Yesterday I had a splendid time at the annual writing symposium at USU hosted by the League of Utah Writers. I'll keep my remarks brief because I don't see why I should share everything I learned with people who didn't pay the $30 fee.

First I attended Shaun Anderson's presentation "The Dark Arts: Unforgettable Villains." I saw Shaun went I went to eat on campus a couple of days before the event. We were in a class together nine years ago, but I've only talked to him a couple of times. Knowing that he was a part of this symposium and that he's been in charge of Helicon West, I thought of him as a "real" writer and myself, who's only recently started getting involved in such things, as a poser, but he admired that I'd published a full book while he hasn't yet, so that was some kind of poignant lesson about how we're too hard on ourselves or something. (He has published non-fiction pieces, like an essay about being a gay Mormon missionary that made a big impression on me when I was Mormon.) In this presentation, he suggested several questions we could use to flesh out our villains. I was struck by a perspective he shared that I'd never considered: by making a character a villain, we're asserting that they're wrong in some way, and thus making a statement about our own morality. Mind blown.

Bryan Young, who writes for Star Wars and other less important IPs, gave a presentation on "Captivating Character Creation." My favorite takeaway: we learn more about characters when they're forced to choose between two terrible options. Mind blown.

Bestselling author John D. Brown told us about how to keep readers hooked by triggering anticipation, hopes and fears, and/or puzzlement or mystery, and then delaying the payoff. It sounds simple enough, but the way he said it was more entertaining. He showed us a bunch of his Amazon reviews that said they couldn't put his book down, so he knows what he's talking about.

*Break for pizza*

Jennifer Sinor presented on "Scene, Summary, and Musing: Controlling Pace and Developing Depth in Prose." She started it the way she starts every one of her classes: by making us do breathing exercises to center ourselves and return to our bodies. This time, however, Russ Beck was presenting next door with his exceptionally loud voice, which made it difficult. She walked around barefoot while she talked, so I'd like to have a word with the anonymous creeper on Twitter who said that I'm weird for "wandering around shoeless" outside. I love Jennifer. So carefree, so compassionate, so spiritual. I hated the class I had with her as an undergraduate, but that had nothing to do with her as a person. The class I had with her in graduate school went much better. The essay I wrote in two parts, "Things That Rhyme with 'Elise,'" left an impression on her that she said she would think about for a long time. Her response to the second part still cracks me up in a sick kind of way. SPOILER ALERT:

Yeah, that makes two of us.

Where was I? Oh yeah, so then I went to another presentation by Bryan Young on "Setups, Payoffs and Endings." He mostly used movie examples in his presentations because he assumes we've seen more of the same movies than read the same books. I suggested Raiders of the Lost Ark as an example of a good ending, and then later he had a picture of the warehouse scene as the backdrop for one of his slides, so I nailed it. Key takeaway: problems with the ending are often actually problems with the beginning and the middle. And I'd already done the technique of writing the ending and then revising everything that came before so it all looks carefully planned and perfect, so it was nice to be validated in that.

Finally, I attended "Seeing the Extraordinary in the Ordinary" by Shanan Ballam, which focused more on poetry but was still applicable to other things. ​Shanan had a stroke a couple of years ago and had to learn how to walk, talk, and write again. I'm inspired by her resilience and pleased that she continues to recover. I had two classes from her, Fiction Writing and Poetry Writing. One of them, probably Fiction, was the class I had with Shawn. As if the nostalgia factor wasn't high enough already, the notebook I used to take notes at this symposium was the one I had purchased for that class, used in that class, and then never written in again until yesterday. It still has the note in the front that she left after I wrote something that made her worry about me. I don't even remember what it was.

