Category Archives: Main

Some observations on polygamy

LDS Doctrine, LDS History, LDS Society, Main, Polygamy

[I belong to a private e-mail list for attendees of an invitation-only technology conference that has meeting annually for nearly 25 years. Early in May, as the news was breaking about the Texas raid of the FLDS YFZ compound, some comments were made by a few posters, drawing some rather uninformed and incorrect correlations between the FLDS Church and LDS Church culture in general, citing as sources (a) a former LDS Church member and (b) a non-LDS person who had lived for some time in Utah. I ended up making two posts to that list, which I reproduce here in slightly edited form.]

[First post — made 05/02/08]

I appreciate your efforts to shed light on the mess down in Texas. However, the next time you want to opine on and analyze LDS history, thought, and doctrine, you might try actually asking someone who has a thorough understanding of it and has studied it extensively in the context of both historical and mainstream Christianity.

Latter-day Saints (by which I mean members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 13+ million members worldwide, over 50% of those outside of the United States) are almost universally appalled by the various polygamous offshoots, most of which are quite tiny, insular and parochial in comparison. Note that support for such groups is grounds for denying a temple recommend (required to enter and participate in LDS temple ceremonies) and actual involvement is immediate grounds for excommunication. There is no sympathy, winking, or collusion between the LDS Church and these various tiny denominations; the relationship is frankly far more like that of the Roman Catholic Church and the various Protestant groups that arose during the Reformation, each side considering the other hopelessly apostate.

There is also very little similarity between the cultural and organizational behavior of the LDS Church vs. that found in these offshoots. Far from running around in suits and bonnets, and living in isolated communities, Latter-day Saints tend to be heavily integrated in their communities and cultures wherever they are found. There are over 27,000 LDS congregations worldwide, on every continent except Antarctica — and there may be one down there for all I know. Also note that the LDS Church has provided $750 million [correction: over $1 billion] in humanitarian assistance worldwide [PDF] in the last 22 years, the vast majority of which has gone to people who are not members of the LDS Church. All of this assistance has come either directly out of the pockets of the LDS members themselves or from the production of the LDS Church’s extensive welfare system, which itself is run largely from volunteer labor of LDS members.

Also note that many Evangelical Christians consider us too liberal in our lifestyle and behavior (we’re great fans of music and dancing, and our view towards abortion and related issues, while still conservative, is more liberal than that found in Evangelical — or for that matter, Catholic — circles). Anyone who seriously contends that Latter-day Saints are conformist sheep controlled by the Church hierarchy would be laughed out of the room by anyone who (like me) has actually served in an LDS bishopric. (Here’s Joseph Smith’s own observation: “There has been a great difficulty in getting anything into the heads of this generation. It has been like splitting hemlock knots with a corn-dodger [corn muffin] for a wedge and a pumpkin for a beetle [mallet].”)

As for education and intellect, I’ll cheerfully put up the LDS Church’s record against any other religion . For every Sonia Johnson (and there really have been only a few dozen such excommunications over the past 20 years), there have been scores of excommunications for extreme right-wing behavior and hundreds, if not thousands, of excommunications for involvement and participation in polygamous groups.

In short, trying to make statements or draw conclusions about the LDS Church based on the behavior of the FLDS group down in Texas is about like trying to make statements about Methodist and Baptists churches by the behavior of Jim Jones and the People’s Temple.

Finally, I will cheerfully admit — as will most Latter-day Saints — that the LDS-heavy culture in Utah does get a bit, ah, strange at times. A close friend of mine — who served as an LDS bishop over a mostly-Latino congregation down in El Paso, Texas — put it best, paraphrasing from “Hello, Dolly”: “Mormons are like horse manure. Spread them around, and they make things grow; pile them up in a heap, and they tend to stink.”

[Second post – made 05/05/08]

Most (though not all) modern LDS-derived polygamous churches descended from a group of seven Latter-day Saints (Mormons) who were excommunicated in the 1923-1941 time frame for practicing polygamy (the “Council of Friends”).The diagram at the bottom of this website gives you something of an idea of how most (though not all) of these churches are related. The FLDS Church is the largest of the surviving polygamous churches, most of which are either very tiny or defunct.

