Saying Kaddish at Mountain Meadows

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by Bradly Baird:

On that day I prayed the Kaddish. On that day I understood its meaning - turning from death to life itself. On that day the heavens opened above and I saw twenty-nine souls connected. The eternities waited and the work waited. On that day, Heaven visited me at Mountain Meadows.

Early one bright Sunday morning, I prepared myself to attend church when I discovered that I neglected to pack a white dress shirt in my luggage - we had traveled that Memorial Day weekend to visit family in St. George; and, sadly, I did not have any other clothing that would function appropriately for Sacrament Meeting. I felt somewhat stupid for the mistake and rather forlornly sent my family off to church, preferring to be at home with the scriptures and video recordings of General Conference than to feel uncomfortable and disrespectful in Sacrament Meeting.

I grabbed my scriptures and sat down to watch the opening of the April 2014 General Conference, hoping to bring a strong measure of the Spirit into my heart since I wouldn't be able to take the Sacrament that day. President Monson gave his traditional welcome and then Elder Holland stepped to the podium to offer a wonderful sermon on the costs of discipleship. He spoke the final words of the address:

In courageously pursuing such a course, you will forge unshakable faith, you will find safety against ill winds that blow, even shafts in the whirlwind, and you will feel the rock-like strength of our Redeemer, upon whom if you build your unflagging discipleship

I felt a sudden rush of inspiration, and the currents of recent thoughts about the time of year, personal acts of commission, and a book I recently read rapidly intersected in my mind to form a complete idea.

This included images of the Mountain Meadows gravesite (it is situated about 30 miles from my Mother-In-Law's home in St. George), strong feelings about making some private act of memorial in honor of the dead, and then the Jewish prayer for the dead, the Kaddish (I recently read Anita Diamant's book on this subject). I knew, then, in that moment what my worship would include that Sunday morning.

"How Amazing to Picture These Things": Questions for Sarah Dunster, Author of Lightning Tree and Mile 21

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by Scott Hales (bio)

Last year, Cedar Fort published Lightning Tree, a coming-of-age historical novel about a teenage girl who is haunted by chilling memories from her past. Set in Provo shortly after the Mountain Meadows Massacre, the novel treads boldly through a era of Mormon history many of us know little about--and does so in a way that help us, as a people, begin to contemplate and come to terms with the parts of our past that hurt the most.

Recently, the author of Lightning Tree, Sarah Dunster, agreed to answer a few questions about this novel; her latest novel, Mile 21; and the challenges of creative writing. Here is what she had to say ...

Scott Hales: Let's say you’re in a room full of strangers and you're in the mood to brag. How do you introduce yourself?

Sarah Dunster: Thank you very much J Bragging is my favorite thing in the world to do …

Hmm. I think I'd probably start with stuff like, I have seven children, two are adopted from a foreign country, I've published poetry and fiction and I know how to make sushi, Ethiopian Injera and Dura Wat, and a mean veggie enchilada casserole. Oh. And I'm Young Women's president. Because if we're bragging, callings are the thing we should brag most about, right?

SH: You've written two novels, including Lightning Tree, which is one of the best Mormon historical novels I've read recently. What do you like about the novel form? How would you characterize the experience of writing a novel?

SD: Wow. Thank you for the compliment. I always feel a bit uneasy when people tell me they love my books, like … guys. Did you not *notice* the missing page break and the several misplaced commas? We're so critical of our own work.

But anyway. I think I'm just a natural novelist. I've written since I was a kid, and I never thought of writing anything but poetry and novels. I have tried to write short stories and I'm just not that great at it. I don't find my pace or characters until about 75 pages into my story. And then I have to go back and rewrite those 75 pages several times to get it to match where things started to flow. I'd have to write 75 pages of a story, do all those rewrites, then condense it down to the 10,000 or 5,000 or even 1,000 (thank you James Goldberg!) words. I figure I might as well write a novel if I'm going to go that far anyway. I love novels because I feel there is appropriate room for the intermingling of plot and character development. You really get to know characters in a novel. You can in a short story as well, but you don't spend as much time with them, and I'd argue that you are less loyal/caught up in their lives as a result.

Finding Time to Read

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by Seattle Jon (bio)

A few years ago I wondered if I could read a book a week, or 52 books a year. That first year I read 44 books totaling nearly 20,000 pages. I hit 52 books the next year, then 33 and 50 books the following two years. I am sitting at 50 books already this year.

These numbers surprise some people. They ask me what my secret is. Well, there is no secret, but I do have some suggestions on how you can read more books.

