Latter-day Saint Commentary from the Pacific Northwest - Rocky Mountain Sunshine Podcast

Welcome, everybody!  I am recording from the lovely town of Port Angeles, Washington. We are just returning from a quick trip to Utah.  It was quick in the sense that we didn’t stay that long. But when you are driving 1150 miles each way, it really isn’t that quick.

Well in today’s show, I share some thoughts on the changes in my life and the times and seasons. So let’s get to it.

This past week we went down to Utah to take our daughter Emma to Utah State University - GO AGGIES. She graduated from high school and chose to go to USU.  She’s really smart, she has good ideas, she’s beautiful inside and out, and I am really going to miss her a lot. Our daughter Camille who is 12 is really missing her as well. Of course, we are all missing her, even our little Yorkie Poo named Minnie is wondering where she is.

In addition to Emma going to USU, we now have our daughter Julienne at BYU-Idaho and our daughter Maggie at the University of Utah. Half of our children are grown and out of the home! How is this happing?

We still have three at home, Gavin is in high school, Camille is in middle school, and our X-man, Xavier is in elementary school.

This parenting thing is hard. You put all your love, sweat, and tears into raising these children, and then poof! They move out. I got to admit, I’m grieving a bit.

This isn’t the first time we’ve had a child move out of course. Our daughter Julienne served her mission in Nebraska. When we dropped her off to the MTC in Provo, we said our goodbyes over by the Provo temple, took pictures, gave her lots of hugs, etc. But driving away from the MTC and watching her walk away with her suitcases, realizing that we wouldn’t see her again for 18 months, was tough! We were all silent in our van. All of a sudden there was a vacant seat in our 8 passenger van. It was tough.

With our daughter Maggie, it was kind of a soft transition. She left and went to the Ukraine to teach English. It seemed more temporary. But she soon came home and then moved out to go to college. She just transferred from Utah State University to the University of Utah. Go Utes!

As I was driving home after dropping off Emma at Utah State University in Logan Utah and Julienne at BYU-Idaho in Rexburg, Idaho, I looked in the rearview mirror. It seemed kind of empty. Now there were 3 empty seats in our 8 passenger van.

Tune in to hear the rest of the show! 

Welcome, everybody!  I am recording from the lovely town of Port Angeles, Washington.

This past week we went to the funeral of my mother-in-law’s sister. My inlaws are in their 80’s and it was not an easy trip for them. We left Friday and it took a lot longer to get to Wenatchee, Washington than the GPS said it would. Haha  But I have come to appreciate funerals.  You learn a lot about the people and if it’s family, you get a glimpse into the family’s life.  Their family farmed in Quincy, WA. They weren’t rich but they always had food. That’s more than a lot of people can say.

Well, today I have a good show for you about some lessons that I learned from some people I look up to. So let’s get to it.

Do you have people who you look up to or someone you admire? Do you have a mentor or a hero?

A couple of weeks ago in your young men church lesson, the question was asked if we had anyone who we looked up to. If we want to be like someone, we try to do the things that they do. In my life I’ve had many people whom I have looked up to and admired.

I remember before my mission, as I was considering whether to go on a mission, I wanted to be like our bishop. He seemed very happy. They had a great family. I remember thinking the same thing about our home teacher, and a couple of other men in our ward.

In a previous episode, I spoke about Brother Brandt, my seminary teacher. He was someone who you couldn’t help loving.  I wanted to know the scriptures like he did and have a love for them as he did. He genuinely enjoyed the scriptures and loved to share things from them.

As I served my mission, I looked up to my mission presidents, President Neil L. Andersen (now an apostle) and President Richard Oveson.  I learned different things from them. President Andersen was my mission president for the first 12 months or so. President Andersen, now Elder Andersen, knew that the Book of Mormon was vitally important to us missionaries. He had a schedule for us to keep where we read the entire Book of Mormon every two months. I have the tally marks in the front of my missionary Book of Mormon where I read it once, twice, 5 times, 10 times. Then it moved over to the French Book of Mormon with a  tally mark for each time that I had read it in French.

I remember being on fire and wanting to learn everything I could. I had a thirst for learning. I told President Andersen that I had started in the old testament and was going to read the Bible cover to cover.  He suggested that I start with the New Testament.  He told me of his love for the words of the Savior in the new testament and that it would be helpful for me to read it cover to cover first. I was glad that I followed his instructions. Not long after finishing it I had someone challenge me saying that I probably had never even read the new testament. I was able to say that I had read it from cover to cover.

