BYU Education Week Notes Wednesday--Part 2

ACTIVE IN THE CHURCH:  WHAT THAT MEANT DURING THE BRIGHAM YOUNG PERIOD (WILLIAM G. HARTLEY):  He's a historian who has spent most of his career focusing on the common people, not big name people like Brigham Young. The members of the church is what it's all about.  Is the history of the church the same as the history of the Latter-day Saints? Scholarship tends to follow the leaders.  But the every day stuff, who cares about that?  When we do a workshop on journals or diaries, historians look for mention of big events and famous people.  Usually there is something reported that is out of the ordinary.  What we spend our whole lives recording is more dramatic than the every day stuff.  A bishop in pioneer days said that most of the members of his congregation were good and faithful.  How do we measure that?  The church is different today than it was when he was a boy.  They had quarterly stake conferences.  They went to priesthood meeting in the morning and then later went to Sunday School, and then went to Sacrament Meeting 5:00 - 6:30.  Relief Society was on Tuesday mornings.  Primary was after school.  During Brigham Young's day most ward buildings were too small so not everyone could attend.  They generally didn't go to the temple.  They had an endowment house to get their own endowments but didn't do much work for the dead.  The Word of Wisdom was encouraged but not required.  In 1860 in Spanish Fork the ward had 1,041 residents, 192 families.  There were 13 more males than females.  One quarter were born in Utah, the young generation.  One-third were born in the British Isles.  There were 56 Danes.  There was quite a mix of people to deal with.  There were 27 Canadians.  3/4 of the people were farmers or farm laborers.  There were also 1-3 each of tailors, brick masons, printers, shoemakers, cooks, and numerous other occupations.  The basic unit of the church was the stake.  Sunday School was just for kids, not teenagers or adults.  They only had the sacrament once a month in the Sacrament Meeting.  There was a problem early on with meeting houses.  Salt Lake Valley started out with an old adobe fort.  Gradually people would build adobe homes.  The effort early on was to build a meeting house that would also serve as a school.  The meetinghouses were not big enough for all the members to attend at once.  So they didn't.  The wards were crowded.  The meetings were as full as they could be and many had to go home.  Some of them were just large log cabins with poor lighting, terrible seats.  Some people brought their own chairs to sit in.  Gunnison Ward was 20 X 40.  The floorboards didn't fit very closely together.  The benches were slabs.  In Tooele it was 38 X 15.  The head of each family made a bench for his family to sit on.  They had a fire for light and tallow candles.  Each family was expected to bring a candle.  It was the school house, the church, the town hall.  In Salt Lake they built a church that could seat 180 people.  The children had to stay home while their parents attended meetings because there wasn't room for them.  In 1860 there was a tabernacle in Ogden that could hold over 1,000 people.  The role of deacon was custodian--cleaning the meetinghouse.  In St. George, they first met in an outdoor bowery.  It was too small.  On every side they were exposed to the hot blasts in the summer and cold in the winter.  They had frequent wind storms that blew dust into the faces of those assembled.  St. George had a meeting hall that only seated 100 people.  In 1869 the Provo Tabernacle was built. Reasons for low attendance:  small buildings, travel difficulties, hard to hear, language problems.  In a small community, you'd go through all the available speakers in a hurry.  50% in Salt Lake City did not attend church.  In Provo most people didn't come and the tabernacle was not filled except when Brigham Young would come to preach.  These were Mormon pioneers?  The fast meetings were held on the first Thursday of the month.  Attendance was low because people were working.  They were finally changed to Sundays.  In 1851 Lehi had a bishopric and that was it.  In 1858 they had an elder's quorum.  Some early wards would bless the bread of the sacrament and then somebody would speak while it was being passed.  Then he'd take a break while they blessed the water and he'd continue with his speech while it was being passed.  The church is growing and developing, line upon line, precept on precept.  They had block teachers instead of ward teachers and they had 18-20 families each to visit.  They were expected to help the needy, settle disputes, and collect fast offerings.  They were adults, not teenage boys.  Often boys were not ordained to the Aaronic Priesthood but waited until they were in their late teens and then they received the Melchizedek Priesthood.  There were no Relief Societies for two decades.  