We

During my early teen years, I read a bunch of books my parents had laying around.  There was quite a variety since many of the books were the popular fiction of the 1970s or books they had read during high school or college (the marginalia gave away which books were which).  I read everything from First Blood and Shōgun to Watership Down and a collection of Mark Twain short stories.  I don’t know how much I remember from these books, a few of which were probably beyond my years.  Although I could understand the words and the basic plot, the subject matter was sometimes too violent or too sexually graphic for the young teenage mind, and I tend to remember those sequences in the stories instead of the story lines.  Another book that resulted in a similar experience for me was 1984, although I did understand it enough to know that it was a warning against various political ideologies, including communism.

1984 is considered by many to be the epitomy of the dystopian (utopia gone wrong) novel, but it was not the first.  Many years before 1984 was written, Russian author Eugene Zamiatin wrote We (ISBN: 0-525-47039-5).  Zamiatin wrote his book, this edition translated by Gregory Zilboorg, to protest the direction the Bolshevik Party was taking the Soviet Union.  Zamiatin was a Bolshevik, but did not subscribe to the Leninist idea of zero tolerance for dissenting ideas within the party.  In the book, there is one, giant state (called the United State) that controls every single aspect of its citizens’ lives, down to the number of times they chew their state-provided food rations.  The protagonist is one of the elite thanks to his role as the designer of a very advanced spaceship that will soon export the ideas and ways of the United State to some other people (ostensibly on another planet).  He starts a journal since all citizens were encouraged to write something to send on the rocket.  However, he meets another citizen, an attractive female, who introduces him to some concepts he’d never thought of before, such as acting and thinking for oneself.  He is eventually introduced to people outside the walls of the United State, and a plan is hatched to use a test flight of the rocket to get both disaffected citizens of the United State and the people outside the wall to some new place in the world.  The plan doesn’t go off, though, thanks to a spy, and the protagonist is forced to undergo a radical new surgery that removes his ability to imagine and then watches as the woman he loved is tortured.  After the operation, he is again completely loyal to the totalitarian regime.

The book was an interesting read, largely because it seemed so relevant to today.  State control of every aspect of our lives seems to be something we’re slowly moving toward.  I found the food example to be particularly germane with various cities, schools, and other government-run organizations banning particular foods.  One example that seemed to go against modern statist ideas (and this failing to foresee modern statist tendencies was present in 1984, too) was the United State’s desire to control its citizens’ sex lives.  Modern statists preach sexual promiscuity and encourage uncontrolled sexual expression, no matter the consequences.  (On the other hand, population control seeems to be the end goal of both.)  It goes without saying that much that goes on in the schools in America is similar to the schools of the United State.  Thinking for oneself is not encouraged, but parroting revisionist history and other ideas is.  The logic so highly touted by the United State, kids in schools are taught that some ephemeral concept called science is where all trust should be placed.  It is interesting to see how the government in We preached that by eliminating choices, eliminating people’s ability to imagine, and making people more and more the same (i.e., social equality), they would acheive true happiness.  Of course, nothing is farther from the truth, and the characters in We recognized that once they had experienced the ability to think for themselves and make their own decisions.  Liberty, the ability to make a choice, is what allows us to experience true happiness.  It does not intrinsically bring us happiness, but allows us to choose those things that do bring happiness, and we can do that regardless of the ability of poeple around us to make poor decisions.  As Zamiatin realized, we don’t need a state directing our decisions; we need the ability to present and live by our own precepts.  We need liberty.

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One More Strain of Praise

One of the most profound parts of restored gospel is the fact that God has a prophet on Earth today.  Whenever God has seen it fit to have His Church on the earth, it has been headed by a prophet.  Anybody can read about this in the Bible and in the Book of Mormon.  While some people argue that we don't necessarily need prophets “because times are different now,” it's really just the opposite.  Since “times are different now,” we are ever so much more in need of divine guidance.  Again, some would argue that we can get that guidance through personal study or personal revelation.  While those, too, are true principles, they do not apply in all situations, and it's, again, rather easy to look around and see what happens when we're left to individually sorting things out.  The variety of resulting ideas, attempts, practices, and philosophies is quite staggering and inconsistent with a God of order Who has declared that there is but one path that leads to salvation.  God's designs have always been communicated to us through prophets, and it's nice to know that practice isn't going anywhere.