When he would interview us, he would have a shoe shine kit there. As we would talk, he would take our shoes and polish them. It was an incredible act of service.  Now as I look back at it, and now that he is an apostle, I can see more symbolism in this, as it reminds me of the Savior washing his apostles’ feet.  John 13:5  it says, 5 After that he poureth water into a basin, and began to awash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded.

Then cometh he to Simon Peter: and Peter saith unto him, Lord, dost thou wash my feet? 7 Jesus answered and said unto him, What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter. 8 Peter saith unto him, Thou shalt never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me. I understand a little of what Peter was saying there. He felt like he should not be the one having his feet washed, but should be washing the feet of Jesus Christ. 

Tune in for more!

Welcome, everybody!  I am recording from the lovely town of Port Angeles, Washington.

This past week I was able to go to stake girls camp for the last evening. They give the bishops an hour and a half to spend with the young women. Played paper airplane golf. What an awesome thing that is to be able to connect with the young women in the ward. I know that there are some things that I will look back on very fondly one day of the time that I served as a bishop, and this is going to be one of them. I hope that they continue that tradition each year.

Well today I have a good show for you about the silent treatment. So let’s get to it.

I read an article in The Atlantic written by Daryl Austin who is based in Utah. He spoke of the silent treatment.  It reminded of two families on my mission. They shared a driveway that went out to the main road. You would go down this dirt road and then it split into a Y and one went to one house and the other went to the other house.

There was an accident.

They hadn’t spoken to each other in years.

They stopped going to church.

They are next door neighbors.

The silent treatment goes by many names: shunning, social isolation, stonewalling, ghosting. Although psychologists have nuanced definitions for each term, they are all essentially forms of ostracism. And the tactic is nothing new. Ancient Greeks would get expelled for 10 years if they were thought to be a threat to democracy. Early American settlers banished people accused of practicing witchcraft.  Some churches like the Church of Scientology recommends total “disconnection” from anyone deemed antagonistic toward the religion.

So this type of Ostracism can also happen in many ways maybe someone walks out of the room in the middle of a conversation.

Someone looks the other way when you wave at them, or a person addresses comments from everyone in a message thread except you. The article says that “Ostracism can take a heavy toll whereby victims become anxious, withdrawn, depressed, or even suicidal.”

He quoted Joel Cooper a psychology professor at Princeton. “Because we humans require social contact for our mental health, the ramifications of isolation can be severe,”    “In the short term, the silent treatment causes stress. In the long term, the stress can be considered abuse.”

  “People use the silent treatment because they can get away with it without looking abusive to others,” Williams explained, “and because it’s highly effective in making the targeted individual feel bad.”

Tune in to hear the rest! 

Rocky Mountain Sunshine Podcast by Jason Bringhurst who is a faithful member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Sometimes referred to as Mormon or Mormons. 

Welcome, everybody!  I am recording from the lovely town of Port Angeles, Washington.

We had some friends come stay with us for a few days and they went to many of the local tourist destinations like the Olympic National Park, the rain forest, Marymere Falls, etc. We really live in a neat place.

Well, today we have a good show for you. I talk about an incredible story of the Dutch saints after World War II. I recently wrote about this in the Peninsula Daily News and I thought that I would share a little about it here on the podcast. So let’s get to it!

Have you had the opportunity to travel overseas much? I feel like I’ve traveled a bit throughout my life, but I’m always amazed at all the places in the world where we have listeners!

The demographics that I’ve seen on our listeners are interesting. Most listeners are in the USA, but we have listeners in 24 other countries as well, including Estonia. I mention Estonia because I keep getting notifications that the Rocky Mountain Sunshine Podcast is ranking in the top Christian podcasts in Estonia, so to you listeners in Estonia, Hello from Port Angeles, Washington in the USA! One thing that I always that was so cool about living overseas was how many people spoke English. We really don’t do well as a country on being bilingual.

My wife and I lived in The Netherlands for a year and a half on a work assignment.  I was fascinated by the stories we heard about what it was like to have lived through the German occupation of World War II. One of the members of our church congregation in Almere, where we lived, told us of how the city of Rotterdam had been completely decimated by the German bombs. She said that they just kept bombing and bombing even after all the buildings were rubble. Nothing was left. After WWII, the entire city had to be reconstructed.

I can’t imagine what it must have been like to go through that. So much destruction. So many lives had been lost. Everyone had been through a terrible ordeal.

After the war, the Dutch members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints obtained some potatoes, not for eating, but for planting.  They kneeled and prayed over their potatoes and planted them asking God to bless them and the land for a bounteous harvest. These people had hardly anything left. They were in a dreadful situation.

