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“It Helps to Have a Village”

“It Helps to Have a Village”

Last updated on: October 11, 2024 at 1:11 pm by Dan Peterson

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“It Helps to Have a Village” 2024-10-11T13:11:00-06:00 Dan Peterson

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“The San Gabriel Mission” (Guy Rose, 1913) (Wikimedia Commons public domain image). Growing up in San Gabriel, I saw Mission San Gabriel Arcángel nearly every day of my life. It stands very near to my high school.

I wax somewhat autobiographical — indeed, a little bit sentimental and perhaps even somewhat maudlin — in my introduction to the latest volume of Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship, which has just gone up online: “It Helps to Have a Village”

Abstract: In preparing the next generation, it really is helpful when parents don’t stand alone and they have the help of others outside the family. This is one of the reasons why the seemingly growing gulf between gospel values and the values of the societies around us is such a cause for concern: “The truths and values we embrace are mocked on ev’ry hand.”1 All of us have benefited from innumerable influences—from teachers in and out of the Church, from writers, from youth leaders, from coaches, from role models of all kinds. We may even have forgotten many of those influences, and, no doubt, many of those who have influenced us are unaware of the impact that they’ve had. We should be trying as hard as we can to see that we pass on the gifts that we’ve been given, to do for others what has been done for us. Indeed, we should try to multiply those gifts. “Pay it forward,” goes the currently fashionable (and very admirable) slogan. “Freely ye have received,” commands the Savior, “freely give” (Matthew 10:8).

The Concepción Chile Temple (LDS Media Library)

Also recently appearing on the (essentially moribund) website of the (essentially moribund) Interpreter Foundation — I’ve fallen a bit behind of late, given some other time pressures that I’ve been facing — are the following:

“The Temple: Symbols, Sermons, and Settings: “Recovering the Language of Purity after the First Revolt,” written by Thomas A. Wayment

Part of our book chapter reprint series, this article originally appeared in The Temple: Symbols, Sermons, and Settings, edited by Stephen D. Ricks and Jeffrey M. Bradshaw. For more information, go to https://interpreterfoundation.org/books/the-temple-symbols-sermons-and-settings/.

“My training in New Testament and religious studies has forced me to see some conversations about our shared faith trajectory differently and in ways that have not always resonated with Latterday Saint audiences. The topic of the temple in early Christianity is one that is both complex and in need of discussion, particularly for a people who emphasizes the role of the temple in their religious experience and identity. For many believing Latter-day Saints, history or recovered history is a causative force for belief: it obligates one to believe in a tradition if the history is tangible, provable, and credible. The idea of history pushing a person to believe underlies so many of the things that I have read by Latter-day Saint scholars.”

Nibley Lectures: Come, Follow Me Book of Mormon Lesson 42: “Ye Are the Children of the Covenant”: 3 Nephi 20-26

This week for Come, Follow Me lesson 42 covering 3 Nephi 20-26, we have lecture 101 from Hugh Nibley’s Book of Mormon classes at Brigham Young University, covering 3 Nephi 19–27 and 4 Nephi 1.

During 1988, 1989, and 1990, Hugh Nibley taught Honors Book of Mormon classes for four semesters at Brigham Young University. The lectures were video-taped and audio cassettes and printed transcripts were made of the lectures. We believe these recordings will be interesting to listen to and valuable to your Come, Follow Me study program this year. Each week, we will include the lectures covering the Book of Mormon chapters being studied that week.

The Book of Mormon in Context Lesson 42: “Ye Are the Children of the Covenant”: 3 Nephi 20-26

In the 22 September 2024 Come, Follow Me segment of the Interpreter Radio Show, Steve Densley and John Thompson discussed Book of Mormon lesson 42, “Ye Are the Children of the Covenant,” covering 3 Nephi 20-26.

Their conversation was recorded and, now, freed of commercial interruptions, has been archived and made available to you at no charge. The other segments of the 22 September 2024 radio show can be accessed at https://interpreterfoundation.org/interpreter-radio-show-september-22-2024.

