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Gawk Rocks

by William D. Bickmore Jr.

Did you ever enjoy a relaxing afternoon looking at white clouds floating by, dreaming fancifully about the wonderful characters each one formed as it was molded by the winds into fantastic new shapes? Well, you can look down too. Enjoy the simplest of nature’s kingdom, the common rock. In stream bed, on mountainside, on ocean beaches, on lake shores, or in your own backyard, there is an exciting world to be discovered by your creative mind. Birds, animals, friends’ faces, prehistoric monsters, fun families, night things, or just plain what-cha-ma-call-its are soon to enter your special world.

Gather a few materials together to give your rocks even more charm and personality. A tube or two of artist’s acrylic paint, a small paint brush, some quick-drying epoxy to glue your rocks together, and a few pieces of stiff wire are all you need to make unusual conversation pieces. If you want to preserve your creations, embed them in casting plastic that can be found in a hobby shop, or bring their natural “wet” colors out by covering them with a few coats of transparent spray plastic. Small frames can be used to display your flat creations. Cut a cardboard or Masonite backing to fit the frame. Glue on burlap or velvet to add texture, then epoxy your rocks onto it. These make unique gifts for someone special.

But don’t stop here; the fun has just begun. Invite your friends over for a party. Go gather up a mound of various shapes and sizes of interesting rocks. Supply some newspaper-covered tables and a small container of paint and epoxy. Epoxy takes awhile to set, so have refreshments ready. Let yourself go creative and have a Gawk Rock concert.

Creative Letter Writing

Missionaries, servicemen, pen pals, anyone you write to likes to think his letter is a product of your thought and caring. Put some ingenuity into the construction of your message and the same old words will have lots more dazzle. Here are some ways to use the format of your letter to say “You are important to me.”

1. Type o t yo r letter leaving o t the letter U. Then at the end of the letter, add a P.S., “Yo can see how miserable I am withot U.”

2. Get a newspaper and two crayons. Begin at the front page of the paper, and in order as you find them, circle the letters that form the first word of your message using one crayon. Now circle in order the letters of the next word using the other crayon. Continue until you have completed your message.

3. Cut out pictures or draw your own to substitute for words in your letter.

4. Write a letter and cut it into pieces. Send each piece in separate envelopes. This makes a puzzle for the reader.

5. Sign a postcard, “Not having fun, wish you were here.”

6. Send a birthday candle. “No one can hold a candle to you.”

7. Send a typed notice:
Mailman for White Avenue (your street) has been laid off due to lack of work.
signed, Give a Mailman a Job Committee

Ideas submitted by Marion Denos

[Mia Maids in Beaver Ward]

Mia Maids in Beaver Ward, Collinston, Utah, have been quilting up a storm. For the past few months the girls tied quilts while they discussed their MIA lessons. Not only did they have some wonderful discussions but every week they finished tying a new baby quilt. Each girl now has a baby quilt for her trousseau—and she also has a stronger testimony.

[University of Utah Service Project]

Fix the stairs, replace that broken window, clean up the yard, paint the living room, paint the house, paint the fence, and clean the kitchen. Sound like spring cleaning? Not so. It was a service project in which about forty students representing the University of Utah Seventh Branch cleaned, painted, swept, and fixed for eight hours until the home of an elderly lady just sparkled. Meanwhile, the lady had been whisked away by a friend to spend the day shopping and getting her hair done. She returned to find a new house and some new friends to greet her. The tired but happy troops furnished materials and labor for the project that involved over 200 man-hours and included the consumption of almost 100 root beer floats.

The Follies of Fashion

This counsel, given to the young people of the Church through the Juvenile Instructor (vol. 7, p. 87) some hundred years ago, is delightful in specific information but also suggests some general principles that are timeless when we consider fashion follies of our time.

With most people there is a degree of pride that is commendable, but with others it runs into vanity and folly. To be proud of truth and virtue is a trait of character we should cultivate. To be clean and neat looks good, but to be extravagant in dress and to “put on style,” as some say, is not useful and often brings poverty and ruin.

