I was baptized at the age of 8, like most kids in active member families. Though I don’t have a lot of memories from that young age, I am very happy to report I remember my baptism quite well.

I turned 8 on 2 July 1980. I was happy I wouldn’t have to wait long before I could get baptized – the stake baptism for that month was 5 July. For my 8th birthday, from my parents I got my own set of scriptures. For my birthday/baptism, from my ward/Primary I got a Book of Mormon (do you remember those medium blue ones with the gold angel Moroni on the cover? That was the one I got) and a picture of Jesus, which still hangs the wall of my bedroom at my parents’ house.

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Despite the fact that I grew up and still live in Utah, I don’t actually do anything for this day. Neither of my parents are from Utah, so they were not raised with any Pioneer Day traditions. Therefore, they passed no traditions for this day on to me. Occassionally I watch the parade in Salt Lake on TV (when the parade is on a non-work day, unlike today), but that’s been the extent of my celebrations.

Nevertheless, I thought I’d wish you all a happy day. Heaven knows Mondays need as many good wishes as possible. I’ll share my favorite quote from Eric Snider. “Every July we celebrate Pioneer Day here in Utah. It’s a very patriotic holiday. You can tell by all the flags flying. A patriotic holiday, the celebration of when the Mormons fled the United States and fled to Mexican territory.”

Now that I feel sorry for all the negativity I generated on my other somewhat intemperate thread (though I learned quite a bit and feel the discussion was worth it), I’m going for a more positive thread here.

A few of my favorite things (feel free to share your own favorite things in the comments below):

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This Sunday’s Young Women lesson is on the Sabbath, so I was wandering around lds.org to find some supplemenal info for the lesson (the lesson manual rarely provides enough to fill the time). I came across the Ensign article linked in the title. It’s from 1978, so it’s definitely dated (the shift to the 3-hour block since that time being the most obvious change), but it’s quite interesting to see how LDS Sunday and Sabbath traditions came to be.

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