![\"Baird](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2021\/04\/Golden_plates_and_other_artifacts.jpg\")
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***<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n As you may be aware, the Interpreter Foundation docudrama Undaunted: Witnesses of the Book of Mormon<\/em> will receive its premiere on Friday, 4 March, as part of the 2022 LDS Film Festival.\u00a0 (You can go here to obtain tickets, if they are still available.)<\/a>\u00a0 As I\u2019ve mentioned previously, the docudrama features interviews with historians and other experts, both members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints<\/a> and nonmembers, and expands its coverage beyond the Three Witnesses, who were the focus of the dramatic film Witnesses<\/em>, to the Eight Witnesses and the informal or unofficial witnesses.\u00a0 It incorporates dramatic footage from Witnesses<\/em>, as well as scenes that were created specifically for Undaunted<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Strictly speaking, only approximately ninety minutes of the full, two-part, 2.5-hour (i.e., 150-minute) docudrama will be shown at the premiere.\u00a0 We judged that showing the entire two-and-a-half hour production would simply be too much.\u00a0 It\u2019s our impression that documentaries aren\u2019t typically as easy for audiences to watch for long stretches at a time as narrative, dramatic films are.\u00a0 The docudrama is divided into two parts for a reason; it\u2019s not intended that people watch it all in one setting \u2014 although they\u2019re obviously free to do so if the mood is upon them.\u00a0 So what will be screened at the LDS Film Festival is a special director\u2019s cut that Mark Goodman is creating especially for that evening.\u00a0 Both halves of the docudrama are complete, and the special version is intended to give the Festival audience a sense of each of the two segments.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n We will also screen one of our \u201cSnippets,\u201d to give an example of the flotilla of short features that we\u2019re creating \u2014 roughly a dozen or so have already<\/em> been created \u2014 for broad, free distribution online.\u00a0 And there will be a question-and-answer period with, I believe, Paul Wuthrich (who played Joseph Smith in the Witnesses<\/em> theatrical film and who hosts Undaunted<\/em>), Camrey Bagley Fox (Emma Smith in Witnesses<\/em>, also the host and interviewer in our \u201cSnippets\u201d), Mark Goodman (director), Russell Richins (producer), James Jordan (associate producer), and an aging and rather bizarre groupie who often hangs around with them.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Incidentally, proceeds from ticket sales go to the LDS Film Festival, not to the Interpreter Foundation.\u00a0 By permitting Undaunted<\/em> to premiere there, the Interpreter Foundation received a certain number of complimentary tickets.\u00a0 And we\u2019ve bought a fair number, as well.\u00a0 This allows us to give them out to Foundation volunteers and donors, but it doesn\u2019t fill the theater.\u00a0 How many other tickets are left at this point, if any, I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 Ticket sales are not our province. If you\u2019re interested, though, and if you haven\u2019t already done so, you should probably secure your tickets as soon as possible.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Some of you, I think, will be interested in a virtual fireside that my friends Mark and Elizabeth Stoddard, of Heart of Russia Cruises<\/a>, have organized.\u00a0 (See the image directly above.)<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n A few days ago, this blog\u2019s vocal resident atheist commentator was demanding that, if God exists, we should be able to show God to him on his demand.\u00a0 Several people, myself included, pointed to him that there are lots and lots of things in science that have not been seen, that perhaps cannot ever<\/em> be seen, but that are universally acknowledged to exist.\u00a0 In that context, this passage, from the respected Los Angeles Times<\/em> science write K. C. Cole, seems very apropos<\/em> to me:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n So much of science consists of things we can never see: light \u201cwaves\u201d and charged \u201cparticles\u201d; magnetic \u201cfields\u201d and gravitational \u201cforces\u201d; quantum \u201cjumps\u201d and electron \u201corbits.\u201d\u00a0 In fact, none of these phenomena is literally what we say it is.\u00a0 Light waves do not undulate through empty space in the same way that water waves ripple over a still pond; a field is only a mathematical description of the strength and direction of a force; an atom does not literally jump from one quantum state to another, and electrons do not really travel around the atomic nucleus in orbits.\u00a0 The words we use are merely metaphors.\u00a0 \u201cWhen it comes to atoms,\u201d wrote Niels Bohr, \u201clanguage can be used only as in poetry.\u00a0 The poet, too, is not nearly so concerned with describing facts as with creating images.\u201d<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I confess that I was pleased to see the Los Angeles Rams win the Super Bowl.\u00a0 And not merely because they were my hometown team while I was growing up and have returned to be my hometown team yet again.\u00a0 There were two people, members of the Rams team, in whom I had a particular interest.\u00a0 You may be aware of their backgrounds.\u00a0 But you may not be.\u00a0 So, as a service, I offer the following links:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cLatter-day Saint dad Eric Weddle headed to Super Bowl just weeks after being coaxed out of NFL retirement\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n No Excuses, No Regrets: The Eric Weddle Story<\/span><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n \u201cRams Safety Eric Weddle Is Doing Something Incredible At The Super Bowl After Being Retired All Season\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cRams safety Eric Weddle exceeding expectations ahead of Super Bowl LVI in whirlwind NFL return\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cWhere was Eric Weddle before he rejoined the Rams? Winning his first football championship ever\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cHow Rams kicker Matt Gay followed faith to Utah native\u2019s first career Super Bowl\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>