At times it is useful to reflect on how similar our troubles are to troubles our forebears suffered. When we can’t see our way to the bright future for which we yearn, it can be helpful to see how our forebears brought about their bright future, which we take for granted.

In 1000 AD there was no England.

Instead, the term used was Angelcynn, kin of the Angles, the Germanic peoples who hundreds of years earlier had conquered much of the territory of the island the Romans had called Brittania.

The problem was that by 1000 AD a large swath of the island of Brittania was occupied by Danes or people of Danish descent.[ref]This area was called the Danelaw and covered much of modern England north of London.[/ref] They had their own approach to law. They looked like Scandinavians, with blonde hair and fair skin.

This past week I got an e-mail from a Dan Judd, suggesting he had documents I would be very interested to hear about.

Now, this sort of approach always intrigues me, as I am always interested in documents about plural marriage in Nauvoo. But I was afraid this Dan Judd might be one of several who have tried to convince me of Denver Snuffer’s interpretation of (not) plural marriage in Nauvoo.

Still, I e-mailed Mr. Judd and sat back, waiting to hear more.

Dan Judd wrote, saying he thought I would be interested in what he had to say because he thought we might have worked together during his engineering career, back before he joined the Church in 2013. But I still didn’t recognize the name.[ref]The Dan Judd talking to me was not Daniel K. Judd, a counselor in the General Sunday School Presidency some years ago.[/ref]

Dan had two interesting claims. And I found him to be an earnest fellow. But I’m not sure either of his claims are correct.

First, Dan claims that his ancestors rescued 116 sheets from someone who had stolen them. These pages were passed down through the generations. Dan and others have seen the pages, but at this time the pages are in a safe place, known only to Dan.

Second, Dan claims the family stories identify the man who rescued the plates as Lamoni Judd, an Indian who was adopted by Zadoc Judd in the 1850s. The family legend is that Lamoni married Alice Fredericka Smith, grand-daughter of Joseph Smith Jr.

Many of us have been using Zoom for any number of meetings, whether with friends,family, work, or church. But Church is about to go hardcore Zoom.

Tonight I attended our Stake training for the new Zoom accounts, which it appears the Church has purchased for all units, worldwide. As a non-profit and with bulk-buy discounts, this will be much less expensive than having each unit purchase several licenses to support their various activities.

Part of the reason the Church probably gets a significant discount is that recording is disabled for these Church accounts. So no need for lots of cloud storage and the associated costs.

A benefit of the new accounts is that they make more effective use of breakout rooms. The cool part of this is that you can just dial in to “Church,” then peel off to the particular “room” associated with your class. For instance, this allows a ward where families have enough devices to schedule Elders Quorum, Relief Society, Primary, and multiple Young Men and Young Women classes simultaneously, with only one tech-savvy host required to help stragglers transition from the “hall” to their appropriate room.

That is super cool.

Another benefit is that anyone who is attempting to disrupt these Zoom meetings can be blocked. So all may attend, but bad actors can be evicted.

In our stake, we also got training on how to make the most of the experience. Aside from instruction on Zoom itself, someone who uses video-conferencing extensively for international business shared the following tips:

In a year that has erupted with racial strife, Pixar’s Soul is a welcome delight.

Joe Gardner is our protagonist, a musician who dreams of jazzing with the greats, while living the life of a public school music instructor. Joe gets his big break, but on his way home it’s clear the universe is gunning for our hero. Just when it seems he’s made it home (oblivious to the many dangers), Joe disappears into a manhole.

Joe’s spirit shows up on the conveyor belt to the Great Beyond. But Joe is desperate to return to his interrupted life, so cruelly ended right before the moment he has dreamed of for decades.

In escaping heaven, Joe finds himself in a luminous, pastel realm, which we learn is the Great Before – the land where souls prepare to enter Earth life.

This is delightful, to see a movie depiction of life before this life. Not that it matches the pre-mortal doctrine of the Restored Gospel, any more than Disney’s Coco matches the Church’s doctrine regarding the afterlife. But in a world that too often dispenses with any discussion of life beyond this mortality, it is delightful to see stories that discuss our existence beyond the bounds of this fleshy mortality.

As always, Pixar treats us to a satisfying story. This is particularly fun with Soul as there really aren’t many tropes for pre-mortal life. So there are times when the couch potatoes in my household, at least, had no idea what was going to happen next.

If you haven’t yet taken the time to watch Soul, I recommend that you tee this flick up for some future evening.

We’re in a new world where the country’s leadership is emphasizing masks and social distancing.

But tomorrow is that holiday so universal that even we celebrate: the Super Bowl.

In light of that, I thought it useful to share a recent case study that is close to home.

Two friends of mine got together to meet a long-time friend they hadn’t seen in a while. Everyone felt fine. I don’t know if they validated “health” using thermometers and pulse oximeters, but they had every reason to know they were OK. They shared some time in the our mutual friends’ home. And since this wasn’t in public or on Federal property, everyone felt free to unmask.

A couple of days later, the long-time friend started feeling unwell. A couple of days after that, the long-time friend was truly feeling terrible. The day after that, day five, they got tested. On day six they got their result: they were infected with COVID.

Since the evening with friends fell just inside the danger window, the long-time friend called their buddies. Just to be on the safe side, they should get tested.

Our mutual friends both tested positive for COVID infection.

Now, it’s several days after learning they were infected before my friends let me know about their diagnosis. They are lucky that they “just” feel sick. They’ve been self-isolating since they learned the long-time friend had tested positive. They can still smell and taste.

They’re embarrassed.

Now, I happen to know at the time these friends met with the long-time friend that risk in their community was high. Kinsa Health Weather can show you the current risk in your community. For example, right now in Richmond, Virginia, the risk is 99 (very high). A couple of weeks ago, I had just learned about the Health Weather website, and was having “fun” putting in zip codes for folks I know. At the time, my local risk was a concerning 54, but it was lower than the risk in other counties for any of my family and close friends.

As we all prepare to celebrate that favorite holiday, with munchies (no masks) and lots of yelling and screaming (or at least laughing at the funny commercials), may we think about whether our respective counties are “safe” or not.

We’re late enough in this whole thing that I expect many are already set in their patterns of life and opinions regarding COVID. But I felt it was worth sounding a note of caution. So I’ll now go up on my mountain and sit under my leafy vine and wait for what will come.[ref]Jonah 4:6[/ref]

[Actually, I’m going to double-mask and go help another pair of long-time friends move.]