On the 175th Anniversary of the Saints in New Jersey: Lessons Learned

Elder Marlin K Jensen, of the first quorum of the Seventy noted in April 2007 conference, when he was serving as the Church historian, that “Remembering enables us to see God’s hand in our past, just as prophecy and faith assure us of God’s hand in our future. . . .Keeping our past alive, . . . connects us to the people, places, and events that make up our spiritual heritage and, in so doing, motivates us to greater service, faith, and kindness.”

Today, I have been asked to speak about the 175^th anniversary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in New Jersey. Studying that history has helped me to see God’s hand in our past. Today, I will discuss several of the lessons I have learned as I have studied that history. I hope that as I share these lessons, you, too, will “see God’s hand in our past,” and that doing so will not only “connect you to “to people, places, and events of our” shared “spiritual heritage,” but also that you will, like I, be “motivated to greater service, faith and kindness.”

Lesson 1: The Lord wants all to have the opportunity to embrace the gospel.

Samuel H. Smith, the first missionary began his first mission nearly three months after the organization of the Church. In February 1832, Elders Orson Pratt, and Lyman E. Johnson, less than two years after the organization of the Church, set out on a mission that included New Jersey.

Lesson 2: The Lord organizes his members under the priesthood. That organization facilitates the growth of the Church and its individual members.

Two missionaries, Benjamin Winchester and Jedediah Grant were particularly successful in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey and in October 1838, they organized 28 members in Hornerstown (which is now part of Upper Freehold) into the first official branch of the Church in New Jersey. Soon after a branch was organized in Toms River. The next year Parley P. Pratt organized a branch in Jersey City. Organizing the members into branches allowed the Church to grow.

The missionaries were successful in New Jersey, especially in Burlington and Monmouth counties. In 1840, the branch in Cream Ridge reported 100 members. Even though many who were baptized moved to join the main body of the Church in Nauvoo, there were nearly 200 members in Cream Ridge and Toms River in 1842. At one point Erastus Snow preached to a crowd he estimated to be 1000 people. The members built a meetinghouse in Hornerstown, and one local historian commented that there was a “Mormon invasion.”

In fact, in 1848, one year after Brigham Young arrived in Utah, there were 21 branches of the Church in New Jersey—more than there were in Utah.

Lesson 3: Every part of the Kingdom of God is important, even New Jersey (the incredulous italics suggesting how some of our western friends might feel about New Jersey).

During the Nauvoo period, there appeared to be frequent interchange between the saints in Nauvoo and New Jersey, which strengthened all the saints. New Jersey saints visited Nauvoo—William Appleby, a prominent leader in New Jersey, visited Nauvoo in 1841 to perform baptisms for his kindred dead. Missionaries and church leaders from Nauvoo brought directives from Church leaders. New Jersey saints contributed to causes in Nauvoo, such as the building of the temple.

In fact, in December of 1839 and January of 1840, during his trip to Washington, D.C. to seek redress from the federal government for the Saints’ losses in Missouri, the prophet Joseph Smith visited several branches in New Jersey. He preached at Cream Ridge and visited saints in New Egypt, Hornerstown and Toms River. Hundreds listened to the prophet preach and he baptized many. Dramatically he healed a lame boy.

These events led one historian of Ocean County to list Joseph Smith’s visit as one of the “eight principal events in the town’s history. “ Some speculate that Nauvoo, New Jersey, a small fishing village (now a section of present-day Sea Bright) was named soon after Joseph Smith’s visit to New Jersey.

Lesson 4: Latter-day Saints can spread their influence by being part of their communities.

According to one history, at one point the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was the principal religion in Toms River. Prominent church members, such as the Ivins family sought to be a positive influence. And when Ocean County split from Monmouth County, the Mormon meetinghouse was used as the county courthouse.

Lesson 5: The Church is strengthened when Church members heed the counsel of their prophets and apostles.

Latter-day Saints in the second half of the 19^th-century heeded the counsel of their leaders to gather to Zion in the Rocky Mountain West. By 1846, Brigham Young had issued the call to immigrate west.  Hundreds of New Jersey Saints heeded that call.  Among those were John Horner and Elizabeth Imlay, who left New Jersey the day after their marriage to join Samuel Brannan, and the saints traveling west via the ship Brooklyn. I confess I would hardly consider a six-month voyage with 238 saints in those close quarters a fit honeymoon cruise.

After his father, who was not a member of the Church died, Anthony Ivins, formed a company of saints from Toms River. Together the small band traveled by train and steamboat to Independence and then crossed in plains arriving in Utah in August 1853. Ivins’ son Anthony Woodward, not yet a year old, would later serve twenty-seven years in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and the First Presidency.

I am certain the youth of our stake, who only two months ago participated in a reenactment of the handcart trek, appreciate the sacrifice of Augustus Embley Pearce and his wife Caroline Pullen Pearce from Burlington County and their eight children ranging in age from an infant to 15. In Nebraska, the family joined the Daniel Robison company, the second to last company to pull handcarts. Their youngest child, Georgeanna, was only two months old when they started the 1,030 miles trek across the plains on June 6, 1860. 

And just as the early saints heeded the prophet’s call to gather to Zion, so 20^th-century saints heeded later prophets who urged them to build up Zion in New Jersey. In 1918 and 1922 the Hoboken and Newark Branches were organized and by 1933, Heber J. Grant, whose mother was a New Jersey native and his father a missionary to New Jersey, came to New Jersey to dedicate the first church-owned building in New Jersey, a former termite-ridden former recreational clubhouse rebuilt by the 200 members of the Newark branch. (That building was later demolished in the 1950s to make way for the Garden State Parkway.)

