I am writing a book on my Neo, and one of my ‘complaints’ is that I haven’t been able to figure out how to import text from a .txt or .rtf file onto my Neo. Still don’t know if that’s possible.

But in the mean time, I came across this video showing how to use a Neo as a keyboard to type into an iPad. The other benefit, of course, is that you can do the normal thing and “send” the text on the Neo to a text file on the iPad.

All I would need at that point would be the iPad… For better or worse, “iPad” is on the top of a loved one’s wish list.

So she, like the Cinderella of story, received an invitation to the ball. In this case the ball was the 2012 Mormon Prom for the Northern Virginia area.

When I realized prom was coming up, I asked my daughter if she wanted to go. She was non-commital. “But I really like Kirby,” was her non-sequitur.

Luckily for my autistic daughter, she has a fairy godmother–in this case her eldest sister, drama and art graduate turned nanny who now co-houses with us. Eldest sister pulled out beaded gowns, silver trim, a make-up kit to die for, and accessories galore. By that evening my autistic daughter was transformed from a hunched teen in T-shirt and jeans into a vision of sparkling loveliness.

Dad did escort duties, taking our daughter out for dinner, then accompanying her to the dance. I hear there was a reporter there from the Washington Post who was astounded by the recreation of London, Hyde Park, Portobello Road, and Covent Garden, complete with “guards” dressed as Her Majesty’s own Beefeaters. And like in the Cinderella tale, the vision almost wholly disappeared by midnight. Cinderella left behind a glass slipper. Mormon Prom left behind Big Ben, still occupying a corner of the ‘cultural hall’ when we arrived at church for services this morning.

The evening was fun, but as I wasn’t my daughter’s date for the night, I didn’t experience that fun except by means of the stories I was told. This morning, however, was another delight, one appropriate to Mother’s Day. Tradition is that girls (and guys) wear their prom finery to church the next day. It’s a fun way to show off your lovely things to the wider family of acquaintances, many of whom have known and loved you since childhood. It’s also an inspiration to the younger kids, a tangible proof that it’s possible to be lovely and modest at the same time.

In our case, we were showered with fond smiles and amazed congratulations. The little ‘handicapped’ girl they’ve known for years was beautiful and behaving like the lady her gown proclaimed her to be. In a gentle way, it was as though my daughter were being formally introduced to our congregation as a woman rather than a mere child. It was a wonderful moment for me, as her mother.

My girl is back in her T-shirt and jeans, hunched over the computer desk reading a Wikipedia article about the Next Great American Band. I’m sure there will be instances of childish behavior. But just as gold-flecked quartz may be transformed into pure gold, my funny little daughter is transforming into the thoughtful woman she will be. And last night’s Mormon Prom was a notable milestone in that transformation.

Early in the discussion, it came up that Elvira was treasurer in the Relief Society. Another lady in the group mentioned that her ancestor was admitted to Relief Society, but withdrew herself from membership because she felt it was a haven for gossip and slander. I responded that there was, in fact, a ring of sexual predators, and the Relief Society was a key instrument used to warn the women against the predators (when their identities were still unknown). I continued to mention my supposition that Eliza Snow, if she was pregnant in the summer of 1842, may have been a victim of that ring of predators, led by John C. Bennett.

“Eliza Snow was never pregnant!” came the reply from one of the DUP ladies, someone who has done a lot of research into the life of Eliza Snow. She referred me to an article published the winter of 1982 in BYU Studies, titled “Emma and Eliza and the Stairs.” Turns out this is an article that I have previously read, so there were no factoids to shake my midrashic view that Eliza could have been pregnant and could have been a victim of the Bennett ring. Beecher, Newell, and Avery base their assertion that Eliza couldn’t have been pregnant during the winter of 1842/1843 on the idea that a noticeably pregnant woman would not be out and about due to Victorian prudery. But 1843 in Illinois was far from the newly-minted court of Queen Victoria. The term “Victorian” would not even be used until 1851 at The Great Exhibition in London, when Victorian morals (and inventions) were shown to the world.

But the Beecher/Newell/Avery article poses excellent questions, which I must ask of myself:

• Why was [the story about Emma pushing a pregnant Eliza down the stairs] told and why is it still told?

• What does the telling say about the tellers?

• What “truths of the human heart,” their own human hearts, do people reinforce through the telling?

• How did the story get its start, and which details, if any, are based on fact?

Why was [the story about Emma pushing a pregnant Eliza down the stairs] told and why is it still told?

It appears this story was painstakingly pieced together by LeRoi C. Snow during the first half of the 20th century, long after all parties to the events of 1842/3 were dead and buried. LeRoi had a family right to the story – Eliza Snow was his aunt. Much is made of the fact that LeRoi was still a boy when Eliza died, and therefore was unlikely to have heard the story from her lips.