It was started in Nauvoo, but it did not continue in Utah until the 1860's.  There was a full generation of women who didn't have Relief Society.  For them religion was a home matter.  The Provo 3rd Ward met in a different sister's home each week.  They had both prayer meetings and quilting meetings, but the attendance was low at the prayer meetings.  After 1867, Relief Society was organized everywhere.  Women now had ward jobs.  When Johnston's Army came through, people had prayer meetings but seldom had sacrament meetings.  Some people kept their hats on in church and women kept their gloves on.  This was discouraged.  The sacrament water was passed around in one goblet and some people were thirsty and drank too much of it.  There were few baptismal fonts and many people postponed their children being baptized in the winter and waited until the weather warmed up.  People were encouraged to have their children baptized when they turned 8, even if it was in winter.  Many were re-baptized when they entered the Salt Lake Valley, as a sign of recommitment.  Endowments were given at a young age, as early as 14.  One in twenty men served missions at any given time. Tithing was always expected.  What mattered to Brigham Young was that people were willing to build the Kingdom.  Just by arriving here, that counted big time.  When the church needed the Kingdom built, if people would respond to the calls, those were considered good Latter-day Saints.  People were called to work on the temples or settle various areas.  They were considered good Latter-day Saints.  The church has developed over the years to get it smoother and more polished, but let's all be active in the church, whatever that means. 

LOVING THOSE WHO HURT US (CHRISTIAN AND LILI ANDERSON):  Love is an act of endless forgiveness.  Before we can forgive, we need to be safe.  We cannot forgive if we are in a victim role.  If we're in a cycle of abuse, it is not healthy to forgive.  It's like the wife that gets beat up, forgives, gets beat up again, forgives, etc.  We need to find healthy forgiving.  We should love our enemies, bless those who curse you, pray for those who persecute you.  Some people who are trying to forgive, really hate this scripture.  But we need to see this scripture in a positive light.  It ultimately is good.  The gospel gets us to a place where we are free.  If we just love those who are nice to use, God's not too impressed.  Anybody can do that.  We have the responsibility to get along.  We can't change other people, but we have responsibility for ourselves--how we act, how we feel.  Love may sometimes be defined as trusting and being vulnerable.  This can be a stickler for someone trying to be forgiving.  We should not put our hearts out there just to get smashed again.  Sometimes love is a distorted concept and it's used in unhealthy ways.  We need to understand what God is talking about when he's talking about love.  How is it that Christ loves?  Charity is the pure love of Christ.  His love is always a bout bringing a benefit to those He loves.  That includes Manna in the wilderness, but sometimes it's famine and plagues.  If we do what's right, we get blessings, but if we break our covenants, He will remind us of our covenants and sometimes that takes floods or famines.  Nephi was told that anything he asked for would be given to him because he would not ask for anything amiss.  He asks for a famine out of love for his people.  That was a wake up call.  It was to give people a chance to change their direction.  While divine love can be called perfect, infinite, enduring and universal, it cannot correctly be characterized as unconditional.  The word does not appear in the scriptures.  The divine blessings stemming from that love are conditional. Some scriptures say:  IF we keep the commandments, we shall abide in His love.  If a man love Him, he will keep my words and the Father will love him.  The way we talk about agency has changed over the years.  "Free agency" used to be referred to but now it's referred to as agency or moral agency.  This changed after Boyd K. Packer gave a conference talk in 1992. Before W.W.II there was a lot of consistency in harnessing the natural man and having self control.  They probably wouldn't take the term "free agency" and run with it to do whatever they wanted.  But look at today's world.  Many people embrace "I'll do whatever I feel like."  They'll misuse the term of "free" agency.  It's not a free pass.  Same with the term "unconditional love."  God's love is universal but that doesn't mean we can do whatever we want and we'll still get all the blessings.  Our obedience is necessary to receive the blessings.  God does love us.  But those people who knowingly sin and think it's okay because God loves them, will still be punished for their sins unless they repent.  We will all be held accountable for our own sins if we don't repent.  Likewise we need to love with wisdom.  