Russell M. Nelson's Recollection of Spencer W. Kimball and His Wife During the February-March 1996 South Pacific Area Conference

While recollecting events during the South Pacific Area Conference, February-March 1976, Russell M. Nelson recalled the following about President Kimball and his wife which sheds light onto their characters:

 

From New Zealand we went to Fiji, for the area conference in Suva. The auditorium was so hot! I’m sure it was over 100 degrees. Sister Kimball was really very ill, and yet she sat on the front row like a soldier in spite of her fever and misery. She was anxious to give visible, tangible evidence of support for her husband and for the cause. More than a thousand people were present, many of whom had come from the remote islands of the Fijian group and from island chains even beyond, such as the Gilbert Island.

 

After the meeting was over, Brother Haycock and I approached President Kimball with the intention of ushering him immediately to the car that was waiting outside to transport him and Sister Kimball to the hotel as expeditiously as possible. But with the power of Samsom, President Kimball pushed Brother Haycock and me aside and broke into the crowd of a thousand people who were there, and he proceeded to shake hands with every one of them. He seemed to sense my concern for his physical well-being, but he replied later that those people had come by boat and canoe to be in that meeting and see the prophet, and he wasn’t going to let a single one of them leave without shaking hands with him if it was their desire to do so. This is just one more example of President Kimball’s habit of placing his thoughtful concern for the Saints above any personal considerations. (Russell M. Nelson, From Heart to Heart: An Autobiography [Salt Lake City: Quality Press, Inc., 1979], 181)

 

Instances of Russell M. Nelson Accepting the use of, or Himself Using Positively, the term "Mormon" in his 1979 Autobiography

  

August 23, 1965:

 

The key interview was held with respect to the consideration of my candidacy for the position as professor and head of the Department of Surgery at the university of Utah College of Medicine. Earlier in the year, Dr. Walter J. Burdette had been released. He was the one who redirected the Markle Scholarship funds given for my use. Although I had had many interviews with many of the faculty, it was on this day that I was interviewed by the key member of the faculty, Dr. W. He leveled with me right away, telling me frankly that he was standing in the way of my appointment there simply because I was a “labeled Mormon.” He said that if I would resign as stake president he would support my candidacy; otherwise, he could not because some of the key financial supporters of the university would be offended by a high-ranking official in the Mormon Church having an appointment as head of a major department. I could scarcely believe his forthrightness, but I knew that what I was hearing was true. Of course I told him that I would not design as stake president. I had been called by the Lord’s anointed apostles to serve in that position, and nothing in my career could equal that in importance. (Russell M. Nelson, From Heart to Heart: An Autobiography [Salt Lake City: Quality Press, Inc., 1979], 327)

 

October 5, 1965:

 

Dean Castleton told me I would not become chairman of the Department of Surgery. So that was over with. I did not seek the position, but would have served if they had wanted me. In fact, as the idea became more prevalent in the minds of many, I began to pray that the opposition to me as a Mormon might be softened and that I might be allowed to serve in that position. My prayers were answered negatively. In retrospect, the fact that my prayers were answered negatively seems to have been one of the greatest favors the Lord could have done for me. I think it would have been impossible for me to have been considered or to be able to serve as general president of the Sunday School if I had been a salaried employee of the state government at its University of Utah. (Ibid., 327-28)

 

December 28, 1975:

 

Mingling with the Saints in Czechoslovakia was a choice experience. We were met by the branch president and his wife in Prague under the cover of night. (their names are engraven in our hearts, but won’t be mentioned here, for reasons of security.) We went to a darkened apartment building and climbed dimly lit stairs to an upper-story flat. There, a secret knock on the door admitted us to the presence of thirteen wonderful Latter-day Saints, one of whom was a fifteen-year old girl whose father told us that this was the first meeting of the Saints she had been permitted to attend. He said, “We have to be careful not to let our children know we’re Mormons, or that we attend church. We are only permitted by law to meet in the homes of friends and associates; we cannot have church meetings as such. But tonight we wanted her to have the privilege of meeting the general president of the Sunday School of the Church.” (Ibid., 371)

 

Susan Easton Black, Father Lehi: A Visionary Man

 

Susan Easton Black, Father Lehi: A Visionary Man

The Punishment of Captives in Alma 14 and Mesoamerica

  

Now it came to pass that when the bodies of those who had been cast into the fire were consumed, and also the records which were cast in with them, the chief judge of the land came and stood before Alma and Amulek, as they were bound; and he smote them with his hand upon their cheeks, and said unto them: After what ye have seen, will ye preach again unto this people, that they shall be cast into a lake of fire and brimstone? Behold, ye see that ye had not power to save those who had been cast into the fire; neither has God saved them because they were of thy faith. And the judge smote them again upon their cheeks, and asked: What say ye for yourselves? . . . And it came to pass that they departed and went their ways, but came again on the morrow; and the judge also smote them again on their cheeks. And many came forth also, and smote them, saying: Will ye stand again and judge this people, and condemn our law? If ye have such great power why do ye not deliver yourselves? And many such things did they say unto them, gnashing their teeth upon them, and spitting upon them, and saying: how shall we look when we are damned? And many such things, yea, all manner of such things did they say unto them; and thus they did mock them for many days. And they did withholding food from them that they might hunger, and water that they might thirst; and they also did take from them their clothes that they were naked; and thus they were bound with strong cords, and confined in prison. (Alma 14:14-15, 20-22)

 

A polychrome Maya vase from Alter de Sacrificios (Early Classic period, A.D. 250-600) depicts a captive dancing whose face is swollen, apparently as a result of torture. The following image comes from David Freidel, Linda Schele, and Joy Parker, Maya Cosmos: Three Thousand Years on the Shama’s Path (New York: William Morrow and Company, 1993), 266:

