Latter-day prophet power rankings

Last week we had the annual Primary Program in sacrament meeting. It's one of my favorite days of the year; the kids alternate between enlightening you with their innocent and pure faith, or cracking you up with their zany personalities and off-key singing. Often they do all of that at once.

At one point they sang the "Latter-day Prophets" song. If you check out the copyright information, you'll see that this song was written in 1980, when Spencer W. Kimball was president of the LDS Church. I learned it as a child after it's first revision, when Ezra Taft Benson had succeeded President Kimball. As each aged prophet passed away and was replaced by a new one, the end of the song became more and more jumbled. This was the first time I heard the song since Thomas S. Monson replaced Gordon B. Hinckley in 2008, and unsurprisingly, the end of the song is a mess. The names are way too cramped. Someone needs to write a new song.

One interesting addition (I don't know if this is a Church-wide thing, or something created by my ward) is that each prophet has an accompanying sign. Some make sense, like miming rain falling for Lorenzo Snow or pointing to your watch for John Taylor. Some show a distinct lack of effort, like making an O for David O. McKay or shaking your own hand for George Albert Smith (because he was friendly, unlike all those other unfriendly prophets). And others are just plain weird, like milking an invisible cow for President Kimball.

With this on my mind, and with "living prophets" being the topic for this week's Gospel Doctrine class, and with General Conference just a week away, it's obviously time for the first-ever "Latter-day Prophet Power Rankings!" About three months ago I released my list of apostolic power rankings, and it was arguably my most influential post of all time--most comments I've ever received on a single post, faster to 200 views than any post, etc.

That post was built around the new, official Facebook pages for each member of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve. No such things exist (yet!) for the former prophets pictured above, though there are a bunch of unofficial pages with varying popularity--modest totals such as 198 "Likes" on one Wilford Woodruff page, to more popular pages (there's one with nearly 15 thousand for Ezra Taft Benson). Still, like the last post, I will give my projected order of most- to least-Liked theoretical pages, followed by the order I would Like them in. (Please keep in mind, I do love all of these men and testify they are true prophets of God. This is just for fun.)

PROJECTED ORDER

1. Gordon B. Hinckley: His own long tenure combined with serving as the First Counselor to two prophets with significant health problems made him the public face of the Church for about 25 years--a period of tremendous growth and media exposure (largely positive, too). As a result, before his death he was the only prophet known to a huge chunk of Church membership. There's no way he's not #1. Except...
2. Thomas S. Monson: ...I can definitely see President Monson taking the top imaginary spot within the next few years. He's been prominent nearly as long as Pres. Hinckley, and his "folksy" ways are certainly endearing.
3. Joseph Smith: "Brother Joseph" is the only non-living prophet that we consistently sing about, teach about, cite in our sermons and testimonies...I guess it's possible he could be the most Liked, but I still think it would be Pres. Hinckley.
4. Brigham Young: If there was an "Unlike" option Brigham would likely be the highest in that metric, thanks to University of Utah fans.
5. David O. McKay: He was the Gordon Hinckley of my parents' generation--he was an Apostle forever, then served as Prophet for a very long time, presiding over a period of exceptional growth, due in part to his "every member a missionary mantra. Like Hinckley, he was the only prophet known to half the Church at the time of his death.
6. Spencer W. Kimball: Health problems, The Miracle of Forgiveness, the Yoda connection...lots of talking points to help people remember him.
7. Ezra Taft Benson: Among ultra-conservative "Marmons" (as President Benson would say it), he's probably admired at least as much for his role in and views on government as he is for his ministry.
8. Heber J. Grant: The man who taught himself to excel at penmanship baseball, and singing; who turned the Word of Wisdom from a suggestion to a commandment; and who reined in the long bushiness of church leaders' beards.
9. Lorenzo Snow: Gets a bump from being the focus of this year's Priesthood/Relief Society manual. He may have slotted in a little lower last year.
10: Howard W. Hunter: He had the shortest tenure of any Church president, but since that tenure was relatively recent he'd get more Likes than some others.
11. Joseph F. Smith: The song says "remember the F," and I think that does actually help people remember him a little better than some of his predecessors.
12. John Taylor: His presence at Joseph Smith's martyrdom makes him slightly more prominent than President Woodruff.
13. Wilford Woodruff: If they ever remake Mountain of the Lord, he'll shoot way up the list.
14. Harold B. Lee: These bottom three are fairly nondescript, at least to my generation. They all had short or shortish tenures, before we were born, that featured few if any significant changes or milestones. President Lee rises above the others based on the name recognition the campus library has given him among BYU alumni.
15. George Albert Smith: Fun fact--if a Church authority goes by their full middle name, that means there was an earlier Apostle of the same name. Inspired nepotism is a hallmark of the true church going back to Adam.
16. Joseph Fielding Smith: See? It's interesting that Hyrum Smith had a grandson who died in 1972, but that fact won't earn the last President Smith a ton of Likes on its own.