Children should be taught to be clean, polite, and kind. From infancy to the grave there is a great work to do. To labor to adorn our bodies according to the whims of fashion while the mind is uncultivated is time poorly spent. Our example in society has its effect, and if we seek to dress beyond our means, some of our neighbors will try to do likewise; but most people look well who keep their persons clean, if they wear plain and neat clothing.

Many persons have laid the foundation for great sickness by wearing thin shoes and light clothing in winter. Some through wearing tight shoes suffer from corns, bunions, and blisters; but they would rather endure pain than wear unfashionable shoes. Shoes should be large enough to be comfortable.

Little children often appear in society a little over half-dressed; the neck, arms, and legs are bare, and they feel the cold; if grown-up persons were to dress in this style, many of them would be sick, but loving parents want to show their children off, and many of them do—to the grave.

Fashions are constantly changing. Comfort and usefulness are not always thought of. When we get a good fashion we should stick to it; but no, the ladies will wear long dresses, short dresses, trail dresses, hats to cover the head, hats as large as a revenue stamp, hats with wide brims, skyscraper bonnets, little bonnets; while the men and boys wear tight pants, loose pants, peg-top pants, long-tail coats, short-tail coats, large sleeves, tight sleeves, and fashions in endless variety, without sense, with no regard to comfort, and calculated only to drain the pocket.

Cheap jewelry of various kinds, including breast pins and a variety of other useless gewgaws, are very fashionable and are worn by many too poor to take the Juvenile Instructor; but the idol Fashion has its worshipers, and they spend their lives in frivolity; they live only to be seen and not to be useful and are of little worth in the world.

Oftentimes the young, and sometimes the old, drink tea, coffee, and strong drinks and chew or smoke tobacco because others do so; but true principle should be first with us, whether popular or unpopular. This should be our guide in dress, food, and in everything we have to do with; then our lives will be praiseworthy and of good report.

Super Laurel Project

At the beginning ot the last MIA year, the Laurel class of the Chico Second Ward, Chico, California, began their plans for a super project—their goal, a trip to the Hill Cumorah Pageant in Palmyra, New York. To carry off such a feat the six girls, Cherilyn Gartin, Janet Blair, Susan Warenski, Terry Cowley, Carole Williams, and Debbie Simmons, their teacher Donna Hawkley, and appointed chaperone, Kay Warner, Chico Stake MIA young women’s president, planned one maior fund-raising project for each intervening month before the trip. Each girl made a personal commitment to follow through to the end. Funds from the major projects were put into a special savings account and distributed to the girls according to the time and effort each put into the projects. Individual jobs were obtained by the girls and this money was put into their own accounts. The minimum needed for each girl was $400.00. The Laurel class planned to pay half of the money, and the girl’s parents agreed to pay the other half.

A Mexican Fiesta Dinner was the major kick-off project. This was followed by garage sales, bake sales, movies with snacks, a fashion show, a car wash, and a ladies luncheon. To carry out these plans the girls learned to organize their time, assume responsibility, and delegate responsibility to their committees. The unity they came to feel was almost as important as the trip itself. When the tour date drew near, most of the girls had earned over half the money.

They met the tour bus in Salt Lake City and began their seventeen-day round of Church historical sites as well as national historical sites. Church meetings were held regularly on the bus. The girls were called upon to lead the music, render musical numbers, give talks, bear testimonies, and offer prayers. Every day was begun with a hymn and a prayer.

As each place was visited—Kirtland Temple, Pageant, the Sacred Grove, Carthage Jail, Nauvoo, Adam-ondi-Ahman, Liberty Jail, Independence, Missouri—testimonies grew. What began as a dream had been worked into a glorious reality.

Faith Precedes the Miracle
by Spencer W. Kimball
Deseret Book Company, 364 pp., $4.95

The title of this collection of excerpts from the discourses of Elder Spencer W. Kimball is explained in the first chapter:

“In faith we plant the seed, and soon we see the miracle of the blossoming. Men have often misunderstood and have reversed the process. They would have the harvest before the planting, the reward before the service, the miracle before the faith. Even the most demanding labor unions would hardly ask the wages before the labor. But many of us would have the vigor without the observance of the health laws, prosperity through the opened windows of heaven without the payment of tithes. We would have the close communion with our Father without fasting and praying; we would have rain in due season and peace in the land without observing the Sabbath and keeping the other commandments of the Lord. We would pluck the rose before planting the roots; we would harvest the grain before sowing and cultivating.”

