Comments on: The First White Handbook

By: J. Stapley

J. Stapley — Fri, 10 Jun 2005 21:14:51 +0000

In that case, I guess things really haven’t changed that much. LOL

By: Chris S

Chris S — Fri, 10 Jun 2005 21:05:50 +0000

I’m ashamed of myself for even writing this, but I can’t help myself…(in captain Kirk intonations) It’s just too easy! You can’t tell me that none of you noticed that a lower case “r” is awfully close to a lower case “n”, and that “sparking” might have been a typo?

By: Stephen M (Ethesis)

Stephen M (Ethesis) — Wed, 08 Jun 2005 08:38:06 +0000

“Sparking” is one of those words that I ran across years ago and thought that it really needed a comeback. It catches the heart of flirting with intent very well.

It came to mean kissing and then passed out of use.

By: J. Stapley

J. Stapley — Tue, 07 Jun 2005 16:45:08 +0000

If only I was closer to Utah Valley. I think my favorite line is “your kisses should be for home consumption,” – That is an interesting way to put it.

Justin and Dave have shown historical anticedents – would reading Liviticus count as well?

By: Justin

Justin — Tue, 07 Jun 2005 15:45:38 +0000

Thanks, J., for the interesting and entertaining post. I’ll confess that I had never heard of “sparking” until now. It would be interesting to see a study of how the missionary rules have changed over the years. What is the copyright date of the last handbook–1990?

Regarding The Elders’ Reference, I noticed that there is a 1906 book by that same title at the BYU library. It’s only 32 pages long. I have no idea about its contents.

Military academies do a similar thing with handbooks. First-years constantly study and memorize the contents.

By: John Mansfield

John Mansfield — Tue, 07 Jun 2005 13:09:25 +0000

Very interesting.

There is a beautiful hymn that was still included in the 1950 hymnal:

Come go with me beyond the sea,
Where happiness is true;
Where Zion’s land, blessed by God’s hand,
Inviting waits for you.
With joyful hearts you’ll understand
The blessings that await you there,
I know it is the promised land;
My home, my home is there.

It is quite lovely sung by male voices, but I wonder what they were thinking to still have it in the book in the mid 20th Century. Maybe it was there as a pioneer reminiscence. At any rate, rule 23 should have kept the elders from entertaining their converts and branches with it.

By: Dave

Dave — Tue, 07 Jun 2005 07:36:01 +0000

There’s a strange sort of logic that ends up with rote recital of some sort of rules handbook: You can’t run a group of missionaries without rules. Missionaries can’t follow rules they don’t know. Missionaries can’t know rules they don’t learn. Rules are best learned and retained by regular repitition. Result: Some sort of little white book of rules that missionaries must read (out loud, or to each other, or at conferences) regularly.

Funny, when I read how sailors would assemble on deck to hear Captain Jack Aubrey read selections from the Articles of War each Sunday, I thought of reading the little white book. I suppose Two Years Before the Mast might be an even closer echo.