MY ORDER

1. Gordon B. Hinckley: As noted above, Pres. Hinckley was "my" prophet. He was always there, always so likable and funny--though not as funny as the laughs he got would indicate. Depending on how egregious the unwarranted laughter is at this General Conference, I may end up writing a whole post on this topic.
2. Joseph Smith: Just so much to admire.
3. Thomas S. Monson: Again, he's in a good position to move even higher over the next few years.
4. Spencer W. Kimball: Okay, Pres. Kimball was the first I would've described as "my" prophet. When I was very young, the chorister in my ward was an elderly gentleman. One Sunday we were both retrieving our coats at the same time after the meeting, and I said "See you later, President Kimball!" Because OF COURSE the entire LDS Church attended the same ward. A worldwide membership was beyond my 4-year-old comprehension. As was a quote comparing kisses to pretzels, but now that has certainly helped him garner a high ranking on my list.
5. Ezra Taft Benson: Love the landmark talks on pride and on the Book of Mormon, and as noted I REALLY love the way he talked, which lives on today in Elder L. Tom Perry.
6. Brigham Young: His namesake university is #1, but the man himself doesn't quite place that high.
7. Wilford Woodruff: The biggest variation between the two lists. I do love Mountain of the Lord, and appreciate his role in the end of institutional polygamy.
8. David O. McKay: Pro: he dressed a little like Col. Sanders without the beard and glasses. Dig the white suit. Cons: The "what e'er thou art, act well thy part" story used to belong to my mission, to Scotland. Now it's been co-opted by the whole church, and that bothers me. I'm like a fan of an "indie" band that made it big.
9. Heber J. Grant: Gains bonus points from appearing in J. Golden Kimball stories.
10. Joseph F. Smith: Wow, there's a high concentration of Smiths at the bottom of my rankings (though again, keep in mind that I really like all of these men).
11. John Taylor: In the song, John Taylor came third. (We know!) But not on these lists.
12. George Albert Smith: My affinity for saying "but I am clean" when someone comments on someone else's lateness gives George Albert Smith a bump on my list compared to the overall list, but only a slight bump.
13. Lorenzo Snow: Speaking of the Lorenzo Snow manual...in the next lesson there's a quote from him that goes "Do not joke too much...the Spirit tends to freedom and jollity, but don't be too jollified." I don't think President Snow would enjoy this post, but I sure do enjoy the word "jollified."
14. Howard W. Hunter: I actually liked looking up cases in the Hunter Law Library at BYU for my Comms Law class...
15. Harold B. Lee: ...but I avoided the Lee Library as much as I possibly could.
16: Joseph Fielding Smith: Once, while working on a project for BYU Broadcasting, Joseph Fielding McConkie rubbed me the wrong way. But I promise that did not affect the placement of his grandfather and namesake. I just have had very little interaction with the life and teachings of the tenth president of the Church.

It seems inevitable that I will do one of these for Old Testament and Book of Mormon prophets in the future, so watch out for those! And let me know in the comments how you'd adjust my rankings.

Start spreadin' the news

[After a week off, the BASOTRUSSL is back and--if not better than ever--at least as good as it is most weeks. This week's Gospel Doctrine lesson covers some of the events from the first 30-plus years after the Saints arrived in the Salt Lake Valley. Since a big chunk of that involved sending missionaries all over the world, and since it's only about a fortnight until my parents leave on their mission, it seems like a good time to revisit the journals of the first church member-slash-missionary-slash-member missionary in my bloodline, my Great-grandpa Hofmann (GGP for short). Today's excerpts focus on his first mission. Previous posts drawing from GGP's diary can be found here and here.]

Not long after GGP's baptism, he was living in Samaden, Switzerland, and attending church meetings in nearby Pontrosina. The visiting President mentioned below is likely a District President, though the diary does not specify.

