Elder Garret W. Gong is by almost no definition white. On the other hand, as an American of Chinese descent, he is excluded from most definitions of "underserved" and "underrepresented" minorities, and would be discrimanted against by most quota and affirmative action programs.
Elder Gong is clearly an American. Both of his parents were born in the US, so he is more American than David O. McKay and Joseph F. Smith and well as John Taylor, just to list presidents of the Church he exceeds in Americaness. If we look at apostles, his most recent immigrant ancestor may or may not have come more recently than David A. Bednar's. He is clearly more American than Dale E. Rendlund, both of whose parents were immigrants.
Also, President Eyring's father was born in Mexico, whith Mexican citizenship, and his great-grandfather, the one who met his Swiss great-grandmother in the company moving west when he was sick after a long mission in the realm of the Cherokee, was known as Enrique Eyring at the time of his death.
While Elder Gong's mother was not born in a state, that is because Hawaii was not yet a state at the time of her birth. His father was born in Merced where Elder Gong's grandparents, like many other Chinese-Americans, were small business owners, I can't remember for sure if it was a dry cleaners or restaurant they ran. On his father's side his ancestors came from China in the 19th-century. When his ancestors came to Hawaii on his mother's side is less clear.
Elder Gong's wife, Sister Susan Lindsay Gong, is the daughter of Richard P. Lindsay who was managing director of the Church's public affairs department for much of the 1980s and later a general authority sevcenty. Elder Lindsay has since died.
Elder Gong served his mission in Taiwan, was a Rhodes Schoolar after graduating from BYU, dated his wife while visiting Provo on a summer off from Oxford while his father, a professor at San Jose State University was a visiting professor at BYU. Walter Gong gave courses to faculty that influenced Stephen R. Covery enough that he quotes Walter Gong in 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
Elder Gong was on the factulty at Johns Hopkins, then worked for the US government both with an assignment to the embassy in Beijing and as an outside consultant with a think tank connected with George Washington University.
Elder Gong thus becomes the second apostle born in California, second only to Elder Bednar. Both were born in California, went to BYU, and spent their adult life first as a professor/government consultant in the US east of the Rocky mountains, and then came to the intermountain west with an assignment with a Church institution of higher education. Elder Bednar was a business professor and then president of Ricks. His career involves much more understandable roles.
Elder Gong was involved in foriegn policy development circles, and his Wikipedia article lists several papers he wrote. What he actually did is not always easy to understand, partly because of the sensitive nature of some foriegn policy discussion. If I understood what he said at a forum on the pros and cons of going to war in Iraq I went to in 2003 that he spoke at at BYU, he was involved with some government bodies that analized the appropriate response to the actions of North Korea.
Where Elder Bednar was president of Ricks College and then BYU-Idaho, Elder Gong was assistant to the President of BYU for planning and assessment. He served as such with both President Bateman and President Samuelson.
Wednesday, April 11, 2018
The new apostles
The new apostles are only 50% Americans, as opposed to the new General Authorities called, who are 62.5% American. The new members of the Presidency of the 70 called are 40% American, and they will make it as of August that only 3 of the 7 president will be American.
The Quorum of the 12 is now having two non-Americans for the first time since John A. Widstoe and Charles A. Callis were members, although since both Callis and Widstoe were US citizens who immigrated to the US at ages 10 and 11, they were for all intents and purposes Americans.
N. Eldon Tanner was born in the US because his mother was visiting her parents, but his family was resident in Canada. Marion G. Romney was born in Mexico, but came to the US as a youth, and his parents were of American origin.
Elder Uchtdorf had been to the US for pilot training prior to his call as a general authority, but had basically always been a resident of Germany. Elder Soares was living in Utah doing a special assignment for the Office of the Presiding Bishopric at the time of his call as a general authority. However he was born and raised, served his mission in and worked up until his call as a mission president in Brazil, some of that time as Director of Temporal Affairs for the Brazil South Area. Elder Soares was mission president in Portugal.
Elder Gong while the first clearly non-white apostle is without question American. Elder Soares is phenotypically white. The nature of his actual ancestry I am not aware of, so I can not rule out indigenous American or slightly more likely African ancestry. However other factors suggest to me that Elder Soares probably does not have any known African ancestry. Since he was born in 1958 he would have been just over minimum mission age at the time of the 1978 revelation, but I have not come across any suggestion that he has African ancestry, and even though there are lots of people with some level of African ancestry in Sao Paulo, it is people from places like Forteleza that are even more likely to have it. There are lots of people of fully traceable European ancestry in souther Brazil.
This does not change the fact that Elder Soares is clearly culturally distrinct from many Utah Mormons, although the number of people of Brazilian origin and descent in Utah is higher than some realize.
Elder Soares is another step in internationalizing the Quorum of the 12 along with Elder Uchtdorf, although I still think looking at it this way unreasonably minimizes the importance of other general authorities and of general officers.
At present the Church still calls General Officers exclusively from those living in Utah. The newly called general officers at this conference were all white Americans. Sister Craig was raised in Provo where her dad was a BYU professor, except her last two years in high school when he father was president of the Pennsylvania Harrisburg Mission. Her father was born in Logan, Utah but raised in New Brunswick, New Jersey where her grandfather was a professor at Rutgers University. Her grandparents were in the same ward as Elder Christopherson when he was a teenager and incluenced him enough that he mentioned Sister Craig's grandmother in one of his general conference talks, as an example of what faithful women in the Church can do.