I had a note from my first class with Jennifer that I wish I could find because I think it was hilarious. It was something like, "Christopher - I'm not sure you understood the assignment - but you did it! 100"

There were also presentations entitled "Level Up Your Social Media," "Becoming Your Own Boss: Your Guide to Indie Publishing," and "Amazon Advertising Strategies" that I'm sure would have benefitted me because I suck at those things, but I was more interested in learning about the writing craft itself, because that's what I write for, so I'll just have to stay true to myself and face the consequences for sucking at the other bullcrap I have to do. The symposium was well worth the $30, and again, I regret that I'm just now getting involved in the local writing community and I'm going to move in a month.

I found out this week that the owners of my apartment complex, who have never talked to me, don't want the property management company to renew my lease. I wasn't told why, but I have a few guesses. It doesn't matter. Though this came as an unpleasant surprise, I was trained for it five years ago, when I had to move three times before ending up at this place. I accepted it right away. I happened to read the email in Garden City during a detour from a camping trip with friends, the only interval when I had access to my cellular network. By the way, that really needs to be fixed. I'm all for leaving technological distractions behind, but anyone who has a medical emergency in most parts of Logan Canyon or the surrounding areas is screwed. The point, though, is that I was in the middle of this camping trip with friends. Most of them had actually gone home by then because they had jobs or colonoscopies or whatever.

But I love these friends. The last time I was in the wilderness with them - I don't say camping because it was cold, and we all chickened out and went home - I stared up at the Milky Way and ached with the desire for our friendship to continue after our deaths. I wasn't confident at the time that it would. Now I am. It's been all but proven by science. We know for a fact that people have died and remained conscious, despite their brains being shut down, for a couple of hours before they come back. I want to shout this fact from the rooftops. Actually, I'm working on a children's book with the working title "Everyone Dies." I've had the idea for this book for a while, but I didn't know how to go about it because I didn't have any solid reassurance to give children about what happens after death, and I'm not willing to lie to them by implying that death is always peaceful or that it only happens to old people. Now at least the first problem is solved. I feel a strong desire to write this book, and I hope it will spread a message of hope far and wide. As random as it sounds, it feels like part of my calling in life now.

To reiterate: I love these friends. At this time in Garden City I remained with Steve and his wife. Not for the first or last time, here's the story of how I met Steve, which I never tire of. I used to sometimes visit this girl who lived next door to him. She texted me, I dropped everything, and we sat on her balcony and talked. Then Steve got home from work, and she said, "Steve, come join us!" I didn't like that very much, and consequently I didn't like him very much. At least once, we had three chairs on the balcony, and I put my feet on the extra chair and hoped he would take the hint, but he didn't. I feel so bad about that now. Steve is a really great guy. This whole friend group that I love so much has coalesced around him. In 2019, I jumped at the chance to become his neighbor.

I used to ask him for priesthood blessings all the time. Then I didn't because he moved away and I stopped believing in the Mormon priesthood. I still think, of course, that any God who may hypothetically exist can communicate through a Mormon priesthood blessing as well as any other method, but I don't know if that actually happens or how to tell. I've been told things in priesthood blessings that the speaker shouldn't have known, and I've also been told things in priesthood blessings that were simply wrong, and I'm not interested in making excuses like "Maybe it was talking about the next life" or "Maybe it meant something else because God likes to intentionally mislead people." Anyway, since I was there with Steve I asked for a blessing to help me not spiral into depression over this email. And he mentioned something that he shouldn't have known, and something else that I may have discussed with him some time ago, but I don't remember. So that was interesting.

The point I'm getting at in such a roundabout way is that because I fortuitiously happened to be with these friends at this time, it took me less than two hours to decide that I would move to the Salt Lake City area to be closer to them. Most of them live there or will be moving there soon. If I move somewhere else in Logan, I'll continue to live with twenty-year-old college students, and that gets weirder with every passing year. Logan is a college town. I love it dearly, but I came to realize that it has little to offer me anymore because I'm not in college or married. Salt Lake will be an exciting new chapter in my life. I'll spend more time with these stable adult friends, I'll be more involved in my adorable little nieces' lives, and since I'm there anyway, maybe I'll start a PhD in Creative Writing at the University of Utah next year. USU doesn't have that program. I am, of course, heartbroken to leave behind the town that's been my home for nearly thirteen years, but life is change, and change more often than not entails some loss. Don't fight it. Don't resent it. As Matthew Stover poignantly wrote in the novelization for Revenge of the Sith, even stars die. 