Still, the FLDS Chruch has only about 10,000 members total, most of whom were born into the FLDS Church and were never members of the LDS Church. The same is true of most of the other polygamous churches; they occasionally recruit outside people (Latter-day Saints or not), but tend to be largely descended from the original recruits (who were mostly Latter-day Saints) in the early to mid 20th Century. (Note that by contrast, the relatively small city of Parker, CO, where I live, has about 4000 Latter-day Saints in and around it, and there are about 130,000 Latter-day Saints in the entire state of Colorado.)

There are also stark contrasts between how the FLDS Church (and some of the other polygamous churches) practice polygamy vs. how it was practiced among Latter-day Saints up through 1904. For example:

The FLDS practice the “Law of placing,” or assignment of marriages, combined with a high level of control of the membership. This contrasts greatly with the LDS. We have no arranged marriages and the average age for LDS marriages is 23. Throughout LDS history, free agency has been a ruling principle. In 19th century LDS plural marriages women were freely allowed to marry, divorce, and leave the community. My own great-great-grandmother, Elizabeth Clark Crouch, was in a plural marriage, and she divorced her husband and left the community with no ramifications. There was no danger of having her children reassigned to anyone else. It was more difficult for men to obtain a divorce, as it was believed that the men should provide economic and social support since there was no state welfare program and women had limited employment opportunities. Kathryn M. Daynes discusses the economic underpinnings of plural marriage in her book titled “More Wives Than One: Transformation of the Mormon Marriage System, 1840-1910.” . . .

Another difference with the FLDS church is their idea that more wives equals a greater chance of exaltation. While our critics like to claim we believed that, Brigham Young stated quite clearly that not everyone would, or should, practice plural marriage. Several members of church leadership–including apostles–were not polygamists. Some of Brigham’s more controversial statements, when read in context, seem to use plural marriage as an example to focus on the idea of being willing to follow God rather than whether or not you actually practiced plural marriage. If plural marriage were required for heaven, why did some members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, our top leadership group, not practice it?

If you would like to read more about fundamentalist Mormonism, I recommend the book “Modern Polygamy and Mormon Fundamentalism: The Generations after the Manifesto” by Brian C. Hales.

— Scott Gordon, fairlds.org (The FAIR Journal — email sent 5/4/2008)

There are some other stark contrasts as well. In the Utah Territory in the second half of the 19th century, when the practice of polygamy was at its peak, Brigham Young emphasized the need for advanced education for LDS girls and women. On one occasion he stated:

“We wish, in our Sunday and day schools, that they who are inclined to any particular branch of study may have the privilege to study it. As I have often told my sisters in the Female Relief societies, we have sisters here who, if they had the privilege of studying, would make just as good mathematicians or accountants as any man; and we think they ought to have the privilege to study these branches of knowledge that they may develop the powers with which they are endowed. We believe that women are useful, not only to sweep houses, wash dishes, make beds, and raise babies, but that they should stand behind the counter, study law or physic [medicine], or become good book-keepers and be able to do the business in any counting house, and all this to enlarge their sphere of usefulness for the benefit of society at large. In following these things they but answer the design of their creation. These, and many more things of equal utility are incorporated in our religion, and we believe in and try to practice them.” (Journal of Discourses 13:61; address given July 18, 1869)

LDS women (mostly plural wives!) were heavily involved in national and international women’s rights movements and traveled to the Eastern US to participate in and speak at women’s conferences. Only the first page of the just-linked article is available, but it does set forth the basic situation; also see An Advocate for Women: The Public Life of Emmeline B. Wells, 1870-1920 by Carol Cornwall Madsen (BYU Press/Deseret Book, 2006), as well as this transcript from the PBS Special, “The Mormons”. In 1872, LDS women (again, mostly plural wives) started their own intellectual journal, The Women’s Exponent, which was published for over 40 years.

For that matter, women in the Utah Territory were the second (after those in the Wyoming Territory) in the United States to receive the right to vote, in 1870. That right was stripped by Congress in 1887 in the effort to end polygamy and reduce the political influence of the LDS Church, but it was restored — 25 years ahead of the 19th Amendment — when Utah gained statehood in 1895. In fact, the actual language put into the Utah State Constitution was, “The rights of citizens of the State of Utah to vote and hold office shall not be denied or abridged on account of sex. Both male and female citizens of this state shall enjoy equally all civil, political and religious rights and privileges.” (1896 Utah State Constitution, Article IV, Section 1, “Equal political rights”).