It was the efforts of these saints, who also followed the prophet’s counsel, that allow us to now enjoy the association of our fellow 33,000 saints in New Jersey today.

Lesson 6: Latter-day Saints should persist in being prepared.

For many New Jersey saints the journey to Utah was daunting. These saints first needed to raise the means to get to the Midwest in order to join a pioneer company. Often it took months or years to prepare. And some never lived to make the trek, but many prepared nonetheless. As one historian noted:

A singular condition of affairs in several homes there was that some of the furniture and household goods which had been made ready for packing, years previously, in anticipation of removing to Salt Lake, still remained in the same condition, hoping that they would yet be called to join their brethren in that western city of the Saints. But for some of them that time never came.

Andrew Scott Hunter provides an example of the persistence required to prepare for the journey west. During a visit to Nauvoo in 1845 to attend the temple, he was counseled by Brigham Young to prepare for the journey west. He returned home to New Jersey to settle his business. Unfortunately only a few weeks before he was to depart for the west, he was felled by a severe illness. By the time he was well, all his funds had been expended in caring for his family during his illness. 

Determined to earn the funds for the journey, he began another business and in a few years had once again prepared to depart. When he returned from a trip to Philadelphia, he discovered that his wife had left him, stripping everything of value from his home. Undaunted, he sold what his wife had not taken and with his two children joined a company of Philadelphia saints on their journey west.

Lesson 7: The sacrifice of faithful Latter-day Saints can have immeasurable impact on all the members of the Church.

Perhaps my favorite story is that of New Jersey native Rachel Ridgeway Ivins Grant. When she was 20, at the urging of a friend, Rachel, a Baptist, went to hear Joseph Smith preach at Cream Ridge. Though she found the prophet to be a “fine, noble looking man . . . so neat,” she was not at all impressed with his sermon. After she returned at her friend’s urging to hear Joseph Smith a second time, she prayed for forgiveness for listening to false doctrine on the Sabbath. Yet she continued to attend meetings, and eventually she read the Book of Mormon, which so captivated her, she completed it in a single night. She embraced the gospel.

In the spring of 1842, she moved to Nauvoo, but after Joseph Smith’s death she returned home to Toms River where she lived for the next nine years. Finally, at age 32, she traveled with her cousin Anthony Ivins to Utah. Two years after arriving in Utah she married Jedediah Grant, whom she had met 16 years earlier when he had been a missionary in New Jersey. 

After only one year and two months of marriage, Jedediah died of typhoid and pneumonia, leaving Rachel a widow, in poor health following a difficult childbirth. Her son Heber was only nine days old. Her nonmember relatives urged her to return to New Jersey, promising to meet all her financial needs if she would return to New Jersey, leaving behind the Church. Instead, despite her abject poverty, she chose to raise her son, Heber Jedediah Grant, the seventh president of the Church, in Utah with the saints.

Lesson 8: In fulfilling my callings, I really have no reason to complain.

For the past 24 years I have visit taught or been visit taught by Sister Marion Van Uitert, who moved to Morristown with her husband LeGrande nearly 60 years ago. Whenever I am tempted to complain about the distance I have to travel or the time an assignment will take, I recall her tales of yore.

In particular I remember the “extra miles” it took for her to magnify her callings. Frequently she was required her to go into New York City for regular stake leadership meetings.  These regular treks into the city were made in the days before Accu-weather forecasts.  After one such evening meeting, she did not return home until the next morning. She and her fellow travelers had been caught in a sudden, severe snowstorm necessitating their spending the entire night slowly creeping along the highway home.

Lesson 9: I am grateful that I can I worship in the Morristown Stake Center each Sunday.

Many years ago I heard Al Rust describe stories of building this chapel, which was dedicated in 1978. In those days members not only raised the funds for their buildings, but they also donated their time to build the buildings. I remember his story about I am grateful that he and other members, undoubtedly President Jones included, laid brick upon brick and painted stroke after stroke to create a building in which I can worship each Sunday.

All of these lessons humble me. I hope they humble you as well. At times, we Latter-day Saints view our history and the growth of our Church in a self-congratulatory manner, patting ourselves on our backs, as we calculate statistics to chart the wondrous progress we have made in 175 years.

But 175 years is nothing.

As we consider the vast history of the world and the endlessness of eternity, we should be humble. When the Lord revealed to Moses the entire history of the world Moses was dumbfounded: “Now, for this cause I know that man is nothing, which thing I never had supposed.”  Moses was both surprised and humbled when he saw the vastness of history and eternity.  And yet the Lord reminded him a few verses later that all of this, the worlds without number, was for him and for us in verse 39 when he stated that “This is my work and my glory to bring to pass the immortality of man.”

That we may humbly remember our place in God’s plan, which end is to bring us eternal life, I pray, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

When I am a good mother, which I have not been lately, I write my boys emails every day, full of the prattle and pratfalls of every day life. When I am being oh-so-clever I will pick a theme. In April, one theme, inspired by Eliza Dawson in a Relief Society lesson, was joy. I wrote about the moments of joy each of my children has inspired.

Here is my moment of Joy inspired by Nathan, who has heard this story many, many times, and yet still politely smiles when I repeat it.