Sister Craven, the new second counselor in the Young women general presidency was born in Ohio. Her father was in the US military. Her mother's maiden name was Kaszuk, a slavic name that fits with common names in parts of Ohio. Her parents joined the Church later while living in Texas, the family was sealed in the Swiss Temple while her father was stationed in Germany. She was however baptized in Utah, while her father was on a tour of duty in Vietnam. Growing up she lived in 7 US states and Germany and England.
The Quorum of the 12 is now having two non-Americans for the first time since John A. Widstoe and Charles A. Callis were members, although since both Callis and Widstoe were US citizens who immigrated to the US at ages 10 and 11, they were for all intents and purposes Americans.
N. Eldon Tanner was born in the US because his mother was visiting her parents, but his family was resident in Canada. Marion G. Romney was born in Mexico, but came to the US as a youth, and his parents were of American origin.
Elder Uchtdorf had been to the US for pilot training prior to his call as a general authority, but had basically always been a resident of Germany. Elder Soares was living in Utah doing a special assignment for the Office of the Presiding Bishopric at the time of his call as a general authority. However he was born and raised, served his mission in and worked up until his call as a mission president in Brazil, some of that time as Director of Temporal Affairs for the Brazil South Area. Elder Soares was mission president in Portugal.
Elder Gong while the first clearly non-white apostle is without question American. Elder Soares is phenotypically white. The nature of his actual ancestry I am not aware of, so I can not rule out indigenous American or slightly more likely African ancestry. However other factors suggest to me that Elder Soares probably does not have any known African ancestry. Since he was born in 1958 he would have been just over minimum mission age at the time of the 1978 revelation, but I have not come across any suggestion that he has African ancestry, and even though there are lots of people with some level of African ancestry in Sao Paulo, it is people from places like Forteleza that are even more likely to have it. There are lots of people of fully traceable European ancestry in souther Brazil.
This does not change the fact that Elder Soares is clearly culturally distrinct from many Utah Mormons, although the number of people of Brazilian origin and descent in Utah is higher than some realize.
Elder Soares is another step in internationalizing the Quorum of the 12 along with Elder Uchtdorf, although I still think looking at it this way unreasonably minimizes the importance of other general authorities and of general officers.
At present the Church still calls General Officers exclusively from those living in Utah. The newly called general officers at this conference were all white Americans. Sister Craig was raised in Provo where her dad was a BYU professor, except her last two years in high school when he father was president of the Pennsylvania Harrisburg Mission. Her father was born in Logan, Utah but raised in New Brunswick, New Jersey where her grandfather was a professor at Rutgers University. Her grandparents were in the same ward as Elder Christopherson when he was a teenager and incluenced him enough that he mentioned Sister Craig's grandmother in one of his general conference talks, as an example of what faithful women in the Church can do.
Sister Craven, the new second counselor in the Young women general presidency was born in Ohio. Her father was in the US military. Her mother's maiden name was Kaszuk, a slavic name that fits with common names in parts of Ohio. Her parents joined the Church later while living in Texas, the family was sealed in the Swiss Temple while her father was stationed in Germany. She was however baptized in Utah, while her father was on a tour of duty in Vietnam. Growing up she lived in 7 US states and Germany and England.
Tuesday, March 20, 2018
Why I am not a Utah Expatriate
With it having been over 80 years since the first stake was formed in Chicago, and over 65 since the first stake was formed in Detroit, one would think we would be past the era of the Utah Expatriate. However I don't feel it.
While not all the people I hometeach have connections to Utah, they all connect to Utah, Idaho or Washington State. Some people at times think of The Belle Isle Branch as white Utah Expatriates and black Michigan born converts, but it is more complex than that.
A classic example of the Utah expatriate is Sister Jean B. Bingham. True, she has been resident in Utah for the last 9 years, and was born in Provo. She also started her undergraduate education at BYU and met her husband there. However she went to high school in New Jersey, and elementary school in Minnesota and Texas. She spent most of her married life in Illinois and Wisconsin.
However she was raised a Utah expatriate. Her parents were from Tooelle and Grantsville and every summer her family would spend 4 weeks visiting relatives and family in Utah. It is that constant return to Utah that makes someone a Utah exapatriate, and the key in me not being one.
My first trip to Utah was when I was one. I have no recollection of it. The next time I went to Utah was a age 15. I had by that time made three trips to California, so I was closer to a California expatriate with three of my grandparents living there, and my parents having come close to moving back there in the late 1980s.
Of course when Sister Bingham was growing up from 1952 even until the time she was married in 1972, the closest temples were in Utah. When I was growing up the closest temples were in DC until I was 4, Chicago until I was 9, Toronto until I was 19, and I was thus endowed in the Detroit Temple.
Thus it is the building of the DC Temple in 1974, not the first stake in the east, that allows us to start moving beyond being Utah Expatriates.
While not all the people I hometeach have connections to Utah, they all connect to Utah, Idaho or Washington State. Some people at times think of The Belle Isle Branch as white Utah Expatriates and black Michigan born converts, but it is more complex than that.
A classic example of the Utah expatriate is Sister Jean B. Bingham. True, she has been resident in Utah for the last 9 years, and was born in Provo. She also started her undergraduate education at BYU and met her husband there. However she went to high school in New Jersey, and elementary school in Minnesota and Texas. She spent most of her married life in Illinois and Wisconsin.