Consider, however, the written account alleging that “There is scarcely a Mormon unacquainted with the fact that Sister Emma… soon found out the little compromise [plural marriage] arranged between Joseph and Eliza… the harsh treatment received at Emma’s hands is said to have destroyed Eliza’s hopes of becoming mother of a prophet’s son.” The source is an 1886 anti-Mormon book by Wilhelm Wyl, citing the universal “they.” Ironically, Richard and Pamela Price claim Wyl fingered John C. Bennett in 1885 as the father of the child, saying Eliza was the woman Joseph alleged Bennett had courted and betrayed (Bennett was married at the time, a fact unknown to most of his Nauvoo associates).

There does appear to be a significant body of rumor suggesting Eliza was pregnant in early Nauvoo and that some ill treatment at the hands of Emma caused at least a miscarriage. LeRoi Snow was obsessed with chasing the truth of the story to ground, as Eliza’s kin. Since LeRoi’s time, I am aware of three significant authors who have recounted the stair story:

• Fawn Brodie told the story in her psycho-biography of Joseph Smith, No Man Knows My History. Most modern readers consider Ms. Brodie’s book to be more akin to fiction than history. Important historical documents, like Eliza Snow’s Nauvoo diary, were not available to Ms. Brodie.

• Sam Taylor told the story in his fictional work, Nightfall at Nauvoo. Like Brodie, Sam gets the chronology wrong. But Sam never pretended his book was history, per se. It was a rocking good story, and the vignette with Emma and the staircase makes for great storytelling.

• Orson Scott Card tells the story as happening to Dinah Kirkham, the heroine of his novel, Saints. Again, Card gets the chronology wrong, attributing actions to John C. Bennett after he would no longer have been in Nauvoo. Why inflict this event on his main character, including a hysterectomy Dinah awakes to find being performed on herself by Dr. Bennett? Well, it is dramatic. And Scott does tend to go for the dramatic in all his stories. At least Scott’s version is pure fiction and downplays Emma’s involvement by making Dr. Bennett’s actions so heinous.

Why is it still told? Because it’s titillating and horrific. It’s like the  story of the Russian Czar and his family being murdered by the Bolsheviks or the horrific tales Shakespeare told in his plays about various royal families. Emma and Joseph and Eliza Snow are as close to Mormon royalty as it comes.

What does the telling say about the tellers?

All who have told the tale appear to have in common a willingness to write down a lurid story. Of these, fiction writers can be excused the way one would excuse a young child who eats butter from the table with their bare hands. It’s unseemly, but one can scarcely expect polite behavior from a novelist when telling “a tale.”

Ms. Brodie and Wilhelm Wyl had in common a willingness to attribute malevolence to Emma Smith and a common willingness to tell damning stories about the Smiths.

LeRoi Snow appears to have pulled together scraps of tales that allowed him to put Wyl’s account in a human perspective that was consistent with the people LeRoi had known during his life. LeRoi apparently was not willing or able to completely dismiss the possibility that Eliza had been pregnant [by Joseph].

I’m planning to tell a variant of the tale, inflicting pregnancy on the beloved Eliza Snow after she has no ability to deny my version. Even if I call my story midrash aggada (rabbinic retelling of a story to explore ethics and values), I am not pretending my version is anything more than fiction that happens to be plausible within the realm of extant fact. My fingers are still greasy with forbidden fat, like the novelists before me. All I can claim is that my greasy abuse of Eliza will impute a purpose to exposing a largely pregnant woman to public view, and an innocent telling of the staircase tragedy that accounts for all the rumors without blaming any of the good people present in those rumors.

What “truths of the human heart,” their own human hearts, do people reinforce through the telling?

I would have to say that Wyl and Brodie didn’t much care about truths of the human heart. I think Wyl cared about truth – apparently his 1885 innuendo linking Eliza and Bennett had aroused rebuttals that led him in 1886 to assert “they” all knew Joseph was the father of Eliza’s miscarried child.

LeRoi, I think, was semi-obsessed with finding out how his beloved aunt could have been involved in the twisted tale that had survived to the 20th century. His was the quest of the genealogist. We genealogists are thrilled when we think we’ve found truth, no matter how sad that truth may be.

Taylor and Card were exploring the extremes to which people are pushed under intense pressure. Who, in our modern age of innocents being shot by other children, can claim that the tale of the staircase is entirely implausible? Taylor and Card are telling cautionary tales – showing us the damage we cause when we lash out in anger and fear.

And for me? The truth of my human heart is that all individuals think they are in the right. We all think we are doing the best thing humanly possible. And yet terrible things can happen and terrible misunderstandings occur even when everyone is kind and well-meaning.

How did the story get its start, and which details, if any, are based on fact?

Here I think Beecher, Newell, and Avery make their point. The staircase altercation could easily have been between Eliza Partridge and Emma. The row needn’t have involved anything more than stupid jealousy of Joseph’s attention to a teenaged girl Emma herself had ‘given’ to her husband. No contemporary appears to have written anything that unambiguously paints Eliza Snow as a pregnant woman in Nauvoo. Certainly Eliza’s own diary makes it unlikely in the extreme that a late-term miscarriage could have occurred before March 17, 1843.