I felt that in 2019, a higher power had orchestrated my life to lead me to where I live now. And here I met someone whom I thought was the reason. Maybe she was a reason. As much as I could do without the trauma she brought into my life, I owe her much gratitude for getting me out of the LDS Church and sending me into an existential crisis that brought me spiritual growth that I wouldn't trade for anything. But it seems weird that God would guide me to someone to turn me into an agnostic. Another reason, I see now, was getting closer to Steve and these other friends. He moved soon after I arrived, but if I hadn't lived here, they all might have faded from my life like almost everyone else I've met in this college town. He was there for me when the other person hurt me, multiple times, and he was there for me when we were stuck at home during the early days of the pandemic. I look back on those days with a strange mixture of trauma and nostalgia.

After the disaster of early 2020, and I'm not talking about the pandemic, I've felt confused and abandoned and aimless as far as God's supposed guidance is concerned. This upcoming move is the first time since then that I feel once more like my life is being orchestrated by a higher power. I'm agnostic, of course, over whether it actually is. Things happen. Coincidences happen. Human brains are wired by evolution to see patterns and agency where none exist. But I feel good about it, and that's good enough. Not because my good feeling is a guide to any kind of truth, but because it means I'm excited about a new chapter. And also sad. It's complicated.

I have some fruits to show from the labors of Jake Bode Fleming, the artist designing the cover for my novel that I hope to self-publish next month. After the first five artists I had in mind couldn't do it or wouldn't talk to me, a friend recommended him because he's done work for her Star Wars podcast, and he gave me a discount for being friends with her, so that was great. I've had this cover in my head for a very long time and I can't believe it's becoming real. The story revolved around a magic crystal, so the cover is going to depict the crystal with the major players' faces reflected in it. Jake started off with these very rough sketches and asked me to choose which I prefer and give any additional feedback to refine the design.

Admittedly, I felt a touch of disappointment because none of these were quite what I had in mind, but I've never worked with an artist before and I told myself that I can't expect one to be psychic and get it exactly how I want, so I'd just have to settle a little. One of these designs reminds me of the Salt Lake LDS temple, which actually features in the book, so I thought maybe I could do something with that, but no, I don't want to make the temple that significant. Since his phrasing was ambiguous as to how many preferences I should pick, I picked four, gave some additional detail about the placement of the characters, and asked if he could make it asymmetrical. And then, blammo:

I don't know how, but he incorporated my feedback and made these sketches that gave me a lot more enthusiasm. I love the first two so much that it was hard to pick a preference. I'm in awe of anyone who can do something that looks to me like inscrutable magic, whether it be art, music, computer programming, or romance. I just work with words. There are only so many words that exist, and for the most part I just choose which ones to use and which order to put them in. So then today he gave me this rough layout with color, and I'm still thinking about what adjustments to make, but I'm super stoked.

In other exciting news, my friend Steve got married yesterday. He's a really great guy and an absolute blessing to have in my life, and he deserves all the happiness his heart can carry. We met in the summer of 2016. At that time there was this girl that I used to write about on my blog under the pseudonym "Debbie" because I cared a lot more about people's privacy back then. Some evenings, Debbie would text me an invitation to come over and talk, and I'd drop everything and get over there. She lived on the second floor of a small building with only four apartments, and we'd sit out on her balcony/porch thing. But often while we were talking, her next-door neighbor Steve would come home from work, and she'd be like "Steve, come join us!" I didn't like that very much. One time in particular I remember that we had three chairs, and I propped my feet up on the extra chair and hoped he would take the hint, but he just stood and leaned against the railing. I feel bad about that now. Anyway, he's remained in my life for much longer than she has, and years later I found out that he was jealous of me at the same time as I was jealous of him. In 2019, when I had to move and heard about an opening in his building, I jumped at the chance to be his neighbor. Pity he only stayed there for another year.

