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Numbered among His Sheep

“Temple Marriage” was the theme of the recent Central Canadian Region Lamanite Youth Conference, held in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, for young Lamanite men and women from the ninth through the twelfth grades.

Some of the youth traveled as far as 400 miles to participate in the conference, which included workshops, talent competition, an awards banquet, a dance, and a testimony meeting.

In order to attend the conference the students had to meet certain requirements, which included participating in either a speech or essay contest and living Church standards.

Ten percent of the participants in the conference were nonmembers, but they were expected to meet the same requirements as the members. The members found special pleasure in teaching these nonmember friends the gospel and in making them feel part of the conference.

The Lamanite youth were welcomed warmly by the local members in whose homes they slept. The local Relief Societies provided lunch for the Friday conference session.

The conference began Friday morning with registration and an address by Calgary North Stake President, Blaine L. Hudson. Following this address, the students participated in the speech and talent contests.

Next they participated in workshops built around the conference theme, after which they had some time to rest up for the banquet and dance, both of which were dressy affairs.

Like all other aspects of the conference, the banquet and dance were conducted by the students themselves, and both were a great success. A local Lamanite disc jockey contributed his talents free of charge, and the young men, being outnumbered by the girls, involved every young lady in the dance by trading off regularly.

Saturday morning there was a meeting at which these Lamanite youth bore testimony of their love for the gospel, their leaders, and each other. It was evident that the girls looked up to the priesthood bearers as their leaders and the young men saw each of their sisters as a lovely, gracious woman.

The youth were involved in all stages of planning the conference, and they arranged for and carried out the activities themselves They were responsible for all preparations, including such things as travel arrangements, housing, food, flowers, decorations, speakers, meetinghouse facilities, and so on. They learned new leadership skills and enjoyed the opportunity to try their strength.

As President Hudson said in his opening address, “The prophecy of Samuel the Lamanite is coming to pass: ‘And this is according to the prophecy, that they shall be brought to the true knowledge, which is the knowledge of their Redeemer, and their great and true shepherd, and be numbered among his sheep.’” (Hel. 15:13.)

Young Mormon Actor Receives Honor

Lyman L. Akers, II, a priest in the Tulsa Third Ward, Tulsa, Oklahoma, and a recent graduate of McLain High School in Tulsa, has been named one of 30 seniors in the United States to receive a $500 college scholarship by the International Thespian Society. Selection for this honor is based on interest and achievement in theater arts, scholastic excellence, and financial need.

The International Thespian Society is an educational organization devoted to the advancement of secondary school theater. It is comprised of outstanding drama students and teachers from over 3,200 affiliated high schools throughout the world.

Lyman plans to attend Ricks College and Brigham Young University. He hopes to teach theater arts after graduation.

Lyman has served as Guide Patrol instructor. YMMIA secretary, counselor in a Sunday School presidency, assistant Scoutmaster, and quorum group leader.

The President Meets the President

Steve Pollei, a young Latter-day Saint from Salt Lake City, Utah, has been elected National President of the Explorer Council at a Washington, D.C., convention to which he lead some 152 post presidents from the Great Salt Lake Council.

But Steve’s finest moment wasn’t found among the cheering delegates in the nation’s capital. The new president reports that the highlight of the experience came upon his return to Salt Lake when he had the opportunity of meeting and talking with President Harold B. Lee and his counselors about the gospel and the Explorer program.

The honor was earned with a lot of hard work. Campaign strategy was planned, a platform prepared, and preparations for good floor demonstrations mapped out long before the convention met.

On the second day of the convention Steve was elected Chairman of the Western Region. This was a critical step in becoming president, because the six regional chairmen become the candidates for National President.

The prospects didn’t always look promising. For example, when the candidates drew for speaking order, Steve drew the last number and had to speak to the convention at a very late hour.

But he was sustained by a very well organized campaign. An official who had been present at the National Republican Convention said that Steve’s floor demonstration was bigger and better organized than President Nixon’s in 1968.

The primaries were held, and Steve was swept into the finals by a solid vote. His opponent was a young lady named Beth Caruso. Steve’s organization made a great effort to get everyone out to vote in the final election, regardless of whom they supported.

Steve was elected by a fairly close vote, and he gives a lot of the credit for his victory to the approximately five hundred Mormon delegates at the convention.

Steve will have many challenges and opportunities as president of the National Explorer Council. He will travel over 50,000 miles in the U.S. and overseas with his adviser. He will direct his cabinet (made up of the regional chairmen) in leading the Explorer program. He will also work with the executive committee of the Boy Scouts of America to develop programs and activities for Cub Scouting, Boy Scouting, and Exploring.