As with having a prophet, the modern Church has the same organizational leadership structure as the ancient Church.  That means we have apostles just as the ancient Jews and Nephites did.  While only the senior apostle can exercise all of the revelatory and administrative keys for the Church, the apostles are also prophets, seers, and revelators.  Even when not acting in an official capacity, it is worth listening to their counsel.  In One More Strain of Praise (ISBN: 1-57008-679-6), Neal A. Maxwell offered some of just that type of counsel.  Elder Maxwell briefly recounted some of the experiences of his life, including his battle with cancer, because he thought they had taught him something and made him a better person.  He explained that he was able to better comprehend and understand Christ's atonement, His infinite love, and the interplay between mercy and justice.  He explained how this critical understanding helped him and can help all people be happier, be more grateful, and share both the message of the atonement and the accompanying joy through loving service.

I am typically not one to delve into the world of Mormon literature.  I find that most of it underperforms.  I firmly believe that supporting something just because a member of the Church created it or because, at the very least, it complies with our standards is poor policy.  If artists and authors want my support, they must create great works that also comply with my standards.  Neal A. Maxwell's book was a little different in that it was a memoir and a doctrinal discussion rolled into one and did not really try to be art, but was much more factual in its presentation.  I thought the format worked well, but then, like he expressed in the beginning of his book, I believe one must apply the scriptures to oneself to get anything out of them.  I think that the overall message of happiness, hope, and gratitude helped make the book enjoyable and worthwhile.  More so because those personality traits are more easily cultivated when based on gospel truths than when based on anything else.  In a world where there is so much going on around us that would be easy to be depressed and overwhelmed by, it is nice to be reminded by one who was an apostle, a special witness of the reality and divinity of a resurrected Jesus Christ, that there are real reasons to not despair, not be troubled, and in direct opposition to those feelings inspired of the devil, there are real things we can do to cultivate positivity in ourselves and others.  I appreciated the uplifting message of the book and am glad that I overcame my disdain for Church-related publications that are not official Church works, picked up this short, easy-to-read book, and was reminded of things that I should be doing to make myself and those around me happier and more grateful.

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1776: The Illustrated Edition

I always enjoyed learning about the Revolutionary War.  The bravery of the American rebels was admirable to me, even as a little kid.  I never tired of the stories of Paul Revere, the Boston Tea Party, and the important battles.  Men of incredible intellect such as Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams impressed me because of their brilliant writings and inspired philosophy.  Men of action, those leaders and infantrymen in the Continental Army who far and away exceeded expectations, and General George Washington, in particular, had story after story worth telling.  I was also probably influenced by epic artwork such as Arnold Friberg's The Prayer at Valley Forge, which portrayed the deep faith that many of our Founding Fathers displayed and was worthy emulating.

In 1776: The Illustrated Edition (ISBN: 978-1-4165-4210-0) by David McCullough, the award-winning writer and historian added a little bit of a twist to his seminal 1776: paintings, maps, copies of original documents, and other visual aids that help bring the drama America's first year as an independent nation to life.  The book chronicles the activities of the colonists and the British throughout the year.  Since the Revolutionary War lasted another six years, there is actually not a whole lot of Revolutionary War coverage in the book, but the set-up is there, and the key battles of the year, such as Washington's crossing of the Delaware to defeat formidable and intimidating Hessian forces, are there in great detail.  McCullough explains the significance of the actions of Congress, Parliament, and the two belligerent armies.  As the year comes to a close, the stage is set for the next few years of war, but one could easily predict the eventual outcome given the improbable patriot successes and the momentum they, regarded as simple "rabble" by the elite British forces, had gained in such a short time.

