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.