In short, it’s hard to imagine a more dramatic contrast between the TV images and news accounts of the (apparently) highly-sheltered, controlled and under-educated girls/women at the FLDS compound in Texas and the broad, active, literate, and — for its era (we are talking about the 1800s) — quite liberated roles and activities of Latter-day Saint women in the Rocky Mountains during the last half of the 19th Century. ..bruce..

Spelunking: Alma 4:16-17

Book of Mormon, Main, Spelunking

[One of the things I love about the Book of Mormon is that it contains hidden nuggets and complexities that you can overlook during a dozen or more readings but that suddenly leap out at you the next time through. Some of these are minor but are still worth looking at. I’ll do that from time to time, using the (now largely abandoned) term for cave exploration, ‘spelunking’.]

It was common up until a few decades ago to cite — as ‘environmental evidence’ of the Book of Mormon’s 19th Century origins — its alleged focus on democracy over monarchy (being thus reflective of post-Revolution America). Hugh Nibley was, I believe, the first to point out just how silly that is, since a careful reading of the Book of Mormon shows just the opposite. First, the Book of Mormon holds up a monarchy as the best form of government so long as you can guarantee having a just king (Mosiah 29:13), though it also acknowledges the improbability of that happening (Mosiah 29:16-17).

Second, as many authors from Nibley on have pointed out at great length, the system of judges set up in the Book of Mormon by King Mosiah2 is anything but a representative democracy. The first chief judge, Alma2, also happens to be head of what the Book of Mormon calls the “Church of God” (the church of anticipation founded by Alma1) and the son of the previous head of the Church of God (Alma1). And while (non-canonical, non-scriptural) chapter heading to Mosiah 29 claims that Alma2 was “chosen chief judge by the voice of the people”, the actual scriptural passage doesn’t state that clearly at all:

And it came to pass that [the people] did appoint judges to rule over them, or to judge them according to the law; and this they did throughout all the land. And it came to pass that Alma was appointed to be the first chief judge, he being also the high priest, his father having conferred the office upon him, and having given him the charge concerning all the affairs of the church. (Mosiah 29:41-42)

I would argue that this passage just as likely indicates that Alma2 was either selected by the lower judges or possibly even appointed to (or at least nominated for) the position by King Mosiah2. But let’s assume for now that Alma2 was indeed chosen by the voice of the people.

After a few years, Alma2 decides to resign the chief judge position to focus completely on being the high priest over the Church of God due to problems within the church. What happens? Caucuses? Campaigns? Elections? Elevation of one of the lower judges?

No:

And [Alma] selected a wise man who was among the elders of the church, and gave him power according to the voice of the people, that he might have power to enact laws according to the laws which had been given, and to put them in force according to the wickedness and the crimes of the people. Now this man’s name was Nephihah, and he was appointed chief judge; and he sat in the judgment-seat to judge and to govern the people. (Alma 4:16-17; emphasis mine)

Alma2 not only hand-picks his own successor, he chooses another high-ranking official within the Church of God (note that the Book of Mormon generally uses “elders” to indicate positions that appear to be superior to “priests” and “teachers”; cf. Moroni 3:1). And he does this at a time when there is significant division within the Church of God, as well as significant popularity within the Nephite population for the order of Nehor (cf. Alma 1:15-24, 32).

It’s unclear whether the clause “and gave him power according to the voice of the people” means that some form of ratifying election occurred after Alma2‘s selection of Nephihah, or if the phrase simply means that Nephihah’s power was ultimately constrained by the “voice of the people” (cf. Mosiah 29:26). What is clear is that the subject of that clause is Alma2 — in other words “[Alma] gave [Nephihah] power according to the voice of the people.”

A careful study of the reign of the judges — which only lasts about 120 years out of the 1000-year history of the Nephites — shows that it bears little resemblance to any form of government that Joseph Smith could have been familiar with. And the undemocratic aspects are there pretty much right from the start, as opposed to being (within the context of the Book of Mormon) a later corruption. ..bruce..

Church Handbook of Instruction posted online

LDS Organization, Legal, Main, Technology

…but not legally. Wikileaks, a website devoted to publishing confidential materials, has posted the 1968 and 1999 versions of the LDS Church Handbook of Instructions. The Church has responded by sending Wikimedia a takedown notice for copyright infringement.

On the one hand, I’m not sure why the Church has felt it necessary to keep the CHI under such tight controls. I’ve served twice in bishoprics and multiple times in other callings that have given me access to some or all of the CHI, and there really isn’t anything there that (IMHO) is or needs to be confidential. Frankly, I think the Church should have a fully hyperlinked version of the CHI at the LDS.org website, but that’s their decision, not mine.