If we allow somebody to take advantage of us or hurt us, that is not helping them live a Christlike life and that is not doing them any favors.  The right kind of love goes hand in hand with forgiveness. The wrong kind of love thinks we have to give someone access to hurt us, turn over our bank account to them, and trust them even if they're not worthy of our trust.  Sinners cannot bend God's will to theirs and expect God to bless them in sin.  If they desire to enjoy every blessing, they must repent.  If we love in a healthy way, we can forgive anyone whether or not they repent, but we don't open ourselves up to being victimized by them.  We can respect people and not wish them ill but not allow them to continue to hurt us.  If you're being mistreated in a relationship that's supposed to be loving, there needs to be given a message "What you're doing is hurting me."  Victim love is unhealthy love. Sometimes a woman will allow abuse to take place in a relationship under the guise of "love" but that is not healthy.  The love of God does not supersede His laws and His commandments, and the effect of God's laws and commandments does not diminish the purpose and effect of His love.  If anyone thinks that godly or parental love grants the loved one license to disobey the law or be abuse, he or she does not understand either love or law.  Love is not license to abuse.  If you love someone in a healthy way, that's going to have boundaries attached to it.  It's helpful to love sinners and help them feel fellowship.  But media love is sometimes a victim love.  "All you need is love." (Beatles) "I can't help falling in love with you." (Elvis) Healthy love doesn't involve a complete suspension of reason.  Love isn't just about feelings.  It needs to make sense.  Even healthy love may not be all you need, but it's a good start.  Constantly trying to hug a porcupine doesn't feel good.  If we're miserable all the time because the person we "love" is mean to us, that's not a healthy love.  Truth is reason.  Come, let us reason together.  Study it out.  I will tell you in your mind and in your heart.  Sometimes we get too caught up in following our feelings.  We need to engage our minds.  For example, if we feel the Spirit telling us to go buy a car even though we don't have money and have bad credit, we may get into a lot of trouble following those feelings.  Will the Spirit really tell us to do something that makes no sense and is against what the counsel of the church leaders tell us, such as to stay out of debt and to live within our means?  Sometimes there are hurtful parents, such as a dad who doesn't live with the kids promising to come and take them to Disneyland but he never shows up.  Love does not include broken promises and someone not being sensitive to their needs.  That is not a healthy love.  God cares about us, is sensitive to our needs and feelings, and He always keeps His promises.  If one parent is abusive or neglectful, the other parent has an obligation to stand up for the child and protect them. Her son had a friend he played with every day after school.  But one day that friend had a couple of other friends from school come over and he totally rejected her son, treating him rudely.  He came home really hurt.  Then a few days later the friend came over to play like nothing ever happened.  Her son asked her what he should do.  She told him he had 3 options 1) Tell him to get lost and refuse to be his friend anymore. 2) Play with him again like nothing ever happened. 3) Play with him and forgive him, but not completely trust him until he could see he wouldn't continue to do things to hurt him again.  The third choice is the best choice.  We can love our enemies and be kind and friendly to them, but that doesn't mean we trust them.  We can do a lot of good with healthy love, but not victim love.  We need to teach our children that it's not okay for them to not be treated well.  Otherwise, they may marry someone who will abuse them and stick with them no matter how badly they're treated.  We need to teach our children that they deserve to be treated well.  Some men or women go into a relationship where they're treated badly thinking they can "save" the other person.  That is not a healthy relationship.  We already have a Savior, and it's not our marriage partner.  We need to rediscover the humanity of the person who hurt us.  Every soul has great worth.  Surrender our "right" to get even.  Vengeance belongs to God.  We don't have the right to get even and that won't help us love them.  Revise our feelings.  At first, we just muffle our demands that God make some very bad things happen to the offender.  We begin to feel a nudge to hope for some mildly good things to happen to the offender.  The feeling of good will is likely to be weak and hesitant at the start, and we are likely to backslide into malice along the way.  We don't have to be vulnerable to someone to love them.  Forgiving and reunion are not the same thing. 