But could not such a tale have been given credence if a largely pregnant Eliza had been shielded from public view, but displayed prominently to Joseph’s inner circle and the children of those confidants? Certainly by 1885/86, there doesn’t appear to be a written rebuttal to Wyl’s writings, and Eliza Snow was still alive and very lucid.

Eliza was given a chance to deny she could ever have been pregnant. According to Joseph Smith III, Angus Cannon said “Brother Heber C. Kimball, I am informed, asked [Eliza Snow] the question if she was not a virgin although married to Joseph Smith and afterwards to Brigham Young, when she replied in a private gathering, “I thought you knew Joseph Smith better than that.”"

Angus Cannon was the appellant in the case of Cannon v. United States, which was decided by the United States Supreme Court in 1885, so he had a vested interested in the tale he told. He was also old enough to remember if Eliza had been pregnant, as member of the circle of children likely to have been either pupil of Eliza or playmate of Eliza’s pupils. Let us introduce two seemingly innocent twists to the quote and place it in 1885 around the time of Wyl’s written speculations about Eliza and John C. Bennett.

“Heber [] Kimball (son of Heber C. Kimball, age-mate of Angus Cannon and another inner-circle 7-8 year old child in Nauvoo) asked Eliza Snow in a private gathering the question if she had been [celibate] in her marriage to Joseph Smith. [Young Heber and young Angus could have been eye-witnesses to Eliza's pregnancy, if she had been pregnant while teaching school in the Red Brick Store during the winter of 1842/3. Asking her if her marriage to Joseph had been celibate would be a semi-discreet way of getting her to rebut Wyl's tale circa 1885.]

” ‘I thought you knew Joseph Smith better than that,’ Eliza replied.”

Eliza’s reply to Heber Kimball, if correctly reported, has the beauty of confirming nothing yet implying worlds. Her reply is  equally vague and brillant whether in response to Heber C. Kimball asking about virginity before his death in 1868 or to the younger Heber Kimball asking about celibacy in a specific marriage to clarify the truth or error of a troubling accusation.

I don’t know that Eliza was ever pregnant. Nor, therefore, do I know whether she was impregnated by John C. Bennett. But her pregnancy is still plausible, and the possibility that John C. Bennett was the father is also still plausible. In fact, certain extant factoids from 1842/3 Nauvoo make the Bennett connection more than merely plausible. Consider Eliza’s poem, The Bride’s Avowal (Inscribed to Miss L. for her bridal morning.), published in The Wasp on August 13, 1842:

My lord, the hour approaches, Our destinies to twine

In one eternal wreath of fate; As holy beings join.

May God approve our union, May angels come to bless;

And may our bridal wreath be gemm’d With endless happiness…

…

The world has smil’d upon me– I scorn its flattery;

For naught but thy approving look, Is happiness to me.

I would not sell they confidence, For all the pearls that strew

The ocean’s bed, or all the gems That sparkle in Peru.

Maybe there really was a Miss L. getting married that week in Nauvoo. (note to self – check the cool book on Nauvoo deaths and marriages next time you’re in the history center to verify if any “Miss L.” was getting married that month). But the language of the poem goes well beyond the normal mushy love stuff. There is talk of holy beings, confidences, keeping faith though bribery be applied. That is not the typical stuff of poems written by maidens for their maidenly friends. We also know that the very day this poem appeared in The Wasp, Eliza was evicted from the home where she was staying (with Sarah Cleveland). Her father, Oliver, recently estranged from the church, brought a carriage to Nauvoo to fetch Eliza home. And Emma Smith sent Elvira Cowles that day to invite Eliza Snow to come live with the Smiths. Busy day, that. To my novelist’s eye, the events are very suggestive. For better or worse, the events of August 1842 have never previously been convolved with the legend of the staircase. But it all fits together in a coherent narrative.

So maybe my new DUP buddies will shun me. But I don’t see any particular reason to shy away from a midrash aggada where Eliza is pregnant by Bennett and loses the child after March 17, 1843.

The Imperial Gardens, from across the moat

My husband and I visited Tokyo his past week, from April 23 to April 27. By happenstance, our visited perfectly bracketed the peak of the cherry blossoms in Tokyo. The time was all too short, with the cherry blossoms in bloom and perfect weather.

Since I may have the chance to go back, here are some helpful hints to you and my future self:

• Rent cell phones at the airport. The phones come as cheap as 100 yen a day, or 300 yen a day if you want incoming calls to be free.
• Visit the Tsukiji Fish Market. You need to be at the information desk by 5 am to have a probable chance of being one of the few tourists admitted each day, and you need to show up on a working day (ahem). I enjoyed watching the youtube video of Morgan Webb’s visit to the market.
• Check out the ice cream in waffle wafer treat. You can find it at the Family Mart. *So* good.
• Wander about town to find places to eat. Eating in-hotel in Tokyo can put you back serious money for each meal. That’s fun for a treat, but wandering around town for eats is fun and relatively inexpensive. You do need to be willing to eat fish, but everything is safe.
• Use the metro to get around. Trips start at 160 yen, and the trains do a pretty good job of getting you where you want to be. If you’re unsure how to get from point A to point B, check out Hyperdia.com. This website will give you fares and times and everything.
• Consider using the hotel limos to get to and from the airport. The limos are big buses that travel directly to the major hotels, and the fare tends to run 3000 yen. You can negotiate your way into town using trains and metro, but you’ll still end up paying a bit more than 2000 yen.
• Get the latest information at japan-guide.com. You can also get useful paper guides from your hotel concierge, and these paper guides often include discount coupons. So don’t stress if your guide book gets lent out or left behind.