Steve has been a better friend than I deserve, and until recently when I let him read my novel, I don't know what he's gotten out of our friendship. I'm not that interesting or even that nice. We both love Star Wars and we split the cost of a Disney+ subscription. I guess that's something. But Disney is about to crack down on it. A couple of years ago, when the woman I loved with every fiber of my being broke my spirit for the second time, he drove up from Salt Lake and stayed the night. The next morning, we were watching The Simpsons together when another friend called him, and he talked to her for half an hour or so. I didn't say anything, but I was a little annoyed at that. Then he had to drive home to go to work, and I got on Facebook and saw that it was his birthday. Just wow. Incidentally, that same friend who called him spoke at his reception last night and described him as one of the most Christlike people she's ever met, and I had to agree. I want to be better because of him.

Of course at the reception I saw several of his old roommates and other mutual friends, and I got the same feeling I got when I hung out with some of them in Green Canyon this summer. It was the feeling that I love these people and I desperately hope my friendships with them will last after we're all dead. Of course the romance between Steve and his new wife was beautiful and made me think that maybe it would be nice to be married, even though I was just thinking earlier that day that if I spent as much time writing and reading as I really should for my career aspirations I wouldn't have time for a wife, but far beyond that, I felt overwhelmed by gratitude for my place in this extended posse that's conglomerated around him, and I need it to continue forever. I felt a mixture of nostalgia and trauma as many of the people there reminded me of yesterday when I moved into the Logan YSA 46th Ward in 2019. I was reminded that my life is slipping away insanely fast, and it will be over before I know it, and then if I forever lose the connections to my chosen family, it was all for nothing. I used to be so confident in my beliefs. Now the only thing I know is that I don't know anything. I saw last night how happy some of the reception attendees were about the beliefs that used to make me happy. Good for them. I got off on a tangent here, so let me just end by reiterating that Steve is great.

Due to being tired and stuff I've put off writing about this for a couple weeks, and now it's rather old news and the LDS Church has already moved on to its next controversy, this time pissing off its right-wing members by distancing itself from Operation Underground Railroad founder Tim Ballard over alleged predatory sexual misconduct that's no worse than Joseph Smith's. But this news blew up in my circles a couple weeks ago, and I thought I should do my part within my maddeningly limited capacity to spread it further. As I said recently after watching The Last Voyage of the Demeter, how can I possibly be scared of this

when real monsters look like this?

These women were both arrested and charged with six counts of felony child abuse after an emaciated child with ropes on his wrists and ankles escaped from their secluded house and asked a neighbor for food and water. On the right is Ruby Franke, a Mormon mother of six who ran the YouTube channel 8 Passengers, which I had never heard of until this news came out, but which was apparently very popular among people who have nothing better to do than watch other people's families do normal family things. Granted, they weren't all normal. Ruby has some twisted ideas about discipline. Like a true Republican, she believes that things like food and beds are privileges, and appeared to take a sadistic level of pleasure in withholding them from her children to teach them lessons. She let her six-year-old daughter go hungry at school and took away her teenage son's bed for months. People raised concerns about her over the years and called Child Protective Services multiple times, but nothing happened to her and her channel's popularity continued. 

So of course many are wondering, is she a terrible person because she's a Mormon, or is she a terrible person who just happens to be a Mormon? The LDS Church covers up child abuse, silences the victims, and protects the abusers, but it doesn't condone child abuse as such. No normal member would think that what she did is okay. Yet the church does condition people to believe that their irrational or delusional thoughts come from the Holy Ghost, so that may have been a significant factor in her justifying her unorthodox methods. And frankly, it often frames trials and deprivations as God intentionally giving us "learning experiences." Heavenly Father, the perfect all-loving parent, allows billions of his children's basic human needs to go unmet every day so they can grow and become more like him. Why is it divine wisdom when he does it but child abuse when Ruby Franke does it?