THE FATHER OF MODERN EGYPTIAN ARCHAEOLOGY--JEAN FRANCOIS CHAMPOLLION, THE ROSETTA STONE AND MARTIN HARRIS (RICHARD E. BENNETT): The gospel restoration was on a wider stage than just upstate New York.  Many resources were used in the restoration of the gospel. The Book of Abraham can be traced all the way back to Egypt.  Jean-Francois Champollion was the greatest linguist who ever lived translated the Rosetta stone.  It took him 20 years.  He knew Napoleon.  There is a connection between him and Martin Harris.  The French invaded Egypt, and in 1799 discovered the Rosetta stone.  There was all kinds of activity to try to translate this tone.  They realized this might be the key to decipher the ancient hieroglyphs.  There's a race like the race to the moon in our day to see who could do it.  But it was Jean who finally was able to decode this in 1822.  He did this in September 1822.  Moroni came the following year.  Jean did not publish any of his work until 1822.  He was able to decode the meaning of the Rosetta stone.  The Rosetta stone contains a decree from March 196 BC.  It contains an anniversary for the then 8 year old king of Egypt.  It's a tri lingual decree.  It's written in Greek, Demotic, and Hieroglyphic. At the time this was discovered, no one knew how to read Demotic or Hieroglyphic.  But because people knew Greek, the Greek portion was translated fairly soon.  They then realized that this said the same thing in three languages so they were able to figure out the Demotic and Hieroglyphic.  The name Ptolmy is found throughout the text.  A name in Greek will be the same in Egyptian.  The name Ptolmy helped crack this.  Demotic is an alphabet.  In the Hieroglyphics, Jean found the name Ptolmy and figured out that it was an alphabet.  Coptic preserved some of the old Egyptian and he used that to help him.  Think of a chapter in the Old Testament where the name Solomon appears repeatedly.  Then say you saw this chapter in Hebrew.  You might think about where in the chapter the name Solomon would appear and look for repetitions of it throughout the text.  In 1822, Jean decoded the hieroglyphs of Egypt and then people could finally figure out what was said in the pyramids.  What does this have to do with the Book of Mormon?  Luther Bradish lived from 1783-1863.  He was the real Indiana Jones.  He was born in Mass.  He became a wealthy attorney in 1810.  In 1816 his wife dies in childbirth and his infant son also died.  He is devastated by this so he went on a trip to Constinople to get away.  John Quincy Adams asked him to be a secret Envoy to the Middle East. A sultan sends him on another secret mission to Egypt in 1821.  He sails up the Nile, meets Drovetti and others, flees for his life during the War of the Consuls.  He returns to America in 1825 with more knowledge of Egyptian archaeology and languages than any other living American.  He becomes Literary Agent for American authors, James Fennimore Cooper and Washington Irving.  When he was 15, his parents moved to Palmyra, NY.  His father, Joseph Bradish, and Martin Harris' father, Nathan, knew each other well and worked together.  Martin Harris and Luther's brother, Calvin worked together as road supervisors.  By 1827, Luther had gained many friends in Palmyra "who are dear to you and who form a respectable part of our community in numbers, talents, and influence."  That Luther Bradish and Martin Harris knew each other well is highly probable in so small a community.  Palmyra was a very small town back then.  Martin Harris is Joseph Smith's first scribe.  In 1828, Martin Harris' wife is resistant to this, and upset that he gave money to print the Book of Mormon. When Martin Harris got Joseph Smith to write some characters down, Martin takes them to his friend Luther Bradish.  We haven't discovered the content of their conversation, but Luther sends him to two other men.  One was Charles Anthon.  He was a 28 year old professor at the time.  He knew Hebrew and Greek but knew nothing about Hieroglyphics.  Anthon told him to bring him the plates.  When told an angel brought them and it's sealed, he gets antagonistic and tore up the note he'd written.  He fulfills prophecy.  Then Martin visited Samuel L. Mitchill.  He was a kind Quaker from New York.  Everybody brought things to Mitchill. Mitchell examined them and compared them with other hieroglyphics.  They thought them very curious and said they were the characters of a nation now extinct which he named.  Harris returned to Anthon who put some questions to him and got angry with Harris.  The International stage for the coming forth of scripture at the hand of the Lord had many more elements than we've previously thought.  Exciting!