 

On Thursday, April 13, 1989, my daughter Chrissy was diagnosed with diabetes. (Isn't it funny how those dates are forever seared in our memories?) As is the case with nearly everyone diagnosed with Type I diabetes, the diagnosis took me by surprise. One day I had a happy-go-lucky preschooler, twirling to her heart's content in her tutu, the next I had a child defined by a chronic illness.  That Thursday afternoon I drove Chrissy to the doctor and in a matter of minutes I was arranging for a babysitter for three-month-old Nathan and then driving my tired, precious daughter to the hospital. I was tired, I was devastated, and I was overwhelmed.

We got her admitted. Everything was a blur. Doctors coming in and out. Endless histories taken--because Stanford University Hospital is a teaching hospital it had a lot of medical students and interns practicing the fine art of taking medical histories, whose attendings then followed up by reviewing the histories yet again. I repeated her medical history what seemed like dozens of times. I was exhausted. She was exhausted. They put her in a ward--she was put in a crib, not a particularly happy thing for a big girl sleeping used to sleeping in her own big girl bed. There was also a room at the end of the hall in which either I or your father would spend the night. We gave specific instructions tp the staff  to wake us whenever they tested Chrissy blood sugar every few hours--which they did not always do--because we did not want her having tests without one of her parents nearby.

The hospital stay was a whirlwind. Dieticians, doctors, social workers, nurses. All visiting. All trying to assess us as parents and teach us what we needed to do for Chrissy. I was up most of one night trying to memorize all the rules and interactions of insulin. In order for the hospital to release Chrissy, we needed to demonstrate our knowledge of insulin as well as our ability to care for Chrissy. First, both Mom and Dad had to be able to test her blood sugar and inject her with insulin. We had to understand the diet--which at that time was an exchange diet. And most importantly, I needed to know how her little body reacted to insulin. This was in the days before humalog--we used humulin and NPH insulin then. Humulin was a short acting insulin, which peaked 2 hours after giving it and lasted 4-6 hours, and NPH was a long-lasting insulin, which peaked 6 to 8 hours after an injection and stayed in the body for 12 plus hours. We needed to know how to adjust her food intake to the peaks of the insulin. (Little did we anticipate then the challenge of getting a child to eat at precisely the right time.)

We also needed to know not only how to give the injection, but als how to prepare it. Chrissy received two shots a day with both types of insulin, which had to be mixed in the same syringe precisely and one could not allow the NHP to contaminate the humulin, so the order in which the insulin were drawn into the syringe had to be followed precisely. The NPH insulin needed to be rolled to mix it, there could be no air in the syringe, and the amount of insulin we were giving was so small that it was difficult to measure it precisely. I studied and practiced far more intently than I had ever studied any subject before. I was so afraid I would fail my daughter by not being able to pass the test so that she could go home. And, of course, this was just the mechanics of the illness. Chrissy was baffled as to why her caring parents parents were now pricking her finger several times a day and injecting her twice a day.

I spent that first night at the hospital with Chrissy. Dad actually had a job interview with Apple Computer the next day, which he went to. (If only they had hired him.) Then on Friday night Dad spent the night at the hospital. I had spent the day learning what foods Chrissy could and could not eat. (Again because the insulin was less adaptable than the humalog is now, the food intake needed to be precisely planned and calculated.) So I went home, emptied the shelves of my cupboards of the now forbidden foods, picked up Nathan from the babysitter and we went to Lucky's--a grocery store now subsumed by some other conglomerate.

I sat Nathan in the grocery cart. He was able to sit in it if I held his hands--just like Adella can now. Aimlessly, I wandered the aisles. I felt helpless. I was overwhelmed. I look at the blur of cardboard boxes and cans. I did not know what to put into my cart. How was I going to make it through what was demanded of me?

And then I looked up at Nathan.

It was one of those moments, which if captured on film, would have baby Nathan bathed in light with a slight halo effect over his head. Undoubtedly there was no such halo, except in my mind. Undoubtedly, the store aisles were brightened by fluorescent light. But his smile, a smile so broad that his little body moved with it, a smile so bright and complete that it reflected in a twinkle in his eyes, oh so bright, changed me. My soul was lifted. I knew everything would be all right.

I have remembered that moment many, many times over the years. I can remember the little white with blue polka dot knit overall with a teddy bear on it that Nathan was wearing, I can remember his stance in the cart, the direction the cart was facing in that cereal aisle. Most of all his smile, I remember the smile. Nathan, as were all of my babies, was naturally adorable. And he was only doing what all naturally adorable children do when they are three and a half months. He was smiling. (In fact, that's about all babies that age can do--except eat and poop.) But that smile and the light in his eyes gave me what I most needed in that moment of despair. Hope. I knew everything was going to be all right.

Joy comes in moments unexpected, in places unexpected, from sources unexpected, and gives us the hope to carry on. And those simple, short, small everyday moments of Joy last a lifetime.

Thank you Nathan.

Two Dollars an Hour: On Cleaning and Leaving 362 Wymount Terrace

 What is it about a one hundred dollar cleaning deposit that inspires two full grown women, mother and daughter, to spend hours scrapping, scrubbing and scouring? In the past few months I have willingly contributed hundreds of dollars—a suit, flowers, airfare, hotels—for my son Nathan’s wedding. And now for a mere hundred, we feel compelled to spend hour upon hour. For three days we have cleaned, leaving no dust mite nor grease splatter undisturbed. Conservatively I estimate we two have been working at the handsome rate of two dollars an hour. Last January I turned down a job that paid far more because I did not consider it worth my time. Even in my darkest moments of maternal guilt and self-flagellation, I consider myself worth far more than two dollars an hour.