Cherry Blossoms in the Imperial Gardens

Something That has to be Done First – Meg Stout
August 21, 2011, Annandale Ward Sacrament Meeting

[Talk was delivered following a performance of “Families Can Be Together Forever,” performed by the Primary children.]

While the children are settling down, I am reminded that Joseph Smith never preached in a Mormon chapel. Every doctrine he ever taught was either discussed in the intimacy of a small room, a temple of the Lord, or outside in a field or a grove. Often when I hear the little children during Sacrament Meeting, I like to think of the soft noises of nature I would be hearing if I were listening to Joseph preach. The warbling of a bird. The murmuring of a creek. The cawing of a crow. I enjoy hearing the sounds of the little ones. I think of the delight Jesus and Joseph took teaching little children the doctrines of salvation.

Eighteen years ago today, at this very hour, I stood in the Jordan River Temple waiting to be married to William Bryan Stout. Bryan Stout has blessed my life and the life of my daughter from my previous marriage. Bryan and I have had the privilege of bringing a son and two additional daughters into this life, under the New and Everlasting Covenant.

I testify that families can be together forever. Each of us who has ever lived on this earth, no matter the shape of our family, can return to Heaven with our loved ones if we repent of all our sins and accept the cleansing power of Christ’s sacrifice for us.

In John 3, the disciple who Jesus loved tells the story of Nicodemus, an important and rich Pharisee. Nicodemus was unwilling to come to Jesus openly. Instead he came to Jesus under cover of night.

I don’t know what Nicodemus intended to do that night. Perhaps he was trying to negotiate with Jesus, for Nicodemus opened his comments with faint praise, saying:
“Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him.”

But Jesus was not just a teacher who happened to have a knack for miracles. Jesus changed the subject abruptly, saying:
“Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” And again, “except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”

Nicodemus didn’t understand so Jesus went on: “Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness.”

Nicodemus knew this story. In the days of Moses, the whole camp of Israel was deathly sick. God commanded Moses to lift up the image of a serpent. Those who believed Moses and looked to the serpent were healed. Those who didn’t believe Moses and His God didn’t bother looking at the serpent. They died of the illness.

Jesus explained, “The Son of man must be lifted up.

“For God so loves the world, that he gives his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him will not perish, but have everlasting life.”

We know Nicodemus believed. Nicodemus tried to protect Jesus against slander when the Sanhedrin condemned Him. When Jesus died on the cross, lifted up like Moses’ serpent so many centuries earlier, Nicodemus brought a hundred pounds of myrrh and aloes to anoint the Savior’s remains.

In April 1840 at General Conference, Joseph Smith spoke to the Saints in a grove of trees in Nauvoo. His text for that sermon was this same story of Nicodemus. Those who documented what Joseph said just commented that Joseph’s observations were “very beautiful and striking… throwing a flood of light on the subjects which were brought up to review.”

But there was a widow there that day, Jane Neyman, whose son had died without accepting baptism. So she despaired when she heard the words, “except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”

If Jane’s son had died as a child, she would have been comforted by Mormon’s letter to Moroni, where he wrote:

“How many little children have died without baptism! If little children could not be saved without baptism, these must have gone to an endless hell.”

But “little children need no repentance, neither baptism… Little children are alive in Christ, even from the foundation of the world.”

Unfortunately, Jane’s son, Cyrus Livingston Neyman, was at least fifteen when he died. Cyrus died a man in the eyes of God, and therefore could not enter the kingdom of God because Cyrus had never been baptized.

Jane’s sorrow weighed on Joseph.

Months passed and then another man died. Seymour Brunson was a devoted Saint who had lived his life for the Lord. The line of mourners at his funeral stretched for a mile. The mourners comforted Seymour’s family, honoring his life of sacrifice and reassuring them Seymour would certainly be saved.

Jane Neyman was there as well, and likely comforted those in need of comfort. But every word of honor and reassurance would have pierced her inner soul. Seymour would be saved in God’s Kingdom. Her son, Cyrus, she believed, would forever be barred.

Then Joseph began to speak. He talked of the resurrection, reading from the epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, where Paul wrote to convince the Corinthians of the resurrection:

19 If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.
20 But now is Christ risen from the dead
22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
25 …[Christ] must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet.
26 The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.

Standard stuff for a Christian funeral. But Joseph saw Jane Neyman in the crowd and knew that he needed to comfort her as well. So he read 1 Corinthians 15:29:

29 Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead?