The book was an enjoyable read, and its coffee table-style format was neat.  Every twenty pages or so, there was a sleeve with reproductions of letters, documents, and maps.  Almost every page had an illustration, painting, or other visual.  It did help bring it alive.  The illustrated edition, of course, does not contain all of the text of McCullough's original work, but there is enough to follow the stories, get details, and be amazed and inspired.  In the end, the book served as a very visual reminder of how amazing and miraculous the foundation of America was.  We are sometimes not as appreciative of what the Founding Fathers sacrificed everything for as we should be, and it's always good to be reminded.  It's even better to not just express our gratitude, but to do something about it.  Like those who sacrificed so much during 1776, our liberties are also not free.

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The Forty Days of Musa Dagh

History is captivating.  America's history, of course, is larger than life.  From the heroes of the Revolutionary War to the trappers, cowboys, and explorers that opened the West and from the Greatest Generation's service in World War II to putting a man on the moon, there are stories and stories of people doing what had to be done at great sacrifice.  I have also enjoyed learning the history of some other nations and peoples as I have become acquainted with them thanks to my mission, marriage, and travel.  What has been especially fascinating is learning about the people who were larger than life for other kids growing up and learning about their own countries and histories.  All the better that, as with American history, there are lessons to be learned.

In the Turkish extermination of the ethnic Armenian population within Turkey's borders during World War I, German author Franz Werfel thought he saw something the world should learn from.  To bring that message to the forefront, he wrote The Forty Days of Musa Dagh (ISBN: 978-1-56792-407-7).  The novel is a fictionalized account of a home-grown Armenian resistance movement that succeeded in holding off far superior — numerically and technically — Turkish forces for fifty-three days (Werfel's forty days were a reference to the symbolic Biblical number), at which point French and British warships rescued the survivors.  The book chronicles the efforts of (the fictional) Gabriel Bagradian and the villagers as they live off the land, fight valiantly for their freedom, and deal with everyday problems exacerbated by the situation.  The story is, of course, an adventure story, what with the battles, mutiny, illicit love, petty jealousies, special missions, and a wide array of characters from mayors, widows, common criminals, and carpenters to German foreign ministry officers, priests, Turkish military leaders, and French admirals.  Werfel told their stories in an attempt to warn the German people that they were headed into something eerily similar with the Germans playing the role of the Turks and the Jews the Armenians.  Werfel's account ends with one twist of his imagination, leaving Bagradian on his hard-won mountain to face certain death, but death as a free man.

The book was an interesting one, but not one that I finished thinking I thoroughly enjoyed it.  The complicated and contentious subject matter may have something to do with that, but Werfel's religious philosophizing probably had more to do with it.  Sometimes he was just too far out there, and his ideas seemed almost as delusional as his starved crazy characters.  It may or may not be fair to fault him for that — he was a Jew fascinated by Catholicism and religious belief in general; it would be natural for him to explore his beliefs in his writing.  When the book cut away from philosophy and focused on battles, night raids, treachery, escapes, and heated confrontation, it was a good read; when it strayed into philosophy, especially as it concerned the adulterous affair of Bagradian's wife and even some of Bagradian's own thoughts and behavior toward another woman, the book bogged down and was hard to push through (this is also how I felt about Tolstoy's Anna Karenina).  Widely considered to be a modern classic, it was indeed a masterful story, but sticking to the story would have improved the book.

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Volatile Borderland

Russia is a huge, multi-ethnic country.  I only vaguely grasped this during my time in Russia as a missionary; we sometimes ran into Muslims on the street (incidentally, they were usually much more willing to talk to us for a few minutes than the Russians), we bought watermelons from Azeris, I knew an Armenian missionary and Armenian members of the Church.  The Second Chechen War had a very indirect impact on me because all apartment buildings were put on lock-down for a few hours after the Russian apartment bombings in September 1999.  We walked around the streets of Pskov not knowing much and wondering a little bit about our safety.  Since my mission, I have continued to be intrigued by the many ethnic groups living in Russia, but the romanticism surrounding the Caucasus has also exerted a certain pull, even though it is usually far from the modern-day truth.