President Hyrum W. Valentine and his wife came to see us...[he] asked me the question, "When the Lord would want you on a mission, would you go?" I told him when the hospital is finished [GGP's architectural endeavor at that time] I plan to go to Zion. I have the money and clothes and all that I need. [At this time many if not most LDS converts hoped to move to Utah as soon as they could.] He answered and said again, "Would you go on a mission when called by the Lord or His servant?" I answered, yes, I would. He told me that the money and clothes, etc., I could use on a mission as well as for going to America.

As we were finishing the hospital building, wealthy men came to me and told me they intend to build and had chosen me to do the architectural work for them. But I kept my promise to the Lord to go on a mission to Germany, the land where I was born...the following day I left for my mission in the Hannover District...

On the way to Hannover I visited very briefly with my parents, brothers and sister, and found my mother was in much better health than when I saw her the last time I was home for her "funeral service."

As I arrived in Hannover, [District President Joseph] Anderson was in prison for preaching the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. A few days later he was released and went with me to Braunschweig, where I was assigned to labor with Elder Ben. Pierce of Provo, who had been there for a short time.

President Anderson went with me from door to door to show me how they do tracting. As we went to the meeting house in Braunschweig, we saw that we were watched by plain clothesmen. They first contacted President Joseph Anderson, but he directed them to me as an LDS missionary who had picked him up in his tracting services. As they tried to arrest me, Joseph Anderson disappeared and was no more to be found. They asked me for his address in Braunschweig, but I told them I do not know his address as we had not yet baptized him. They took me to police headquarters, but they could not put me in prison as, at that time, I was a German citizen who had his citizen papers in best order. My military papers, too, were in order. Nearly every day when I went tracting I was arrested one or two times, taken to police headquarters and set free as I had transgressed no law. My companion, however, had to avoid to be arrested as a foreigner proselyting the Gospel in Germany. If they could have arrested him, he would have been put in prison for a while. With the help of the Lord he escaped each time. He even could outrun dogs when they were sent after him. He had to rent and live in a room without registering; if he had registered, he could not have lived in Braunschweig.

At the end of July 1914, a great district conference was held in Hannover under the leadership of Elder Hyrum M. Smith of the Quorum of the Twelve, then President of the European Mission. He told us what would happen in the near future, that [the branches and districts] would be reorganized with local brethren as the leaders, that the local brethren and sisters should have the opportunity and experience in leadership. Had his advice been followed, much confusion could have been avoided as the elders were called home only two or three weeks later.

August 1, 1914 Germany declared war on Russia...in those days missionary work among the people was nearly impossible as the people thought and spoke only of war.

Once while tracting in Scotland, I had water dumped on me from a second-story window. But that was the worst thing that ever happened to me. I definitely didn't have to worry about getting arrested every day, or being chased by dogs...I'd love to read this Ben Pierce's diary as well. There's more to share about my ancestor's missionary efforts, and about his experiences in the first World War, but I'll save that for future posts. Isn't GGP Hofmann amazing?

Hat-fields and McCoys

[I didn't get a blog post up last week. School and homework are sucking up more of my free time than I anticipated, and I'm still working on recalibrating how I spend my time to make sure blogging doesn't fall by the wayside. To make up for my slacking, and in anticipation of this weekend's "Holy War" matchup (last one for a few years--you'd better win it, Cougars!), here's a piece I wrote for my creative writing class. The assignment was to write about someone rebelling against something. I'm still a newbie when it comes to fiction writing, and the ending is a little sloppy because I ran out of time and had to get it turned in, but the story is certainly not without it's merits.]

            Josh walked past the storefront for the third time, still unable to actually cross the threshold. He found a nearby bench and sat down, hoping to steel his resolve by the time he had finished his Orange Julius.

            It shouldn’t be this hard, he thought. It’s just a hat. People buy hats at the mall every day—this shouldn’t be the scary part. No, the scary part would be the reactions of his father and brothers when they learned Josh had brought a BYU hat into their home.

            The four oldest men in the Bateman home were obsessed with University of Utah sports, especially the football and basketball teams. Josh’s father was always going on about Mike McCoy, Scott Mitchell, and Keith Van Horn; his three older brothers spoke of Alex Smith, Andrew Bogut, and Eric Weddle in reverential tones.

            Josh didn’t know whether these people played basketball or football; in fact, he cared little for sports at all. He’d join his family in front of the TV on Saturday afternoons and pretend to be interested in the football games, but he’d usually find an excuse to leave the room before halftime.