I suppose it is the sense of challenge that drives us. Can we satisfy the demands of some anonymous inspector? I imagine him, donning white gloves, haughtily scanning the apartment and perfunctorily swiping his index finger across the top of a doorframe in order to detect the thoroughness of our dusting. Can we appease him? Can we triumphantly claim the full cleaning deposit? We are determined not to fail where others before us have: there will be no oven cleaner residue on the oven, no scratch marks on the stove, no dust in the window tracks.

Even the fixtures and appliances seem to challenge us. I contend with these less-than-attractive, wood-grain laminate and steel cabinets. First, I attack with hot water and soap, then oil soap, and finally spray cleaner. Yet a few stubborn patches of residue remain. These cabinets bear the nicks and scratches and gouges of nearly three generations of married Wymount Terrace students. I am certain they harbor more than my daughter’s four years worth of grime. No one would fault my valiant, sufficient efforts. And yet I feel compelled to triumph over these cabinets. Finally, I listen to my daughter. I gently scrap the edge of an expired credit card—my daughter’s favorite cleaning tool—across the remaining resistant spots. Victory is mine. I run my hands up and down each cabinet. All are smooth. Satiny. Completely clean.

As I seek to justify our hours spent cleaning, I discover that my pride lurks a bit deeper than this sense of challenge. I am a mother. A good mother, I believe. I know how to keep house, although more often than not I choose not to. I have taught my daughter how to keep house, although more often than not she does not have the time. I am convinced together we can clean her apartment, far, far better than anyone else. The gleaming oven racks prove this—only one as cleaning wise as I would know to soak them overnight in garbage bag with a cup of ammonia.

I do not intend to devote much time to the shower and tub. I intend to just bubble and foam away the soap scum and be done with it. But my cleaning haughtiness soon gets the better of me, and I am quickly donning rubber gloves, pouring a small cup of bleach and grabbing an old toothbrush—one of my favorite cleaning tools. Even then, as I determinedly brush the grout, I think I will only scrub a few scummy spots around the tub spout, the showerhead and soap dish tray. But then I stand back and admire my work. The line of demarcation between the bleached and unbleached grout troubles me.  Just a little more, I rationalize, a few more tiles to the left, a few more tiles to the right. And before I know it I have brushed the every inch of grout. By bits and pieces, the unclean grout has disappeared just like a cake with uneven edges on a Heritage Halls kitchen table, demanding straight edges, beckoning all who see it to slice small piece after piece until it no longer exists.

I am proud. This tile looks far cleaner than the bathrooms of any of the hotels I have patronized in the past month. I am a bit too proud, too haughty. I revel in my gleaming success.  I find myself sneaking into the bathroom every hour or two just to take in the shower’s clean, blinding whiteness.

In my more altruistic moments, or perhaps when the fumes from the cleaning chemicals have clouded my judgment, I conclude that it is also a sense of obligation that spurs my cleaning efforts. I am descended from hardy pioneer stock, they who planted crops at way stations in Iowa or marked trails across Nebraska plains or Utah canyons, hoping to make an arduous journey a little easier for those who followed. I, too, hope to pay it forward. I can imagine the next occupant of 362 Wymount—an intent yet prudent bride, one who assured her new husband she would willingly sacrifice amenities like dishwashers and microwaves for a sensible apartment at a practical price. I imagine her excitedly flinging open the apartment door, catching her first real glimpse of her honeymoon cottage. I can also imagine her illusions slowly dissipating as she sees, for the first time, without the benefit of romantic blinders, the cinder block walls and industrial strength carpet.  I hope impeccably clean cupboards and counters provide some solace. 

Ultimately, however, I wonder if we are not driven in our cleaning pursuits by a sense of that grand American fear: What will the neighbors think? I am reminded of all the neighbors who are oh-so-willing to render judgment to their local small town paparazzi whenever any newsworthy event draws the attention of the community. The little old lady who lives next door to the corrupt local official or bank robber is either routinely astonished—you would have never known it, for he was the nicest gentleman, who always had a kind word for me—or not surprised in the least—he was a loner, always keeping to himself, coming and going only at night, yet always managing to kick my dog.

And it is that fear that most compels me. What will the new inhabitants say to the neighbors about our cleaning habits? I imagine their airing our dirty laundry at the next neighborhood barbecue in the quad: I found a moldy sock on the top shelf of the closet—can you believe it? There was a mound of half-eaten candy bars in a dark recess of the pantry—what slobs! And when we turned on the kitchen faucet, the disposal regurgitated a slew of soggy strawberries and sour milk—what were they thinking?

Regardless of our motivations, in our calculus of time and money, I naively assume we have determined my daughter’s cleaning deposit is worth more than our time. How else am I to categorize three days of cleaning in trade for a hundred dollars? Yet in a delightful twist of irony, my daughter tells me that for her it is this time spent cleaning that really matters most. She has very carefully measured out our hours and days with lists and tasks and talk. Talk of vinegar and calcium deposits, ammonia and grime, personal tales and family lore. And mother to daughter, I pass on cleaning secrets and homey wisdom garnered during a lifetime. We have talked. And we have listened. Nothing can replace our hours spent together. And yet a thought still nags—could we not get this same satisfaction from three days at a spa?

Our time is now limited. Today we must finish. The refrigerator and oven sparkle. The windows gleam. We will swipe the bathroom sink and kitchen countertops one last time. Yes, I readily admit there is a certain sense of satisfaction. Yet it would have been much simpler to have quickly packed her bags (and, of course, an entire U-haul truck) and turned in her keys without nary a thought.

Two dollars an hour. Was it worth it?

I do not know. I would ask Chrissy, but she is in her bedroom, crying. Maybe, in a few days, her check will make her smile.