On the other hand, I fully understand the Church’s legal need to pursue the copyright infringement issue simply as a matter of guarding its copyright over the material — namely, because failure to do so may reduce the copyright protection of the original material.

Hat tip to Slashdot.  ..bruce..

Returning the favor

LDS Doctrine, Main, Personal History, Temples

For we without them cannot be made perfect; neither can they without us be made perfect.

— Doctrine & Covenants 128:18

Forty-one years ago — in the spring of 1967 — my friend Andrew Bos introduced me to the LDS Church by asking me to go to Mutual with him, then to Sunday School, and then to Sacrament meeting. After a few months of that, Andrew prodded me to ask my parents if I could have the missionary discussions. To my surprise, it was my father — a Navy man since age 17 who smoked Marlboros, drank martinis, inhaled coffee, and swore, well, like a sailor — who was enthusiastic about my doing so. He said that he could think of no other church that he’d rather have me join (we were all inactive Episcopalians) and that he thought the Mormon Church was “the one church that would save Christianity” (his exact words).

Having received a powerful testimony of the reality of the Restoration during the missionary discussions and my own study and prayer, I went back to my parents some weeks later to get permission to be baptized (I was only 14). Again, it was my father who signed the slip, saying that if he could ever give up his cigarettes, liquor and coffee, he’d join the LDS Church himself. He never won that battle, though — in fact, it was his earlier failed attempt in 1967 to give up smoking that led to my own decision never to start — and he died a little over 10 years ago. But through the years he and Mom were always supportive my Church involvement, including paying for my entire mission.

Yesterday, I was able to return the favor to my dad, doing his baptismal and initiatory work in the Denver Temple. In fact, my sweet wife Sandra and I together did that work for a total of 40 of my ancestors, the majority of them within four or five generations. That work included six relatives whom I knew personally — my dad, my uncle Jimmy, Grandma and Grandpa Webster, and Grandma and Grandpa Fickes (my mom’s adoptive parents) — as well as my mom’s birth father (Grandpa Wiren), most of my great-great-grandparents along all lines, and some even further back than that.

While the temple is a sacred place for me, I am not prone to having ‘thin veil’ experiences. That was different yesterday. At the start of my initiatory session, I organized the 22 male names I had by lineage going back. For example, the six Websters were done sequentially (uncle, father, grandfather, great-grandfather, great-great-grandfather, great-great-great-grandfather); I organized the other lines the same way, as far as possible. As I went through the round of initiatory work for each of these men, I felt a deep and increasing soberness at the literal nature of the authority being conferred and the blessings being unlocked; I also repeatedly felt love and gratitude from specific individuals as the work for them was done.

As importantly, I realized that by doing this work, I had opened the door for them to turn again and bring blessings into my life. Pres. Kimball famously said that when the Lord seeks to bless us or answer our prayers, He usually does so through other people. What struck me at the temple yesterday is that the “other people” aren’t limited to those of us on this side of the veil. By doing temple work, particularly for our close ancestors, we multiply those whom God can use to bless us.

There is another blessing, too. I was the only member of my family to join the LDS Church 41 years ago, and through that time I have remained the only member in my immediate family (meaning my own parents and siblings, as well as aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, and all my ancestors). Through all those decades, I have felt the responsibility of being the first in all my ancestral lines to be a member of the Church and to hold the Priesthood, of having to set an example while lacking one of my own to draw upon, and I’m well aware of how often I have fallen short.

Leaving the temple last night, however, I felt a weight had been lifted. I have company, now — others in my family and family lines who have embraced the Gospel and accepted its blessings. I no longer feel like such an odd duck — at least, not for that reason — and it’s nice to know I have patriarchs in my own line who now hold the Priesthood. I have a compelling reason to go to the temple frequently — we’ve got 38 names cleared for endowments (we did my Grandma & Grampa Webster in an endowment session last night), as well as lots of subsequent sealings. And I’ve got hundreds of more names to submit once we’ve gotten these done.

And that sounds just wonderful. ..bruce..

A eulogy

LDS Doctrine, Main, Personal, Personal History

[While digging through my family history files for something else, I found a copy of the eulogy I gave at the funeral of Avard “Andy” Anderson, my father-in-law, some sixteen years ago, in August 1992. Since I’ve already posted my own father’s eulogy on line, I wanted to post Andy’s eulogy as well.]