            Coming out as a BYU fan could cause a lot of problems for Josh at home. He wasn’t too worried about his brothers—they already teased and tormented him pretty consistently, this would just be something new for them to give him a hard time about. His dad was a different story.

            Josh’s two oldest brothers were now in college, living on their own. They were close by and still came over a lot, but it wasn’t the same—Josh’s father clearly missed them terribly. And the third son was a senior in high school, just one year away from heading off to college himself. Soon Josh would be the only child left at home, and Mr. Bateman wasn’t shy about letting everyone know how much less enjoyable game days would be if it was just the two of them watching. And this was just how Josh’s dad reacted to his youngest son being ambivalent about sports. Who knows how sad or mad (or both) he would get if he learned Josh was siding with the enemy?

            But Josh was determined to buy the hat anyway. It was the best way he could think of to get close to Whitney.

            He had first seen Whitney two weeks ago, on their first day of high school. She had come from the other junior high that fed into the school. They had four classes together, and even sat next to each other in 3^rd period English. Josh may not have liked sports, but he loved assigned seating!

            The school year was still young, and at this point Josh only knew a few things about Whitney: she was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen, and she was a HUGE BYU fan.

            He also knew that the big BYU-Utah football game was coming up soon. It was impossible to ignore—his dad talked about little else at home, and Whitney and many of their other classmates were also getting worked up about it.

            Josh would watch the big game with Whitney. It was his self-appointed destiny. But he needed to pass himself off as a fellow Cougar fan first. He needed that hat.

            He took a final sip of his smoothie and tossed the cup in the trash. He willed himself to stand up, and walked quickly into Fanzz before he could lose his nerve again. Fanzz. What a ridiculous name. It sounded like something you would call an imitation sports fan. Josh instantly realized that’s exactly what he was, and a grin spread across his face. A store employee asked if he could help him find anything.

            “Just looking,” Josh said, doing his best to avoid making eye contact.

            But he wasn’t just looking. Josh knew exactly what he wanted. He had spent an hour the night before Googling information on hat sizes, and another 30 minutes on the Fanzz site picking the style from among the 30-plus options that would make him look most like a long-time fan. He found his chosen hat and was relieved to see they had it in size 6 7/8. He carried his new headgear to the register and paid for it with money left over from his birthday in July. He thanked the clerk and walked back out to his bench. Josh had been in Fanzz a grand total of 4 minutes.

            He had done it. For better or worse, he had done it. He removed the cap from the shopping bag and examined it.

            “Nice hat, Josh,” a passerby said.

            It was Erika, another girl with whom Josh had several classes. She was also a friend of Whitney’s—he had seen them eating lunch together. His plan was off to a great start.

            “Thanks!” Josh called after her. As he began walking in the opposite direction, he pulled the cap over his head for the first time. It was too tight. Why didn’t he just buy a t-shirt?

And I WILL make ya laugh

Watch Legacy - Part 1 in Family  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

This Sunday's Gospel Doctrine lesson details the first groups of Mormon pioneers to cross the plains to Utah. When I think about the pioneers, of course I think of faithful and inspiring people like Stillman Pond, whose sacrifices benefit me spiritually and temporally. But I also think of two other things.

The first is the groups of teenage Mormons and their parents and leaders who go "on trek." Without fail, every single person talks about going "on trek"--not on A trek, but on trek, like it's a registered trademark, capital-T Trek run by some handcart company who trademarked the term. It's a silly thing that annoys me way more than it should, but there you go.

The other thing I think about is the movie Legacy, the first Church-produced movie shown in what is now called the Legacy Theater in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building on Temple Square. It certainly has the potential to inspire, but I've seen it enough times now (and my personality is such) that I mostly focus on the cornier aspects of it.

I'd like to write a running diary of the movie (a format used to great comedic effect by Bill Simmons and others), but here's the thing: it's practically been scrubbed from the Internet. It used to be on YouTube, but no more. Years ago I heard some rumors about the person who played Joseph Smith, but even if they were all true it doesn't seem like that would be reason enough to erase the movie from the Web. If anyone knows more details about this, I'd be interested to find out.

As you can see above, I did finally find Legacy on a different video site...but I cold only watch a 5-minute clip unless I downloaded their player. I'm hoping that y'all can view the embedded version in this post without having to download potentially iffy software. So if I get some comments indicating that the video is viewable, then I'll do this running diary in a future post. Let me know!