Supper on a Slice

For Nathan and Justine on the occasion of their wedding, June 28, 2011

Scott and I were much like you, Nathan and Justine, when we married—our missions had brought us together, we faced many years of school and presumed poverty, we lived our first few months of married life in a tiny basement apartment (although your bathroom is far more suitable—ours had falling tile in the shower), and we were both working—Scott even taught at Missionary Training Center just like Nathan.  Most importantly, like you, we were also madly in love.

Seeking to be the ever-provident wife, I had insisted upon a food storage bridal shower a few weeks before our marriage. Thankfully, most of my guests did not all bring wheat. At my host’s request, each guest also brought a favorite recipe. So I began married life with a sheaf of hand written recipes on index cards neatly filed in a cute little tole painted recipe box and a narrow galley kitchen with the most hideous red carpet.

Those first few months of marriage we were very, very busy. And those first few months I also discovered that my husband was also very, very cheap—he had calculated the actual cost per gallon of a carton of milk that could be purchased at the Cougareat and refused on principle to buy any milk there, despite the fact that he loved milk. He was so penurious, I felt guilty even so much as purchasing a candy bar. Needless to say, we brown bagged our lunches and most evenings we cooked dinner at home. It was the rare occasion that we splurged at the Cougareat getting a salad at the salad bar (the true art to maximizing the yield was edging one’s salad bowl with cucumbers) or a combo 2—enchiladas, rice, beans and salad. So when I looked at the recipe from Gwen McMullin, one of my mother’s best friends, I knew I had a winner. Supper on a Slice—it was easy, quick, cheap.

Supper on a Slice is sort of like a layer of meatloaf spread across a loaf of French bread sliced lengthwise. The bread crisps in the oven as the meat conglomerate bakes. Scott and I were meatloaf kind of people and we heartily devoured Supper on a Slice the first time I made it. And the leftovers wrapped up nicely for lunch the next day. So easy, so quick, so cheap. Perfect for the modern Mormon bride with aspirations of doing it all. Supper on a Slice became a staple of the newlywed Stornetta household.

There will come a time in your honeymoon cottage when you suddenly realize you are no longer playing house. You will still be blissfully happy, most of the time, but the reality of the demands of daily life plays havoc with eternal aspirations. Dirty socks and dirty dishes, burnt meals, tight budgets and toilet seats that seem permanently locked in the up position suddenly loom a little larger than ever before.

More than a few weeks into our marriage and the new semester, that reality hit me. I was severely sleep deprived because I had great difficulty navigating the lumps in our second-hand mattress. The tiles kept falling each day as I showered. And I was struggling a bit in school—Middle English just did not seem to come to me naturally. So I was a little weary as I sat down one Saturday to prepare a grocery list for the coming week. As was my habit, I asked Scott what he wanted to eat during the coming week. My request was and still is more of a courtesy. In twenty-eight years of marriage he has rarely replied. Thinking about what to eat is not part of his realm of thought. This Saturday, however, was atypical.

“May I speak frankly?” he answered hesitantly, returning my question with one of his own.

Oh, no, I thought. There is something serious on his mind. I guess the groceries can wait.

“Yes,” I replied with trepidation, not knowing what to expect.

“It’s just that . . .”

“Yes . . . ” I encouraged him on, wary, worried about what he found so difficult to share. What had I done?

“It’s just that . . .”

My weary mind snapped into gear as I reviewed my actions of the past few weeks. What grievous wrong had I committed?

“It’s just that . . .  "

"Yes," I slowly replied, my tone belying my panic. Would our marriage survive, I wondered. I tried to remain outwardly calm amidst the maelstrom of my feelings.

“It’s just that if I have to eat Supper on a Slice one more time, I think I will die,” he blurted out.

“That’s it?”

“Yes,” he replied, a weight lifted from his shoulders. We both gave a collective sigh of relief.

I wasn’t sure if I could laugh. I did not want to offend my husband. As I looked at him, I thought of my father. At the outbreak of World War II, he was serving a mission in Washington and Oregon. For many, many months, he and his companion ate meals of only rice and beans in order to economize. After his mission, my father refused to eat either again. (His losing fifteen pounds on a trip to China is testament to that.) As a child, I did not know my father liked neither rice nor beans. My mother just did not serve either. Of course, she also did not serve spaghetti, tacos or pizza, staples of my generation. My dad was a meat and potatoes kind of guy.

When I found out about my father’s imposed rice ban, probably just after my mission spent eating rice in Japan, I asked my mother how she was able to get my father to eat her Chinese noodle and hamburger casserole. It was a family favorite and a staple widely circulated in ward Relief Society cookbooks during the sixties. It had rice in it and for that matter, soy sauce, a rather exotic ingredient for middle America at the time.

“Well, I just made it. I assumed because it was in a casserole, your father would not mind as much. And he never really said anything, so I just kept making it and you kids seemed to like it so much. One day, however, I found out how much he really hated it. He had been suffering in silence for years. So I stopped making it.”

How many weeks had Scott been struggling to swallow each bite of Supper on a Slice, I wondered. Had he ever really liked it?

From that day forth, Supper on a Slice was banished from the Stornetta household. I have not made it since. Although my curious children, who have heard the tale of its banishment, have begged me to make it, I have not. It makes a far better story than a supper.

So I bequeath to you a copy of the recipe for Supper on a Slice, not because I expect that the two of you will ever make it, although curiosity might get the better of you. But I do expect this bit of family lore to serve as a reminder in your early days of marriage. May you respectfully and freely speak your minds. May you not suffer trivial matters in silence. May you have the courage to share feelings that might be difficult to share. And may you banish from your household that which most troubles your spouse.