The one on the left, Jodi Hildebrandt, is much worse. If Ruby Franke is Iran, Jodi Hildebrandt is Afghanistan. They entered into a close relationship after Ruby gave up her YouTube channel to join Jodi for a weird pseudo-therapy program called Connexions. A very close connection. There's been a lot of speculation that they're more than business partners and more than friends, and while it is homophobic to assume that raging homophobes like Jodi are closeted, it's hard to avoid that kind of speculation when she sits so close to Ruby and strokes her leg. Anyway, Jodi is a straight-up sociopath, pathological liar, and gaslighter who used her therapy practice to destroy marriages and families. She reminds me of a neighbor I used to have who claimed she could read people's auras and see the future, then drove people apart with lies and manipulation. In this case, her influence undoubtedly made Ruby worse. My understanding is that she was the one who actually carried out the physical abuse of Ruby's children that got her arrested, while Ruby was arrested for living in the same house and knowing about it and not doing anything.

Jodi is also Mormon, and in her case, the church has a lot more direct and obvious culpability. She isn't entirely in sync with it either - it's run almost exclusively by men, while she holds all men in contempt - but she worked with apostles such as Richard G. Scott to design its addiction recovery program, she was on its list of approved therapists, and she was recommended by countless bishops to help with so-called pornography addiction. The way she pathologized masturbation and portrayed anyone who did it once a month as an addict in Satan's grip was at odds with legitimate science and therapeutic practices, but very much at home with Mormon teachings. People assert, and I have no reason to doubt, that Mormon therapists throughout Utah, Idaho, and Arizona are still doing the same thing, though they aren't on the same level of pure intentional evil as Jodi Hildebrandt. I don't know who needs to hear this, but masturbation is a normal, healthy, and almost universal activity that evolved in our primate ancestors as much as forty million years ago. I think, too, that Mormon clients were more susceptible to Jodi's psuedoscience because they're taught to base their worldview on feelings.

After the arrests, Jodi's niece Jesse (they/them) came forward to share how she physically and emotionally abused them while their family was making them live with her for an extended time. Jesse's family didn't know the extent of what was going on and didn't want to. Jesse's family got upset with them for creating controversy by publicly criticizing Jodi over a decade ago. The LDS Church is not blameless for that. It teaches Mormons that "contention is of the devil" and that negative emotions come from Satan, so many of them are very immature about conflict and treat calling out unacceptable behavior as a bigger sin than the unacceptable behavior. I hope Jesse's parents and siblings have all seen this interview and done some soul-searching.

Then a formerly anonymous client, Adam Paul Steed, shared his story in greater detail than before. Jodi got her license suspended for a while in 2012 after she told the BYU Honor Code office things about him that, even if she hadn't made them up, would have been confidential. (Of course, the BYU Honor Code office has its own long history of crossing legal and ethical boundaries to persecute students, which a few years ago resulted in BYU's police department becoming the only one in Utah history to be threatened with decertification.) Jodi destroyed Adam's marriage by convincing his wife that he was a sexual predator and a threat to their children. The best part? She apparently did it on behalf of the late Elder Harold G. Hillam, a high-ranking Mormon and Boy Scout leader who held a grudge against Adam after his role in getting the statute of limitations for child abuse victims in Idaho extended and getting Boy Scout leaders who abused children removed. 

With the exception of Elder Harold G. Hillam, I wouldn't say that LDS leaders are personally to blame for this abuse. I would say that they actively fostered an environment where it could happen, and they proved themselves yet again to be horrible judges of character and no more "inspired" than anyone else. The LDS Church deserves the negative publicity this story has brought it and will bring it for years to come.