Joseph said, “Paul was clearly talking to a people who understood baptism for the dead, for it was practiced among them.”

He spoke of Jane, “This widow [has read] the sayings of Jesus ‘except a man be born of water and of the spirit he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.’ Not one jot nor tittle of the Savior’s words should pass away, but all shall be fulfilled.”

I don’t have the exact words Joseph spoke that day, but rather than tell you the summary that others captured in their journals, let me read words Joseph himself wrote after that day:

“If we can, by the authority of the Priesthood of the Son of God, baptize a man
in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, for the remission of sins, it is just as much our privilege to act as an agent, and be baptized for the remission of sins for and in behalf of our dead kindred, who have not heard the Gospel, or the fullness of it.”

“Shall we not go on in so great a cause? Go forward and not backward. Courage, brethren; and on, on to the victory! Let your hearts rejoice, and be exceedingly glad. Let the earth break forth into singing. Let the dead speak forth anthems of eternal praise to the King Immanuel, who hath ordained, before the world was, that which would enable us to redeem [the dead] out of their prison; for the prisoners shall go free.”

All who heard these teachings were filled with joy, but none more so than Jane Neyman. Immediately she turned to a respected Elder in the church, Harvey Olmstead, and begged him to perform the ordinance of baptism on behalf of Cyrus, who was dead. Brother Olmstead did as the widow asked, performing the first latter-day baptism on behalf of a deceased person that very day in the Mississippi River.

[Today such baptisms are performed only in temples. But we know the Lord accepted this proxy baptism on behalf of Cyrus Livingston Neyman.]

There are those who say it is not possible to affect the fate of the dead after they depart this life. Martin Luther believed that prayers for the dead were of no use and held a famous debate in 1519 in Leipzig with a Dr. Eck about the fate of the dead. Dr. Eck cited a passage from Second Maccabbees describing atoning sacrifices offered on behalf of the dead, that they might be cleansed from sin at the resurrection. When Martin Luther decided what books to include in his translation of the bible, he removed the books of the Maccabees. Therefore the modern King James Bible does not contain the tale of Judas Maccabee offering atoning sacrifice for his dead comrades. But even those who read the Books of the Maccabees might argue with us. Within the past ten years the Catholic Bishop of San Diego gave his imprimatur to a statement that the fate of men is sealed at death, and Mormon baptisms on behalf of the dead are therefore futile.

But the Bible does tell us the gospel is preached to the dead, who can, in death, choose to hear the voice of God. In John 5 we read:

24 Verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.
25 The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live.
28 …All that are in the graves shall hear his voice,

John 5 is the scripture Joseph was reading that opened up the vision of the Celestial, Terrestrial, and Telestial kingdoms, recorded in Doctrine and Covenants 76.

And again in the Bible we have the words Peter wrote to the Saints in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia:

“For this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.” (1 Peter 4:6.)

Joseph F. Smith pondered Peter’s words with wonder. [D&C 138]

29 As I wondered, my eyes were opened, and my understanding quickened, and I perceived that the Lord went not in person among the wicked and the disobedient who had rejected the truth, to teach them;

30 But behold, from among the righteous, he organized his forces and appointed messengers, clothed with power and authority, and commissioned them to go forth and carry the light of the gospel to them that were in darkness, even to all the spirits of men; and thus was the gospel preached to the dead.

31 And the chosen messengers went forth to declare the acceptable day of the Lord and proclaim liberty to the captives who were bound, even unto all who would repent of their sins and receive the gospel.

Who are the righteous who declare the truth to the spirits of the dead who cannot yet enter into the Kingdom of God? Many of those named in the revelation are those we know from scripture. But there are also the billions of innocents who accepted Christ before this life, but died still innocent, alive in Christ. My son, Arthur, is one of these. He died when only 8 days old. Though they lived among us as tiny children, they were and are mature spirits who chose to trust in Jesus and reject Lucifer. These innocents, historically almost half of all children ever born, are going to their mothers and fathers, their brothers and sisters, their grandmothers and their grandfathers, proclaiming the gospel and begging them to hear the words of Christ.

We need to turn our hearts to all mankind and fulfill the promises these innocents are making to their parents. As God has said in every book of scripture we study [wording as found in D&C 2]:

1 Behold, I will reveal unto you the Priesthood, by the hand of Elijah the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.
2 And he shall plant in the hearts of the children the promises made to the fathers, and the hearts of the children shall turn to their fathers.
3 If it were not so, the whole earth would be utterly wasted at his coming.

In closing I will tell you of Iemke Kooyman. Iemke was a devout Christian man who lived on the tiny Dutch island of Terschelling off the northern coast of the Netherlands. All his life he lived the word of God to the best of his ability.

One night Iemke had a dream that would haunt him until the day he died. In the dream Iemke found himself before the Gates of Heaven and saw many others entering. Filled with joy, Iemke moved towards Heaven. But in the dream an unknown hand held him by the shoulder, holding him back.

“No, Kooyman,” he heard a voice say. “You cannot go in yet; something has to be done first.”