Across the border in Germany were members of the same faith.  Walter Stover, a leader from the Church in Germany came to visit Cornelius Zappey, one of the Dutch Church leaders. Stover told Zappey that the members of the Church in Germany were starving and even in a worse situation than the Dutch members of the Church, and winter was approaching. Zappey felt that he needed to ask the Dutch members to donate their potato harvest to their German brothers and sisters who were in desperate need. He wondered if he could ask so much of them.

Imagine being there. Your country had been overrun. Unspeakable things had happened. You were left with almost nothing. Germany was to blame for it all. Yet, members of your faith in Germany were starving, and you had been asked to give your harvest to those who were your foe just a few months prior.

Tune in for the rest of the story!

#dutch

#potatoes

#latterdaysaints

#WWII

#worldwar2

#ww2

If you served a mission, was there anything that happened that made you think, this is why I came on my mission?

I remember having a talk with one of my missionary friends during lunch at a zone conference when I was a missionary in France. He was telling me about an amazing experience he had by finding a family, teaching them the gospel, and seeing them get baptized.  He said, “This is the reason I came to France.”

The miracles that you see as a missionary are incredible as people grasp onto the gospel of Jesus Christ, change their lives for the better, and commit to keep the commandments.  But I wasn’t sure that I had ever thought, “This is why I came to France.”

In my last area, in the city of Pau, I really had seen some miracles and the missionaries were seeing some success.  One of the assistants to the mission president (AP) came to our town and we went on exchanges together. (We called them splits.) We went to a building that my companion and I were previously tracting out and continued where we had left off.  We knocked on a door and a nice lady answered and said that her husband would be back tomorrow. We left a Book of Mormon with her and said we’d stop by the next day.

The next day my companion and I stopped by to see if we could speak to them about the Book of Mormon that we had dropped off. To our surprise, we were greeted with a smile as the husband welcomed us in. His name was Etienne Kapinga Mwamba.  We learned that he and his family were refugees seeking political asylum in France from Zaire (Congo.) He had been a high-ranking officer in the army, and then there was a coup, and all of a sudden he was on a hit list. He said that if he was forced to return, he would be killed.  He had managed to escape with his wife and two young daughters.  He had left behind two older boys whom he hoped could join them later. They lived in pretty humble circumstances with very little to their name.

We asked him if he had a chance to look at the scriptures we had suggested to read. To our surprise, he had read them all and had actually started reading the Book of Mormon from the beginning.  He shared with us that he had been praying to know how to find eternal life for him and his family. He said, funny enough, when they moved into the apartment, it was completely empty, except for a Book of Mormon that someone had left behind. He said that he couldn’t believe that he had this book on the shelf and had never opened it up to see what treasures were inside. We were eager to explain just what this precious book was that he was holding.

We set up a time to come back and teach him. Initially, he didn’t want to have his wife and children in the discussion. I think he wanted to see what we were all about first.  I could respect that. After everything that he had gone through, he was being cautious.

The first discussion went really well. He had a strong Christian background and had read and studied the Bible. He had been educated in the USA and had enjoyed a successful life in Zaire. He embraced it all and really loved the Book of Mormon. He was reading through it quickly.

When I was a missionary, the second discussion (meeting) was generally when you challenged the person investigating the LDS religion to baptism. We went by the book and asked him if he’d be baptized. He said that he would fast (go without food or drink) and pray about it before making a decision.

Tune in to hear the rest!

#zaire

#congo

#lds

#france

#thechurchofjesuschrist

Today I have three of my favorite guests joining me! My daughters Julienne in Provo,Utah, Maggie in Logan, Utah, and here in the studio with me, we have Emma.

So, let’s get to it.

Transition music

For some reason, probably because of my experiences, I have always thought that bullying was something I had to worry about my boys but not my girls. Obviously, I was wrong about that.

So some statistics I found were that 1 out of every 5 kids have reported being bullied. Slightly higher percentage are boys.

Was there bullying in your elementary school?

I remember back in elementary in my class there was a girl who was mixed race and she was made fun of.

I was bullied quite a bit in elementary. I remember being chased on the playground with kids who had jump ropes and they’d whip me.

I was punched & tripped

I remember I didn’t want ot wear my winter cap because it had a ball on top and kids would take it from me at recess.

In 5th grade, I got a new fake leather jacket. A kid came up to me and told me not to wear it and that I wasn’t as cool as him and his leather jacket.

I remember a group of kids would sometimes chase me home either walking riding my bike.

I remember my bike was made fun of because it wasn’t a cool brand.

I got in a fight one morning before school and a friend of mine Brett got in between me and this kid and punched him. He left me alone after that.

Teachers were either unaware or just apathetic.

I feel like teachers are better now? I don’t think they ever came outside.

