Comment

Missionaries need support

I believe there is great insight in the eight steps presented in the July 1979 Ensign, page 73, for getting missionaries into the field. However, I would name an important ninth step in support of missionaries: correspondence.

In the almost two years I have been a missionary, while I have received a faithful weekly letter from my family, I have received only two letters from my ward and stake. At Christmas and other memorable times, I was left with the hope that all was well at home in the ward, since all twenty Christmas cards and other letters I sent to ward members went unanswered.

Those same missionaries that you struggled so hard for and strengthened to go on missions still need your help. Many are away for the first time, and a note of encouragement or news would help to make the missionary’s week much happier.

A missionary in the field.

More on “Old-What’s-His-Name”

I can’t help responding to this article in the June 1979 Ensign. As a man of eighty-two years, I am well into my ninth year as ward finance clerk, and I type all the members’ receipts for donations. I give the lesson in our high priests class quite often, and when visitors from faroff places stop long enough to tell me they enjoyed my lesson, I don’t think they’re pulling my leg.

I too have a blue suit “livened up with a bright tie.” I learned to press my first pair of long trousers at age seventeen and continue to do so. I even keep my shoes shined.

And I can still break ninety on the golf course.

Thanks for the article.

James W. Simms
Clearwater, Florida

Amasa Lyman exonerated

With reference to a statement in the June Ensign (p. 46) that Amasa Mason Lyman’s condition in the Church “would worsen until it would end in his apostasy and excommunication 12 May 1870,” Amasa’s excommunication was reconsidered after his death, and his blessings, priesthood, and families were restored to him. I hope you will add this supplement to the article. (See Albert R. Lyman, Amasa Mason Lyman, Pioneer, vol. 1, published by Melvin A. Lyman, Delta, Utah, 1957, pp. 279–84.)

James L. Rasmussen
Provo, Utah

On Child Bearing

Our whole ward is talking about the answer to the question on family size and “spacing” of children, and I want to thank all those responsible for that sensitive and helpful response to a question we all have in the Church.

J. R. Dushku
Watertown, Massachusetts

Where you fit in!

I have never felt so sure of where I was going as I have since reading your article in the September issue, “Finding Where You Fit—The Four-Generation Program.” I am a convert of twenty-eight years, the only one in my family, and I have been pulling, struggling, and piecing clues together during all these years, only to send in a very few names. Now, thanks to this article, I finally have a testimony of the value of what I’ve done. I’ve completed my four-generation sheets and had the temple work done for my progenitors.

Marita Hubbard Schugk
Salt Lake City, Utah

Away from Home

After living in an LDS environment for several years (Mesa, Arizona, and Provo, Utah), it was a big adjustment to live away from home this summer.

I am twenty-one years old and through serving as a governess in New York (Long Island) for a family who are not members and have different ideals and values, I have realized how important the Church is to me. My loving mother sent me the Ensign and New Era, which really kept my faith and testimony strong. I read them over and over.

Janeece Powell
Lloydneck, New York

I love getting the Ensign. As a soldier in the U.S. Army, stationed in Sinep, Turkey, and an elder in the Church, I am one of three active members here. We have no branch, but do get the Mormon Tabernacle Choir on radio Sunday mornings. Other than that our contact with the Church is through letters and magazines.

We three hold meetings and teach the gospel, and we have some prospective members. We depend a lot on the Ensign. Through it we can hear our General Authorities and keep abreast of what’s going on in the Church.

Pvt. Richard W. Carlile
U.S. Army, APO New York

The Church in Arab Lands

I am now in Sheba’s land, in the House of Ishmael. Can you print a notice that the Church is functioning in the Yemen Arab Republic? If anyone has relatives or friends known to be here or planning to come, we may be reached through the American Embassy or by writing directly to me.

Presently, myself and the John and Ruth Bean family (three of their six children are here) hold meetings in their home. We’ve heard of Latter-day Saints who have traveled through the area but never realized there might be Church representation here.

Virgil N. Kovalenko
USOMC SANA
State Department
Washington, D.C. 20520

Correction on Heber Grant

I was happy to read the article “Jedediah and Heber Grant” in the July Ensign. The article states that when Lucy S. Grant died, her son Heber was deceased; yet other accounts tell of an incident at the time of Lucy’s passing, centering on one of the daughters comforting her brother Heber, that their mother’s going was the will of the Lord. Please clarify for me.

Karen Bailey O’Gara
Tacoma, Washington

Our author and the Ensign are embarrassed. President Grant’s son Heber did die following his mother’s death.

Update

Inadvertently, the lower C. C. A. Christensen painting of the Hiram, Ohio, mobbing in the June 1979 Ensign, inside back cover, was flopped.

September 1979, page 47: Photo, lower right-hand corner, does not show actual site of Smith family graves, which are about one hundred yards distant.