The Interpreter Radio Show can be heard each and every Sunday evening from 7 to 9 PM (MDT), on K-TALK, AM 1640, or you can listen live on the Internet at ktalkmedia.com.

Come, Follow Me — Study and Teaching Helps (2024): Lesson 42, October 14-20: 3 Nephi 20-26: “Ye Are the Children of the Covenant”

Editor’s Note: Four years ago, Jonn Claybaugh began writing the Study and Teaching Helps series of articles for Interpreter. We now have these wonderful and useful posts for all four years of Come, Follow Me lessons. Beginning this year we will be reposting these articles, with dates, lesson numbers, and titles updated for the current year’s lessons. Jonn has graciously agreed to write new study aids for those lessons that do not directly correspond to 2020 lessons.

Interpreter Radio Show — September 29, 2024

In the 29 September 2024 episode of the Interpreter Radio Show, Martin Tanner and Mark Johnson discussed Come, Follow Me Book of Mormon lesson 43, the Temple on Mount Zion Conference, the Coptic Church, and responding to critics.

Although sadly bereft of commercial breaks, their conversation is now available to you online for free and entirely at your convenience. The “Book of Mormon in Context” portion of this show, for the Come, Follow Me Book of Mormon lesson 43, will also be posted separately on Tuesday, 15 October 2024.

A casual on-the-set snapshot of John Donovan Wilson, who plays Brigham Young in the new Interpreter Foundation dramatic film “Six Days in August.” (Photo by Jason Allred)

I was delighted to see this article in the Deseret News: “After transcribing 1.2 million of his words, this researcher has something to say about Brigham Young: ‘Many people know about Brigham Young. I know Brigham Young,’ says LaJean Purcell Carruth, after decades of work transcribing original shorthand from the early Latter-day Saint leader.”

And I was very pleased to see that it mentions Six Days in August, which is now out in theaters. A village was needed to create the film — a village of donors and writers and actors and crew and supporting personnel of all kinds — and it will now require an even larger village to make the movie a success.

I interviewed Sister Carruth on camera two or three months ago, at considerable length. Materials from that interview will be included in the docudrama that we intend to follow Six Days in August after approximately a year. In the meanwhile, I look forward to reading the new book that is mentioned in the Deseret News article: W. Paul Reeve, Christopher B. Rich, and LaJean Purcell Carruth, This Abominable Slavery: Race, Religion, and the Battle over Human Bondage in Antebellum Utah (Oxford University Press, 2024).

Two apostles confronted by police in a scene from “Six Days in August,” the Interpreter Foundation film that has just opened in theaters in multiple states

It’s almost the weekend. Are you wondering what to do this evening? Tired of playing Solitaire and of binge-watching The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives interspersed with re-runs of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City? If you’re located anywhere in the vicinity of one of the nearly ninety theaters where Six Days in August will be playing today and tonight — see here for locations — I have a suggestion for you: See the movie! Take family! Take friends! If not today, tomorrow. If not this weekend, on Monday. If not on Monday, sometime this next week.

Go early and often! We don’t know how long the run for Six Days will last: No film lasts forever in theaters. Moreover, major big-budget holiday movies will soon be coming down the pike from Hollywood. For example, Heretic, the cuddly new Hugh Grant film about a psychopath tormenting sister missionaries, is slated to open on 8 November. And if that doesn’t spell Christmas to you, I don’t know what would!

If Six Days in August is not, as a matter of fact, playing near you, you can request it via the film’s official website. The process of doing so is painless and brief. And we are taking such requests very seriously. We can’t guarantee success in placing the film near all of those who request it, but we’ll certainly do what we can.

And, once again, if you’ll be attending tomorrow’s BYU/Arizona game, keep an eye open for Mary Ann Angell Young and her husband, Brigham. I think they’ll be there.

By the way, if BYU wins, celebrate by attending a showing of Six Days in August. If BYU loses, cheer yourself up by attending a showing of Six Days in August.

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