Iemke woke. He told the dream to his wife. He told the dream to his children. He told the dream to his dominie or Pastor, Reverend Polman.

“Why, my good friend,” Reverend Polman said, “you are one of the best sheep of my flock. If you cannot go to the green pastures of Heaven, what will become of the rest of us!”

For the rest of his life, Iemke and his family wondered what it was, that “something that has to be done first.”

Ten years after Iemke died, a boy child was born on the island of Terschelling. This child was named Frank Iemke Kooyman, in honor of his grandfather. When Frank was a teenager, he learned of the Gospel while at school in Amsterdam. Frank accepted baptism and became a missionary.

It was then that Frank’s mother told him of Iemke’s dream. As a Mormon missionary, Frank knew the answer to the mystery that had haunted his Grandfather, that “something that has to be done first.” This was 1904, and there were no temples outside of Utah, much less in Europe. Though Frank was in the Netherlands, he arranged to have Iemke’s ordinances performed in the Salt Lake Temple, where they were completed on August 30, 1904.

The song the choir is about to sing [#288, How Beautiful Thy Temples, Lord] was written by Iemke’s grandson, Frank.

How beautiful Thy temples, Lord, where faithful Saints engage in work divine.
How beautiful Thy message Lord, of faith and hope. All mankind may be saved, including the souls beyond the grave.
How beautiful Thy promise, Lord, that we may live, exalted, sealed to our loved ones in holiness by sacred rites in the temples.

I add my testimony to the testimony of Christ and Peter, Joseph and Jane, Iemke and Frank. May we do all we can to make salvation possible for the living and the dead is my prayer in the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

I’ve wanted a treadle sewing machine ever since I visited my cousin in Apple Valley. We slept on the two twin beds in her room and played with the treadle, making the sewing head sing it’s sweetly-oiled rhythm.

A few years ago I found a 1906 Singer treadle for sale. But the cabinet was in only fair shape, between years of abuse and an ill-considered coat of gold spray paint. The machine was a Model 66, decorated with lovely lotus decals. Unfortunately I was missing bits, and Model 66 machines had unique fittings – read unobtainable at a reasonable price. The Singer and its cabinet were passed on to someone else years ago now, early in my de-cluttering campaign.

This week we went to visit friends who are leaving the area. When we arrived, I saw several things on the curb, including a treadle sewing machine. To my surprise, the items on the curb were free for the taking. So for the second time, now, I am the happy possessor of a treadle sewing machine.

I’ve got the head whirring nicely, though I’m missing the bobbin and shuttle necessary to actually sew anything. I’m hoping old Singer Model 27 parts will work… The old leather belt is stretched and frail, but eBay has any number of replacement belts available for old treadles.

There’s something solid and practical about old household “appliances.” I cherish the palm wood washboard my chinese grandmother used until the day she died and the sewing scissors that may be the only thing she still had from her days as a bride, before becoming a refugee from Chinese communism.

I’m sure my forebears were glad for their sewing machines – these mechanical marvels that created even stitches in a small fraction of the time it would take to sew the same fabric by hand. But somehow the machines my ancestors used are lost to their descendants – likely used up and worn out, as stated in the old Depression-era slogan:

Use it up,
Wear it out,
Make it do, or
Do without.

Luckily for me, there are still vintage treadle sewing machines available in 2011. It may not be the very one my great grandmothers used to sew clothing for their many children, but when I work the treadle and load the reciprocating shuttle with the narrow, antique bobbins, I’ll know I am going through the same motions they did for countless hours during their lifes.

I baked a sheet of cookie dough (1/2 c sugar, 1/2 c butter, 1-1/4 c flour, molassas, vanilla, salt, baking powder).

When the dough was nicely browned, I formed a cylinder by wrapping the cookie around a rolling pin, pushed cookie wedges into the bottom of sherbet dishes, and cut miniature sail and dive planes.

Several ounces of melted white and bittersweet chocolate later, I had a tiny submarine.

Fast forward seven years, and I’ve now made so many cookie submarines that I’ve lost track. I’ve made one in Japan from ingredients whose labels I could not read. I assembled one on a British frigate to celebrate a successful sonar test.

And when each of my colleagues retire, I make them a cookie submarine, stuffed with peanut M&Ms.

When I am old and aging, no one will want to hear me talk about my career. And I won’t want to talk about the really good stuff anyway. Most of it is so context-specific that it wouldn’t survive translation. Nor will they want to hear about the enduring truths, like how propeller side forces are caused by the counter-rotating force vectors produced by the Fourier harmonics adjacent to integer multiples of the number of propeller blades.

See. Told you no one wants to hear about that stuff.

But my children and their children and their children after them will know Mom made submarines. Because they saw me pulling them out of the oven and got to eat the scraps (the crunchy, gently-browned, wickedly delicious scraps).

I read Mormon Enigma (both versions – the original, before they knew Mark Hoffman’s documents were bogus, and the revision). I then re-read Rough Stone Rolling and In Sacred Loneliness, plus the bit of Mormon Polygamy: A History that deals with Nauvoo-era events.