However she was raised a Utah expatriate. Her parents were from Tooelle and Grantsville and every summer her family would spend 4 weeks visiting relatives and family in Utah. It is that constant return to Utah that makes someone a Utah exapatriate, and the key in me not being one.
My first trip to Utah was when I was one. I have no recollection of it. The next time I went to Utah was a age 15. I had by that time made three trips to California, so I was closer to a California expatriate with three of my grandparents living there, and my parents having come close to moving back there in the late 1980s.
Of course when Sister Bingham was growing up from 1952 even until the time she was married in 1972, the closest temples were in Utah. When I was growing up the closest temples were in DC until I was 4, Chicago until I was 9, Toronto until I was 19, and I was thus endowed in the Detroit Temple.
Thus it is the building of the DC Temple in 1974, not the first stake in the east, that allows us to start moving beyond being Utah Expatriates.
Wednesday, January 3, 2018
Thomas S. Monson, rest in peace
Thomas S. Monson passed away last night. Although when he died was just after midnight Michigan time.
It is hard at this juncture to say a lot. I am saddened by the passing and glad he has rejoined his belowed Frances.
President Monson was first called as an apostle in 1963. The president of the Quorum of the 12 then was Joseph Fielding Smith, whose parents had lived in exile in Hawaii for some of his formative years, and who was a teenaged before the Salt Lake Temple was completed.
The president of the Church who called President Monson was David O. McKay. When President McKay had become president of the Church all stakes were in the US, Albetrta, Canada or the Mormon colonies in Hawaii. No stake operated in a language other than English. It was only while President Monson was president of the Canadian mission that missionary work to French-speakers in Canada was initiatiated.
In 1971 Elder Monson was one of the apostles involved in setting apart the leadership of the Genesis Group. This group was created to serve the needs of African-American Latter-day Saints. In 1973 in his journal as noted in a Deseret News article published today, Elder Monson expressed the hope that the African-American brethren leading the Genesis Group could soon receive the priesthood. He was the last man alive who had been present in 1978 when President Kimball received the revelation on the priesthood. He was also present at the first sacrament meeting of the Genesis Group, and performed the first temple sealing involving a couple including an African-American. Also as a member of the Priesthood Executive Committee he was involved in issueing the first mission calls to people of African-descent in the 20th century (Elijah Able had been a missionary in the 19th-century). Among those then called was Marcus Martins who would be called as a mission president by President Monson.
President Monson dedicated Haiti for the preaching of the gospel in 1982. His first assignments as an apostle had been to Oceania. He organized the first stake in Tonga for example.
President Monson had a vision of a church where all wards and branches were lead by local brethren, and not by full-time missionaries. Where as many people as possible lived in stakes and could receive patriarchal blessings and where no members lived more than 200 miles from the temple.
From about 1969-1985 President Monson oversaw the Church in Eastern Europe. It was truly a labor of love. He was centrally involved in the negotiations that lead to missionaries in East German before the fall of the Berlin Wall, East Germans called as missionaries, and the building of the Friberg Germany Temple. While most of the major progress in eastern Europe happened after President Monson was called to the First Presidency, and it was Elder Russell M. Nelson who was the main point man on that, President Monson was key in laying the groundwork.
President Monson was also a key figure in the LDS edition of the scriptures that came out from 1979-1981.
He was a man who had a vision of ministry to the one.
His role while a counselor to Presidents Benson, Hunter and Hinckley is hard for me to directly assess.
As preisdent of the Church, he oversaw many major developments, although many were continuances of policies of those before.
The biggest change under his administration was the lowering of the missionary age, especially for young women. This also lead to a reformating of mission counsels. There were also major advances in missionary use of technology and changes in various other guidelines for misisonaries.
Another big change was seen in major revisions of Church curriculum. This started in 2013 with new youth curriculum. The CES curriculum went through major revisions as well. Then in 2016 came teacher councils. The 2010 revision of the Church Handbook of instructions also emphasized more the importance of the ward council. The Church moved to be more strongly governed by councils at all levels. The new melchizedek preisthood and relief society curriculum move this central role of councils and new approach to curriculum even more broadly. The adult Sunday School curriculum has not seen much revision. The Doctrine and Covenants online materials did include some very useful connections and additional material, but I have to say it was not uniformly utilized. On the other hand the online edition of the Old Testament student manual still uses the Old Bible dictionary name for an article, not even reflecting the alterations in the Bible Dictionary published in I believe 2013.
On the political and social issues front President Monson has largely reflected a continuation of policies from before. The 2008 support of Proposition 8 and similar measures in other states was in line with previous support. The move of the Church voicing its support for legal protection of man/woman marriage outside of the US may have been new under President Monson, but was a result more of the issue being voiced in areas where there was a chance for public comment combined with situations like an all Mexican area presidency in Mexico being about the only group that could have lead out on the issue in the political climate of Mexico. The Church seems to have possibly been more vocal in its support for finding solutions to immigration issues that would allow families to remain together, but I have not studied the issue in depth enough to be able to time Church statements on this issue very clearly.
While the Church has clearly endorsed a level of housing and employment protections from discrimination based on sexual orientation that I do not think was announced before, it has signaled that man/woman marriage will remain the only accepted place for sexual interaction in Church policy. The policy to excommunicate those who enter same-sex marriage has caused outrage to some, and others to misrepresent it.
