OCR Text |
Show -i my fther's house/ 334 my fine education in the Gospel. But then my teachers began to ask personal questions. Had they met my parents? Why didn't my folks come to church on Sunday - obviously they had great interest in Mormonism to have taught me so well. Was there some problem? Often, I was selected to give talks before the congregation, and afterward the older people would shake my hand, commenting, "Too bad your parents didn't hear that. They'a have been mighty proud." I could hardly bear the look I took for pity in their eyes. I stopped accepting talk assignments. "I won't be here next week," I excused myself. For a time, we had a male Sunday school teacher, a burly man who struck me as being extraordinarily free-thinking for a Mormon of Zion. I liked Mr. Southwick. One Sunday morning, he opened the class with a talk instead of getting out his lesson book. "Today I feel inspired to talk about something that usually isn't discussed in the Church. I want to talk about the Principle of Plural Marriage. My eyes widened. I had never heard a regular Mormon refer to the Principle, except for the children who had mocked us at home. But among grown-ups it had been treated as a terrible secret, a skeleton in the Church closets. Even Mrs. Griffin had been embarrassed and oblique in k her remarks about i t . And t h i s man was t a l k i n g about,,xn Church Sunday school! |