A memorial plaque on the grounds of the Pulehu Chapel\u00a0 (Wikimedia Commons public domain photograph)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
While on Maui, Elder McKay\u2019s group visited Pulehu, in the Kula district on the lower slope of the great volcano Haleakala, where, in 1851, George Q. Cannon had baptized his very first converts and organized the first Hawaiian branch of the Church.\u00a0 This was sacred ground to Elder McKay and the others \u2014 and, as one Latter-day Saint family told me one Sunday afternoon on the Pulehu chapel grounds, it remains sacred to many Church members there still today.\u00a0 (Some, I\u2019m told, hope that a small temple will someday be built on Maui, and that, if so, it will be built at Pulehu.\u00a0 For various reasons, I don\u2019t expect that.\u00a0 But it would be very nice.)<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
E. Wesley Smith recalled an event at Pulehu as follows:<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
While there Elder McKay felt impressed with a desire to offer a prayer to the Lord in the spirit of thanksgiving for the privilege they had of being there, and for the many . . . who had embraced the Gospel.\u00a0 We bowed in prayer, Elder McKay being mouth.\u00a0 It was a moment never to be forgotten, for indeed the spot is sacred.\u00a0 Elder McKay said, \u201cI feel certain that President Cannon and President Joseph F. Smith are near for the veil was very thin.\u201d\u00a0 Elder [Hugh J.] Cannon was deeply impressed, and with tears filling his eyes and in a choked voice said, \u201cThere was no veil.\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
The group told about their experience to a group of Latter-day Saints in the Wailuku chapel later that night, 8 February 1921.\u00a0 One of those in attendance in that meeting, J. Pia Cockett, recorded what he heard in a notebook:<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
While he [Elder McKay] was praying, the Hawaiian Elder [David Kailimai] was privileged to see in a vision two hands clasped in the form of greeting.\u00a0 He thought Cannon and Hurst were shaking hands.\u00a0 He opened his eyes and saw they were apart.\u00a0 He closed his eyes again and after the prayer he told what he had seen.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
It was at that point that Elder McKay made the statement quoted above, about\u00a0Presidents George Q. Cannon and Joseph F. Smith being near and the veil being very thin.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
For many years, J. Pia Cockett was under the impression that the clasped hands that Elder Kailimai had seen in vision were those of George Q. Cannon and his son Hugh.\u00a0 In 1936, however, when President McKay \u2014 who, by that time, was second counselor in the First Presidency of the Church \u2014 was back in Hawai\u2019i on a return visit, Brother Cockett recalled the story in President McKay\u2019s presence and President McKay corrected him, saying, \u201cThose hands were the hands of the two fathers, George Q. Cannon and Joseph F. Smith, in the presence of the two sons, Hugh J. Cannon and E. Wesley Smith.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Driving with some friends early Sunday afternoon to visit some other friends in their new home in Washington, a suburb of St. George, my attention was caught by a large number of cars and trucks \u2014 as far as I could see, there may have been about two hundred of them, if not more \u2014 festooned with American flags and \u201cTrump 2020\u201d banners and cruising along on the frontage road that runs parallel and to the east of the I-15 freeway.\u00a0 It was, obviously, a \u201cTrump train.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
I confess to being more than a bit disappointed to see such a thing on the Sabbath here in St. George.\u00a0 And it has nothing to do with my particular political views; I would have been just as disheartened to see a Biden\/Harris \u201ctrain,\u201d if such things even exist, or \u2014 remarkable even to contemplate the hypothetical possibility of it \u2014 a Jorgensen\/Cohen train.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Even during the days when I had political opinions, which extended up until just a few months ago, I made a very serious and largely successful effort not to post on politics here on Sundays.\u00a0 That\u2019s because, although I have\/had strong political views, I regard other things as much more important and fundamental than politics.\u00a0 Civil behavior, charity, and respect are among those things.\u00a0 Cultural matters are among those things.\u00a0 So, too, is my religious faith.\u00a0 And a fundamental constituent of that faith is that the Sabbath is not to be like other days, and that there are loyalties that are above partisan politics.\u00a0 I keep going back to a statement from William Law (1686-1761) of which Elder Neal A. Maxwell was very fond:\u00a0 \u201cIf you have not chosen the kingdom of God first, it will in the end make no difference what you have chosen instead.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Posted from St. George, Utah<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 We had an enjoyable time last night with our monthly reading group (via Zoom, in our case from St. George), discussing\u00a0R. Lanier Britsch, Moramona: The Mormons in Hawai\u2019i, 2d ed., updated, revised, and enlarged (Laie, HI: The Jonathan Napela Center for Hawaiian and Pacific Islands Studies, Brigham Young University-Hawai\u2019i, 2018), with its author, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[10562,12406,1809,18767,18734,6108,18740,4654,18755,18761,482,18776,18746,18749,18764,18770,9824,18737,2905,1812,1815,18752,159,156,18655,55,1667,6390,18779,18731,12134,18758,5685,8885,18773,18743],"class_list":["post-89018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-cannon","tag-chapel","tag-church-of-jesus-christ-of-latter-day-saints","tag-cockett","tag-david-kailimai","tag-david-o-mckay","tag-e-wesley-smith","tag-george-q-cannon","tag-hands","tag-handshake","tag-hawaii","tag-hawaiian-mission","tag-hugh-cannon","tag-hugh-j-cannon","tag-hurst","tag-j-pia-cockett","tag-joseph-f-smith","tag-kailimai","tag-latter-day-saint","tag-latter-day-saints","tag-lds","tag-maui","tag-missionaries","tag-missionary","tag-moramona","tag-mormonism","tag-mormons","tag-prayer","tag-praying","tag-pulehu","tag-samuel","tag-shaking","tag-veil","tag-vision","tag-wailuku","tag-wesley-smith"],"yoast_head":"\n
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![\"Pulehu](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2020\/11\/12357248_913646018715406_2458289402786244446_o.jpg\")
<\/a>