Was there bullying at middle school?

In Junior High, I had a kite taken away.

I made friends with a kid who was a lot bigger than me. I remember my friend Brad got in between me and someone at jr high.

I remember kids making fun of my clothes and fake “Vans” shoes because we couldn’t afford the brand names.

Tune in for more!

#bullying

#cyberbullying

Have you ever discovered some part of your family history that was just fascinating?

Before the lights, the strip, and the casinos in Las Vegas, was the Old Mormon Fort.

Las Vegas in Spanish means “The meadows.”  There was a creek that ran through the Las Vegas valley giving a little life to the surroundings harsh desert valley. It was along Old Spanish Trail.

The Paiutes (Pah-utes) indigenous people lived there in small camps and nomadic.

1847 Mormons arrived in Salt Lake. In 1851 they settled San Bernadino. To better help travelers between Salt Lake and California, they wanted to establish a fort in Las Vegas.

In the 1855 General Conference, Brigham Young called 30 men to Las Vegas. Forty wagons with ox teams, fifteen cows, and several riding horses. He called William A. Bringhurst to lead them. Being very faithful, they left almost immediately. It’s a little different than today’s mission calls.

And, yes, I am related to him. William is my Great, Great, Great Grandfather’s Brother.  When my ancestor Samual Bringurst and his brother William joined the church, their father was very disappointed and left them each one dollar in his will, only because that was the law. He stated that he hoped that they would return from their evil ways. I could do a whole other episode on The Bringhursts in Philadelphia.  I looked on familysearch and saw that my ancestor, Samuel Bringhurst Sr., who is Williams brother, was endowed in Nauvoo in 1846.

William Bringhurst was born in Philadelphia in 1818. He married his wife Ann Dillworth in 1845 and traveled to Utah with the John Taylor company arriving in Salt Lake in 1847. So a few years later he is called on this mission to Las Vegas.  It took 30 days to get there by wagon from SLC.  They arrived on June 14, 1855. They quickly built a bowery. Why? Well think of Las Vegas in June with no air conditioning! These folks were tough as nails!  They had their Sunday service their first Sunday there and then the next day got to work on building the fort.

It took 7 months to build an adobe fort.  150 Feet square. It was the largest building in 100 miles. Tough life. They made adobe bricks that hardened and dried in the sun and they farmed.

These early Latter-day Saints, or as many called them, “Mormons”, built around 35 forts in various settlements. I grew up close to the Union Fort, or what is called now the Fort Union area in Midvale, Utah. President Hinckley’s grandfather built the Cove Fort in Millard County. It has been restored and rebuilt and it is a fun place to visit just outside of Beaver, Utah.

The Las Vegas fort was made mostly from adobe bricks where were made on location there. The foundations were stone. The walls were 14 feet high, 2 feet thick for the first 8 feet, and then a foot thick above that. The east wall was where the mess houses and dwellings were. They were two stories tall. Wood was sparse so the ground floor was dirt and the second story floor was wood planks. Nails were also short supply so they used rawhide or wooden pegs to attach the planks to beams.  They were built inside the fort facing the courtyard. There were holes in the walls to shoot attackers.

Tune in for the rest!

#mormon

#lasvegas

#latterdaysaint

#latterdaysaints

#thechurchofjesuschristoflatterdaysaints

If you could go back and do school all over again, what would you change? I have a large variety of things that I would change, but one of them is that I would have given myself a little more encouragement when it came to writing and my English classes.

At a young age, someone gave me a journal, and I have written in a journal on and off my whole life. In episode 5 I spoke about the miracle of my mission journals. I’ve always enjoyed writing.  But in high school, I felt like English was one of my worst subjects. The reason was that I could not figure out diagramming sentences.  I was terrible at it. On into college, I dreaded English classes.  I always seemed to make up for it with essays, and writing, including book reports. But it took me a while to really grasp grammar rules and I don’t know about diagramming sentences to this day.

I took French in Junior High and High School. When I went to sign up for advanced French my senior year, my teacher discouraged me saying that I would not be able to pass the class.

Little would he know that I would be called to a French-speaking mission and after my mission get a degree at BYU minoring in French.

Learning the French language helped me understand English better. I have told many high-school and college students, that English may be the most important class in their studies.  Being able to effectively communicate and to do it without major glaring grammatical errors is so important in a world where we communicate constantly through text & email. It quickly shows if you lack some of these skills and it might impede your career.