The collection of essays contained in Volatile Borderland: Russia and the North Caucasus (ISBN: 978-0-9830842-1-1), edited by Glen E. Howard, is an attempt at shedding some light on the movers and shakers of the Russian North Caucasus, what the future holds, and what is driving current reforms, repressions, and realities.  The authors are experts on Russia and the Caucasus, all either professors, journalists, or similarly qualified experts and policy advisors.  Chechnya, Dagestan, Krasnodar, and Sochi and the various peoples that inhabit them are prominent players in the analysis, but exotic-sounding places like Adygeya and Kabardino-Balkaria also garner significant attention because they form a buffer zone between the explosive and more Islamic eastern North Caucasus and the rest of European Russia.  As with most places in the world where high unemployment, Islamist thought, and rampant corruption have mixed, the North Caucasus is a tinderbox.  The Russian authorities have tried a mixture of ridiculously high federal subsidies and oppressive, totalitarian-style control, which seems to be tenuously holding things under control, but most of the essayists agree that this situation could go at any time.

The book was interesting because it touched on a subject that doesn't normally get a lot of ink.  There were a few differing opinions, but there was a definite trend in the thinking, largely anti-Putin and anti-Russian.  Interestingly, on the few occasions when an author decided to stray into foreign countries' policies or responses to the North Caucasus situation, it was typically anti-Western and definitely anti-United States.  I found the journalists' essays to be the least coherent and least informative.  The scholars' essays were much more well argued and could provide someone with a basis for formulating a policy.  Overall, I was disappointed with the lack of policy and over-abundance of dossiers of North Caucasian officials, most of which was set in the mid-2000s, which is kind of old news by now, with much of what was being discussed having already been overtaken by more current events.  I was also disappointed by the obvious lack of a proofreader that resulted in typos, mis-set type, and other distractions.  If one is interested in the topic, the book will still prove interesting, but is otherwise quite skippable.

This work, including all text, photographs, and other original work, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives 3.0 License and is copyrighted © MMXI John Pruess.

Robinson Crusoe

As a kid, both when I was pretty little and as a teenager, I found the idea of survival in the middle of nowhere intriguing.  I like to think this stemmed from being well acquainted with camping and from a healthy imagination tendered by plenty of time outside in the dirt in the backyard.  The possibility of bugs in our shelter notwithstanding, I found the wilderness survival merit badge in Scouts a lot of fun.  I read with interest the news stories about downed pilot Scott O'Grady, who was shot down over Bosnia and survived in the forest eating leaves, bugs, and avoiding patrolling Serbs.  Now that I'm not a kid, I am much less confident in my abilities to make it on the proverbial deserted island alone.

In Daniel Defoe's classic fiction, Robinson Crusoe (ISBN: 978-0-14-143982-2), the eponymous hero is also initially rather suspicious of his chances of survival after being shipwrecked in the middle of nowhere.  Having already lived through one adventure, he decides to give survival everything he's got, and works hard to salvage things from his old ship; learns through trial and error various farming, carpentry, sewing, hunting, and pottery skills; and explores the deserted island to learn just what is at his disposal.  Two things change his situation immensely: one, he comes to be a more fully committed and believing Christian, and two, he saves an Indian from his cannibal pursuers, thereby gaining the Indian's services for life.  That really comes in handy when Crusoe must fend off other cannibals and then a mutinous ship crew.  In the end, Crusoe considers himself greatly blessed as he is able to save some lives, a ship, and get back to England, where he settles into a comfortable, middle-class life.

I quite enjoyed reading the book.  As with all classic literature, there are a few slow points and it is sometimes hard to get through certain passages because of the modern reader's lack of knowledge regarding geography and history.  Some of the philosophy and theology was also slow, but it didn't take away from the story, which I thought moved along at a pretty good pace and was full of adventure after adventure.  The only real disappointment for me was that Crusoe was not able to help the Spaniards he came in contact with.  It seemed to me that with his knowledge of how much he would've liked to've got back to England and his newfound Christian desire to help others, he would've worked harder to get those guys out of their stranded state.  In the end, though, the book's a good read and it was kind of interesting to get acquainted with one of the books that most people read in their youth (I have found that I have a much greater appreciation for the classics now that I am reading them of my own volition).

