Mormon History Association Conference, Part 2

Hello

The day was long – 6:30 am to 6:30 pm.  I was asleep two minutes after I walked in the door at night – I don’t know if it was the hard work of listening to the sessions, or the hard work of sitting for so long that wore me out.  The time I spent in a chair yesterday equals the amount of time it takes to fly to London and back.  Which reminds me of an interesting stat given at the conference by a political geographer.  He said that the average temperature for the year in Calgary is zero.  This was not a good way to get any of the conference attendees from the U.S. to want to live here but an interesting way to create a statistic.

My friend, Ruth Bailey, wrote the following about the conference:

 We ate lunch with Arta and Kelvin today.  Such fun. We love their interpretations of Canadianness in the presentations.  We didn't go to all the same sessions so we shared--Arta can always give the lowdown--and she remembers the jokes.  It was interesting to hear a Canadian history prof talk about Blackfoot polygamy unrelated to Mormon polygamy.  Richard Bushman always speaks well.  My favorite papers were by Richard Hughes, Lloyd Knowles, and Melissa Wei-Tsing Inouye--mostly about restorationism in the churches of Christ, Christian churches, and the true Jesus Church in Hong Kong. The true Jesus Church has spiritual gifts where the others don't.  

We did eat lunch with her, and she was right – the plenary talk was in code – Canadian code, and I could translate for her.  For example, all monies collected in Canada by the church are not sent to the mother church in the U.S., but stay in Canada, and Lynn talked a bit about how that happens.  He told of how monies collected by the church, given by the members on a one-day fast to raise money for Ethiopia, had to travel to the Red Cross first, and then out of Canada to Ethiopia. That was curious news to them. 

For now, I can only tell 1/100 part of what I heard.  More tomorrow.