If ye are prepared, ye shall not fear.[ref]D&C 38:30[/ref]

So often, we think of preparedness in terms of food storage or standing in holy places. But today a friend forwarded a link to an article in the political journal, American Affairs. Natalie Gochnour’s article, “Utah’s Economic Exceptionalism,” picks up where Megan McArdle left off in her 2017 Bloomberg article “How Utah Keeps the American Dream Alive.”

Economic health is often assessed in terms of a monthly index produced by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, that combines four indicators of state economic health.

The economic index for the US and the vast majority of her states and territories has declined since the beginning of the COVID pandemic. For the US as a whole, the index has declined by 5.2 percent. Utah’s index has improved by 5.9 percent – notably the only US state to show an increase.

I’ve seen the cooperation and mutual care Ms. Gochnour describes on a smaller scale, within the family of my birth. I have eight siblings, and we have very different outlooks on life. Yet we share the hope that we will be family in the future, when we gather with our mother beyond the veil. This has caused us to work together in circumstances where other families have been torn apart. There is no index of thriving that measures the joy and peace our shared hope provides us, compared to peers who lack this shared hope. But in stressful circumstances affecting all of us, professionals exposed to a wide sample of families undergoing similar stress have commented on our mutual support and unity.

We can prepare by acquiring stores of food and supplies. We can also prepare by building trust and goodwill. By loving others as ourselves. By respecting one another and doing good to all.

Gratitude is universally endorsed as a desirable activity.

The Old Testament verses on gratitude focus on giving thanks to God. So that is likely implicit in Paul’s advice to the Thessalonians to:

Rejoice evermore…. In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.[ref]KJV, 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18. The NIV renders this advice as “give thanks in all circumstances.”[/ref]

Elder Uchtdorf highlighted gratitude in his recent Quick Start Guide to Life. The Yale University course on Wellness emphasizes gratitude as a key activity to support wellness. Every professional seeking to help individuals achieve greater happiness or fulfillment includes gratitude as a part of their prescription.

One suggestion that I have recently adopted is to write five things you are grateful for in your journal at the end of the day. It’s a particularly pleasant way to capture the events of the day.

Armistice Day

Whether called by its original name or by something else (Remembrance Day in Britain, Veterans Day in America), today is a day to be thankful for the peace that ended World War I. Having had the privilege of being in London during Remembrance Day in the past, it was striking to see the profusion of stylized poppies everywhere.

John McCrae had been a professor at McGill University in Montreal before the war. He wrote his famous poem, In Flanders Fields, after learning of the death of a former student who had become a soldier. McCrae, a military medic himself, would also die before the war ended. But his poem lived on, testament to the love and life of those whose graves were now marked by crosses in fields full of poppies.

Thanksgiving

For those of us living in the United States, we are also coming up on the annual celebration of thanks, held on the fourth Thursday of November. Thanksgiving, here in America, is redolent with tradition, food, and family.

Alas, this year it is not wise to gather with those outside your immediate household. Independent of whether people feel like social distancing and masks are their favorite things, the fact is that many locations (notably Utah) are at or fast approaching full capacity in their hospitals.

Pundits may talk about the differences between cities and countryside, but there are few places that exemplify that divide better than Virginia in 2020.

One of the reasons this city/country difference is so obvious in Virginia is because so many of the towns are designated as such in Virginia, where most the rest of the country is satisfied to count votes by county. As can be seen in the map above (from https://www.cnn.com/election/2020/results/president), the Virginia detailed map shows numerous dots of blue (democratic/liberal candidate leading) in what are otherwise red (republican/conservative candidate leading) counties. Almost all the dots that aren’t blue are for towns with less than 5000 people.[ref]The sole exception is Bristol, population ~30,000, which is on the border with the eastern portion Tennessee, which is voting strongly Republican.[/ref]

While the US presidential election will eventually be determined one way or the other,[ref]Either way, the democratic/liberal candidate will be able to claim to have won a majority of the popular vote.[/ref] it is worth discussing the differences between cities (or urban areas) versus the countryside (or rural areas). It’s been several years now since the majority of all humanity can now be found in urban settings, where all previous history involved a majority of humanity living in rural settings.

Rather than demonizing the “other” side, what are needs across rural and urban communities that we can agree on? Inasmuch as forces beyond our control are moving the world towards urbanization, how can we meet the needs of children of God in urban settings?

