Wednesday, February 12, 2014

I am a Dead Man!

So the title comes from Doctrine and Covenants 135:1, and I admit I used it as an attention-getter, but it will make sense in the 3rd paragraph (not counting this one) and on down.

So I am one that usually makes fun of BYU, its overall setting and its large amount of church related stuff. My brother once made a statement that I think applies here and it’s “There are three levels of people in the church – being inactive in church, active, and then over-active”. I feel like BYU and most of the people here put some over-active people I know to shame. That being said, there was an awesome experience I had this past weekend that I’d like to share with you.

So I recently started working at BYU Studies, which does a lot with scholarly articles dealing with the LDS church. I had to work this last Saturday for a couple of hours while a lot of board members were in a large group meeting. I was able to sit in for most of the meeting, and at the end of the meeting, there was a presentation from a descendant of Hyrum Smith.

There were several of Hyrum’s items on display as well as some Smith family items that were passed down through Hyrum’s descendants. Some of the items on display included a box that Alvin owned that eventually held the golden plates for a little while, as well as the clothes Hyrum was wearing when he was martyred in Carthage. It was surreal to see the clothes, with the bullet holes and blood, and the shattered watch that was in his pocket.

I’ve never been on a church history tour, or any historical church sites east of Colorado, so I’ve never seen any items similar to what I saw Saturday. It was really special to see those things at that time. It was an interesting time, and it made me appreciate everything early church members did to stay true to the church, and to help the church grow and become what it is today. Seeing bullet holes and Hyrum’s blood really brought that all home and made me appreciate what Hyrum and Joseph did to help restore the church.

I’m not sure if I’ll ever get the chance to see those kinds of things again, or if I’ll ever go to some historical church sites out east, but I very much appreciated that chance I got Saturday. If you get the chance to do something similar, I would encourage you to do it. It’s a rare chance, and it will help you appreciate the church more. Bad transition here, and on a lesser note, you should also go see the Dead Sea Scrolls up in Salt Lake. It wasn’t as neat to me as the Hyrum stuff, and because I was able to go to Israel last year (vacation dropper), some of the stuff was similar to what I saw over there. But if you can, go see that as well.

Well that’s all for now…until next time, I will try and come up with a better close to my blog posts.

Monday, February 3, 2014

Estimated 2014 Opening Kick Off

If you are like me, today is a sad day -- no more football for a while.  Well to ease your pain, well my pain, I have estimated the day of the next kickoff.  Since 2002, the opening game has taken place after Labor Day (first Monday of September), and most of those games have happened on a Thursday (instead of Wednesday).  The time has been somewhat variable...it started at 9 p.m. EST for the first couple of years, but has since moved to 8:30 p.m. EST (with one 7:00 p.m. EST thrown in for fun).

So my guess is Thursday, September 5th, at 8:30 p.m. EST, football will be back.  I can't imagine I'm off more than a day, but if it happens, I'll post a more accurate clock.  Until then, good luck surviving the remaining 213 (from the time that I posted this) football free days.