My hypothesis (that Joseph didn’t consummate any of his ‘marriages’ to women other than his first wife, Emma Hale) is consistent with the facts in these tomes, though he undoubtedly did institute polygamy and teach his closest followers that it was correct.

While I’ve been letting these thoughts brew in my soul, I’ve been off doing good in the rest of the world.

I’ve been blogging about getting de-cluttered over at 300boxes.blogspot.com and was interviewed for Brooks Duncan’s Paperless Document Organization Guide.

My reason for actually getting de-cluttered (aquaponics!) bloomed into another blog, 3x5aquaponics.blogspot.com, where I documented my DIY system which can make Aquaponics affordable for the adventurous advocate of home-based sustainable agriculture. I’ll be giving a ‘lecture’ at the upcoming Aquaponics Conference in Orlando, Florida this September. My shtick will be putting together my inexpensive DIY system in an hour from scratch (which will then get auctioned off at silent auction).

So the facts and thoughts and plots about Elvira and Jonathan have been maturing in my head and heart the way raw ingredients in a compost pile mature over time into fertile black gold.

The image of being purified like gold or silver may be more generically inspiring than the image of a steaming compost pile, but I’m currently a gardener, not an artisan who works precious metals.
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P.S. – I went ahead and approved all the past comments on this blog that might have been associated with a human who’d actually read my posts and cared.

This is the talk I gave.
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Brother Zirkle asked me to talk about our Duty to Our Kindred Dead.

I feel impressed to tell you about the struggle Joseph Smith had to build the temples and begin the redemption of the dead. It is a story of a hero who struggled against terrible obstacles to save the world. It is a story of how Joseph loved my ancestor. It is a story of why I am alive as you see me today.

The first time we see the term “temple” in modern revelation is in December 1830 where the Lord says,

I am Jesus Christ, the Son of God; wherefore, gird up your loins and I will suddenly come to my temple. Even so. Amen. [D&C 36:8]

Joseph Smith was then translating Genesis in the Old Testament. While he was translating the stories about Abraham and Isaac he received a revelation about marriage and the need to restore plural marriage.

The revelation troubled Joseph. How do we know? Because he refused to write it down. But he would later explain that was when he first received the revelation about the New and Everlasting Covenant, while he was translating the Bible.

That March God tried to reason with Joseph, in what is now Doctrine and Covenants 45, saying:

I have sent mine everlasting covenant into the world, to be a light to the world, and to be a standard for my people,

16 And I will … fulfil the promises that I have made unto your fathers
17 I will show unto you how the day of redemption [of the dead] shall come, and also the restoration of scattered Israel.

Then the Lord told Joseph to start translating the New Testament, saying, “in [the New Testament] all these things shall be made known.”

For a year Joseph poured over the gospels, seeking God’s wisdom. Finally Joseph found what God wanted him to find. Joseph and Sidney Rigdon were translating the gospel of John, chapter 5, where Jesus says:

The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they who hear shall live.

…all who are in their graves shall hear his voice,

And shall come forth; they who have done good, in the resurrection of the just; and they who have done evil, in the resurrection of the unjust.

While Joseph and Sidney Rigdon meditated upon these things, the Lord opened up a great vision of the fate of souls after this life, and the three degrees of glory.

The vision showed those in the highest heaven, or Celestial kingdom, were those who receive the testimony of Jesus, and believe on his name and are baptized after the manner of his burial, being buried in the water in his name, and receive the Holy Spirit by the laying on of the hands, and are sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise.

The members of the church were asked to consecrate their properties to build a temple.

In those early days it seemed Satan attacked every time Joseph tried to restore another bit of the full gospel. Just weeks after the glorious vision, a mob captured Joseph and Sidney and nearly killed them.

But Joseph and the Saints did not give up. They gathered resources to build the temple, despite all opposition. On Palm Sunday, 1836, the Kirtland temple was dedicated.

Joseph thought his work was done.

The next week was Easter Sunday. There are curtains in the Kirtland temple to separate the great hall into smaller chambers. After the sacrament, Joseph and Oliver Cowdery were secluded by these curtains and bowed themselves in prayer next to the pulpit.

To their astonishment, A great and glorious vision burst upon them. Elijah the prophet stood before them, and said:

14 Behold, the time has fully come, which was spoken of by the mouth of Malachi—testifying that Elijah should be sent, before the great and dreadful day of the Lord come—
15 To turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the children to the fathers, lest the whole earth be smitten with a curse—
16 Therefore, the keys of this dispensation are committed into your hands; and by this ye may know that the great and dreadful day of the Lord is near, even at the doors.

After this vision, Joseph stopped writing in his journal for two years. The great revelation and the restoration of the sealing power would not be published until after Joseph’s death, after Oliver Cowdery had left the church, when no one still remembered that Elijah returned on Easter, at passover, just as God’s prophets had foretold since the days of Moses. [Check the preface to D&C 110 - it says nothing about the fact that day was Easter.]

