After All

It was a struggle to get the attendance built up in the first YLMIA in Nephi, Utah, in 1875. For some time, only two girls came out to the meetings—the president and her secretary—but they opened the meetings, called the roll, and had a program. In recording the minutes the secretary added this note for each meeting: “There was a large and respectable congregation present.” In explanation she said, “The president was large, and I was surely respectable.”

—Lester H. Belliston
Ogden, Utah
History of the YLMIA, 1910, p. 385

When we moved to our present home, school was already in session. Our youngest boy, a bright-eyed first grader, was asked by his teacher where his daddy worked. Monty’s quick reply was, “Oh, my daddy doesn’t work—he teaches seminary.”

—Mrs. Larry N. Poulsen
Lehi, Utah

A ward camp director, shopping for camping equipment, noticed a compass with a mirror on the back of it. Puzzled, she asked a clerk what it was for. “Well,” he explained, “it’s really handy—you look on the back and it tells you who is lost.”

—Mrs. Dale Blackman
Blackfoot, Idaho

A New Orleans sign spotter reports something new added to a recruiting poster stating the “Navy Builds Men.” Under it, in feminine handwriting, was written, “Please build us one each! Mary, Sue, Jean.”

—Lucille S. Harper
Cheverly, Maryland

It is as important to carefully preserve records as it is to collect them. Take the case of the wife who saved all the love letters her husband wrote to her during World War II. Their two young daughters found the bundle one day and proceeded to play mailman. They delivered the letters all over the neighborhood.

—John Simonsen
Salt Lake City, Utah

Just prior to my mission call, I was walking a daughter of Zion home. In contemplating the two years of separation ahead of us, she asked what she should do during that time. I said, “You should be anxiously engaged.” In a quick but positive reply she said, “I’d love to be.”

—R. Davis
Mt. Prospect, Delaware

An English schoolmaster offered a prize to the boy who could write in five minutes the best composition on “How to Overcome a Habit.” The prize went to a lad of nine years who wrote this essay: “Habit is hard to overcome. If you take off the first letter, it does not change ‘abit.’ If you take off another, you will have a ‘bit’ left. If you take off still another, the whole of ‘it’ remains. If you take off another, it is not wholly used up; all of which goes to show that if you want to get rid of a habit you must throw it off altogether.”

Juvenile Instructor
June 1915, p. 425