Facebook and Party Lines

Logan Utah

Dad was working on a masters degree at Utah State and our family of five kids and two adults lived in the married student housing.  It was quite Spartan, with a bathroom in each unit but a common shower in a different building, near where everybody kept their washing machines:  the Dexter ringer machines, not the modern laundry center.  The Quonset we lived in also had a fridge, a two-burner hotplate, and a kitchen sink.  Mom would bake bread and cook Sunday dinner in a big roaster pan.  I actually thought every day was an adventure.  Often I would walk to my first grade classroom at the old Adams School, crossing the USU campus on my way.  Every day was an adventure.

We had no telephone.  In fact, I don’t think there were more than three families in the complex who did have a phone.  (We also had no TV.  For entertainment we would occasionally go to a drive-in movie, taking our own popcorn, of course.) Later on, after Dad finished his masters and we had moved to Lewisville, Idaho, where Dad was the principal and taught the sixth grade, we did get a telephone.  It was a party line, so whenever anybody on the line was being called, everybody on the line knew it.  Our number signal was one long and two short rings.  Somebody else might have two longs or two shorts.  Socially connected people on the line would know who was being called by the ring pattern in their own phone.  (There was only one phone in each house.  Usually the phone was near the kitchen.)

Some of the more socially connected neighbors would quietly pick up the phone and listen in on the conversation.  We became adept at discerning a slight difference in the static on the line when somebody was eavesdropping.  Then we would say, “Myrtle, please hang up and stop listening.”  A private line was a luxury for the wealthy, few of whom I was personally acquainted with.   As the systems developed and take-home pay increased, however, we were finally able to have a “private line”.  You would think we had reached the highest social stratum.  Nobody could listen in any more.

Fast forward to the 21^st Century and social networks.  Now everybody wants to be on Facebook, “friends” with present and former acquaintances and family members and businesses, spending too many hours “listening in” on the lives of each other.  Isn’t it ironic!  Where the desired status was once to get a private line so nobody could listen, now we post everything about our lives on public bulletin boards where the whole world can listen in, often without our own awareness of what is taking place.

This is called progress. Every cell phone conversation is open to the whole world, and is probably being listened to by some government computer. I, and thousands of others, write a blog that is posted in front of the whole world.  I actually had several thousand hits on one of my blog entries  Are you kidding me?  What did I say that was that interesting?  What a mixed up world we live in!  Since it is not going away, maybe we should be more discreet in what we post on those bulletin boards.  But that would be boring.  Ahhhhhh!

1LT Patterson, Saipan

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Danette to BYUI

TF Temple at Sunset

Several months ago while we were serving in the Caparra Ward, one of the young ladies in the ward told us that she was accepted to attend BYUI.  I told her then that if she can get to SLC we will get her to Rexburg and help her get settled.  Her name is Danette.

Danette and her mom, Nana, arrived in SLC on Sept 7 and stayed for a couple of days with some friends there.  Those friends then brought Danette and Nana to our house, where they would stay for a couple of days before we would take them to Rexburg.  We had fun showing them around Twin Falls, including Shoshone Falls, which is almost bone dry this time of year.  

Shoshone Falls during irrigation season

I asked Danette if she would like to mow the lawn.  She did, and she had a ball!

Mowing our front lawn

On Thursday I filled in at the temple for a neighbor, and we left right after I got home.  We decided to take them the back road, through Craters of the Moon.  

Craters of the Moon

It is a little longer that way, not distance but time, but it is also a little more interesting than going on the freeway.  They enjoyed seeing the geologic formations at Craters. 

Freezing at Craters of the Moon

They were both pretty excited to be there.  Temperatures around here are in the upper 60F range, so they are both feeling like we live in the deep freeze.  Danette will get used to it, though.  Nana is headed back to balmy Puerto Rico.

On Friday morning the plan was to sleep in a little bit and them drive leisurely to Rexburg to get moved into the dorm.  Danette was up at the crack of dawn, however, and they were both excited and ready to go.  We ate breakfast and drove the back way into Rexburg.  She is living in Ricks Hall on campus.  She met her roommates, moved her stuff into her bedroom, and quickly became immersed in orientation activities for new freshman students.  I think Danette will get along fabulously.  I suspect this will be harder on her parents than it will be on her.  We told Danette that she and her roommate(s) are welcome to come to visit us any time.  We will plan on having them over for Thanksgiving for sure, and maybe other times, too.  

Gaye showed Nana how to make some peach jam.  It was really good, too.  So now Nana has a few pints of jam for her storage, made by her own hands in Twin Falls Idaho.

Gaye and Nana making jam

Yellowstone

My son Spencer invited me to go with him and his two oldest boys, 8-year-old Grant and Henry, who is 6.  I met them in Pocatello and we drove to Yellowstone Park.  It was a wonderful experience in spite of the rain and high temperature of 49F.  We stayed Saturday night with relatives in St Anthony and drove early Sunday morning to try to get to church at Island Park.  

