Tag Archives: MIA

Mormon history

Teaching Young Men about Their Military Obligation, 1967

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In 1967, the MIA program for young LDS men included a lesson that hasn’t been part of the program for many years, at least in the United States: On the third week of September that year, the young men were taught about their military service obligations and the possibility of coordinating that obligation with other personal goals, such as college and marriage, and religious goals, such as serving a mission.

Project Guide

The privilege of citizenship in this land is coupled, as all privilege, with equal responsibility. Under current federal law, this responsibility for the youth of this nation imposes a six-year military obligation. this discussion is designed to give a broad overview of the military programs as they exist at this time. For more detailed and timely information, the group leader may wish to call upon resource individuals, such as Selective Service board members, reserve officers, retired military personnel, or a high school vocational counselor.

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Mormon history

Individual Aaronic Priesthood Award, 1963

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A “beautifully engraved award” – I’m still looking for a picture – was long available to Aaronic Priesthood holders who were active in the program and met certain requirements during the calendar year. Here, guys, is what you would have had to do to earn the award if you had been a teacher in 1963:

1.*Attend priesthood meetings equaling 75% or more of the number of such weekly meetings held in his ward of membership during the calendar year.

2. *Attend sacrament meetings equaling 75% or more of the number of such weekly meetings held in his ward of membership during the calendar year.

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Mormon history

Envied by a King: Mormon Boys, 1916-17

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Kind friends, as here I stand to sing,
So very [strange] I feel,
That now I’ve made my bow, I fear
I don’t look quite genteel;
But, never mind, for I’m a boy
That’s always full of joy –
A rough and ready sort of chap –
An honest Mormon boy.

A Mormon boy, a Mormon boy,
I am a Mormon boy;
I might be envied by a king,
For I am a Mormon boy.

Scouts from Monroe, Utah, on the sumit of Mount Baldy, 1916

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Mormon history

(Beehive) Girls Just Wanna Have Fun – 1916

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In 1916, the Beehive Girls were Latter-day Saint young women ages 14 and 15 (the 12- and 13-year-olds were still in Primary). Older teens, and even the mothers of Beehive Girls, could learn the same skills and earn the same badges of honor, if they chose to.

In those days, the Beehive program mirrored many of the activities and trappings of the Boy Scouts: as the girls completed requirements for various skills, called “filling cells” (as if with honey) in their lingo, they won hexagonal-shaped badges to sew onto a sash. Those activities included spiritual goals, homemaking skills, camping, competency with tools, development of physical strength and health, animal care, etc. Their range of activities was easily equivalent to the Boy Scout program — with art needlework and childcare added, and with their hikes made in bloomers or skirts.

Beehive Girls from Thatcher, Arizona

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Mormon history

I Have a Question, 1897

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Here’s another sampling of the questions church members asked George Q. Cannon to answer through the pages of the Juvenile Instructor in 1897. Some of them are still relevant and I can imagine their being asked today … but my favorites are of course the ones steeped in the social conditions of the time they were asked:

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Mormon history

MIA Slogans and Themes

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Beginning with the 1914-15 school year (the MIA year started in September then, rather than in January), the Mutual Improvement Association for the Church’s teens and young adults adopted a yearly theme (called a “slogan” until 1936). The young people stood and recited the theme during routine MIA meetings, there were articles in the Improvement Era centering on the theme, and sometimes special programs were organized to advance the year’s theme. I remember that at least one of those used during my years in MIA was set to music, and I can hardly recite that verse today without falling into the rhythm of that music.

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Uncategorized

Things We Ought to Bring Back: Speech Training

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Steve’s recent Big List of things we used to do differently has had me thinking about why some of us are nostalgic for the way things used to be. Some of it is just because we’re old and doddering; some of it is simply because things worked better the way we used to do them. Hence the inauguration of an occasional series of posts about the way we used to do things – not from rosy memory, but from the actual handbooks and lesson manuals we used to use.

In those paradisiacal days – No, wait, that’s rosy memory. Let’s try again –

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The Pied Piper of Dudley Port

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Hettie Hilda Harper of Dudley Port, near Birmingham, England, was born to an LDS father and a non-member mother. Her mother must have been supportive of her father’s religion, though, because Hettie was baptized at age 8. Several of the family’s children died young, leaving a gap of about ten years between Hettie and her two younger sisters; Hettie herself was only 18 when their mother died in 1922.

In 1924, concerned about the training of her little sisters, and desiring “to bring my sisters up as my dear mother would have liked to bring them up, had she been permitted to live,” Hettie began to hold a sort of a “home Primary” in her family’s rustic kitchen for the two little girls and two of their friends. Continue reading The Pied Piper of Dudley Port →

Mormon history

The Second Annual Millard Stake MIA Track Meet

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Before the Olympics have run their course, we really ought to consider some of the ways sports have figured in LDS history, no?

One of the early aims of the Mutual Improvement Associations was to provide wholesome recreation for LDS young people – in a day when people made their own fun, the “fun” that young people too often made, if you can trust the newspapers, involved street corners and vandalism and late nights. A “library and gymnasium” movement begun in the early years of the 20th century encouraged the re-establishment of the ward libraries which MIAs of an earlier generation had collected, and fostered the development of sports programs, including girls’ fitness classes in the old Social Hall and the building of the first Deseret Gym in Salt Lake City. Continue reading The Second Annual Millard Stake MIA Track Meet →