Supper on a Slice

2/3 cup evaporated milk 1 1/2 pounds ground chuck 1/2 cup cracker crumbs 1 egg 1/2 cup onion, chopped 2 teaspoons mustard 2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce 1/2 teaspoon pepper 1 ½ teaspoons salt 1 teaspoon Accent 1-2 cups shredded cheese (Cheddar and Monterey jack) 1 loaf French or Italian bread	Combine the ingredients well. If you like you may reserve some of the cheese to top the mixture. Place foil on a cookie sheet. Cut the loaf in half lengthwise. Place the bread slices on top of the foil. Crush the foil around the sides of the bread, but do not cover the top. Spread the mixture on the cut sides of the bread. Sprinkle with reserved cheese if desired.
Bake at 325 degrees for 45 minutes. Cut the bread into 2 to 3-inch pieces to serve. .

Lost and Found

Today we discussed the three parables on redemption: the Parable of the Lost Sheep, the Parable of the Lost Coin and the Parable of the Lost or Prodigal Son (Some have suggested the parable would be better named the Parable of the Compassionate Father. I agree--both sons are in some sense lost and both seem to be reclaimed by a compassionate and loving father.)

Activities: I started out with a rather fun activity that was perhaps a bit too noisy for the class meeting on the stage. Before class, I took some gold and silver coins, play tender, of course, and hid them around the ward gym.  I asked the students to find them. (If it had not been fast Sunday, I would have used chocolate coins, which would have increased the energy level of the class, both before and after the search.) We avoided turning on the lights in the gym, relying on the bit of light from the skylights, so the darkness help conveyed the difficulty the woman had in finding her coins.

Anyway, my students identified with the searching, finding, and rejoicing of the woman.

Class Goodies:
The Ring: Because it was Fast Sunday, there were no goodies today. Instead I brought some cheap rings from Party City to represent the ring that the father gave his prodigal son. The rings were nice and sparkly and we talked about how the ring was a signet that symbolized the authority and heritage of the father and the son. Had I thought ahead, I would have bought some CTR rings while I was in Utah last week. They might have more aptly conveyed a sense of a royal heritage. Alas, not thinking well enough ahead.

While at Party City, I did pick up some ring pops. I intend to use them next week to review. I have always found it helpful to use the symbols a second time to see if my students can remember a week later what we talked about. (Sometimes when I ask my class what we talked about last week, one student will first remember what we ate and then use it to clue him into what our theme had been.)

The Fatted Calf: Of course, I had forgotten it was Fast Sunday until Friday evening. So I spent the past two weeks thinking up an appropriate feast for my class. There were many possibilities. First, I thought about a fatted calf. I was thinking about Beef Shish Kabobs to represent the fatted calf. Nathan pooh-poohed the idea. He didn't think it really represented a fatted calf. Not enough fat, and he felt small pieces of meat did not adequately convey the sense of an entire calf roasted for a celebration.

Point well taken, so I thought of other ways to represent the fatted calf. I thought of a bacon-wrapped roast or filet mignon. Too much work for a Sunday morning, so I abandoned the fatted calf idea. Ring pops sounded like a much easier feat.

Shepherd's Pie or Sheepherder's Bread: I also considered each of these to get us into the mindset of the Shepherd. While we hearkened back to our discussion of shepherds from a few weeks before, I decided to focus more on the other two parables.


Coin Cake: I think I probably would have gone with a tradition from my childhood. My mother used to bake us coin cakes for our birthdays. She would wrap pennies, nickels, a few dimes and one quarter in foil and then drop them into the batter of an angel food cake. She then frosted the cake with chocolate frosting. There was enough money in each cake for all of us to get something. Nonetheless we all hoped for the quarter. Some of my nieces and nephews became so obsessed with finding money, they would eat or at least pick through three or four pieces of cake, necessitating my mother's baking at least two cakes for every birthday.

I am not quite sure where my mother got this tradition, but it is similar to the King Cakes of many European traditions at epiphany and of Louisiana at Mardi Gras. Anyway, I think the cake would have conveyed aspects of the parable--searching for hidden coins, and the delighting and sharing the discovery of coins.

Any Given Day

“What kind of mother would leave a four-year-old outside unsupervised?”  That was my reaction many, many years ago in my small, insular Utah community when I heard the story of Rachael Runyon.  Her busy mother had sent Rachael and her three older brothers outside to play in the summer sun while she watched from inside.  She alternated making lunch and cleaning the kitchen with perfunctory looks out the kitchen window.  And in a glance, Rachael was gone.  Abducted by a brazen kidnapper from her mother’s distracted care.  Her preoccupation with the dishes suddenly vanished as she stood at the kitchen sink.  Rachael was gone.  

            Three children and many sleepless nights later, in my comfortable New Jersey community, the doorbell roused me from a short nap in the middle of the afternoon.  I had spent the previous night testing my daughter Chrissy’s blood sugar every few hours.  Sometimes it seemed her diabetes was more demanding than a newborn. So while she and her brother were in school, I parked my four-year-old Daniel, my youngest, in front of the video.  (Something my pre-mother self swore I would never do.) It must be the UPS man, I thought as I rushed to the door, trying to shake off the daze of an afternoon nap.  I opened the door to my neighbor, holding Daniel’s hand.  He had been happily playing in the front yard, alone. And I thought of Rachael Runyon.  There but for the grace of God go I.