1. Read 4-5 books at the same time – I used to read one book at a time, thinking the constant switching back and forth would make it difficult to absorb what was going on in each book. Wrong. This is probably the best way to increase the number of books you read because of suggestion #2.
2. Your current reading list should be varied – reading only one book, or only books of one genre (i.e. LDS non-fiction) is limiting, because if you're not in the mood for what you're reading, you won't read. Try keeping a variety of books on your nightstand, such as these I've recently read:
   
• "Heavy reading" book (The Pillars of the Earth) for longer stretches of reading time
  
• "Fun reading" book (World War Z) requiring little mental effort for short bursts
  
• Historical non-fiction (Massacre at Mountain Meadows) or fiction (Big Rock Candy Mountain)
  
• Mormon-related book (David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism)
  
• A series (Fablehaven or John Carter of Mars)
• Something that stretches your boundaries/beliefs (Fifty Shades of Grey KIDDING! try Big Bang)
  
3. Read in places you normally might not – I try to keep 3-4 mormon books in my church bag for down-time during the three-hour block or for the occasional sacrament meeting talk or sunday school lesson I just can't listen to. I also like to carry a small book that fits in my back pocket for when I'm out running errands or at the kids' sporting events.
   
4. Have plenty of books on hand to choose from – Well, books are expensive you might say. Not if you buy them at Goodwill or Deseret Industries. I could shop at those two places alone and have 50 books to read every year until I die. Once you start your stockpile, store them someplace visible but off your bookshelf … seeing the books in your reading queue will motivate you to get through the ones you're currently reading.
   
5. Cut down on media – Nothing competes for my reading time more than media. I'm a cinephile, but I don't watch a lot of live tv or sports. My iPhone gives me the opportunity to read e-books (I'm not a huge fan), but can be a huge distraction as well.

It's pretty simple: You either read or you don't. If you read you probably want to do it more. And reading more isn't a secret. It comes down to choices, and I choose books.

Saintspeak 17: The Letter M (Part 2)

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by Seattle Jon (bio)

Another installment from Saintspeak, the mormon humor dictionary from Orson Scott Card. Previous installments can be found here. Reproduced with permission from Signature Books.

Mob A group of people whipped into such a frenzy by evil leaders that they are incapable of reason or empathy in their urge to destroy an innocent victim. Not to be confused with groups of concerned citizens who are so inspired in righteous indignation by defenders of morality that they have no further need of discussion or delay in their crusade to destroy the forces of sin.

Mormons People who believe: 1. That a small family is one with only four children. 2. That if they ever get in real trouble, one of the Three Nephites will help them out. 3. That the only difference between them and God is a few years of training.

Mother in Heaven The mother of our spirits, who after years of anonymity has developed something of a fan club among believers in the ERA.

Mother in Zion The position a Mormon woman is given as a reward for good behavior in her teens. As a mother in Zion she has the privilege of changing thousands of diapers, drying gallons of tears, spraying Bactine on hundreds of scrapes, washing millions of dishes, and reading The Little Engine That Could out loud until she can recite it backward. All she has to do to remain in this enviable office is keep herself lovely, youthful, and enthusiastic enough that her husband stays interested in her.

Mountain Meadows Massacre An unfortunate incident in which John D. Lee, a master of disguise, dressed up as dozens of Indians and single-handedly wiped out all the men, women, and children in a wagon train of Missourians passing through southern Utah.

Mouth When a group of priesthood holders take part in the laying on of hands, only one of them, called the "mouth," speaks for all. Those who have had their necks nearly broken by the weight of twenty-eight hands on their head have wished for many mouths and only one hand.

Materials Center: You're Doing it Wrong

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by Ben Johnson (bio)

The Vatican Library

One of the first posts I ever wrote for MMM was about being called as the ward librarian. As I mentioned in that post, my testimony was nurtured by the books that I found in the various meetinghouse libraries throughout my mission. I was disappointed to learn that not all libraries had troves of incredible church books. Then, when I got my calling as librarian, I was even more disappointed to learn I'd be in charge of a 'materials center.' How can you be a librarian without a library?

I didn't know this, but they weren't always called materials centers. I recently came across this talk by Howard W. Hunter in 1971 where he introduces a new (correlated?) church library program. From what I can tell, not all meetinghouses has been built with a library, but from then on they were. Then somewhere along the line someone felt guilty about calling a room without books a library and the name was changed to Materials Center.

But one thing stood to me out from Pres. Hunter's talk. He said, "If we are to teach one another, if we are to seek wisdom and learning by study and by faith, we must organize and prepare every needful thing. These words form the basis upon which the idea of the meetinghouse library is conceived—to 'prepare every needful thing' for more effective teaching."

It seems to me that preparing every needful thing goes beyond having some chalk and a map for your lesson. How much more riveting would Sunday School be if your teacher could check out a copy of any of Skousen's Book of Mormon tomes? Or bring to class the library's copy of Rough Stone Rolling by Bushman? Or quote from the dog-eared copy of Givens' By the Hand of Mormon? Or use the library's laptop and projector to hit the Joseph Smith Papers website?

Lets think even bigger. Could the heartbreaking story of Han Mattsson have been different if his ward's library was actually a library with decent church books? What about all the people that go to the web to find some supplement for their lesson and are crushed when they come across polygamy or the priesthood ban or Mountain Meadows for the first time? Would the story be different if they first encountered those concepts at church?

So here's my humble proposal. Let's get rid of answer four and bullet point six and get some good, high-quality books in our libraries. Let's also get some good, high-quality brothers and sisters to staff the library. Brothers and sisters who know church history and love teaching it. Let's turn our libraries into more than a room that dispenses unnecessary coloring pages for primary kids. Let's turn our libraries into libraries.