The Church has also lead out in interfaith work, and a push for religious freedom.
At the same time the Church has majorly increased its openess and scholarly publications. The Chuirch Historians Press was launched under President Monson, although much of the initial legwork for this initiatiate was started under President Hinckley. Starting in 2013 the Church published several gospel topic essays, that dealt frankly with difficult subjects like race and the priesthood. The fact that a few weeks ago I was able to show such to an active Church member who had never read them shows that they have not been read as much as they need to be.
The role of women in the Church has also beeen changed in significant if not fully comprehended ways. Women giving prayers in regular sessions of general conference, and the women's conference being made for all women 8 and up and being clearly indicated as part of general conference are significant changes. The most recent, with the alternating general priesthood meeting and general women's meeting on Saturday evenings of general conference is also a big one. Also the role of the mission president's companion (wife) has been given a more formal place in mission structure, and the mission council now includes female missionaries, and there is the new leadership title for sister missionaries (the exact name escapes me at the moment).
The BYU pathway program has been another major initiative during President Monson's presidency.
Lastly, we have seen a push forward in the number of temples. Not on the level of what we saw under President Hinckley, but still a major push forward. We have seen temples announced for several places very far from existing temples.
I know there are lots more things to cover, but I think this is a good start.
Latly, President Monson was a man of compasion who was able to lead to Church to better reach out in service and caring to meet the needs of the individual.
It is hard at this juncture to say a lot. I am saddened by the passing and glad he has rejoined his belowed Frances.
President Monson was first called as an apostle in 1963. The president of the Quorum of the 12 then was Joseph Fielding Smith, whose parents had lived in exile in Hawaii for some of his formative years, and who was a teenaged before the Salt Lake Temple was completed.
The president of the Church who called President Monson was David O. McKay. When President McKay had become president of the Church all stakes were in the US, Albetrta, Canada or the Mormon colonies in Hawaii. No stake operated in a language other than English. It was only while President Monson was president of the Canadian mission that missionary work to French-speakers in Canada was initiatiated.
In 1971 Elder Monson was one of the apostles involved in setting apart the leadership of the Genesis Group. This group was created to serve the needs of African-American Latter-day Saints. In 1973 in his journal as noted in a Deseret News article published today, Elder Monson expressed the hope that the African-American brethren leading the Genesis Group could soon receive the priesthood. He was the last man alive who had been present in 1978 when President Kimball received the revelation on the priesthood. He was also present at the first sacrament meeting of the Genesis Group, and performed the first temple sealing involving a couple including an African-American. Also as a member of the Priesthood Executive Committee he was involved in issueing the first mission calls to people of African-descent in the 20th century (Elijah Able had been a missionary in the 19th-century). Among those then called was Marcus Martins who would be called as a mission president by President Monson.
President Monson dedicated Haiti for the preaching of the gospel in 1982. His first assignments as an apostle had been to Oceania. He organized the first stake in Tonga for example.
President Monson had a vision of a church where all wards and branches were lead by local brethren, and not by full-time missionaries. Where as many people as possible lived in stakes and could receive patriarchal blessings and where no members lived more than 200 miles from the temple.
From about 1969-1985 President Monson oversaw the Church in Eastern Europe. It was truly a labor of love. He was centrally involved in the negotiations that lead to missionaries in East German before the fall of the Berlin Wall, East Germans called as missionaries, and the building of the Friberg Germany Temple. While most of the major progress in eastern Europe happened after President Monson was called to the First Presidency, and it was Elder Russell M. Nelson who was the main point man on that, President Monson was key in laying the groundwork.
President Monson was also a key figure in the LDS edition of the scriptures that came out from 1979-1981.
He was a man who had a vision of ministry to the one.
His role while a counselor to Presidents Benson, Hunter and Hinckley is hard for me to directly assess.
As preisdent of the Church, he oversaw many major developments, although many were continuances of policies of those before.
The biggest change under his administration was the lowering of the missionary age, especially for young women. This also lead to a reformating of mission counsels. There were also major advances in missionary use of technology and changes in various other guidelines for misisonaries.
Another big change was seen in major revisions of Church curriculum. This started in 2013 with new youth curriculum. The CES curriculum went through major revisions as well. Then in 2016 came teacher councils. The 2010 revision of the Church Handbook of instructions also emphasized more the importance of the ward council. The Church moved to be more strongly governed by councils at all levels. The new melchizedek preisthood and relief society curriculum move this central role of councils and new approach to curriculum even more broadly. The adult Sunday School curriculum has not seen much revision. The Doctrine and Covenants online materials did include some very useful connections and additional material, but I have to say it was not uniformly utilized. On the other hand the online edition of the Old Testament student manual still uses the Old Bible dictionary name for an article, not even reflecting the alterations in the Bible Dictionary published in I believe 2013.
On the political and social issues front President Monson has largely reflected a continuation of policies from before. The 2008 support of Proposition 8 and similar measures in other states was in line with previous support. The move of the Church voicing its support for legal protection of man/woman marriage outside of the US may have been new under President Monson, but was a result more of the issue being voiced in areas where there was a chance for public comment combined with situations like an all Mexican area presidency in Mexico being about the only group that could have lead out on the issue in the political climate of Mexico. The Church seems to have possibly been more vocal in its support for finding solutions to immigration issues that would allow families to remain together, but I have not studied the issue in depth enough to be able to time Church statements on this issue very clearly.