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George Washington's Sacred Fire

In about first grade or so, every kid in America learns that George Washington was the first president of the United States of America, is on the $1.00 bill and the quarter, and "could never tell a lie."  Later, by about fifth grade or so, most American kids are being told by the same schools that George Washington was a backwards slave owning white man that was something or other called a deist, which is typically presented to mean something akin to atheist, and that the cherry tree story was a lie.  I guess it is always somewhat inconsistent to make broad generalizations, but for the 90–100 kids in fifth grade at the same school I was in for fifth grade, the above story is true, and I can't help but assume it holds for many, many others.  That early attempt at indoctrination didn't totally grab hold of me, and I always thought George Washington most definitely deserved his place on Mt. Rushmore as one of the greatest presidents in American history.  For me, he was a man most daring and intrepid as he led the troops across the Delaware River to surprise the British-allied Hessian forces in New Jersey.  He was also an incredibly humble and grounded man who should figure larger in our modern-day politicians' worldviews: he refused to become king and wanted nothing more than to return to his family and estate at Mt. Vernon.  Finally, Washington was a great spiritual leader.  His prayer at Valley Forge was always truly inspiring and reminded me of great leaders in ancient times such as Helaman and Captain Moroni.

In his very thoroughly researched work, George Washington's Sacred Fire (ISBN: 978-0-9786052-6-8), Peter A. Lillback (with Jerry Newcombe), attacks the revisionist history of my fifth grade class.  The book is a very careful examination of the case that has been made and widely accepted regarding Washington's deism.  Lillback explains the arguments that writers, including a Paul Boller that seems to have written the standard in Washington religion-related books up to this point, have used to cast our founding father as a deist.  He then picks those arguments apart one by one.  He does this largely based on Washington's own words.  He claims that this concept has received the short end of the stick throughout time.  One prominent example is that it is often claimed Washington never or almost never used the name of Deity.  Lillback found, after carefully combing through everything Washington ever wrote, that he not only used the name of Jesus Christ, he used hundreds upon hundreds of other names and titles for God, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.  Similar research and proof were conducted and presented regarding other arguments against Washington being a Christian including topics as varied as communion, service attendance, other religiously-motivated behavior, knowledge of the Bible, and library holdings (Washington collected, signed, and sometimes commented on religious books, including compendiums of sermons).  Lillback carefully establishes that Washington communed, attended services and participated in his church community, knew the Bible inside and out, owned many Christian books (and no deist ones), and, arguably most importantly, lived a Christian life.  That final bit is important, because even though Lillback amply proves through Washington's own words (the main text of the book is over 700 pages; the appendices, including hundreds of excerpts from Washington's written prayers or communications where he indicates he is praying, are a couple hundred more), one must always remember with Washington, it was "deeds, not words."

I enjoyed the book immensely.  (As a short aside before explaining that in a little more detail, the book didn't always flow as easily as I might've liked, there were a distracting number of typos, and there were a couple sections that seemed slightly redundant.)  I think I would've enjoyed even if it had not satisfied me with regard to Washington's Christianity.  First, truly understanding the beliefs and positions of the founding fathers helps us think about and understand the way we should look at government today.  Government based on Christian principles and executed to encourage not just a Christian lifestyle, but a fully Christian life and faith, is quite a bit different from what many claim the founders wanted and what the government should be doing.  Second, the man was simply amazing!  He was one of the rare men who practice what they preach, and of said preaching do very little.  While Lillback admits that the cherry tree story is hard to verify (he, though, does not discount it completely), Washington did not lie.  Washington was the humble man I learned about in kindergarten.  He was a great general, a wonderful statesman, and a moral giant.  I found myself over and over noting how important it was to be more like Washington in my everyday life.  He was known to have a terrible temper, but very few people knew that because of his incredible self-control.  That talent was present in other aspects of his personality, too.  Washington understood morality and its bearing on the kind of people and the kind of society we create.  Washington always strove to forgive and to improve himself so he, too, could be forgiven.  Most often, he succeeded.  He was thrifty and abhorred debt.  He was fair, positive, and worked hard to bring others up.  He was a man of prayer who knew where to look for answers he couldn't find on his own.  He knew Whom to thank for any and all answers.  While the book set out to explain Washington's Christianity and succeeded, it also ended up inspiring.

