Comments on: Missionaries to Dinner, 1854 Style

By: Bill MacKinnon

Bill MacKinnon — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 04:54:01 +0000

Could Harrison (the “shoveler”) possibly have been the lad of that name who a few years later became a cook for the army’s Utah Expedition as it moved west and then opened up a Utah restaurant/inn to morph into the famous “Beefsteak Harrison”?
James Ferguson, of course, left the Kane household to become a missionary in Ireland (he was from Belfast originally). Upon return he became adjutant general of the Nauvoo Legion (as a brigadier) and one of Utah’s scrappier lawyers as well as co-founder (in 1859) of “The Mountaineer,” a newspaper founded to counteract the new non-Mormon “Valley Tan.” In 1863 the talented Ferguson died an agonizing death at about age 35 from alcoholism.

By: Rameumptom

Rameumptom — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 21:15:42 +0000

We’ve also hosted missionaries in the 6 years we’ve lived in Indiana. I haven’t noted any particularly bad manners from any of them.
While on my mission in Bolivia, many members would invite us to eat with them. Occasionally, it was an issue of praying twice over the food, once to thank God and another to pray it wouldn’t kill you….
I knew an elder who would wear his wading boots to certain members’ homes, in order to drop undesireable foods into the boot, so as not to offend them. One, not-so-smart elder tried throwing food out the window, sadly to realize the window wasn’t open.
My worst experiences include chicken soup with the head still in it, and the 12 course meal for Easter (one course for each apostle) which included a “healthy” sampling of very hot chili peppers that left me unable to finish the last six courses.

By: bbell

bbell — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 15:21:43 +0000

I am with Ardis.

I would love to hear more about the role that class played in the early saints conversion and retention. I ahve one ancestral line that was upper class English. The father had abandoned a post as a captian of a ship in the Royal Navy and moved to Idaho in the late 1880′s. They were in shock at the class differences between themselves and the other Saints in Idaho.

By: Matt Grow

Matt Grow — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 14:36:04 +0000

Steve: I agree that we need more analysis of the role of class in nineteenth-century Mormonism. It’s definitely class that’s shaping Elizabeth’s response to the missionaries. When the Kanes had more cultured Mormon visitors–such as Apostle John Taylor and William Kimball–Elizabeth enjoyed their visits, writing, “How nice it is to see people so different from oneself.”

All: Thanks for the memories of missionary meals. I love the stories of the sacrifices the Saints have made to make the missionaries honored guests in their homes. And I’m also very amused at the stories of missionary gaffes!

By: bfwebster

bfwebster — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 02:47:40 +0000

On my mission (Central America [Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama], 1972-74), we lived with local families in most areas, paying for room and board, so we did very little eating with members — usually just holidays or other special occasions. We had plenty of adventures in eating, but they were at our place of lodging for the most part. Ketchup covers a multitude of sins.

The best food I had in my mission was during my first time in Costa Rica. My companion (Elder Allen) and I lived with a non-member widow (Doña Victoria) who was in her early sixties. She doted on us — she called us her “American sons” — she was a great cook, and she always had more food out on the table than the two of us could put away, which was saying something. Both of us put on quite a bit of weight. :-) Then I got transferred to Nicaragua and lost it all and then some.

For the last 10 years, my wife and I have worked to have missionaries over for dinner on a regular basis; for a while in DC, we actually had both a pair of elders and a pair of sisters serving in our ward (DC Branch/Chevy Chase Ward), and we’d have each over for dinner once a week. Here in Colorado, we share a pair of elders with another ward, and so we only get to have them over for dinner about once a month, if that often. I honestly can’t remember any unpleasant experiences having the missionaries over for dinner.

But I must confess that I prefer sister missionaries to elders, both having them over to dinner and particularly as a ward mission leader (which I’ve been 5 times over the past 35 years, including right now). ..bruce..

By: Mark Brown

Mark Brown — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 02:07:20 +0000

I don’t remember ever having a bad meal in Germany, although some were better than others. I was very fortunate that my first area had a strong tradition of having missionaries over for meals because it helped me have a good attitude about the members and the country in general. Later, in an area where nobody fed the missionaries, the branch president stood up in church the Sunday before Christmas and asked for volunteers to have us over for Christmas dinner. Nobody volunteered — “Buehler, Buehler? Anyone?”

Once a sister overheard missionaries talking about how much they enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner. In an act that has surely guaranteed her calling and election, she secretly wrote a letter to a missionary’s mother asking for recipes for Thanksgiving dinner, had it translated into English, and then when the reply came, had it translated into German. She made pumpkin pie from scratch, beginning with the pumpkin. It was kind of stringy, and she substituted goose for turkey, but the meal was made delicious by her love. A few weeks later I helped the bishop count the donations and I saw the amount she paid for tithing. I figure that she spent about a week’s worth of income on that meal. I imagine that holds true for many areas of the world where the members have the missionaries in their homes as honored guests.

By: Steve Fleming

Steve Fleming — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 02:02:48 +0000

Matt, Kane’s statements about the Mormons and class (especially the city/country) divide are really interesting. I think we need more research on the implications of such in early Mormonism. I know that when Brigham Young referred to Joseph Smith as a Rough Stone Rolling it was in this context. At a conference in Boston (list in the HC 6 at the beginning) Young chastises a group of young elders that he sees and being urbane, and reminds them that although JS may be a rough stone rolling “we know by what power we have been called.”

By: Ardis Parshall

Ardis Parshall — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 01:08:30 +0000

Do you have any idea what I would give for an hour — dinner or not — with James Ferguson, William Dunbar, and Cyrus Wheelock? Ouch!

The church members, and the occasional non-member, who invited us to dinner in France always treated us as queens and gave us the very best they had, which was usually pretty good. My personal rule was to try everything served to me, which was sometimes an adventure — if it wasn’t some kind of sea creature in Marseilles that I couldn’t identify, it was some unusual mix of vegetables with a meat I couldn’t identify served by an immigrant from one of France’s former colonies. If I didn’t know how to open something, or which part of it to eat, our hostesses were always pleased to demonstrate. I dunno if they talked about us after we left as those uncouth Americans who couldn’t eat fruits-de-mer without help, but at least they couldn’t talk about us as those silly squeamish Americans who wouldn’t even touch the exquisite foie gras.

I’m sure they giggled about our French. They didn’t wait for us to leave before doing that!

Gosh, I miss those wonderful people and their meals.

By: Matt Grow

Matt Grow — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 21:52:35 +0000

And 15 when they were engaged! It raised eyebrows, but wasn’t socially unacceptable.

By: bbell

bbell — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 21:39:35 +0000

Did anybody else catch that she was probably 16 when she married her 2nd cousin?

Behavior of missionaries really depends on the missionary involved.