While the Church has clearly endorsed a level of housing and employment protections from discrimination based on sexual orientation that I do not think was announced before, it has signaled that man/woman marriage will remain the only accepted place for sexual interaction in Church policy. The policy to excommunicate those who enter same-sex marriage has caused outrage to some, and others to misrepresent it.
The Church has also lead out in interfaith work, and a push for religious freedom.
At the same time the Church has majorly increased its openess and scholarly publications. The Chuirch Historians Press was launched under President Monson, although much of the initial legwork for this initiatiate was started under President Hinckley. Starting in 2013 the Church published several gospel topic essays, that dealt frankly with difficult subjects like race and the priesthood. The fact that a few weeks ago I was able to show such to an active Church member who had never read them shows that they have not been read as much as they need to be.
The role of women in the Church has also beeen changed in significant if not fully comprehended ways. Women giving prayers in regular sessions of general conference, and the women's conference being made for all women 8 and up and being clearly indicated as part of general conference are significant changes. The most recent, with the alternating general priesthood meeting and general women's meeting on Saturday evenings of general conference is also a big one. Also the role of the mission president's companion (wife) has been given a more formal place in mission structure, and the mission council now includes female missionaries, and there is the new leadership title for sister missionaries (the exact name escapes me at the moment).
The BYU pathway program has been another major initiative during President Monson's presidency.
Lastly, we have seen a push forward in the number of temples. Not on the level of what we saw under President Hinckley, but still a major push forward. We have seen temples announced for several places very far from existing temples.
I know there are lots more things to cover, but I think this is a good start.
Latly, President Monson was a man of compasion who was able to lead to Church to better reach out in service and caring to meet the needs of the individual.
Sunday, November 19, 2017
Following the lesson needs to happen
In Sterling Heights Ward Sunday School class today there was no mention at all of the 1978 Revelation on the priesthood. To me this was a major problem, considering this is what the first half of the lesson was about. I was also one of only three people present in the class who was born after the 1978 revelation. Most people in the class are old enough that they were adults at the time of the revelation.
In some ways I am glad that the topic was not brought up, I am not sure I was ready to hear false theories put forth. I did on the sides share the Race and the Pruiesthood Essay with a class member who was barely born at the time of the 1978 revelation. He had not read it, and had not realized that ordinations of men of African descent from 1830-1852 were fullly approved. Nor had he realized that Brigham Young had praised Q. Walker Lewis. More needs to be done to encourage people to read the gospel topics essays.
In some ways I am glad that the topic was not brought up, I am not sure I was ready to hear false theories put forth. I did on the sides share the Race and the Pruiesthood Essay with a class member who was barely born at the time of the 1978 revelation. He had not read it, and had not realized that ordinations of men of African descent from 1830-1852 were fullly approved. Nor had he realized that Brigham Young had praised Q. Walker Lewis. More needs to be done to encourage people to read the gospel topics essays.
Saturday, September 23, 2017
Each member needs to take responsibility for outreach
I have read people complaining of the need for church leadership to organize linguistic specific outreach in some areas. My response is that each member has the responsibility to do this. If Russell M. Nelson as a 50-plus year-old could undertake to learn Chinese we all can do something to advance the work.
Saturday, September 16, 2017
The evolution of missionaries in the 20th-century
At the dawn of the the 20th-century the missionary force was still largely composed of married men who left behind their families, normally containing young children, and traveled far from their homes to serve as missionaries.
This was the case with Joseph Fielding Smith, or as he was then often known Joseph F. Smith, Jr., who left behind his wife who had just had a miscarriage to go serve as a missionary in the United Kingdom. This was the case with Goege D. Benson, Jr, when he left behind his wife and children in about 1909 to go serve a mission in the United Kingdom. Brother Benson's oldest son was a boy they called T, who would later be known as Ezra Taft Benson.
The modern model of young, single missionaries serving before their marriage had began. On the first day of the 20th century the first marriage ceremony performed in the Salt Lake Temple was the marriage of David O. McKay and Emma Ray Riggs. Brother McKay was a graduate of the University of Utah, who had a few years before served a mission in the United Kingdom (mainly in Scotland).
Joseph F. Smith, Jr's cousin George Albert Smith represented all these trends in his missionary experience in the 1890s. First he had been called as a mutual improvement association missionary. He was sent from his home in Salt Lake City (where he went after completing high school at Brigham Young Academy, although as a child in school he had often put Lucy Woodruff's pig tails in the ink well in their Salt Lake City school.) to southern Utah where he served as a mutual improvement association missionary. At the dawn of the 20th-century Francis M. Lyman was serving as president of the British Mission. None of his wives had accompanied him on this assignment. Before the 20th-centuries first year (1901) was out, Heber J. Grant would open the Japanese mission. He was accompanied on this assignment by one of his two living wives (he had had three at once at one point, but his first wife, Lucy Stringham Grant, whose father was the man for whom Bryan S. Hinckley was named, had died a few years before, not long after the birth of their only son, they had a few daughters, who also died. Elder Grant traveled with his daughters throughout the US to get their minds off their mother dying, and one of his daughters fell ill and nearly died, but was saved by a blessing from George Q. Cannon in which he revoked the power of Satan and his having claimed the life of this child.
