Something interesting I read

While doing a little searching on the internet for Relief Society stuff, I came across the following quotation from Orson Whitney's biography.

Dr. John M. Reiner, a Roman Catholic scholar who had nearly a dozen languages at his command and seemed to know a great deal about law, literature, history, and science, visited Salt lake City in January 1898. He and Elder Orson R. Whitney of the Quorum of the Twelve became well acquainted. One day he told Brother Whitney: “You Mormons are all ignoramuses. You don’t even know the strength of your own position. It is so strong that there is only one other position tenable in the whole Christian world, and that is the position of the Roman Catholic Church.The issue is between Catholicism and Mormonism. If we are right, you are wrong; if you are right, we are wrong; and that’s all there is to it. The Protestant sects haven’t a leg to stand on; for if we are right, we cut them off long ago as apostates; and if we are wrong, they are wrong with us, since they were a part of us and went out from us. If we have the apostolic succession from St. Peter, as we claim, there is no need of Joseph Smith and Mormonism; but if we have not that succession, then such a man as Joseph Smith was necessary, and Mormonism’s attitude is the only consistent one. It is either the perpetuation of the gospel from ancient times, or the restoration of the gospel in latter days.”

Elder Whitney agreed with some that was said, but in no uncertain terms, told him he was mistaken: “Don’t deceive yourself with the notion that we ‘Mormons’ are not aware of the strength of our own position. We know it better than anyone else can know it. We have not all been to college; we can not all speak the dead languages; and we may be ignoramuses as you say. But we know we are right and we know you are wrong.”

I thought that was very interesting.

Larry spoke in a different ward than ours today as part of his High Council assignment. That ward's Sacrament Meeting was at 9 AM and our ward started at 11 AM, so he was able to go to church with Calley and me today. I miss him when he's not there with him, even though I know he's off doing the Lord's work. I really, really enjoy going to our ward meetings. I feel the spirit so strongly there and I enjoy being with all the ward members.

I had choir practice at 9:45 AM. We rehearsed to sing a gorgeous arrangement of "Joseph Smith's Prayer". We had been working on that arrangement for three weeks. A lot of people showed up for practice today since this was the day to sing it in Sacrament Meeting. Well, we rehearsed several times coming to a complete pause after the words, "Joseph this is my beloved. Hear him PAUSE oh how sweet the word . . . Well everything went OK in rehearsal but guess who messed it up when we were singing in the meeting? Yep, it was me. Everybody else paused, and I just kept right on going. DUH!!!!

Josh, Norky, and the kids came over for dinner tonight. I made a huge pot of Nanny's stoup with cornbread. Those little kids are so dang cute! Aidan just talks up a storm. Alan is very smart and articulate. And Anabelle is just a gorgeous little girl who's always looking for candy. We love them to death. Norky looks really good, but she's still in pain from the skin expansion, I think. I predict that Josh will be very wealthy in the not to distant future.

Ryan, Suey, and Abby usually come to dinner, but they didn't come tonight because their church schedule (11 - 2) just wears Abby out. It messes up Abby's schedule for the day with her nap time. So they stayed home to let her take a good nap so she wouldn't be grumpy. Larry and I got to babysit her last night while Suey and Ryan did some shopping. We had so much fun with her. I even got her to eat two jars of baby food cuz I sang Primary songs to her. She loves for somebody to sing to her. She really likes to follow Granddaddy Larry around. She'll walk over to where he's sitting on the couch and pat him on the knee to get his attention. We sure love that little darlin.

We were saddened to hear of Pres. Hinckley's death tonight. It's a sad time, but also a blissfully happy time that he's with his wife again. What a great church leader he was. I told Larry that now that Bro. Monsen will be the prophet, the Lord will be coming again very, very soon. He's 80 years old now. I've always felt that he would be the prophet when the Savior returned. I sound like I have inside information, huh. I don't know why I've always felt that way, but I have. I'm very anxious for the Savior to return.

Well, it 1AM on Monday morning, and I have to be to a RS presidency meeting at 9 AM for a bread-making demo, a church kitchen cabinet cleaning, and our regular meeting with visiting of some sisters in the ward. Guess I'd better go to bed.

Keep those blogs going. I love to read them.