 

One should also compare this with the Jaina captive figurine from the Late Classic (A.D. 700-900). The following comes from Linda Schele and Mary Ellen Miller, The Blood of Kings Dynasty and Ritual Art in Maya Art (New York: George Braziller, 1986), 240:

 

 

Schele and Miller offer the following commentary on this figurine:

 

Proud and noble, this Maya captive stands with his hands bound behind his back. Perishable hair was probably attached to his skull, knotted around the indentations that now remain. Bloodied and bruised and with swollen nose, the face nevertheless conveys the quality of a portrait. The slight paunch of the belly also suggests that this figurine represents a specific person, one who was made a captive.  (Ibid., 228)

Commenting on the treatment of captives among the Maya, Schele and Freidel noted that: 

 

Prestigious captives taken in battle were often kept alive for years on end. They were displayed in public rituals and often participated in these rituals in gruesome, humiliating, and painful ways. Smoking-Squirrell and Wac-Chanil-Ahau were enthusiastic practitioners of this sacred tradition. Kinichil-Cab of Ucanal survived his capture to reappear four years later, on May 23, 698, in an event that was in all probability a sacrificial ritual of some sort. Later in the same year, on September 23, Shield-jaguar suffered through the same rite in “the land of Smoking-Squirrell of Naranjo.” A year later, on April 19, 699, it was lady Wac-Chanil’s turn. The hapless Hinichil-Cab appeared again in a public ritual she conducted. On Naranjo Stela 24 we see her standing on the bound, nearly naked body of the unfortunate warrior. Finally, on 9.13.10.0.0 (January 26, 702), the day Smoking-Squirrel dedicated both Stela 22 and Stela 24, the young king displayed his famous captive, Shield-Jaguar of Ucanal, in a public blood-letting ritual. As depicted, the ill-fated captive is nearly naked, stripped of all his marks of rank and prestige, holding his bound wrists up toward the magnificently dressed fourteen-year-old king who sits high above him on a jaguar-pillow. (Linda Schele and David Freidel, A Forest of Kings: The Untold Story of the Ancient Maya [New York: Quill, 1990], 189-91)

 

Commenting on the significance of this for the Book of Mormon, particularly the above-quoted verses from Alma 14, Brant Gardner wrote that:

 

Although these events are separated from Ammonihah by more than seven hundred years, and even though Joseph Smith would have understood the generalities but not the cultural specifics as he translated, there still remain a remarkable number of parallels, especially the stripping, binding, and blows to the face. (Brant A. Gardner, Second Witness: Analytical and Contextual Commentary on the Book of Mormon, 6 vols. [Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2007], 4:240)

 

Thomas Hewitt on Hebrews 6:4

While a proponent of the perseverance of the saints/eternal security, Thomas Hewitt, when commenting on Heb 6:4, noted that John Calvin and John Owen were wrong in their understanding of “tasted of the heavenly gift”:

 

Both Calvin and Owen reject the idea that tasted of the heavenly gift means ‘experienced’ but in the light of ii. 9 and taking into account Psalm xxxiv. 8-10 (‘O taste and see that the Lord is good’), which was most probably in the mind of the writer, it seems that the persons so described had an actual experience of the heavenly gift. This gift has been variously taken to mean the Holy Spirit, the forgiveness of sins, the gift of redemption, and the gift of grace. Support for all these can be found from other parts of Scripture, but it seems better to refer it to Jesus Christ who more than once claimed to have come down from heaven (cf. Jn. Iii.13, 31, 32, vi. 32, 35). Tasted of the heavenly gift could then refer to those who, through repentance and faith, have had a definite spiritual experience of Jesus Christ. (Thomas Hewitt, The Epistle to the Hebrews [Tyndale New Testament Commentaries; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1960], 106-7)

 

William M. Wright IV and Francis Martin on the word play in Jeremiah 1:11-12

  

. . . the call narrative also hints that although Jeremiah was summoned to be a prophet while “only a boy” (1:7), he did not undertake his active ministry until he was a bit older. When the Lord asks Jeremiah about what his eyes are beholding at his call, the prophet reports seeing all almond tree (v. 11). The Lord replies, “You have seen well, for I am watching over my word to perform it” (v. 12). This seemingly odd exchange involves a play on words in Hebrew that does not come across in translation. The Hebrew verb for God’s “watching” in verse 12 (šōqēd) picks up the Hebrew noun for “almond tree” in verse 11 (šāqēd). God will preserve the Word that he has given to Jeremiah so that God may later bring about that which his Word, spoken by Jeremiah, will articulate. (William M. Wright IV and Francis Martin, Encountering the Living God in Scripture: Theological and Philosophical Principles for Interpretation [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2019], 47)

 

Table Showing Nephite Weights and Measures from Alma 11

  

Measures	Ratio	Barley/Grain	Silver	Gold
42		84 shiblon	6 onti (bribe)	6 limnah
7	1:56	14 shiblon	onti	limnah
4	1:32	8 shiblon	ezrom	Shum (Alma 11:9) / shun (Alma 11:5)
2	1:16	4 shiblon	amnor	seon
1 ½	1:12	3 shiblon	3 shiblon	antion
1	1:8	2 shiblon (measure)	senum	senine
½	1:4	shiblon (= ½ measure)	shiblon
¼	1:2	shiblum	shiblum
¼	1:1	leah	leah

 

Table taken from:

 

The Book of Mormon Study Guide: Start to Finish, ed. Thomas R. Valletta (rev ed.; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2019), 487