Geogre Albert Smith receieved the call to be a Mutual Improvement Association missionary on Sep. 7, 1891. In this capacity he traveled with a friend of his who was a grandson of Brigham Young, thus repeating their grandfather's being co-members of the first presidency. The were called by the first presidency and sent to Juab, Millard, Beaver and Iron counties to build up the mutual programs in those counties. Elder Smith was 21 at the time.
Elder Smith would after a few months return to Salt Lake City, where he married Lucy Woodruff, a daughter of Wilford Woodruff Jr and thus a granddaughter of Wilford Woodruff and his wife Phoebe. Wilford and Phoebe had a daughter Phoebe who was one of the wives of Lorenzo Snow. So Phoebe Woodruff is probably the only woman to have been both mother-in-law and grandmother-in-law of presidents of the Church, sort of a slight difference from Mary Fielding Smith who was the only woman to be both a mother and a grandmother of president of the Church.
George Albert and Lucy were married in the Salt Lake Temple on May 25, 1892. On June 23, 1892 George Albert left on a mission to the southern states, which he would mainly spend as the secretary to President J. Golden Kimball. The position of secretary was not like is found in most modern missions. President Kimball did not have counselors. Elder Smith was thus a cross between a one man pair of assistants to the president, a one man set of counelors to the president, and did many of the things missions secretaries, in modern missions often multiple men and women, do. Do make things more interesting, there were no stakes in the south (actually I think none outside of Arizona, Utah and Idaho, southern Alberta might have just gotten a stake, but even much of the inter-mountain west lacked stakes, Boise would not see a stake until about 1912. That is also the year Nevada got its first stake, although some areas had been part of the St. George Stake before then.)
So with no stakes, the Southern States Mission oversaw all the operations of the Church in the area it covered, which was Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi and maybe Kentcky and Ohio. I am not sure how much of Virginia was in the mission.
After being in the mission from June to Novemeber, Lucy W. Smith came and joined her husband, and stayed with him for the remaining year and a half of his mission.
As the 20th-century progressed thins were beginning to change. When LeGrand Richards went out as a missionary in 1905 at age 19, he was ot yet married. Yet David M. Kennedy in the 1920s left on a mission the day after his married, leaving his wife behind. Hugh Nibley's father served as a mission pesident in the Netherlands as a young, unmarried missionary. Yet he was succeeded by 27-year-old LeGrand Richards, who was now a married man.
With the disruption caused by the World Wars, the Church started to move away a little from the model of relying on American missionaries.
Especially during and right after World War II, Germany saw many local missionaries, and due to migration controls, they became a key part of missionary efforts in places like Tonga by mid-century. In the 1930s LeGrand Richards was one of a large number of married men, mostly former missionaries, sent on short term missions. He had also been called to go to California to serve as a stake president, although this was a slightly different case because he remained gainfully employed.
By 1952 and the close of the Korean War the Church pretty much ceased to send out married men as missionaries unaccompanied by their wives. I am much less sure about the rise of the senior couple missionarires.
I know such missionaries existed by the late 1970s. I have little if any evidence clearly placing their emergence in earlier times.
During the 1950s while David O. McKay was president of the Church, it became standard to call counselors to mission presidents. While Mission presidents served full time and came from elsewhere, their counselors were most often local men called from the area. Local in the sense that they lived there, some were from that area, and some had moved there for work, but they were resident there as opposed to called from elsewhere.
More so than in other cases, these counselors were like Aaron and Hur, able to hold up arms about to drop. They tended to know the area much better than the mission president.
During the first decade of the 20th-century the standard term was "lady missionaries". I think this was still the common term when my grandmother served in the 1940s. I have not found a definitive time of the switch to "sister missionary" as the term, but guess it was never intentional and always gradual.
Ezra Taft Benson is to date the only president of the term whose wife served as a missionary prior to marriage. On the other hand for about half of his mission Sister Flora Amussen had her mother as her companion. Ezra Taft Benson was the first president of the church to hold a master's degree, and the first to have done work on a Ph.D. He is also the one who was most clearly notable for work done outside of being a general authority. He like President Smith was a young unmarried missionary (in Britian with David O. McKay as his mission president), a married missionary leaving behind his wife (in Europe as President of the European Mission just after World War II), and a married mission president with his wife along with him (in this case in the Germany based European Mission, with a house in Frankfurt, that they shared one Christmas at with the Hinckley family.)
To be fair, in both his assignments as mission president, Elder Benson was closer to an area president than a mission president. He was both times a member of the Quorum of the 12, both times he presided over all missions in Europe, not any specific mission. The first was in the days just after World War II. The second was in the mid-1960s when the long standing US military agreements with countries such as Italy and placment of US servicemen there were bearing fruit in the dedication of the land for the preaching of the gospel. On August 2, 1966 Elder Benson oversaw the reestablishment of the Italian Mission.
Starting in the 1970s two other trends emerge. The Church begins to centralize missionary calls and training. More and more missionaries are called through the formal channels of Salt Lake City, and the local missionary begins to become a thing of the past. Mini-missions, stake missionaries and some other such assignments fill in the force, but formal mission calls come from Salt Lake City.
While missionary training had been centralized in Salt Lake City at the mission home beginning in 1925, this was a one week course, and only applied to centrally called and not mission called missionaries. In the 1960s visa problems lead to a formal language training curriculum. The Language Traning Mission begins at BYU, and later spreads to Ricks (now BYU-Idaho) and the Church College of Hawaii (now BYU-Hawaii).
