I’m afraid that I’ve fallen behind in chronicling the death-throes of the Interpreter Foundation, so I’ll make an effort here in this blog entry to catch up a bit on that sad tale of sorrow and woe. Here are a few things that have appeared in recent days: ““Behold, I Went to Hunt Beasts in the Forest”: An Addendum on Enos, Esau, and the Symbolic Geography of Seir,” written by Matthew Bowman Abstract: Enos’s use of the onomastic wordplay... Read more
Here’s something new from the ever-dying Interpreter Foundation: “Now Available on all of our Social Media Channels: “Interpreting Interpreter” Videos with Kyler Rasmussen”: Watch the first video now on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_a5wkAIP2xU You might have noticed that Latter-day Saints have lately come in for a great deal of attention in “Hollywood.” Little if any of it has been exactly helpful, let alone flattering. In the context of that attention, which has been almost comical — note that I said... Read more
The crowning and concluding — and summarizing — visit of our Interpreter Foundation educational tour to Mexico and Guatemala was to Mexico City’s magnificent Museo Nacional de Antropología after church on Sunday afternoon. The museum offers a beautifully-arranged and admirably-displayed collection of artifacts, both real and replicated, from the various nations and periods of the Pre-Columbian history of Mexico. And not only from Mexico, but from the territory of other modern nations in the region — or, anyway, at... Read more
Every morning during this tour, we’ve started off with a prayer from one of us and then, once the bus was underway, followed that prayer with a brief devotional thought from another member of the group. Yesterday, the devotional thought was offered by Miguel Vera, who actually grew up in Mexico City but now lives and works in Texas. For his brief remarks, he drew upon a 22 June 2018 article in the Church News by Gerry Avant that... Read more
I’m afraid that, owing to the demands of our travel schedule and other factors, I’ve been recounting our adventures somewhat out of order. I apologize for that. But it can’t really be helped. In fact, I’ll backtrack a little bit in this entry, yet again. On Friday, 1 November, we were up characteristically early. We had breakfast right on the shore of the remarkably pretty Lake Catemaco and, across the water in the distance, were able to see Cintepec,... Read more
Today, we drove out to Teotihuacán to see the enormous pre-Columbian complex there that includes the massive Pyramid of the Sun and the almost equally huge Pyramid of the Moon. It is located about twenty-five miles to the northeast of downtown Mexico City. The original name of the city is unknown, as is the ethnicity of those who built it. The name Teōtīhuacān was given to it by the Nahuatl-speaking Aztecs centuries after its fall, which seems to have... Read more
You are, sadly, running out of opportunities to see Six Days in August on a big screen. That’s deeply unfortunate and I wish it weren’t the case. But some of you—and some of your friends, ward members, and relatives—still have a shot at it. And the BYU football team has a bye this weekend, so Saturday night is open. Do you get my drift? Today has been a long day, with a lot of traveling. I’ll report on it... Read more
I’m still attempting to catch up with my blog, reporting from this Interpreter Foundation educational tour. Our tour manager, Blake Allen, had attempted several times to make contact with the branch president in Panajachel, on the shore of Lake Atitlán, but was unable to do so. He tried again while we were there, but to no avail. We had hoped to attend church at Atitlán on Sunday, 27 October but, in the end, we decided not to do so... Read more
I continue my attempt to dig myself out of the hole into which I fell when my computer failed me last week. That is, I’m trying to catch up on my reports from this Interpreter Foundation educational tour to Guatemala and Mexico. We spent the first part of our first full day in Guatemala by visiting a huge open-air relief map of the country, showing its mountainous highlands and its flat jungle lowlands. Very helpful, much in the way... Read more
I’m still making an effort to catch up on the reporting of this Interpreter Foundation educational tour: Last Thursday, 24 October, on the morning after the catastrophic computer failure that silenced me for the better part of a week, we spent most of the day walking around a small portion of the Guatemalan Parque nacional Tikal. The ruins of Tikal, which were occupied from approximately 600 BC until about AD 750, are, quite simply, stunning. The site is surrounded by... Read more
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