The Cricket and Seagull Fireside Chat

It began with one simple hymn lyric by Bonnie Hart Murray and then became an entire album once she was paired with LDS composer Janice Kapp Perry.

Bonnie and Janice tell about choosing the Book of Mormon people and events to feature in this new musical fireside and how they created the songs, including "Two Thousand Stripling Warrios," which is featured in the October Ensign and Liahona magazines.

Also, visit JaniceKappPerry.com to find out how you can get two "pass-along download cards" to share the album with family and friends for a limited time.

That's this week on The Cricket and Seagull...

It begins like other 9/11 commemorations we’ve seen in the past, and on this day 10 years after the events of 9/11 the sounds of salutes and taps and the readings of the names is familiar.

Except these names are from a different 9/11 altogether—September 11th of 1857, one-hundred and fifty-four years ago today.

It really was September 11th, that day when a California-bound wagon train crossing Southwestern Utah was attacked by Mormon militiamen, killing approximately 120 men, women, and children, most from Arkansas.  Many of the details are here in excerpts from a ceremony held on September 11, 2011 on the same site, marking the designation of this burial spot as a National Historic Landmark.

A century and a half later, signs of healing and reconciliation between the descendants of the perpetrators as well as descendants of the 17 young survivors, is an encouraging work in progress.  In the commemoration ceremony conducted by Assistant Church Historian and Recorder Richard E. Turley, Jr, there are remarks from Elder Marlin K. Jensen of the First Quorum of the Seventy, himself the Church Historian, and representatives of the three groups of survivor descendants.

You'll also hear about a remarkable set of quilts which have literally brought both cloth squares and people together representing all the stakeholders, making a hands-on memorial of remembrance and forgiveness.

That's this week on The Cricket and Seagull.

It was October General Conference of 2001, just a few short weeks after the events that will make September 11, 2001 live forever in our minds.  President Gordon B. Hinckley stood to share his views on the new situation and express his faith in the future. 

CLICK HERE to listen to this brief except, or CLICK HERE to read the entire text.

In his new book, author and journalist Caleb Warnock is likely to surprise you with the obvious — I mean, the pioneers did eat all winter, right? So what did they do differently than we do with our brief three-month garden season? Could we do it their way today?  And why is cooking with "pioneer yeast" so much healthier and easier on the digestive system than today's quick-rise yeast?

In this podcast, you'll get an interesting earful of useful and practical ways of living that were basic life skills until just the last 75 years or so. Did you know carrots weren't even orange until a couple hundred years ago and that they taste best if you leave them in the ground all winter? You do now!

That's just the beginning of this week's journey into self-sufficiency.