All too often, we measure status in the Church — and standing before the Lord — by positions held, particularly those held lately. We sometimes talk of Church careers and promotions, as if the Kingdom were a business. When we gather together, we find ways subtle and overt to let others know what callings we’ve had, feeling self-assured if we’ve held what are commonly called “high” positions, and feeling self-doubt if someone much younger has held higher positions.

By such standards, Avard Anderson — my father-in-law — was not a “success”. He spent over twenty-five years traveling through the US and Canada, building smokestacks. He never stayed in one place very long, living and working in over 100 different locations during that time. When he finally retired, he settled here in Orem and spent the rest of his life enjoying time with Nora, their children, and the ever-growing stream of grandkids. Throughout the nearly fifty years since Dad and Mom were married, he was never called as a bishop, never appointed to serve on a stake high council, never asked to be a member of a stake presidency.

And yet…and yet I think Dad has laid up for himself a reward in heaven which any of us would be thrilled to have. During all those years, he usually lived far from the population centers of the Church, at a time when total Church membership was barely a tenth of what it is today. He served in a succession of branches and small wards, providing leadership and support to the members there. He was always ready to show Christ-like service to all he’d come in contact with, and when he felt it was appropriate, he’d bear his humble, honest testimony — and more than a few people heard it, were touched, and were baptized. He, Mom and the kids faithfully attended their meetings wherever they lived, even though at times they lived 20 to 30 miles from the meetinghouse, and the meeting schedule back then was far less convenient: Priesthood and Sunday School in the morning, Sacrament in the evening, and Primary, Mutual, and Relief Society during the week. All this was done not to impress others, gain appreciation, or to somehow qualify for higher callings, but because it was the right thing to do — and Dad felt he owed it to the Lord to do the right thing.

I think of Dad as a Johnny Appleseed, planting seeds and nurturing branches, setting an example and quietly serving others, doing his part to help keep things growing until the Church membership grew large enough to sustain its own growth. Many of the branches he served in are now wards; many of the wards, stakes; and there are many, many people throughout the US and Canada, of all religious persuasions, who know, remember and love Avard Anderson. O, that we all could have such a legacy!

A lesser man might have felt pride and self-satisfaction; Dad, in his humility, was concerned about what he saw as his shortcomings and mistakes. He spent the last few months of his life expressing his love and appreciation for those around him and bearing his testimony to his many visitors. At night, lying in bed, he prayed blessings on those he loved and mentally reviewed all he had learned in the temple, wanting to be prepared for what awaited him in the next life.

I have few doubts about who was there to meet Dad when he crossed over: family and friends who have gone on before, descendants yet to come, and — as promised in two separate blessings he received during his last weeks — the Savior Himself. I’m also quite sure that Dad will again be doing there what he did so well here: quietly serving and bearing testimony. As his nephew Mike noted last night, Dad is following the pattern of his life: going ahead to set things up, then sending for Mom and, eventually, the kids. While such a promise as Dad’s — to be met by the Savior — would be tremendous comfort, I will be content if it is Dad who meets me when I pass through to the other side, because I am sure that where I find one, I will find the Other.

— Bruce F. Webster, August 12, 1992, Orem, Utah

A life that touched (and still touches) mine

Belief systems, Main, Personal

I never knew Thomas R. (“Tom”) McGetchin personally. Terminally ill with cancer at age 43, he had left his position as Director of the Lunar & Planetary Institute in July of 1979 — just seven months before I started work at LPI — and had died a few months later in October of 1979. But almost all the scientists and staff then at LPI knew him and had been very much affected by both his life and his rather premature death.

When Tom McGetchin left LPI, he and his wife Carle went to Hawaii to stay with their close friends, the McCords, for Tom’s final months of life. Tom kept a journal during this time, and while I was at LPI, I got from my office mate, Caroline, a xeroxed copy of one of his handwritten journal entries. It affected me very much, so much so that I quoted from it at the end of my father’s eulogy nearly 20 years later.

Here’s that journal entry:

[Sunday, July 22
Honolulu – McCords]

Geez Hawaii is a beautiful place and the McCord’s front porch is just one of the good places on this earth; good memories mixed with spectacular views and the kissing of a climate — whatever it’s doing whether sunny or raining — it’s just mellow.

Reading, sleeping, talking and thinking lots — about how short life is regardless of how you cut it, cancer aside. There are a few decades we have which just swim by in the blind procession of days. What matters? From where I sit, I see several really simple and important things.