In 1976 the whole operation is recentralized, both mission home and LTMs, as the MTC in Provo, Utah. In 1977 however a missionary training center was opened in Brazil. Over the years more MTCs outside the US opened, they trained missionaries from those areas of the World, and generally had no language training, just missionary gospel teaching training.
Things begin to change again in the 1990s. It was determined that new missionaries could often be better trained for their new assignments on sight. It also made the logistics of arrivial to the mission more simple.
So beginning with the Brazil MTC, missionaries foriegn to Brazil joined native Brazilians in being trained. By 2000 the Madrid Spain MTC joined with an initial plan where missionaries from the US would spend the first half of traning at the Provo MTC, and second half at the Madrid MTC.
At some point, and I don't know when this happened, the process became even more focused on evening out use of facilities. Thus at some point missionaries heading to Russia, no matter where they came from, begin training in Spain.
The first decade of the 21st-century saw "raise the bar" and Preach My Gospel. Missionary work was moved from being an expected rite of passage to being a work emphasized on teaching. A higher expectation of worthiness and contrite repentence was imposed, as well as more stringent health requirements. Programs were developed for service missions for those unable to be regular full time missionaries.
The 2010s saw lots of new developments. The most seminal was the 2012 age change for missionaries. This facilitated a one year creaton of over 50 new missions. It was connected with many more sister missionaries, the mission council replacing the zone leaders council, the mission president's companion (wife, but we are trying to find a clearer title) was made a formal member of the mission council. The position of coordinating sister was created.
Along with this, missionaries called Spanish-speaking from the US were normally sent to train at the Mexico City MTC. No new MTCs were created, but several existing ones were greatly expanded.
This was the case with Joseph Fielding Smith, or as he was then often known Joseph F. Smith, Jr., who left behind his wife who had just had a miscarriage to go serve as a missionary in the United Kingdom. This was the case with Goege D. Benson, Jr, when he left behind his wife and children in about 1909 to go serve a mission in the United Kingdom. Brother Benson's oldest son was a boy they called T, who would later be known as Ezra Taft Benson.
The modern model of young, single missionaries serving before their marriage had began. On the first day of the 20th century the first marriage ceremony performed in the Salt Lake Temple was the marriage of David O. McKay and Emma Ray Riggs. Brother McKay was a graduate of the University of Utah, who had a few years before served a mission in the United Kingdom (mainly in Scotland).
Joseph F. Smith, Jr's cousin George Albert Smith represented all these trends in his missionary experience in the 1890s. First he had been called as a mutual improvement association missionary. He was sent from his home in Salt Lake City (where he went after completing high school at Brigham Young Academy, although as a child in school he had often put Lucy Woodruff's pig tails in the ink well in their Salt Lake City school.) to southern Utah where he served as a mutual improvement association missionary. At the dawn of the 20th-century Francis M. Lyman was serving as president of the British Mission. None of his wives had accompanied him on this assignment. Before the 20th-centuries first year (1901) was out, Heber J. Grant would open the Japanese mission. He was accompanied on this assignment by one of his two living wives (he had had three at once at one point, but his first wife, Lucy Stringham Grant, whose father was the man for whom Bryan S. Hinckley was named, had died a few years before, not long after the birth of their only son, they had a few daughters, who also died. Elder Grant traveled with his daughters throughout the US to get their minds off their mother dying, and one of his daughters fell ill and nearly died, but was saved by a blessing from George Q. Cannon in which he revoked the power of Satan and his having claimed the life of this child.
Geogre Albert Smith receieved the call to be a Mutual Improvement Association missionary on Sep. 7, 1891. In this capacity he traveled with a friend of his who was a grandson of Brigham Young, thus repeating their grandfather's being co-members of the first presidency. The were called by the first presidency and sent to Juab, Millard, Beaver and Iron counties to build up the mutual programs in those counties. Elder Smith was 21 at the time.
Elder Smith would after a few months return to Salt Lake City, where he married Lucy Woodruff, a daughter of Wilford Woodruff Jr and thus a granddaughter of Wilford Woodruff and his wife Phoebe. Wilford and Phoebe had a daughter Phoebe who was one of the wives of Lorenzo Snow. So Phoebe Woodruff is probably the only woman to have been both mother-in-law and grandmother-in-law of presidents of the Church, sort of a slight difference from Mary Fielding Smith who was the only woman to be both a mother and a grandmother of president of the Church.
George Albert and Lucy were married in the Salt Lake Temple on May 25, 1892. On June 23, 1892 George Albert left on a mission to the southern states, which he would mainly spend as the secretary to President J. Golden Kimball. The position of secretary was not like is found in most modern missions. President Kimball did not have counselors. Elder Smith was thus a cross between a one man pair of assistants to the president, a one man set of counelors to the president, and did many of the things missions secretaries, in modern missions often multiple men and women, do. Do make things more interesting, there were no stakes in the south (actually I think none outside of Arizona, Utah and Idaho, southern Alberta might have just gotten a stake, but even much of the inter-mountain west lacked stakes, Boise would not see a stake until about 1912. That is also the year Nevada got its first stake, although some areas had been part of the St. George Stake before then.)
So with no stakes, the Southern States Mission oversaw all the operations of the Church in the area it covered, which was Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi and maybe Kentcky and Ohio. I am not sure how much of Virginia was in the mission.