            Teaching and parenting are unique callings.  They require adults to devote hours of attention to children, usually without respite.  Both are very solitary occupations.  We

are alone in our homes and our classrooms.  There we laugh, we play, and we teach.  There also children test our patience when our energy is zapped.  But only those present within the walls of a classroom or home know what happens there.  Most teachers are happy, and most parents are decent.  Yet our contracts with society are rather tenuous.  Society understands our jobs are often thankless and our pay—be it kisses or apples—is not commensurate with the demands and it seeks to placate us with special days for mothers, fathers and teachers.  (When was the last time you honored your dentist, accountant or lawyer?)  At the same time, however, it demands our credentials be impeccable and our behavior perfect.  Our voyeuristic society revels in the nanny cam and whenever a teacher or parent is caught, there are thousands of Americans collectively thinking, “What kind of person would do that?”

Discipline is the task we hold teachers and parents to the highest standards.  To discipline is to systematically instruct a disciple or follower in proper behavior and conduct.  But frequently children do not want to be disciples; they are not little adults eager to be instructed.  They just want to have fun.  And it is at the intersection of their fun and our responsibility that we parents and teachers sometimes lose tempers and we make mistakes.  And we are liable for those snap judgments made in the heat of the moment.  And while I might join society in its snap judgments about egregious parents or teachers, when I read of the teacher, such as Brad Turner who not only lost his job and his teaching license but found himself in the center of a civil lawsuit when he attempted to discipline a student for throwing grapes on the floor, I silently say to myself,  “There but for the grace of God go I.”           

I am only a substitute teacher.  But I am a teacher nonetheless. Today I was reminded of this when I caught myself at my kitchen sink. 

I walk into a different classroom every day.  I must think on my feet.  And experiment.  Anything to engage students, whom I do not know, who thrill at seeing a substitute.  They too want to experiment, to walk the thin line that separates propriety and an in-school suspension.  Today I am in 11^th grade U.S. History. The topic is Hiroshima.  I love U.S. History.  I love Japan.  I lived there for sixteen months.  There could not be a more perfect fit.

I look at the lesson plan.  The class is 80 minutes long.  The teacher has left a 67-minute DVD.  That leaves me thirteen minutes.  When there is no lesson plan, thirteen minutes can be an eternity.  Even videos are not a sure thing.  But Ms. Jones has left some preparatory material, and I have a lot to add. Thirteen minutes is but a blip.  That leaves me fashioning an anticipatory set that can be quickly accomplished.  I cue the DVD, and then I scrawl Hiroshima in Japanese.  (Not in kanji, mind you.  Only in hiragana—the simplest Japanese phonetic alphabet.  It is a bit like writing in rudimentary block letters as opposed to neat, proper script.  But I am counting on the fact that my students will never know the difference.)

Then I stand at the door and welcome my students.  “Konnichi wa,” I say, bowing, my hands pressed together.  

The students stare.  Then laugh.  “Dozo,” or please, I say motioning with my hand for the students to enter the room.

“You’re speaking Chinese, aren’t you?” they question.

“Chigaimasu,” I humbly beg to differ, I reply.  “Nihonogo de hanashimasu.”  I am speaking Japanese.

This is fun.  The students do not also realize the paltry extent of my Japanese.  (There are, of course, no Japanese surnames on the roll—only Chinese or Filipino.) They are perplexed and intrigued, a state not often achieved by a substitute.

But during those brief gleeful moments, I walk into the classroom with some of the students.  The bell has not yet rung, yet I have left my post at the door.  Then, as luck would have it, there is a commotion in the hall.  I return to find a large girl, a very, very large girl, with a half-nelson hold on a not-so-particularly small boy.  I must take razor quick, decisive action.  I feel like the Will Smith character Jay in the movie Men in Black: during a training simulation he must choose to shoot either the obvious threat, a lunging, snarling beast about to attack a man with a briefcase, or a cute eight-year-old girl toting books on advanced physics.  He chooses the girl with the books.  My decision is not so clear-cut.

A teacher can touch a student only if someone’s safety is at risk.  Is someone at risk?  Who?  The boy?  Or me?  Physically intervening will escalate the situation.  Can I handle this with my voice?  I summon my most commanding voice. “Stop that,” I yell.

I am pleasantly surprised. She releases her hold.  But then he quips something back.  She lunges for him again, missing. 

“Stop that,” I yell even more forcefully.  And to the small crowd, I add, “Get to class.”  I pause.  “NOW!!”  

It works.  The crowd disperses and to my surprise the girl strolls into my class.

I begin my lesson.  But it is not as much fun.  Questions dart through my head. Why did I let my attention be diverted?  Why was I not patrolling the hall?  Would this have happened if I had been at my post?  Should I have called security?  Can a substitute even assign detention?  What if they hadn’t listened to me?  How would the newspaper have portrayed me? 

What kind of teacher would do that?  I now know the answer to the question.  I am that teacher.  And the truth is, so is just about any teacher.   Experience helps.  So does a level head, compassion and caring.  But any given Monday or Tuesday, almost any teacher can make a very simple mistake. And any given day after, there will be countless, indignant armchair quarterbacks questioning that teacher’s call.  Some of those teachers are exceptional.  Some are not.  But none of them gets the benefit of the doubt.

Long ago, male physicians learned to protect themselves by having a female nurse present when conducting gynecological exams.  Service representatives record their phones calls for quality assurance. Policemen have videotapes admissible in court.  Lawyers have attorney-client privilege to mask some of their mistakes.  CEOs have press secretaries and public relations firms to positively spin their mistakes and nice retirement packages just in case.  Teachers have only a classroom of trust.  A trust that surprisingly is not shattered more frequently and a union, which pays the bills when accusations fly, but cannot save even innocent teachers from public pillory.