  • shaping your stone well; that’s your part in civilization
  • loving — other humans matter most
  • taking the next step; it’s always hard

Shaping your stone means quietly doing your job, as well as you can. Your identity will soon be lost to history but your stone, if well shaped and polished will fit into the structure we call civilization and hold its weight, as time sweeps past us and others build upon us. History is full of greed, horror and the worst in mankind — but humaness is built of well shaped loving lives. What we do matters and if there is beauty in the world it is because many quiet souls have shaped their stones well and the cathedral of life is beautiful after all.

Loving matters most — friendships are what make living good and full or empty. Giving and being real, the good and bad, but sharing it all in loving acceptance and without judgment. We are so similar under the skin and we need each other.

Taking the next step, is about the hard part of life. It’s about courage and it does mean trying to do what’s next, even though it’s painful. It also means taking the next step, not the next 10 at once, but the important (essential) thing is to keep moving, even if however slowly it seems.

What death and life mean are beyond knowing for now. I don’t believe we blink out like a light but that could be egotism or false hope. It doesn’t matter for now; for now

there is my stone to chip and polish, souls to love and be truly myself with and always the next awkward step to take.

Tom’s words have stayed with me in the nearly 30 years since I first read them and continue to influence my outlook on life.

This all comes up now because I received an e-mail last night out of the blue from Tom’s sister, Bow. She had googled her brother’s name and ran across my eulogy for my father (posted on one of my other blogs). She wrote me to ask how I had known Tom, which gave me the privilege of explaining — thirty years later, to someone who knew and loved Tom very much — how his insights had affected my life, even though I never knew him personally.

That is a note of life’s grace that I think Tom would have appreciated. ..bruce..

Use of ‘supernal’

Main

Listening to the afternoon session of General Conference, I found myself wondering if anyone used the word “supernal” other than General Conference speakers.

Much to my surprise, yes. Though I notice that both General Conference and Feminist Mormon Housewives show up in the top 10 listings.  ..bruce..

General Conference BBQ update

LDS Society, Main

[UPDATED 04/05/08 – 1455 MDT] Ooooooookay,  it looks as though this approach to one of our BBQs isn’t quite a popular as our regular approach. 🙂 We had maybe 8 adults (including 3 missionaries) and 3 kids for the morning session. Several families showed up during the lunch break — we probably had 30 people here at the high point — and now we’re back down to 7 adults (plus me) and 3 or 4 kids for the afternoon session. Of course, this means I now have more food than I know what to do with, even though I only cooked up half of the hamburger and the hot dogs. Heck, I have three briskets that I haven’t even carved up yet (and most of the first two left as well). I definitely overshot. Sigh.

[UPDATED 04/05/08 – 0802 MDT] As my sweet wife Sandra is fond of telling me, the advantage of cleaning (and setting) up everything before you go to bed is that it’s all still cleaned (and set) up when you wake up in the morning. Woot! The coals in the smoker that I carefully banked last night were still hot, so it only took me a few minutes to get the firebox going. The three turkey breasts and the leg of lamb are all now being bathed in pecan smoke and actually cooking as well. The drinks (which I’ve divided into “Diet Soda/Water” and “The Good Stuff” in two different containers) are now all on ice, though they got pre-chilled last night with the overnight temperatures dropping into the 30s.

I have time to drive to the store for more ice before anyone shows up.

===== [Original post] =====

Well, all is readiness, I think. All five briskets (total pre-cooked weight: 35 lbs) have been smoked and are now in the oven for another 18 hours of cooking. I plan to get up at 6 am, rebuild the fire in the smoker, and smoke 3 bone-in turkey breasts and a leg of lamb (all of which have been marinading since yesterday). I called our next-door neighbors (Omar & Rose Rabat) and invited them to come over either Saturday or Sunday.

I have all the hamburger and hot dog buns purchased, though two of our MinPins — Wingnut (Winni) and Moonbat (Marti) — got hold of one pack of hot dog buns, ripped the package off, and dragged the buns into their ‘fort’ — the space under our bed — where they took quite a few bites out of the buns themselves. I discovered this when I called the dogs (we have four) to dinner, and Winnie and Marti just weren’t interested in their food. I also have all the ground beef, hot dogs, sausages, and portobello mushrooms purchased, as well as the chicken breasts (cut in half and marinating). Those will all get grilled between sessions tomorrow.