After being in the mission from June to Novemeber, Lucy W. Smith came and joined her husband, and stayed with him for the remaining year and a half of his mission.
As the 20th-century progressed thins were beginning to change. When LeGrand Richards went out as a missionary in 1905 at age 19, he was ot yet married. Yet David M. Kennedy in the 1920s left on a mission the day after his married, leaving his wife behind. Hugh Nibley's father served as a mission pesident in the Netherlands as a young, unmarried missionary. Yet he was succeeded by 27-year-old LeGrand Richards, who was now a married man.
With the disruption caused by the World Wars, the Church started to move away a little from the model of relying on American missionaries.
Especially during and right after World War II, Germany saw many local missionaries, and due to migration controls, they became a key part of missionary efforts in places like Tonga by mid-century. In the 1930s LeGrand Richards was one of a large number of married men, mostly former missionaries, sent on short term missions. He had also been called to go to California to serve as a stake president, although this was a slightly different case because he remained gainfully employed.
By 1952 and the close of the Korean War the Church pretty much ceased to send out married men as missionaries unaccompanied by their wives. I am much less sure about the rise of the senior couple missionarires.
I know such missionaries existed by the late 1970s. I have little if any evidence clearly placing their emergence in earlier times.
During the 1950s while David O. McKay was president of the Church, it became standard to call counselors to mission presidents. While Mission presidents served full time and came from elsewhere, their counselors were most often local men called from the area. Local in the sense that they lived there, some were from that area, and some had moved there for work, but they were resident there as opposed to called from elsewhere.
More so than in other cases, these counselors were like Aaron and Hur, able to hold up arms about to drop. They tended to know the area much better than the mission president.
During the first decade of the 20th-century the standard term was "lady missionaries". I think this was still the common term when my grandmother served in the 1940s. I have not found a definitive time of the switch to "sister missionary" as the term, but guess it was never intentional and always gradual.
Ezra Taft Benson is to date the only president of the term whose wife served as a missionary prior to marriage. On the other hand for about half of his mission Sister Flora Amussen had her mother as her companion. Ezra Taft Benson was the first president of the church to hold a master's degree, and the first to have done work on a Ph.D. He is also the one who was most clearly notable for work done outside of being a general authority. He like President Smith was a young unmarried missionary (in Britian with David O. McKay as his mission president), a married missionary leaving behind his wife (in Europe as President of the European Mission just after World War II), and a married mission president with his wife along with him (in this case in the Germany based European Mission, with a house in Frankfurt, that they shared one Christmas at with the Hinckley family.)
To be fair, in both his assignments as mission president, Elder Benson was closer to an area president than a mission president. He was both times a member of the Quorum of the 12, both times he presided over all missions in Europe, not any specific mission. The first was in the days just after World War II. The second was in the mid-1960s when the long standing US military agreements with countries such as Italy and placment of US servicemen there were bearing fruit in the dedication of the land for the preaching of the gospel. On August 2, 1966 Elder Benson oversaw the reestablishment of the Italian Mission.
Starting in the 1970s two other trends emerge. The Church begins to centralize missionary calls and training. More and more missionaries are called through the formal channels of Salt Lake City, and the local missionary begins to become a thing of the past. Mini-missions, stake missionaries and some other such assignments fill in the force, but formal mission calls come from Salt Lake City.
While missionary training had been centralized in Salt Lake City at the mission home beginning in 1925, this was a one week course, and only applied to centrally called and not mission called missionaries. In the 1960s visa problems lead to a formal language training curriculum. The Language Traning Mission begins at BYU, and later spreads to Ricks (now BYU-Idaho) and the Church College of Hawaii (now BYU-Hawaii).
In 1976 the whole operation is recentralized, both mission home and LTMs, as the MTC in Provo, Utah. In 1977 however a missionary training center was opened in Brazil. Over the years more MTCs outside the US opened, they trained missionaries from those areas of the World, and generally had no language training, just missionary gospel teaching training.
Things begin to change again in the 1990s. It was determined that new missionaries could often be better trained for their new assignments on sight. It also made the logistics of arrivial to the mission more simple.
So beginning with the Brazil MTC, missionaries foriegn to Brazil joined native Brazilians in being trained. By 2000 the Madrid Spain MTC joined with an initial plan where missionaries from the US would spend the first half of traning at the Provo MTC, and second half at the Madrid MTC.
At some point, and I don't know when this happened, the process became even more focused on evening out use of facilities. Thus at some point missionaries heading to Russia, no matter where they came from, begin training in Spain.
The first decade of the 21st-century saw "raise the bar" and Preach My Gospel. Missionary work was moved from being an expected rite of passage to being a work emphasized on teaching. A higher expectation of worthiness and contrite repentence was imposed, as well as more stringent health requirements. Programs were developed for service missions for those unable to be regular full time missionaries.
The 2010s saw lots of new developments. The most seminal was the 2012 age change for missionaries. This facilitated a one year creaton of over 50 new missions. It was connected with many more sister missionaries, the mission council replacing the zone leaders council, the mission president's companion (wife, but we are trying to find a clearer title) was made a formal member of the mission council. The position of coordinating sister was created.
Along with this, missionaries called Spanish-speaking from the US were normally sent to train at the Mexico City MTC. No new MTCs were created, but several existing ones were greatly expanded.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)