let me study the card and I had it all down pretty well. They let me take the card just in case. The big surprise was that they said there would be one Temple patron needing Portuguese and then I would switch back to English. But the next guy started off in Portuguese too. I had just dropped the card which I hadn't used anyway, so I went on in Portuguese full of confidence and spiritual power.

The Day I Needed a Blessing

It was just a couple of years ago. One of those days where I was as close to the edge as I ever didn't want to be. With my dad far away, I asked my father-in-law, a real good guy, if he could give me a blessing of comfort and guidance. We planned to go there that Sunday evening.

My wife, our ward Relief Society President, got a call about a family in our neighborhood. Our friends were out of town and their son's step-daughter, playing with her twin sister, had collapsed in outdoor play, stopped breathing, and turned blue. The twin went running for help, found her step-dad and he, having been a Boy Scout, commenced CPR. The girl was breathing when the paramedics arrived but remained unconscious to the hospital and after while the doctors scrambled to figure what was wrong. My wife suggested that we stop by the hospital on the way to her parents' so she could visit with them.

I hate hospitals. I much prefer funerals. My faith in the afterlife is so solid that I appreciate the sense of earthly finality and closure. Hospitals are full of pain, suffering, anxiety, and uncertainty.

Live-Blogging LDS General Conference Spring 2014 - Saturday PM

Watch it LIVE here: https://www.lds.org/general-conference/watch?lang=eng&cid=HPTU040114644

OK. I'm back. Had to get something I remembered on to Family Search/Family Tree. Then a few more groceries came.

Pres. Eyring Conducting and Pres. Uchtdorf is doing the sustainings.

Elder Ted Callister released from Presidency of the Seventy. Lynn Robins sustained. A bunch of 70s called with very few Anglo names. Sunday School General Presidency and Board released.

New Area Seventies. Much variety of names and languages. Ted R. Callister is Pres. of the Sunday School Pres. with Devin G. Durrant as second counselor (is that the basketball player? Son of George? I loved George Durrant.)

"It's a long walk." Every time.

Audits and Stats. 3, 050 Stakes. 83K full-time missionaries, etc.

Elder Russell M. Nelson of the Quorum of the Twelve:

Our Bishop Is Revolutionary

And inspired! Oh, I hope I don't get him in trouble, or even my wife. For me, I'd prefer to be in just enough trouble to avoid certain callings in the church - like Hugh Nibley used to wear one black and one brown dress shoe to keep him out of the bishopric. My wife won't even let me go to church if my socks don't match!

It has been the strangest thing but I'm just now seeing the beauty of it. My wife has been Relief Society President for some time. And last November, we were called in to see the Stake Presidency (all three of them which is enough to set off plenty of alarms) and they called me to be High Priest Group leader. That's a comparable position to Relief Society at least for half, or so, of the men in the ward. We have quite a few, actually, being an older ward. And I love those guys! I was tempted to call them my "groupies" the other Sunday (it's called a "High Priest Group" because the Quorum is in the Stake with the Stake President as President of the Quorum) but I figured that wouldn't be good on several levels.

Villa Philmonte - Photographic Tour

The original drive up to Villa Philmonte, Cimarron, New Mexico

So I'm not the best photographer, or architectural or interior-design expert. One hardly needs to be to photograph or comment on the marvelous Villa Philmonte, Waite and Genevieve Phillips's "summer home" outside of Cimarron, New Mexico. Owned by the Boy Scouts thanks to the Phillips's generosity, anyone can visit by signing up for a free tour at the nearby Seton Museum.

The Phillips family was very practical in their generosity. They reserved only the right for family members to come back to visit whenever they wanted. And they provided endowments for less-advantaged youth to come to Philmont and for the upkeep of the Villa so that the BSA would not be stuck with an expensive relic they could not maintain.

Let's start on the outside walkways. There are custom-designed tiles representing the family interspersed throughout the otherwise red tiles - livestock, game animals, Cowboys, Indian, New Mexicans, even the architect got one in for himself. Waite wanted a "W" for his personal brand, but the brand inspector informed that it had already been taken. Being the practical guy he was, he simply chose a "double U" with a bar.

Pioneer Trek Heretics

We tread a little lightly here because we don't want in any way to diminish the honor due the Mormon Pioneers on this day of all days. Nor do we want to appear in opposition to local ward or stake leadership. But Anonymous D and I share a similar heartfelt aversion to the excesses of youth activities that manipulate emotional experiences and call them "spiritual."

Don't get me wrong. I am all for historical reenactments and living history activities. What we don't like at all is the tent-revival emotionalism of phony analogies and excessive extravaganza. Go on a hike for historical significance. Climb a mountain because it's there. Above all, do something in service to others that is meaningful - youth temple trips being the best of all. But please spare me the angels of death taking people out and the contrived "women's pull" while the Mormon Battalion boys rest on the hill until they feel sorry enough. Play it straight, or not at all.

Our Heroes Are Furloughed

". . . . we train a man in the art of war and call him a patriot, thus, in the manner of Satan’s counterfeit of true patriotism, perverting the Savior’s teaching. . . ."

-LDS President Spencer W. Kimball, Bicentennial Address, July 1976, "The False Gods We Worship"

Sunburned my head today. 

I shouldn't complain, but the quick walk to church turned out a little differently than expected. We heard that unmistakable crunch of a car accident as we rounded the corner heading to the church. We saw the white car spurt forward and to the right taking out the stop sign. Then there were people on cell phones down the street and a few running out. We did not run as 911 appeared to be in play and several people were already there.

Guest Post: Helping Children with Grief

My daughter who is finishing up her degree in Elementary Education offered up this as a Guest Post. I hope she gets an A+ on this class assignment, and I know she'll be a great teacher.

Here's an interesting assignment I had to do for one of my classes.  I had to write a letter to the "parents" of my "students" in response to a tragic incident such as Newtown. You can blog about it...

Military Service & Mormons

While honoring those who do, I never served in the military. I was born in that three-year window (1957-1960) that I didn't even have to file with Selective Service. I was happy about that too. And I kind of understand where Mitt Romney is coming from that neither he nor his sons have served. Regardless of the obvious challenges of war and death, the military can also be a challenge to young men in keeping up their standards of religious practice.

This is reflected in a Letter of the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Concerning Military Training. I found this while looking for something else (such is serendipity) in an old college file from Ray C. Hillam's BYU Poli-Sci class on War (1980). This is not the current policy of the Church with regard to military service - nor mine [but there's a lot of good in it]. It merely reflects an interesting historical insight into the time, place and people. George Albert Smith, the subject of our Priesthood and Relief Society lessons this year, was President of the church: