What a tangled web we weave

Sometime in the next few days, I'll put up a post honoring a new "Hoffmann of the Month." I haven't decided who July's honoree will be, but one thing is certain--it won't be Mark Hofmann.

Hofmann is perhaps the most notorious person in 20th century Mormon history, but in case you're unfamiliar, here's a very brief summary: Hofmann was a brilliant forger of LDS and "Americana" items, his most famous being the "Salamander Letter." While he was exceptionally talented, eventually people started to catch onto his deceptions, so...he killed two people with homemade bombs in an attempt to cover his tracks. Yikes. He's been in prison now for almost 30 years, and (rightfully) will never get out. If you're interested in more details, this article is a good starting point.

Mark Hofmann is also my first cousin, once removed.

I was too young to remember these events when they were happening, but I now know the story pretty well. While I obviously never condoned my cousin's actions, I have been guilty in the past of taking pleasure in the notoriety. My high school psychology teacher had a bit of a serial killer fetish, and when she found out my connection to Mark, she got excited. I can't deny that I enjoyed the attention. One of my mission companions was first cousins once removed from President James E. Faust, and we would sometimes joke that we were related to an apostle and an apostate, so we canceled each other out.

But a few years ago, my mindset changed, or at least started to change. I was in an Institute class, and in the middle of the lesson the teacher saw a man walking down the hallway and called him into the class. The man had recently been called into the bishopric of one of the other YSA wards that met in the same building. The teacher had known this man since he was a kid, and he began describing how, years ago, the new bishopric counselor's mother had been killed. Mark Hofmann was not mentioned by name, but I could tell from the details that he was the one responsible for the mother's death.

For the first time, the murders my cousin committed became a real thing, not just an interesting bit of trivia that made me stand out during a round of "two truths and a lie." The man would've been about 12 years old when his mother died. Obviously, he had turned out ok, a trustworthy man who is active in the church with a family of his own, but I started imagining how hard his life must've been, growing up without a mom. I felt awful for him, and awful for ever making light of the situation.

It's still a struggle for me--sometimes I'm still a little too excited to tell people who haven't heard of Mark Hofmann all about him. But I'm getting better. And I certainly know better than I did as a teenager how much wickedness and sadness can result from someone who actively tries to deceive his fellow men. This is the topic of the next Gospel Doctrine lesson, and clearly we can all benefit from studying it.

Creating Education Better

You've likely all seen it by now...Miss Utah flaming out spectacularly when asked a question during last week's Miss USA Pageant. A few quick thoughts: 1) she still got 4th place, which is way better than Utah's representative usually does in Miss USA, Miss America, or any similar competition; 2) she was only stumbling over her words for about 30 seconds, but when you watch it it feels like three minutes, and it probably felt like 30 minutes to her; 3) as bad as her answer was, it's still not nearly as embarrassing (or as hilarious) as the infamous Miss Teen South Carolina clip from a few years ago; 4) she was asked a question by NeNe Leakes, on a show hosted by one of the Jonas Brothers, so even if she nailed the answer I'm not sure that people would be taking her ideas very seriously; 5) next time, she should hire Kramer as her coach;  and 6) Miss Powell did a nice job on Jimmy Kimmel a few days later, showing personality, intelligence (at least enough to string a few sentences together), and most importantly, the ability to laugh at her own gaffe:



Education is a leading principle in the LDS Church (of which I'm pretty sure Marissa is a member). Members are taught to increase in knowledge and wisdom throughout their lives, to learn and grow "line upon line, precept upon precept." This week's Sunday School lesson is all about this directive to "seek learning." Here's the study guide material to help you prepare.

As part of my desire to increase in gospel knowledge, I read the assigned Sunday School scriptures every week. I also read the chapters in the Teachings of the Presidents of the Church manuals to prepare for those lessons, and I subscribe to the Ensign and read it cover to cover each month. Within the last couple of weeks, I've read a few things that sort of debunked certain aspects of a couple of well-known stories about early Church presidents.

First, there's John Taylor's watch. I was quite young the first time I heard the story of Joseph Smith's martyrdom--how Joseph and his brother Hyrum were killed, while the two other men with them--John Taylor and Willard Richards--survived. Richards was miraculously unharmed, while Taylor was shot four times, with one of the bullets hitting his watch, thereby saving his life.

In this month's Ensign there's an interesting piece on the death and burial of Joseph and Hyrum. It states that one of the shots that hit Taylor knocked him against the windowsill, and that impact is what shattered his watch. Apparently this has been known, or at least theorized, for quite a while, but it was the first time I'd heard this version.

As I did some Googling, I quickly found several sources that described how the future prophet, slumped against the window from the aforementioned shot and in danger of tumbling out, was hit again from outside, and this bullet struck his watch, with the impact driving him off the windowsill and back into the jail cell. I've realized that when I heard "a bullet hit his watch and saved his life," I must have just interpreted that to mean that the watch prevented the bullet from piercing vital organs, when it really was indicating that the watch-striking bullet saved him by keeping him from falling from the window to his death, as happened to Joseph.

But to reiterate, since it's in the current Ensign, it appears that the official stance of the Church is that it's the window that first shattered and stopped John Taylor's watch, not a gun shot.

The bigger surprise came while reading the chapter on tithing in the Lorenzo Snow manual, which was taught in my Elders Quorum last week. If you know anything about President Snow, you know that tithing is the definitive Lorenzo Snow principle. The Church was in heavy debt and southern Utah in heavy drought when President Snow began reemphasizing the principle of tithing. As the saints committed to pay tithing, it wasn't long before St. George got rain and the Church got out of debt. The story is immortalized in the old movie Windows of Heaven.


Starting at the 15:18 mark, the actor portraying Lorenzo Snow (who also played Mr. Harris in Johnny Lingo!) clearly states that if the people pay tithing, then rain will come. In case you don't think statements from movies should be taken literally (even from movies made under the direction of the First Presidency), the same statement is made in current church manuals. That's how I had always heard the story, and so it's what I believed.

So you can imagine my surprise when I read this in one of the footnotes from the recent lesson (yes, I read the footnotes): "Contemporary [resources] show that while [President Snow] promised the Saints that they would be blessed temporally as well as spiritually as they obeyed the law of tithing, he did not specifically promise an end to the drought in southern Utah."

Shocking, right? It's directly contradictory to the way that story has always been told throughout my life. In recent years there has been a much greater emphasis in the Church on using original sources and scholarly research to update, clarify, and, when necessary, correct details about early Church history (the most notable examples are the Joseph Smith papers and the recent release of an updated version of the standard works, where there were many changes and updates to Doctrine and Covenants section headings. The more this research continues, the more examples like this we can expect to find.

This can only be a positive thing in the Church's efforts to "create education better." Knowing what really happened is far better than knowing an incorrect version, even if it's more dramatic. Tithing is still a true principle, and church members were still blessed individually and collectively by following it. John Taylor's preservation was still a miracle, and he and Lorenzo Snow were both true prophets of God. Our testimonies of these things can only be strengthened by knowing the correct details of these stories. So, here's to a lifelong pursuit of true knowledge. Just please don't ever tell me that Wilford Woodruff and his wife didn't really meet-cute due to their mutual appreciation of "All Creatures of Our God and King." To find that out would be devastating.

O be wise

This week in Gospel Doctrine, we'll be discussing "the Lord's law of health," the Word of Wisdom. This commandment directs its followers to abstain completely from alcohol, tobacco, "strong" and "hot" drinks (currently defined as coffee and tea, though maybe we'll get an addendum for Rockstar, 5 Hour Energy, etc., someday), and illegal drugs.

Mormons are hardly the only ones to warn of the health risks and other dangers of these products. The anti-tobacco "truth" marketing is probably the most ubiquitous advertising campaign of my lifetime, and the anti-drug "Above the Influence" ads were everywhere for a while too. But for the most part, these commercials are too serious, heavy-handed, and manipulative for my liking. Give me the cheesiness of the PSAs of my youth, any day. When I think about Word of Wisdom-related PSA, this is always the first one that comes to mind:



Not sure why the one with the Blue Blazer (played by the late Owen Hart) is so memorable for me, since there are many anti-smoking videos from the same era featuring more prominent wrestlers like Hulk Hogan and the Ultimate Warrior. Owen's brother Bret Hart did a PSA on drunk driving where he even uses the phrase "words of wisdom," but this one with the Blazer is still the one that stands out. Here's my second-most memorable PSA:



I love yelling "I learned it by watching you!" at parents and others when the opportunity presents itself. So much fun. Along with those two ads, I also think of this clip. It's obviously not a real PSA, but it becomes even more ridiculous when you think about all of the drug problems Lawrence Taylor has had.



So those are my go-to PSAs, but if you took a Family Feud-style survey of 100 people to determine the most memorable anti-drug PSA, I bet this would be your top answer:



The more in-your-face heroin version of this PSA might also rank pretty high. The "brain on drugs" concept spawned an infinite number of jokes and basically became its own cottage industry. Check out the hilariously dated references on these posters. Dan and Dave!

Speaking of famous brains...here's some more PSAs featuring what were then considered top-tier celebrities, people that young folks looked up to. Like Mr. T:



And Pee Wee:



Even the Star Wars droids:



Of course, the best way to make sure kids got the message that drugs were bad was to sneak the warnings in at the end of their favorite cartoons. "Everybody's doing it" is not a good reason for doing drugs, but it seems like a good enough reason to include the anti-drug PSAs. All of my most-loved shows had them, whether it was He-Man...



...or G.I. Joe (where knowing was half the battle in the war on prescription drug abuse)...



...and of course, TMNT. Drug dealers are dorks!



It's easy to get caught up in the "don'ts" of the Word of Wisdom, but there are plenty of "dos" as well. Fortunately, the PSAs of my childhood covered that as well. Exercise isn't mentioned directly in Section 89 of the D&C, but it's an important part of healthy living, as my old pal He-Man knew well. The main "do" of the WoW is eating healthy, and my cartoon pals taught me about that too:



He didn't have his own cartoon, but many shows took "Time For Timer" back in the day. Timer's most famous ditty was likely the one about his hankerin' for cheese (rewatching that video now, I think it may have been the inspiration for the rich Texan character on The Simpsons), but this one was also pretty memorable, and more relevant to the current topic.



But when it came to eating healthy, nothing tops milk ads. Milk's "It does a body good" promotions (including the milk mustache print ads and everything else) is perhaps the only campaign as pervasive as the "truth" one I alluded to earlier. They aren't proper PSAs, since they were actually promoting a commercial enterprise, but hey--getting enough milk is still a good thing. I remember their "pass it on" commercials that tried to be really hip. My favorite was this one, mainly due to the "good for teeth and bones and hair" line:



Then milk moved on to a slightly more mature campaign; for some reason I remember the Carrie Jacobson ad well enough to remember that it was about someone named Carrie Jacobson. But the ones where scrawny kids grow before our eyes (due to their milk consumption, of course) were much better. I like this one:



But I like this one, featuring a classic Wendy Peffercorn-type, even more:



So there you have it. If I had to break it down, I'd say my childhood commitment to keep the Word of Wisdom was due to parental and teacher influence (60%), personal testimony (10%), and public service announcements on TV (30%). Did you have any favorite PSAs as a kid that I've overlooked here? Share the links in the comments!

Hoffmann of the Month: June

"Hoffmann of the Month"* has been a feature of my blog for two years now. Amazingly, it's taken me this long to honor someone who shares my first name as well. Former astronaut Jeff Hoffman is June's Hoffmann of the Month!

Dr. Hoffman is likely the most impressive recipient I've ever honored on my blog. Check out his credentials! (The space stuff there seems to be copied directly from his official NASA bio.) He's clearly a highly intelligent, interesting, and accomplished man. And in his glory days he had one heck of a mustache.

But the main reason I chose to profile Hoffman this month--today is National Yo-Yo Day (not to be confused with National YOLO Day, which for me is practically every day. YOLO!), and Jeffrey once displayed some slick zero gravity yo-yoing on the Shuttle Atlantis! Check it out:

   

As if that wasn't cool enough, he also celebrated Chanukah in space with some nifty dreidel spinning (though out there it seems like it would be impossible to figure out who won the chocolate coins).

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I look forward to learning more about this fascinating scientist (though I'll likely always think of him as the guy who brought toys into space). He's a great man with a great name, a very worthy Hoffmann of the Month. Congrats, Jeff!

*Named that way so it encompasses all Hofmans, Hoffmans, Hofmanns, and Hoffmanns.