Steve feels that his biggest challenges will be to involve the young people from ages fourteen through twenty-one in the Explorer programs and to iron out the bugs in some of the existing programs. He would especially like to see some advances made in the area of inner-city Exploring.

His personal goal is to set an example as a Latter-day Saint, to show the spirit of the Lord in all that he does so that the Lord will be pleased.

Outstanding Student-Missionary

Gregory Evan Francis, 16, attended the National Science Federation Summer Institute at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona, this past summer. Only 25 of the most outstanding high school students in the nation were chosen to attend.

Gregory was the only LDS student at the institute, where he studied the Navajo and Hopi languages among other subjects.

Gregory attends John F. Kennedy High School in Guam. He has a 4.0 (A) average in his high school work and won the math and foreign language awards and ten other academic awards last year. His father is a lieutenant-colonel in the air force stationed in Guam.

Gregory plans to study medicine after graduation from high school.

He is an Eagle Scout and is very active in the Church. He especially enjoys youth missionary work. He goes out with the full-time missionaries whenever he can, dropping whatever else he is doing, even his schoolwork, when they need his help. By talking to his fellow high school students about the gospel he has also been able to give the missionaries many referrals.

Last summer was no different. The first Sunday at the institute Greg took ten of his fellow students to Sunday School. Five of them have received all the missionary discussions and one has committed himself to be baptized. Others are awaiting parental approval.

Personal Space Needs

How close is too close for comfort when two people meet?

Dr. Darhl M. Pedersen, a Brigham Young University psychologist, has made it his business to find out. He explains that everyone seems to need a certain amount of “personal space,” an area surrounding him that he regards as his own and doesn’t normally like other people to penetrate. When someone’s personal space is encroached upon he becomes uncomfortable and tries to remove himself from the situation.

If he can’t move away, he may use an environmental prop to isolate himself. This is common on buses and subways where men sit holding newspapers in front of their faces to shield themselves from others.

Dr. Pedersen has done research for NASA on the personal space needs of astronauts in spacecraft and has developed several nationally recognized tests to determine personal space requirements. He has found that—

People from different cultural back grounds have different space needs. South Americans and people from Southern European and Mediterranean countries tend to need less space than North Americans and Northern Europeans.

In the United States strangers usually don’t like to get any closer than fourteen to seventeen inches from each other.

Both sexes permit females to approach more closely than males.

Females tend to permit others to approach closer at the sides than at the front, while males allow others to approach closer at the front.

People are willing to be closer at informal gatherings than at business meetings or other formal gatherings.

People are willing to be closer to others who are the same or lower in social status than to those who are higher in status.

Individuals who require less personal space tend to be less aggressive, more tolerant of ambiguity, and more self-accepting.

People living in modern cultures are tending to increase their personal space needs. “Our culture,” says Pedersen, “tends to produce alienation, which is sometimes expressed in ever-growing personal space needs.”

Studentbody President

Tim Reynolds of the McMinnville Ward, McMinnville, Oregon, is serving as studentbody president of McMinnville High School for the 1973–74 school year. He also served as junior class president.

He is an Eagle Scout, boys’ state representative, and has been music director in MIA. He is an active missionary among his non-Mormon friends.

Around Oahu by Bike

With all the talk about the gasoline shortage and air pollution, people are beginning to eye the bicycle more and more seriously as a means of transportation. But there’s at least one group of cyclists who probably don’t want to even look at another bicycle—for a little while at least.

They’re the nine sore but happy bicycle-brigadiers of Explorer Post 9226 of the Laie Third Ward of Oahu Stake, Hawaii, who have completed a 108-mile pedal-power trip around the island of Oahu.

The first leg of their trip began at one in the afternoon and took them 42 miles along the Kamehameha Highway, over narrow roads, through stop and go traffic, up and down long Hawaiian hills, to beautiful Hanauma Bay where they camped for the night.

The next morning they traveled the remaining 66 miles around the island, passing through Waikiki and Pearl City, and arriving back in Laie by four in the afternoon.

In spite of some close calls on the often narrow and busy Hawaiian highways, there were no accidents—not even a flat tire.

Group members included Explorer leader Tom Hunt, and Explorers Creed Walton, Mark Walton, Matthew Loveland, Mike Farley, Jack Hadley, Ward Lokani, Seuseu Suamataia, and Allen Anae.