Extricating myself from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been a rather gradual process, as I've held onto as many bits and pieces as I could in an attempt to minimize the existential crisis and convince myself that my twenty-one years of membership weren't a waste. So, for example, I stayed subscribed to the r/latterdaysaints subreddit until I got banned for encouraging nuanced thinking and intellectual honesty. The other day I took another step forward by getting rid of several LDS books that I'm never going to read again and in a majority of cases never read the first time. I'd already tossed my old "For the Strength of Youth" pamphlet and my old "To Young Men Only" pamphlet (based on Boyd K. Packer's anti-masturbation General Conference talk that was quietly removed from the church's website a few years ago) in the recycle bin weeks earlier, but destroying actual books rubs me the wrong way unless the books themselves rub me the wrong way. I think the only books I've ever intentionally destroyed was Wizard's First Rule, that I burned after the delusional neighbor who loaned it to me stabbed me in the back and set in motion the worst day of my life, and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam, which I encountered at my old book warehouse job and surreptitiously tore the cover off of because I didn't want to sell it for reasons that should be obvious to decent human beings.

But just because these books no longer mean much to me doesn't mean someone else shouldn't benefit from them, so I chose to gave them away. Most of them, anyway. A few were gifts from family members or belonged to now-deceased family members so I'll keep them around for that fact at least. But the majority I took to the local YSA ward yesterday a couple hours before stake conference started. I set them up on a table outside the north chapel because it was empty and I've paid enough tithing to entitle myself to use it. The table outside the south chapel was covered with little papers and things, including a stack of little orange advertisements for stake conference that had obviously missed its chance to be of any use to anyone. At least I was able to give one of them a second chance.

Here, then, are brief descriptions of these books because I lack the motivation to find anything better to write about today. I'm sorry.

They Lie in Wait to Deceive Volume 1 - I picked this up a few years ago at the Logan Institute even though I had already read all four volumes in this series online. In this volume, Robert and Rosemary Brown strike back at professional critics Jerald and Sanda Tanner and some guy named Dee Jay Nelson who, in the seventies and early eighties, pretended to be a leading Egyptologist and went around giving lectures against the authenticity of the Book of Abraham. The Browns painstakingly documented all his lies about his credentials and experience, and were so successful that his career ended and today he doesn't even have a Wikipedia page. I consider that a worthwhile effort even though real Egyptologists have also said plenty against the authenticity of the Book of Abraham.

The TRUTH About "The God Makers" - As I write this I've just remembered that I got this book from my now-deceased grandmother, but it wasn't a gift per se, she just had it laying around and didn't need it anymore, so I guess that's all right. This one is also available online. "The God Makers" is the title of a book and movie by evangelical countercultist Ed Decker, and both are regarded as laughable sensationalist garbage even by most other critics of the LDS Church. Their most lasting legacy is an excerpt posted on YouTube under the inaccurate title "Banned Mormon Cartoon." (Years ago I asked "Banned by whom, exactly?" I'm still waiting on a response.)

The Church of the Old Testament - I think I got this from the book warehouse on one of the days when they let us take free books home. I never read it. Presumably it attempts to root modern LDS practices in the very different practices of the Old Testament. Latter-day Saints and Christians in general read a lot of things between the lines of the Old Testament that Jews don't, and I suppose until we can ask the authors about it in person we won't know who's right. I'm more skeptical nowadays, but the author did have a BA in anthropology, a graduate certificate in Middle East Studies, an MA in linguistics, and an MA in Middle East studies (Hebrew) with minor in anthropology and archaeology, so he wasn't just some hack writing faith-promoting drivel for Deseret Book.

Mark E. Petersen - Virtually the only thing anyone remembers apostle Petersen (not Peterson) for is his insanely racist pro-segregation speech to BYU faculty in 1954. I picked up this biography by his daughter from the book warehouse in hopes of discovering that he had some redeeming qualities. I never got around to reading it, and since I'm no longer required to convince myself that he was a representative of Jesus Christ, I see no reason to do so in the future. I did, however, read Church Historian Leonard Arrington's diary a couple years ago, and I learned that Petersen was one of the leaders who fought Arrington at every turn when he tried to publish balanced and transparent history. So now I remember him for two things. That's an improvement. (Incidentally, after his death in 1984, Arrington remarked that his BYU speech "was one of the most bigoted and narrow-minded talks ever given by a 'disciple of Christ.')

