FYI:
For Your Information

Of Good Report

Nothing Fishy Here: Holly Nelson, Mia Maid from Jordan North Second Ward in Granger, Utah, reports that girls in her ward have been selling English fish and chips to raise money for Bolivian children. LaRue Holt, project director, said it was a smashing success. “It gives the girls a certain international feeling while serving.” The money will be used to defray transportation costs so children in a small Bolivian village can go to school. Sister Dorothy Orchit, a missionary to Bolivia from the Jordan North Second Ward, pointed up the need, and the details are being handled by Priesthood leadership.

The Fun Idea of the Month

Everybody loves Peanuts, according to Joyce Ensign, Logan, Utah. So she invited guests to a Peanuts party with Snoopy cards instructing each guest to bring his own security blanket and to come representing his favorite character from this famous cartoon series. The place was decorated with Peanuts posters, stuffed toys, and bowls of peanuts, of course. People sat on the security blankets and had a sing-along with music from “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.” Reading aloud from Peanuts wit and wisdom, and munching on frosted grahams and gigantic lollipops topped off the party.

Book Reviews

Youth and the Church
by President Harold B. Lee
Deseret Book Company, 261 pp., $4.95

There is little question that President Lee is one of the great men of our day, appropriately placed here when times are rugged and tough and when pseudo-intellectuals abound. If you want to meet President Lee, to hear his inspired ideas on social, temporal, and spiritual problems, then this book is for you. As he says in the beginning, the chapters “were prepared more than a quarter of a century ago to meet the needs of a world recovering from the tragedies of a great world war. As I have reviewed the material, remembering how, at the time, I tried to live intimately with the problems of youth, it amazes me, and yet not surprisingly so, to note that the same things I said then are as though written today.” The advice is as sound as the gospel principles from which it came, as timeless as the scriptures to which the reader is sent time and again. According to President Lee—for those of you who haven’t learned it already—the answers are all in the scriptures.

Here are sample nuggets:

On the Beatitudes: “They embody in fact the constitution for a perfect life.”

On dating: “… pray before you go out on a date—pray that you may have a good time and conduct yourselves according to Church standards. …”

On choosing a mate: “The ideal man or woman of your dreams that you plan one day to select as your life’s companion very likely doesn’t exist, although you may think so when you fall in love, for your ideal is probably a composite of the best qualities you have observed in any number of your choice associates.”

On personal conduct: “Any conduct on the part of the individual that does not advance him toward the goal of eternal life is … wasted energy. …”

Outdoor Survival Skills
by Larry Dean Olsen
Brigham Young University Press, 188 pp., paperback $2.00, hard-bound $3.50

If you have ever been lucky enough to find an old Boy Scout handbook—one that still has pages of pictures of animal tracks and edible plants and enough information on woodsman skills to teach you how to build a cabin or a birchbark canoe—and if your blood races a little faster when you read it, then Outdoor Survival Skills is for you.

This exciting and very complete book comes largely from Larry Olsen’s experiences in teaching outdoor survival classes at Brigham Young University. (He is the expert. His ideas are being adopted by the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Explorer Scout program.) Larry’s book is based on a caveman approach to survival, because he feels that survival training is best achieved by learning to live off the land, without using previously manufactured items—good-bye matches and knife! Larry concentrates on the primitive aspects of survival. He covers the general headings of shelter, fire, water, plants as food and medication, and animal life as food, and gives a fascinating section on special skills that cover everything from making bone and flint knives and weapons to sinew preparation, to weaving, to doing your own tanning. With each skill you are dropped right back into the stone age.

How about making your own black sugar from roasted, powdered ants? or keeping a spark alive in a Piute fire bundle during a ten-hour march?

You may wish that some of the photographs were in color, especially in the plant section. Also, the plants talked about are primarily those common to the Rocky Mountain area. But even with these minor deficiencies, Larry’s book is an excellent contribution to a person’s library on the outdoors.

Beauty Is
by Bonnie Marshall
Bookcraft, 196 pp., $3.25

Written by a Latter-day Saint and a former high fashion model and teacher in finishing schools, this book is a good basic guide to help girls from twelve to thirty develop their own beauty and charm. It contains chapters on makeup, fashion, diet, exercises, posture, dating, and the social graces.

Specific advice is given throughout not only on how to look attractive, but also on how to be beautiful inside and out—things like:

“If your complexion is ruddy, avoid spicy foods and eat plenty of green vegetables, lean meats, and fruits. Rinse face in cold water for final rinse. Purchase makeup in a slightly beige shade.”

Or, “How to exercise? Always exercise fast to lose in an area. Breathe deeply throughout the exercising time. Oxygen burns fat, and also helps to keep you from getting sore muscles.”

Any girl who reads and follows the advice of this returned missionary, who has starred in several Church motion pictures, will experience self-improvement.

Illustrated by Nina McNaughton