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On All Fronts

I have always been somewhat interested in the history of wars in general, but the world wars, and World War II in particular, are probably what capture my time and attention the most.  I am not sure how or why this interest came about.  When I was really little — in kindergarten, I think — I did a report (with a lot of help from my dad) in school on World War I aircraft.  I have always found the Fokker Dr.I (the famous triplane of the Red Baron) to be an incredibly cool airplane.  I always enjoyed the pictures of World War II bombers in a Richard Scarry book of mine as a kid, especially the B-17 Flying Fortress, whose moniker inspired invincibility in the mind of young kid lying on the moist grass of a summer evening while looking at contrails high in the sky.  Later, I learned that I had a real connection to WWII since my grandparents from Germany had experienced the horrors of war on the receiving end and my American-born grandpa had fought in the U.S. Army.  I always appreciated the stories from both sides.  As a young man, the story of Anne Frank both haunted and fascinated me.  Eventually, I was able to tour a Nazi concentration camp and visit the apartment the Franks lived in while in Amsterdam.  The resistance, of which those who harbored the Franks were part, is maybe the part of WWII history that spawns the most questions.  How did people get involved?  Why did they get involved?  Why did others not get involved?  In fact, in a museum dedicated to the wartime resistance in Amsterdam, a provocative sign explains that, in the opinion of those who put the exhibit together, some were underground leaders, others chipped in occasionally, and others maybe only resisted in their hearts, but all of those types are worthy of respect.  It is an interesting question that I admit I haven't found a convincing answer to yet, but I don't hesitate to admit that it's those who actively participated, whether in uniform or trying to escape detection in the underground, that command instant respect and make for intriguing reading.

In On All Fronts: Czechoslovaks in World War II, Part 3 (ISBN: 0-88033-456-8), edited by Lewis M. White, there are many stories of people with Czechoslovak heritage fighting and resisting the Nazi occupation of their beloved land, fighting with the Allies to overthrow the Germans, and then fighting an unexpected enemy, their major liberator, when the USSR decided to prop up a Communist dictatorship in the post-war years.  The book consists of short contributions from a wide variety of Czechoslovaks involved in the war in one way or another.  The vast majority are contributions from men who served as officers in Czechoslovak regiments of Allied militaries.  Many served in the French Foreign Legion, others in the Royal Air Force, and a disproportionately large number served in the Red Army.  Other stories were from members of the underground resistance or partisans.  All had a very common theme: the liberation of what was a free and democratic country from the grips of a totalitarian Nazi government.  Stories of tense minutes hiding under the floorboards of a stranger's house, fighting off German tanks on swampy riverbanks, forced treks through the snowbound and freezing Tatras, and high-flying adventure in the skies over enemy territory make for interesting reading, especially since it is about a group that doesn't get much billing in the usual run-down of the history of World War II.  While the book largely focuses on military successes, there is room for a few stories of defeat as well as some realism that describes the banalities and redundancies that afflict all military bureaucracies the world over in all eras.  The end of the book sees a little change in focus as the stories do not have so much to do with the vanquished Germans, but with the intruding Red Army that presented a much different face than the French, the British, and the Americans.