Why would Joseph keep this secret? Probably because Joseph had been reminded he had not restored plural marriage. The good Christian people of Joseph’s day practiced strict monogamy as had the Romans. Strict monogamy had been mandated by the Roman Catholic church for hundreds of years. All the protestant churches taught strict monogamy.

Even though Joseph wouldn’t teach plural marriage, he did try to teach about eternal marriage. One early saint, William W. Phelps, wrote his wife. “Sally, you will be mine in this world and in the world to come… I have no right to any other woman in this world nor in the world to come according to the law of the Celestial Kingdom.”

Imagine a world where faithful widows and widowers couldn’t remarry.

Few of us really think about what would have happened if Joseph hadn’t restored plural marriage. It’s like how you don’t notice air until you’re suffocating. How you don’t value light until it’s dark.

Imagine a world where a loved ancestor couldn’t be sealed to her husband because he was already sealed to another. Imagine a world where the children of women who couldn’t be sealed are considered eternal orphans, never to be connected into the family of mankind.

The Greeks have a tragic myth about a man who was granted immortality, without eternal youth.

In my own family, I found an example of what can happen when people accept eternal marriage without accepting plural marriage.

It started four years after the sealing power was restored. 170 years ago this week [which was August 22, 2010] Joseph finally preached that baptism could be performed on behalf of our kindred dead.

When Joseph revealed the vision of the three kingdoms of glory, he was tarred and feathered. When Joseph built the temple and received the sealing power, all the Saints were driven from Ohio, then from Missouri.

When Joseph finally revealed baptism for the dead, it took Satan only three days to raise a mob to attack Nauvoo. They came up the river from Missouri despite a fierce summer storm. They made it to Water Street, where the Smiths lived. The broke into the cabin they found there. Within minutes the cabin was in flames and the mother and infant were terribly wounded.

But the mob had attacked the wrong cabin. Instead of attacking Emma Smith and her infant, they had attacked Marietta Holmes, wife of a simple cobbler, Jonathan. Jonathan is my ancestor.

The Smiths opened their home to Jonathan and his injured wife. Joseph surely comforted Jonathan and his wife with the promise that their family could be together in eternity, though death might part them on earth.

Marietta and her baby died.

Jonathan and his surviving child, Sarah, became part of the Smith household. Sarah played at Joseph’s knee along with the Smith children. She took lessons from the governess along with the Smith children. She snitched cookies from the cook along with the Smith children.

Jonathan mourned Marietta as the days became weeks and then months, and Joseph saw Jonathan had no intention of marrying again. In Jonathan’s mind, he was still married to Marietta, and could not marry another.

It took years for Joseph to convince Jonathan to marry. Jonathan eventually allowed Joseph to perform a ceremony wedding him to 29-year-old Elvira Annie Cowles, who was the Smith governess. This was back in the old days when all healthy, affectionate couples had children nine months after marriage and every two years thereafter.

But Annie didn’t get pregnant. Not the first month. Not the first year. Not the second year.

If Annie had never had kids, we would assume she was barren.

But in the fall of 1845, Annie had her first child. Somehow in the months following the martyrdom, Jonathan was finally convinced to become a true husband to his second wife. Annie continued to have children like clockwork until she was into her forties. Their last child was my great-great-grandmother. But it’s pretty clear that Annie remained childless in those early years because it took Jonathan that long to actually, really accept plural marriage, even though we don’t think of a widower remarrying as “plural marriage.”

In the 1900s, when President Joseph F. Smith was firmly and finally ending the practice of plural marriage, he talked about Joseph Smith, and Hyrum Smith, Brigham Young, John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff. These were the prophets who asked the saints to live plural marriage across the fifty years it was required of the Saints.

President Joseph F. Smith explained that these prophets [had been] laying the foundations of the great latter-day work, [i]ncluding the building of the temples and the performance of ordinances therein for the redemption of the dead… (D&C 138: 53, 54)

They did what they did to fulfill the promises made to the fathers, so that we would know that every father and every mother and every child should be sealed up as part of the family of mankind. That the hearts of the children might turn to their fathers. I testify that we will see our kindred dead in the world to come. If we have sought them out and made sure their ordinances are performed, we will be hailed with gratitude. If we do nothing, we will feel their terrible disappointment.

I testify that God lives, that Christ is our redeemer, and the redeemer of all who receive the testimony of Jesus, whether in this world or the world hereafter. I testify that our kindred dead may receive the required ordinances of baptism in the water in Christ’s name, the Holy Spirit by the laying on of the hands, and sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise. And I testify that we have a solemn obligation to help in this work, that our kindred yet in bondage may be redeemed, should they accept the proxy ordinances we perform on their behalf.

One possibility that suggests itself is the content of my most recent posts. They were about my brother’s experience with federal and local law enforcement. His Facebook and google accounts got messed with, but were allegedly reinstated due to public outcry.

No one bothered to notice that my blogs got smashed. Therefore I don’t even know if the disappearance of months of posts was even correlated with my brother’s experience.

Nice to know that it’s just me and the spambots, apparently.