Me?  I have no union.  I am only a substitute teacher.  I stand at my kitchen sink, and I think I understand what kind of mother Rachael Runyon had.  There but for the grace of God go I.

Texting Mother

When did mothers suddenly become so popular? I have spent the past few weeks pondering the question.

I am not talking about the preschool set. Mothers have always polled exceptionally high among that demographic, especially those with persistent separation anxiety. I am talking about teen-agers. They who roll their eyes at their parents’ sage suggestions. They who bud their ears to avoid adult dinner conversation. They who lol with their bffs when their homework, which never seems to get done, beckons.

Last week, in an hour-long high school honors class I confiscated four different cell phones, one mid-test. This despite my oh-so-pleasant request, prompted by a student blatantly texting as I introduced myself as their substitute teacher, that they put their cell phones away. Because my request only prompted half of the class to act, I followed up with a not-so-veiled threat to confiscate any phones that I saw in use.

“But it’s my mother,” the first boy protests as I demand his phone. I hope he is cleverer in class than he is in his texting. Only a few feet from my desk, he has assumed the “standard” classroom texting pose, both hands under the desk, the phone centered in the lap held just under the edge of the desk.  A pose that often prompts colleagues to embarrass the violators with innuendo as to their actions.

I can only assume from his furtive glances from test to phone that he is cheating, texting a friend or searching the Internet to find the answers he does not know. But, not ready to unleash a firestorm of privacy and first amendment issues, I dare not look at the text. I put the phone in my pocket without so much as a glance. I treasure my paltry income as a substitute teacher. I then lean down to pick up the fluorescent blue study guide stretched out underneath the desk of his less tech-savvy neighbor. My how the nature of cheating has changed.

Does his mother know, I wonder. Not that he cheats, but that he blames it on her.

The second student attempts the “camouflage” pose. She assumes her prime spot in a back corner of the room and her large bag situated just so on her desk protects her texting from my purview. She is far more interested in reading her texts than the class novel. At least she has finished her test. Aware of my presence as I move into her zone, she does the “quick slip,” a quick slide of the cell phone from the desktop to the pant pocket, a move not nearly as discreet as most students presume. She hopes the bag hides her move. But it does not. And, like a shy child hiding in her mother’s skirt, she hopes to hide behind the excuse of texting her mother.

It is March 25^th.  Perhaps she celebrates Mother’s Day in Slovenia, I think. Perhaps she forgot to buy her a present. Perhaps she worries her mother will feel neglected. Perhaps.

“It’s her mother,” a voice claims automatically as I ask for the third phone. My eyes are no longer young, but I am fairly certain the gallant defender cannot read her text from his desk two rows behind her, even though she has assumed the “about face” classroom texting pose, her torso uncomfortably twisted, leaning into the aisle, in order to face the rear of the room as she texts. Like a two-year-old who covers her eyes and assumes the world can no longer see her, this student assumes her back turned to me makes her cell phone invisible. She has heard my threat. She has seen me confiscate. She has recognized my intent. But there is an urgency she cannot ignore. She is driven to text.

Mother must be a helicopter parent, I conclude.  Or a tiger mother. Compelled to please, she has aced the test and cannot wait to share her success with her mother. Her text is clearly worth the risk.

The fourth student does not even try to hide his cell phone. There are eight minutes left in class. He employs the “it is my right” pose. He sits on the front row, elbows planted on the desk, holding his phone up to eye level as his thumbs fly over the keys, oblivious to my stare as I stand a few feet away. He seems genuinely surprised when I move only inches away and hold out my demanding hand, flat, palm up in the universal classroom sign language for “hand-over-your-phone.”

“But I thought class was over,” he protests. Which translated means, “If I do not find the class work compelling and if there is less than ten minutes remaining in class, then I have the right to use my cell phone.” A god-given right, I am sure, if I were to poll the class. At least he does not claim he is texting his mother. Surely she must feel neglected.

Two years ago pollster Joel Benenson found that the average student sends more than three texts per class. That means that there were at least sixty-three text messages sent during that honors class. (Perhaps a few less if I were to factor in the four confiscated phones.) If I were to assume that by average, Benenson means a true arithmetic mean and not a mythical average like that in Lake Wobegon, and if I were to assume that there are at least a few students in my class who do not just appear to be, but are actually completing the test and reading their books instead of texting, then I am led to an astounding conclusion: there are two or three students in my class who love their mothers so much that they sent them at least five texts during the hour I was with them. (I certainly hope those mothers appreciate my efforts.) Furthermore, if all these students text their mothers as often as is claimed when caught, then the average mother should receive at least fifteen texts from each child every day. Imagine all those average, happy mothers. Getting texts, affirming they are far from average in their children’s eyes. Every day. Every hour.

None of my three children sends me a text each day. They whom I have willingly nursed and diapered. They for whom I have whooped and cheered unreservedly during tediously long little league games. They for whom I have applauded wildly as I shivered during torrential downpours at band competitions. They who have unlimited texting for which I pay. I consider myself fortunate to receive an occasional text requesting a ride home. Which, as I consider these statistics, creates great maternal angst. And questioning. Why am I so unpopular with my children? Am I not average? (For my children are certainly far, far above average.) Do my children not love me? Have they forgotten my number?

And ultimately I am led to choose between two conclusions: either my children do not use their cell phones during class or they do not love me. Naively I am assuming the first.