On Becoming A Disciple-Scholar - I wanted to be a disciple-scholar. I wanted to be a paragon of faith and intellect working in harmony. Strange, then, that I never made the time to read this relatively short book. I must have been too busy arguing with strangers on the internet.

Law of the Harvest: Practical Principles of Effective Missionary Work - I bought this my freshman year of college at the peak of my enthusiasm to convert the world, even though it's available online. David Stewart was and is a believing member, yet the issues he raised in this book and elsewhere threatened my testimony quite a bit. As I grew up, claims about the church's spectacular growth were ubiquitously touted as proof that it was true. He pointed out with solid data that its growth rate had steadily fallen since the late 1980s and that a solid majority of members on the rolls no longer associated with the church in any capacity. (This has now become so obvious that it's common knowledge among people who aren't completely out of touch with reality.) What's worse, he pointed out how Jehovah's Witness, Seventh Day Adventist, and evangelical missionary and/or church planting programs (aka the ones that don't claim to be led by living prophets) have consistently and dramatically outperformed the LDS missionary program (aka the one that does claim to be led by living prophets) in terms of numerical growth and retention. Now look, I don't expect an "inspired" missionary program to have no room for improvement or nothing it can learn from other groups, but I do expect it to not necessitate some random guy outside the church leadership structure writing a book about why it sucks. So that was a faith crisis shelf item for a long time.

Saint Behind Enemy Lines - This is the story of Olga Kovářová Campora, a convert to the church from communist Czechoslovakia. I was going to read it earlier this year and then I didn't. I'm sure it's very inspiring and I don't begrudge her finding peace and/or joy wherever, but even as a believer I couldn't help thinking about how atypical her experience is for Eastern Europe. Today, thirty years after the fall of the Iron Curtain, the church has fewer than 3,000 members in the Czech Republic and Slovakia combined. A few years ago it had more Slovak members in Sheffield, England than in Slovakia. Maybe it still does, but the Slovak branch in that city was closed after not very long (with none of the fanfare that accompanied its opening, of course), so I don't know.

Sunshine for the Courageous Latter-day Saint Soul - Stories to make one feel warm and fuzzy, I'm sure. I suspect that many of them are drivel, but only having read one and found it tolerable, I shouldn't assume.

Brother to Brother - I stole this one from the book warehouse. It had been rejected, so we couldn't sell it and I was supposed to toss it in the recycle bin, but as one who had been obsessed for years with everything I could get my hands on about the church's (usually but not always abysmal) history with Black people, I had to read it. I snuck it home with me and read it. Co-author Rendell Mabey was one half of one half of the two senior missionary couples sent to Ghana and Nigeria in late 1978 following the revelation that made Black people eligible for priesthood ordination and temple ordinances. This is his story, and it's a faith-promoting story that has the benefit of being true. Between 1946 and 1978, tens of thousands of West Africans had obtained literature from the church and desired to be baptized. They knew about the priesthood and temple ban, of course (though additional stuff like Mark E. Petersen's BYU speech are another story), but tended (and still tend) not to care the way African-Americans tended (and still tend) to care. Many of them were still waiting when the missionaries finally arrived and baptized them.

Counseling With Our Councils - I got this from the institute when I was part of the Leadership Committee of the Latter-day Saint Student Association. I "won" it somehow, out of all the people there, but I don't remember how or why. With that being the case I feel kind of bad that I never read it because it looks really boring, but now it can be put to some use.

Then there's the little stack that I would have just recycled if they'd been all I had, because they're not real books, just manuals - three copies of Gospel Principles (I think the small one is an older edition, but I didn't care enough to look) and two volumes from Teachings of Presidents of the Church (Gordon B. Hinckley and Joseph Fielding Smith, the latter carefully curated to omit any of his teachings on race or science). I really ought to get rid of more books since I'm most likely going to move to another state next year, but I'm not sure I can bear to do that unless I apostatize from science fiction.