Sacrament Meeting is about to begin

The ward there is normally around 200-300 but in the summer there are often more than 2000 visitors attending.  We got there in time to find seats in the new chapel.  A man we sat next to said there were more than 3300 attending over the Fourth of July weekend.  They have a new building similar to our stake center that sits right next to their older A-frame building.  They hold a sacrament meeting at 0900 and another one at 1100, which is when they also have their regular block schedule.  There were 800 attending the building we were in and another 600 in the A-frame.  That was just for the first session!

In our building there were two sacrament tables set up—one in the regular position at the front of the chapel and another at the back of the activity hall.  There were two other tables set up in the A-frame building next door, where they received the broadcast of the meeting by closed circuit TV.  So administering the sacrament took about the same amount of time that you would expect in a normal ward gathering.  The prayers were read only at the sacrament table at the front of the main building.  It was actually very impressive how they handled the crowd. 

The meeting was special to me in several ways.  One was the efficiency of how they handled the huge crowd.  That was done reverently, too, so there was a sweet spirit present.  We attend sacrament meeting to partake of the emblems of the Lord’s Supper, but there was more.  In attendance at this meeting was Gary Stevenson, Presiding Bishop of the Church, so he was the presiding officer.  He was the closing speaker, and he bore a sweet and powerful testimony.  The other speakers were a man and his wife who are regular members of the Island Park Ward.  The theme was sustaining our leaders, so they spoke about different aspects of that subject.  They had been less active for a while until they were called to participate in Home Teaching and Visit Teaching, which got them involved, brought the missionaries into their home to renew the doctrine of the resurrection and of the Atonement, and then they caught the spirit of conversion and became fully active.

The brother who spoke was a retired football coach who had coached at “every major Utah program but BYU.”  He told of a young man who had transferred from a junior college, a smaller-than-usual defensive lineman, but who had a heart and determination to walk on and to play football at Weber State.  The story was sort of like Rudy, the kid who walked on at Notre Dame.  This young man was LDS however, and he worked hard to over come the ridicule of his non-LDS teammates when he would not drink or participate in the celebrations the others did that were not up to his standards.  Unlike Rudy, he actually was big enough to earn a spot on the team, and his teammates elected him as one of their captains the next year.  After the season was over, a group of those teammates who had not graduated, one of whom had poured beer in the RM’s face to teach him what it tasted like, came to the coach, who they knew was also LDS, and asked him to tell them about the Church.  Some of those young men actually joined the Church because of that, and it was a few years later when the coach saw one of them at the temple.  You just never know who is watching.

Another high point of the meeting was when Vocal Point, the famous male a capella singing group from BYU Provo, sang “I Need Thee Every Hour” as a special number half way through the meeting.  It brought tears to my cheeks as the power of the message and the presentation penetrated into my heart.  I guess they were just vacationing there and were asked to sing.  Ah, the power of beautiful music!

The highlight of the meeting, for me, however, was when one of the young men officiating at the sacrament table pronounced the blessing on the bread.  I don’t know how may thousand times I have heard or read the prayers, but I have never heard it like that time.  He spoke slowly and clearly, pronouncing every word with reverence and respect.  As he spoke I felt the influence of The Holy Ghost teaching me things that I have never thought of before, things related to the Atonement wrought by our Savior.  I noticed that there are three things that we should be willing to do: willing to take upon us the name of Jesus, willing to always remember Him, and willing to keep His commandments that He has given us. It was the "willing" that caught my attention.  I have tried to think of the Savior and the Atonement during the time of the sacrament administration every time I participate, with varying degrees of success.  This time was different, however, and it was in large part because of how the young man at the table pronounced the prayer.  I will never be the same.

Lake Hotel

Upper Geyser Basin

Old Faithful beginning to blow

Amazing Cloud at Old Faithful

Watching osprey nest

Upper Mesa Falls

Old Faithful Inn

Henry, Grant, and Fred the Bison

Consecration

We are in Salt Lake supervising the activities of two grandkids, age 11 & 4.  We are having a ball.  Yesterday we went to their ward to church, and I was thoroughly impressed with what I saw and participated in there.  A young couple and their son, recently moved into the ward, spoke in sacrament meeting.  The talks were all very well prepared and well presented.  The son, age 12, was articulate and presented his message with confidence.  I asked his mom if he wrote his own talk.  She said that he did, and that he typed it himself, which took him 3 hours!