I got the satellite box and projector set up downstairs, then cannibalized one of my PCs to get a subwoofer and a pair of speakers for the audio; it works great. Moved furniture downstairs and set up folding chairs (we have about 20 folding chairs because Sandra is the ward music/choir director, and we hold choir practice at our house). Dragged chairs and counter stools around on the main floor as well.

Printed up 8″x5″ cards labeling bathrooms and nursing rooms and taped them to the appropriate doors. Typed up a half-sheet flyer for those attending (so I don’t have to keep explaining the same things over and over as people arrive) and put them — along with blank name tags — by the front door.

Moved all of the bottle water and diet soda out onto the deck, as well as half of the non-diet soda, so the night air can start the chilling process.

Cleaned the house so it’s spic and span.1

I guess that’s it. “To bed, to bed! Said Sleepyhead…” (one of our kids favorite bedtime rhymes). [Scroll back up and click on the “Night Theme” button at the top of the right sidebar to get the proper effect.] ..bruce..

=============

1 I added this in case my wife — who’s out of town — happens to get ‘net connection and read this post.

Open invitation to Colorado Bloggernacklites

LDS Society, Main

[Futher updates moved to the next post]

UPDATE (04/04/08; 1602 MDT): Three briskets down, two to go. I smoked the first three for about seven hours, wrapped them in foil, and put them in the oven; the other two just went into the smoker. The weather is gorgeous — sunny, mostly clear, and a bit cool. It’s supposed to be that way for the next few days, which will be just about perfect. I’m going to run out to buy some more soda — I’ve got a lot already, but then again, we’re going to have people here all day for two days.

UPDATE (04/04/08; 0910 MDT): The Conference cooking has commenced. I went out at about 7:30 am this morning, took the cover off of the smoker, dragged it into position on the deck, and started the coals a-burnin’. I’ve been marinating five (5) briskets — about 7 lbs each — since Wednesday, and I now have three of them in the smoker (all that I can fit). I will smoke them for several hours, then (as per this post) take them out, double-wrap them in heavy foil, and stick them in the oven at 180 deg F until tomorrow. In the meantime, I’ll stick the other two in the smoker and, once they’re smoked, I’ll do the same for them (but probably won’t serve them until Sunday).

I also have three bone-in turkey breasts marinating, as well as one leg of lamb. I’ll get up early tomorrow morning to start smoking them, with the goal of having them done around noon tomorrow. I’ve also got a number of boneless, skinless chicken breasts (cut in half lengthwise) marinating in Smoked Chipotle Tabasco Sauce; I’ll grill those tomorrow during lunch, along with hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken sausages, and portobello mushrooms.

Sure hope we have a large turnout, because we’ll have a ton of food. On the other hand, the last few times we’ve done this, we’ve had 70+ people show up. Should be fun. Now I’ve got to go hook up the video projector downstairs….

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Men like to barbecue. Men will cook if danger is involved.– Rita Rudner

I periodically do what my good friend Bruce Henderson refers to as VLSBs: Very Large Scale Barbecues. My wife and I started this tradition while living in Washington DC and have continued it here in Colorado. Here’s a photoblogging record of one from a few years ago. We typically get turnouts of 50-80 people at these events, and we eat food like this (note that these photos are from two years ago; see the link in the previous sentence):

Mmm...brisket...

Well, I’m doing one this weekend in connection with General Conference, and y’all are invited. I will probably smoke 30 lbs of beef brisket, as well as 2-3 turkey breasts, and at least one leg of lamb, as well as grilling several dozen hamburgers and hotdogs. And we’ll provide lots and lots of bottled soda:

Mmm...soda...

We run this as a pot-luck, so feel free to bring appetizers, side dishes, salads, or desserts.

We’ll have Conference on both in the living room (large screen TV) and down in the rec room (projector against one wall). Kids are welcome (Sandra has a permanent play area set up for our grandkids in one corner of the downstairs area). The schedule is pretty much GC schedule (9:30 am to 4:30 pm, both Saturday and Sunday); you can come for just one session, for all sessions, or even just for the break between sessions (12:00 noon to 2:00 pm each day).

Anyway, we’re at 9805 E Tom Tom Drive, Parker, Colorado — about 25 miles SSW of downtown Denver. Phone is 303.840.1511. Really ambitious (or crazy) Bloggernacklites from nearby states (Kansas, Wyoming, Utah, etc.) are also invited. ..bruce..