Elder Dieter Uchtdorf and Sister Harriet Uchtdorf spoke with Young Adults in the North America NorthEast Area of the Church tonight. They are both such energetic and positive individuals!

In that vein, Elder Uchtdorf shared a suggested Quick Start Guide To Mortal Life:

Elder Uchtdorf his own recent experience, getting a new phone. There was a link to an detailed manual and a simple “Quick Start” guide. While there was much an expansive study of the full manual could impart, Elder Uchtdorf used the Quick Start guide to get his phone working in a matter of minutes.

1. Do not as so many in the world do, making a god in our own image. Instead, seek to know God, to learn of God’s ways, and follow God’s ways.
2. Knowledge, while good, is not sufficient. Reach out and do. Love and serve God and love and serve God’s children.
3. Life has always been challenging, since the time of Father Adam and Mother Eve. But while we learn from the pain and sorrow that comes into our own lives, let us cherish the moments of joy that also come.
4. In all things, give thanks to God. Let your heart overflow with gratitude.
5. Finally, let your life be filled with light and new information to guide your walk in life. Act to bless others in that purpose which is unique to your time and to your particular circumstances. Look at what you are doing with your time and fill your time with activities that will bring light and goodness to your life and the lives of others.

As always, the words of God and God’s prophets are available for us to study in more depth as our need dictates. But we need not wait until we have full mastery of every detail to start on a journey of love, faith, and hope. As Elder Uchtdorf concluded, may we find that we have lived a life that, while perhaps not perfect, was good enough.

2020 celebrates the 150th anniversary of Utah women exercising the right to vote, the first time since ratification of the US Constitution that women in the United States were explicitly and intentionally allowed to participate in this important civic activity.[ref]Wyoming legalized female suffrage in 1869, but the women of Wyoming were not allowed to actually vote until after Utah women had already participated in elections.[/ref]

The most recent issue of BYU Studies covers this important history, which significantly contributed to the 1920 amendment that would give women the vote throughout the United States. The issue can be downloaded for free here.

Some fun tidbits:

1. The first woman to cast her vote in the United States[ref]The U.S. Constitutional Convention put voting qualifications in the hands of the states in 1787. Women in all states except New Jersey lost the right to vote at that time. In New Jersey, women were barred from voting as of 1807.[/ref] was Seraph Young, Brigham Young’s grandniece. She voted early so she would be able to do so and still arrive on time to her teaching job at the University of Deseret.
2. When Utah Territory legalized female suffrage and held the first election in the country where women were allowed to participate, there were roughly 17,000 women in Utah eligible to vote. Though Wyoming Territory had also legalized female suffrage, there were only ~1,500 women in Wyoming eligible to vote at the time and no election had been held where women were able to vote.
3. After 1870, Utah women were able to testify that their participation in the vote had not led to the various ills rabid opponents had asserted would follow allowing women to vote. This helped debunk opposition to the vote in other parts of the United States.
4. The United States revoked the right of Utah women to vote in 1887 with passage of the anti-polygamy Edmunds-Tucker Act. This opposition helped forge powerful unity.
5. In 1895, the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles voted unanimously to support restoration of female suffrage. As articulated by Franklin S. Richards during the convention to draft a Utah State constitution, “if the price of statehood is the disfranchisement of one-half of the people . . . , it is not worth the price demanded.”
6. 96% of all eligible women (and 94% of all eligible men) participated in the first Utah election held after Utah was made a state in 1896.
7. In 1909 Utah women provided 40,000 signatures to a petition seeking the vote for all U.S. women, fully 10% of all the signatures gained from across the entire nation. This was 200% more signatures than had been expected out of Utah.
8. Though Blacks gained the right to vote[ref]Blacks often faced barriers to voting, such as poll taxes and literacy tests, which weren’t outlawed at the national level until 1965 with the Voting Rights Act.[/ref] in 1870, Native Americans and Asian immigrants were still federally barred from citizenship and voting rights. Native Americans only began to gain access to the vote in 1920. Asians were not permitted to vote until the 1950s.

As one article concludes, “work for suffrage was predicated on a belief that God had created women and men to be equal. Latter-day Saint women believed this, and they worked to open opportunities for women across the country to participate in government and public life.”[ref]Katherine Kitterman, “First to Vote”, BYU Studies 59:3, 2020, p. 43.[/ref]

Cherish the right to vote, a right that a majority of individuals did not have at the time of the Civil War. Exercise that right this November.