Mormon Media

Latter-day Saint books of interest have regularly been featured in the Ensign. As of this issue, the “Books” section increases in scope and undergoes a change in title to “Mormon Media.”

“Mormon Media” will continue to feature books, but, in addition, will consider Church movies, the world of sound, and such items as the function of the meetinghouse library, home movie techniques, and the production of a ward or auxiliary newspaper.

Five Principles of Supervision, 21 min., color.

Originally produced for the Sunday School, this humorous and dramatic portrayal of the five principles of supervision applies to teachers and leaders in all organizations, both within and outside the Church.

The movie tells the story of Roger Blake who is called to serve as Sunday School president.

“Let me tell you, I was scared,” he said. “I told the bishop, ‘Bishop, I’ve never been any good at telling people what to do.’ And that’s when I first heard about the Five Principles of Supervision.”

1. Officers and teachers teach correct principles.

2. A teacher governs himself by selecting and being guided by goals consistent with correct principles.

3. The officers and inservice leaders prepare themselves to be considered by the teachers as sources of help.

4. The teacher calls upon the officers and the inservice leaders for help, and the officers and inservice leaders give that help.

5. The teacher gives to the officers an accounting of his stewardship.“

In the next few months I found out that I was able to apply the leadership principles to other areas of my life,” Brother Blake explained. “And whatever I was learning must have showed because I noticed how people at Sunday School and work began reaching out to me.”

But Brother Blake faces a seemingly insurmountable problem with one of his Sunday School teachers, Jack Masterson, the man who is his “tough-as-nails boss” at the steel plant where they work.

Brother Masterson treats his teenage students as though they are “undisciplined recruits,” and the dropout rate from his class soars.

As he sets out to help his “boss” improve in his role as a teacher, Brother Blake realizes that “if the five principles were true at all, they had to be true in any situation.”

The movie can be obtained through the meetinghouse library serving your region.

Pathways to Perfection
By Thomas S. Monson
Deseret Book Company, 175 pp., $4.95

In this collection of essays and addresses by Thomas S. Monson, a member of the Council of the Twelve, the reader will discover the gospel through the lives of people who have had experience living it.

One of these stories illuminates his concept of Christmas. As a young bishop in 1950, he went with a German Church member from Ogden to look at an apartment this member had obtained for his brother and his family when they came from Germany. This brother living in Germany had remained faithful to the Church through the holocaust of World War II and was now going to be a member of Bishop Monson’s ward.

“I looked at that apartment,” Elder Monson reminisces, “It was cold; it was dreary; the paint was peeling from the walls; the cupboards were bare. What an uninviting home for the Christmas season of the year! I worried about it and I prayed about it, and then in our ward welfare committee meeting, we did something about it.

“The group leader of the high priests said, ‘I am an electrician. Let’s put good appliances in that apartment.’

“The group leader of the seventies said, ‘I am in the floor covering business. Let’s install new floor coverings.’

The elders quorum president said, ‘I am a painter. Let’s paint that apartment.’

“The Relief Society representative spoke up: ‘Did you say those cupboards were bare?’ They were not bare very long with the Relief Society in action.

“Then the young people, represented through the Aaronic Priesthood general secretary, said, ‘Let’s put a Christmas tree in the home and let’s gather gifts to place under the tree.’

“You should have seen that Christmas scene, when the family arrived from Germany in clothing that was tattered and with faces that were drawn by the rigors of war and deprivation. As they went into their apartment they saw what had been, in actual fact a transformation—a beautiful home. We spontaneously began singing, ‘Silent Night!’ … We sang in English; they sang in German. At the conclusion of that hymn, my German brother threw his arms around my neck, buried his face in my shoulder, and repeated over and over again those words which I shall never forget: ‘Mein Bruder, Mein Bruder.’”