The book was enjoyable and provided for an unexpectedly powerful and poignant ending, although it was admittedly hard to plow through in places.  Since most of the writers were officers and career military men, many of the memoirs seem technical and are filled with recountings of names, dates, lines held, and guns lost.  This is especially true of those who served with the Western Allies.  Those who served with the Soviets, in the Far East, or in partisan units provide for what I found to be more intriguing reading.  Their stories are full of crazy moments such as a Soviet captain telling a Czech lieutenant that if he doesn't succeed in battle, he'll answer with his head; or a Czech officer recounting how he and another officer had horses, but one morning during a particularly hard time in the winter, they awoke to only one horse, but the camp cook was proudly serving horse goulash in the mess hall.  Dry tales of artillery lines and military bureaucracy are counterbalanced effectively by your heart racing along with the resistance member hiding in a barn as the Nazis tear a farmyard apart.  The far reaches of the Gulag make some depressing appearances and, even having read books explaining the Gulag and Stalin, make the Soviet bureaucracy seem absolutely crazy.  Czechs escaping the Nazis by going into Soviet territory were promptly arrested and spent time in prison until the Soviets found a use for them by forming a Czech regiment.  Then, they were sometimes used as canon fodder.  Finally, as the war came to a close, those who had put their complete effort into fighting for Czechoslovakia in an effort to make it again free, found themselves fighting a new and entirely unexpected foe.  The Soviets had a little bit of a different agenda than the Allies on the western front, and started implementing things right away.  It was interesting to read about the disappointment of those who returned from the war only to find themselves looking to get out of Czechoslovakia again.  Some made it; others weren't so lucky and suffered torture and other inhumane treatment in prisons.  The part that was the hardest to believe was that it wasn't some far enemy (i.e., the Soviets), but a near enemy in the face of former classmates, those who one fought next to, or acquaintances from the same town.  Not only had the Soviets sold Czechoslovakia out, Czechoslovaks sold Czechoslovakia out.  Of course, that spawned a whole new generation of tales of an equally intriguing underground resistance movement; hopefully their stories are also recorded somewhere for us to both enjoy and learn from.

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Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith

When the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints first started using compilations of the teachings of past presidents of the Church as the manuals for adult priesthood and Relief Society lessons, they decided to use the teachings of Brigham Young.  I was on my mission at the time, so I experienced this series for the first time in Russian.  (The series has not been translated into all languages; for example, this year is the first year the manual has been printed in Czech.)  It should go without saying that I liked it.  You can't go wrong with reading the words of a prophet.  The editors, obviously, stuck with teachings and counsel that applies to fundamental principles and the basic aspects of our testimonies, but I would argue that fact is the very reason these books are so great.  The one question that always went unanswered for me, though, was when was the Church going to use Joseph Smith's teachings as our course of study?

In 2008, my question was answered, and the Church published Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith for use in priesthood and Relief Society meetings throughout 2008 and 2009.  Following the standard format, the book contains some historical information on Joseph Smith and then two years' worth of lessons (47 chapters in this case).  Each one is about one or another aspect of the gospel.  For the most part, the content of the chapters is taken directly from Joseph Smith's writings or sermons.  As a result of the nature of the time he lived in, a healthy amount of the material from his sermons is according to a scribe or someone who heard the message first-hand and then wrote it on their own.  All of the content has been carefully checked and corroborated by Church historians and editors before being approved by the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.  There is no room for doubt that one is reading the words of the prophet that opened this dispensation.  The words, or the things we are all supposed to learn and come to know as true, explain just why this period of time on Earth, with the fully restored true church, is so special.  From the Book of Mormon to the nature of God and from true priesthood authority to faith and from the organization of the Church to the reality of a living prophet, Joseph Smith laid out the teachings of God as he worked to restore the fullness of the gospel, and now we can read about it.

It's kind of embarrassing to write about this book now, but I only put up these comments once I finish a book, and even though we started using this book long ago and even finished using it in church long ago, I was always behind in my reading (it was this lack of reading from this manual that made me set a goal to read the most recent manual much more faithfully and diligently).  Still, what makes the book so good (as with all the books in this series) is that it doesn't matter when you read it, you will still learn.  I like how each concept gets a few pages of focused attention in a format that anyone can understand.  With each paragraph, I found myself impressed with one idea or another and always finished the chapter thinking I had learned something new, had an old concept reinforced, or knew what I needed to do to be a better person.  In D&C 88:118, God counsels His children, "[Y]ea, seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom; seek learning, even by study and also by faith."  There is no question that this book qualifies, and with prayerful study, your faith and testimony are guaranteed to grow.

This work, including all text, photographs, and other original work, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives 3.0 License and is copyrighted © MMXI John Pruess.