The talks were on Sacrifice and Consecration.  Sacrifice, I think I have a good grip on.  Sometimes it is referred to as a sort of investment scheme with God.  We do something that is an indication of our commitment, like giving up something that is important to us, and God blesses us with a big return on our investment.  That never made sense to me, though, because sacrifice brings forth the blessings of heaven, but those blessings can’t be part of our lives if we do it as an investment.  Then one Sunday in the gospel doctrine class I asked a question about that (we were living at Dugway Utah at the time) and one of the salty old ladies of the ward simply defined sacrifice as “putting God first.”  Suddenly it all made sense.  It is not about an investment, it is putting ourselves in line with God’s will.  When we do it because we love him, then that is enough reward.  We will be blessed abundantly, but it will be on God’s terms, not ours.  Sacrifice is closely aligned with obedience and is a demonstration of love.

The idea of consecration has always been centered on the Law of Consecration, a community effort that has had various levels of success in the history of human interaction with God, sometimes compared or identified as the United Order.  It has been about the blessings of God coming to people who are willing to make and keep that law.  Often the discussion seems to focus on the idea that we are not now expected to live the Law of Consecration, but that we should be prepared to willingly obey and participate when that day comes.  For now, we live the Law of Tithing, even though we promise to live the Law of Consecration.  That has not sat well with me.

What I learned from impressions of The Holy Ghost into my mind, triggered by what the well-prepared speaker was saying, is that we are not only expected to live that law in some future situation, we are expected to live it fully, now.  The reality of the matter is that if we are not living it 100% now, we will be missing out on the blessings that God promises to the faithful.  Take the rich young ruler who came to Jesus to ask what he needed to do to inherit eternal life.  He was already being obedient to all the law that he had been given.  He was a good person, living a God-centered life.  Jesus told him that he lacked one thing—his wealth was getting between him and God.  Jesus told him to go and sell all that he had and “come follow me.”  The young man went away sorrowfully, for he had much wealth.  He was fully living the Law of Obedience, but he lacked only one thing.  We learn, sadly, that 99% is not enough.  The account of Ananias and Saphira in Acts is a similar sad story.  They were committed to live the Gospel, but 99% was not enough.

So the Law of Consecration is fully in effect now, and we are expected to live it.  That law is not an institutional law, it is a personal law.  The blessings are given on a personal basis, not an institutional one.  Our individual salvation depends on our individual obedience to the Law.  And don’t confuse salvation with exaltation.  Most of the time they are the same thing.  The work and glory of God (The Father, The Son, and The Holy Ghost) is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. Even there, 99% is not enough.

Have a good week.

Lower Salmon River

Lower Salmon River Trip

Last week, after months of planning, several of my siblings and spouses, or even without spouses, took a trip down the Lower Salmon River together.  

Beloved pink potty

The object of the activity was to get as many of us siblings/spouses together as possible without our kids so we could enjoy reconnecting with each other.  It was a great success.

There were some tender blessings upon us during the trip.  One of the wives has been quite restricted in physical mobility.  We were afraid she couldn’t make the trip, but she was up for the attempt, so she came along. We had two passenger rafts with a set of oars at the stern, and a guide to man those oars, and one very large gear boat, manned by another of the staff of the company we floated with.  

We also had two inflatable kayaks that were a ball to ride through the rapids.  Day one Linda was not so sure she wanted to ride hers through the rapids.  Day two, Linda had to be pried out of the kayak she was having so much fun.

Coleton and the gear boat.  This side was not burned.

Anyway, Chris was on one of the smaller boats and not having a great trip, so we decided to try to get her onto the bigger boat.  That is when Linda discovered a 2x10 plank that was just the right length to provide a gangplank for Chris to walk up onto the gear boat. 

Christine Walking the Plank

What a blessing!

The temperatures in the area of White Bird Idaho, right on the Salmon River, have been really warm this year (or maybe every year).  When things get above 100F, that is hot in my book.  It was 108F when we arrived at White Bird.  Along the way, however, we had a few hours of soft drizzle that kept the temps much more in the comfort zone.  There were tents for everybody so we all tolerated the rain very well. Those were not just coincidence in my way of seeing things.

Cliff jumping

There have been some raging fires in the area over the past few days.  The sky was hazy brown and the smoke was irritating to our eyes.  The rain cleared the gunk out of the air, though, and we had fair skies for the final two days.  The water stayed quite clear in the river, though.  I suspect it is all chocolate brown now because of the runoff of rain on the burned areas.  In fact, we floated along one huge tract of burned territory where the fire went from the riverbank clear up the sides and over the top of the mountains.  

Burned landscape, clear up over the mountain tops in the distance.

There will be some erosion problems over the coming months.  We even saw a few cabins and out buildings that were consumed by the flames.

So what did I learn?  I honestly believe that we were heaven-blessed with the plank, the rain, and everything else about the trip.  I hope we can do something like this again before some of us start to check out.  We have reunions that involve the kids and the extended families, and they are great.  But this effort to connect with the siblings and spouses needed to be made.  We know, and like, each other now better than we did before.  

Salmon on the left, Snake on the right

This life is all about family, connecting through the power of the covenants we have made with God and with each other. 

The end of the trip at Heller Bar near Lewiston

Have a great week. 

Jessica