BYU Studies

Volume 58:3 (2019) - Although it is little known today, the Nauvoo Music and Concert Hall was an important part of Nauvoo’s cultural history. Joseph Smith designated a spot for it near the temple, the spiritual landmark of the city. The Saints completed the building after Joseph Smith’s death, with funds raised by the Nauvoo Music Association. Many musical concerts were given to packed crowds, and the building was used for meetings of the Apostles, the Seventies, and women’s groups. That the Saints living on the American frontier would care to build a large hall that was acoustically designed for music performance is evidence of the value they placed in cultural refinement. The Saints had to abandon Nauvoo, but the events in that hall affirmed the Saints’ love of music that continues today.

Volume 58:3 (2019) - Darren Parry is the chairman of the Northwest Band Tribal Council of the Shoshone Nation. On January 29, 1863, the U.S. Army attacked and killed 250 to 500 Shoshone people encamped at the Bear River, near present-day Preston, Idaho, in what was later named the Bear River Massacre. Parry tells how the Native American perspective of this history as he learned it from his ancestors has been ignored but deserves to be represented and respected. Part of the cause of the massacre was that members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints settled in Shoshone land, consumed scarce resources, and complained to the army when the Shoshone took food. Despite that animosity, many surviving Shoshone joined the Church about ten years later and eventually chose to assimilate into a changing community. Parry shows how we can remember and honor the past but not let a tragic past prevent us from success in the future.

Volume 58:3 (2019) - When Cris and Janae Baird first saw the painting She Will Find What Is Lost, by Brian Kershisnik, Janae felt a deep connection to it because it portrayed what she had felt when she had a severe illness: that God loved her and that ministering angels were with her, extending above her and caring for her. This essay tells how she became ill and dealt with that illness, and how they met with the artist, purchased the painting, and loaned it for display at the Conference Center of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City. They are delighted that so many people also feel the spiritually important and universally applicable message of the painting: that God loves us, and we are never truly alone.

“I will seek that which was lost, and bring again that which was driven away, and will bind up that which was broken.” (Ezek. 34:16)

Volume 58:3 (2019) - Robbie Taggart tells of the couch he and some youthful friends found one day and decided to burn. When the fire got out of control, a fire truck showed up fortuitously, and a firefighter with a large extinguisher put out the flames. “So. What’s going on here?” he then asked. “I, uh,” the young Taggart stammered, “we were just being idiots.” The firefighter smiled broadly and said, “Well, sometimes being an idiot catches up to you.” He then walked away. Taggart and his friends, relieved that they were not going to be arrested, drove away at exactly the speed limit, laughing and astonished. This is his first example of grace, a concept he brings to life with two other stories, one about a friend who was rescued from drug-addicted and abusive parents by a caring second-grade teacher. This essay was awarded first place in the 2019 Richard H. Cracroft Personal Essay Contest.