I decided to start a blog in 2017 called ... you got it, “Rocky Mountain Sunshine.”  I’ve had a lot of compliments, and a fair amount of criticism.  In high school, getting papers back with all the things that I had done wrong in red really was discouraging. In college, I started to get more confidence in writing, and I took a business English class where all of a sudden, English grammar started to make sense. It somehow just clicked. I wrote a lot of papers in humanities, psychology, and English. Then I served a mission and learned French. My French improved a ton, and I came home, tested out of several French classes at BYU, and got my minor in French, which is no cakewalk. BYU has a really difficult French program. My understanding of the French language helped my English quite a lot. Well, actually when I first came home from France, my English was all messed up.

One of the first dates I went on was with the sister of one of my former companions. He had set us up. We went to temple square and they had a movie that was being played in one of the theaters. I asked, “Can we assist the movie?” Both the person at the door and my date looked at me weird. I didn’t understand where there was a communication breakdown. I again asked if it was possible for us to assist the movie.  Again two people looking at me wondering what I wanted. In French assister means to attend. I wanted to know if we could attend the movie. Luckily my date translated for me and I walked into the theater baffled.  For some reason, we never went on another date. Haha

Tune in for more!

Do you know someone who has stepped away from the Church for a while and then later returned? I love hearing stories about how people find their way back to the Church and enjoy the blessings of the gospel of Jesus Christ again in their life.

I was listening to a podcast recently by Richard Ostler called Listen, Learn, & Love. The introduction of this episode said that the guest was from Baltimore, MD. I’ve been there several times. Usually just flying in and then driving to Harrisburg, PA.

Then the host said the guest’s name. Karim Lazarus. The last name was unique and sounded familiar. I thought that there was a missionary in our mission with that name.

He then said that he was 50 years old. I’m 50. So that matched.

He was a convert to the Church and went on a mission a year later and served a mission in France.  I thought that it was a good chance that it was the missionary from my mission.

The host said that he had spent 15 years out of the church, and now had come back to full activity.

Karim then told about his life growing up without a dad in the home. He had some difficult experiences growing up. In between his junior and senior year of military high school, their family went through temple square and he was given a Book of Mormon. He was in the back of a motorhome as they traveled and he read it. He read it another time and then went to the Air Force Academy.  At the Air Force Academy, one of the other cadets had a Book of Mormon. He struck up a conversation with this person and the cadet eventually introduced Karim to the missionaries. He took the lessons and he joined the Church. He decided to go on a mission a year later.

As Karim was telling his story he mentioned his mission president, Neil L. Andersen in Bordeaux, France.  So now I knew that he was definitely a missionary in my mission.

Welcome to the Rocky Mountain Sunshine podcast where we share faith, have some fun, and strive to add a little sunshine to your day! I am your host, Jason Bringhurst.

Welcome, everybody!  I am recording from the lovely town of Port Angeles, Washington where there is beauty all around. My daughter Camille turned 12 yesterday and had dinner up at Lake Crescent, and it was just absolutely beautiful.

Well, today I talk about an accident that happened in Sandy, Utah that changed the lives of many people.

So, let’s get to it.

Did you have any major events in your life as a teenager?

I have had a few. I have thought about one event, in particular, many times.

I had a group of friends in my Sandy neighborhood. I was friends with them all. There was one friend who was probably the tallest of us all. We were good friends. Not best friends, but part of our neighborhood group of friends. We were in the same ward. We went to the same school, though they were all 1 year younger than me. We did scouting together. In fact my first scout camp we camped in a tent together. He gave me string cheese for the first time. He was good at scouting. We played basketball. He was much taller than I was. We even got into a bike race once where I crashed. He came down to my house and would hang out and I went to his house and would hang out. His mom and family were always nice to me.

In 1986 my friends Brent and Cameron were helping move someone in the ward. They turned from 1300 E to Creek rd and it threw them out of the back of the truck with the load. Brent broke both wrists and his ankle. Cameron landed on his head and sustained major head trauma. He was life-flighted to either the U of U probably Primary Childrens which is right there. His younger sister Tammy was babysitting at the time for a neighbor. Her grandmother was at their house and got the news first. Her grandmother notified her and her parents. It was on Cameron’s older sister’s birthday. 

Life for Cameron seemed to stop for him in his mind. He never moved on from being a 14-15 year old. When we got our driver's licenses he kept thinking that he was going to get his soon, even years later. His short-term memory was really non-existent.

Some effects that I didn’t know about that Tammy shared with me was how everything became about Cameron. In the ward, in the family, etc. It was like she didn’t exist. She went from being 13 to having to be responsible for herself because all the time went to taking care of Cameron. She grew tired of all the pity from everyone. She was her own person. Her mom had a hard time moving on too. She not only lost the brother she knew, but she also lost a lot of her mom. She had to grow up fast.