Elder Kimball, in his characteristically frank, quiet, reasonable style, speaks about these and other eternal blessings and the price that we must pay to obtain them. He illustrates each principle with real-life experiences.

Elder Kimball discusses, among other things, faith, repentance, forgiveness, prayer, obedience, and revelation. He offers deep insight into the reality of temptation and sound advice on how it may be overcome. He speaks of marriage and the family, and, as always, he bears testimony that Jesus is the Christ.

The author is a practical man, and this is a practical book, full of clear and simple, though often eloquent, advice; it is a book about everyday life. It condemns sin but makes forgiveness real; it offers the hope of strength and righteousness to all men who seek it earnestly.

A Burning Light
by Robert J. Matthews
Brigham Young University Press, 125 pp., $3.95

John the Baptist, powerful preacher, leader of men, fulfilled his role as, forerunner and quietly stepped into the background, willingly sending his disciples to a new master. What sort of man was this who could inspire love from his followers, fear from his religious enemies, and respect from an emperor? What sort of man could unify the will of a multitude and yet say humbly, “one mightier than I cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose”? (Luke 3:16.) Only a man who knew his mission as surely as the Savior understood his own. Only a man prepared from his mother’s womb to be one of the greatest prophets ever to live.

And yet his years of preparation and his brief mission are so eclipsed by the brilliance of the Lord’s life and mission that many know little more of him than his name. Even in commentaries to the scriptures he is left an obscure figure and “although there are a few books which deal with various phases of John’s ministry from the point of view of latter-day revelation, such studies have been chiefly centered on other subjects and the connection with John is incidental.”

It is to fill this void that Brother Matthews has written A Burning Light. Using modern revelation as well as ancient scripture, the writings of Prophet Joseph Smith, and the works of other scholars, he sketches John’s life from birth to death, from resurrection to the restoration, and offers the reader new insight and understanding. Quickly the idea that John was no more than an itinerant Essene preacher who happened to baptize the Savior is replaced by the certainty that John knew and taught the gospel of Jesus Christ while he lived and that he died a Christian martyr. Finally John comes off as a valiant and fiercely loyal follower of the man who said of him, “He was a burning and a shining light. …” (John 5:35.)

The Talmage Story
by John R. Talmage
Bookcraft, 240 pp., $3.95

James E. Talmage—the name itself suggests the grandeur of the complete, classical man. Whatever he did, he did excellently. He was a scholar, scientist, teacher, administrator, author, and apostle. His life was at all times interesting, active, and intense. The story of his life as told by his son lends the perspective and feeling that the close relationship between father and son affords, plus the added enchantment of a generous number of James E. Talmage’s quotations taken directly from his personal journal. His story is presented with many specific and warming excerpts from his life that convince one not only of his greatness, but of his genuine human qualities also. We learn from one family story that after Brother Talmage had somewhat mastered the use of the bicycle, he one day attempted to cross a single-plank bridge and crashed into the ditch. Determined that the maneuver was not beyond his skill, he tried again.

“For the next hour, the president of the University of Utah might have been observed trundling his bicycle fifty yards or so down the road from the bridge, mounting and riding furiously toward the plank crossing, turning onto it with grim-lipped determination—and plunging off it in a spectacular and bone-shaking crash into the rough ditchbank. Uncounted times this startling performance was repeated, but in the end mind triumphed over matter, will power over faltering reflexes, and the crossing was successfully made.”

The spiritual qualities of the man who gave us Jesus the Christ and The Articles of Faith appeared at an early age. The author says that Talmage recorded the following note about his finances after he had arrived at Lehigh University in South Bethlehem, Pennsylvania:

“God bless that little money to my good; for it has indeed been saved and economized to the very best of my ability. … ‘Tis Utah money and ’tis tithed, according to the rules of the Church, and ’tis honestly gained—why may I not expect it to be blessed?”

The well-wrought story retains enough of Talmage’s own words to make the book not only an interesting presentation but a genuine history.

Photos by William D. Bickmore, Jr.