A history of the early movements of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in New England has never been written. The purpose of this study is to write that history showing the introduction, growth, and development of missionary activities of the Church in this area from 1830 to 1850.

In recent years the Brigham Young University Motion Picture Studio has been producing films with the specific purpose of appealing to the non-member or non-LDS (an abbreviation for Latter-Day Saint or Mormon) person. As a part of the Church's missionary program, these films are designed to persuade, convince and bring about conversion to the teachings of the Mormon Church. Consequently, in many phases of film production there is a bias factor. Members of the Church (employees of the Brigham Young University Motion Picture Studio) are endeavoring to determine the most effective themes and techniques to utilize in communicating to a non-LDS audience. The member, with his set attitudes and opinions, is attempting to understand and persuade the non-member. Because of this bias or slant, the following questions can be raised for examination: 1. Does an LDS produced non-member or missionary oriented film effectively communicate to the non-LDS person? 2. Do LDS produced films, designed as a missionary tool, cause a shift of attitudes within the non-member? 3. How do non-LDS people respond to the technical aspects (acting, visual effects) of an LDS produced film?

This thesis is concerned primarily with the settlement, growth, and development of Nephi, Utah. However, an understanding of the physical features of the valley in which it is located is important, as well as the Indian Inhabitants who lived here. All these are included in the first chapter.

Thesis (M.S.)--B.Y.U. College of Religious Instruction. Dept. of History and Philosophy of Religion.

Within the Mormon culture, women are expected to marry, raise children, and be a "helpmeet" to their husbands. Both men and women are taught that they cannot attain the highest degree of heaven unless they are married in a Mormon temple, where they have been "sealed for time and all eternity." Although neither one can achieve this lofty goal without the other, and although there are some aspects of the Mormon culture in which there is a fair degree of equality between men and women, there is no denying that this is a patriarchal culture. Men hold the priesthood and they preside in their homes. The woman is the man's companion and counselor. Kathy Haynie converted to Mormonism when she was just eighteen, and she met and married her husband only two years later. She is committed to her religion and to her new family, and so she is as surprised as anyone when she begins to chafe under a manipulative and controlling husband. She is naive and credulous, and so she assumes that she needs to pray more, keep her mouth shut, and endure to the end. All of that changes when she attends a week of outdoor training for Boy Scout leaders, where she is one of only a handful of woman, and the only woman in her training patrol. Near the end of the week, Kathy realizes that she has been ignoring a self she has held within for fifteen years. Torn between her love of her children and her commitment to stable family life, and the increasing need she feels for genuine companionship, Kathy navigates the uncertain realm of friendship with one of her scouting friends. We watch her blossom as she gains confidence and skills to take her family out into the wilderness at the same time that she is deluding herself about her involvement with her friend. Family, faith, and friendship collide in this memoir of a Mormon wife and mother.

The material in this study is a follow-up of a thesis done by Paul C. Richards entitled, "A Study of Evidences Related to LDS Church History as Reflected in Volumes I through XIII of the Journal of Discourse." That same basic format has been employed in treating the last thirteen volumes of the Discourses. The Discourses contains addresses delivered by General Authorities of the LDS Church and others from 1854 to 1886. Until Richards did his thesis, no one had compiled an index of those volumes that dealt exclusively with history related to the LDS Church. This study completes the historical index.From the historical index a study was made to discover the quantity and quality of historical information contained in the Discourses. The volumes were found to contain a great deal of valuable reminiscent and contemporary historical information. In general, the historical references were recognized to be accurate. The Discourses was found to offer significant insights into better understanding of the people and events in the history of the Church.

This project was designed to generate information relative to a specific intercultural communication situation, especially directed toward diversity between cultural expectation and performance in the following areas: first, Chinese expectation of American Latter-day Saint missionaries' performance in Chinese contexts; and second, performance of the missionaries, as reflected by their knowledge of proper conduct in Chinese contexts at the end of their missions.Using Q-card sorting procedures and t-test analysis, an analytically developed instrument consisting of seventy statements grouped in six behavior categories was applied in the specific areas. Twenty-nine of the seventy statements showed significant diversity. Four of the hypothesized behavior categories proved to be statistically significant. These include, in descending order from the largest significance: "tradition", "language", "personal manners", and "personal space". Generally, the results indicate that missionaries are returning from Taiwan and Hong Kong with some cultural deficiencies which may interfere with effective personal communication. A program of ongoing cultural education designed for missionaries in these areas is suggested as a way to alleviate such deficiencies

The problem of the existence of a devil is important, since it relates to other beliefs which a person or his religion may uphold. The orthodox Christian concepts of the divinity of Christ, the Fall of man, the Atonement, and the inspiration of the Bible are altered when a belief in Satan is discarded.The prophets of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon) take a very definite stand concerning the existence of Satan. They declare that the devil and his angels exist and that they tempt and try to deceive men. L.D.S. scriptures, given through modern revelation, not only show that Satan exists and tempts men but also confirm the authenticity of the Old and New Testaments. However, these scriptures indicate that many passages relating to Satan are missing from the Old Testament. Therefore, on the testimony of modern scripture, the Latter-day Saints maintain that the concept of Satan did not evolve into Jewish thinking and literature by natural means. Rather, the prophets of God since the days of Adam have declard that Satan exists, and some of these prophets have come fact to face with him.Through modern scripture and latter-day prophets, the Latter-day Saints believe that Satan and his angels are spirits, in the image of men, who rebelled against God and were cast down to the earth and have been here since men were upon the earth. These evil spirits have been denied the privilege of obtaining mortal bodies; therefore, they sometimes seek to possess bodies of people living upon the earth. However, they are often detected by Elders holding the Priesthood and are cast out. On occasions they have attacked mortals and in every way tried to destroy the Kingdom of God on earth.The question of Satan's existence is interrelated with many L.D.S. doctrines. The Mormon concepts concerning opposition, the Fall, the Atonement, the divinity of Jesus Christ, and the inspiration of The Book of Mormon and other modern scripture, would of necessity be changed if Satan were to be denied as real person. The Latter-day Saints state that it is through their belief in modern revelation--scripture, the prophets, and personal revelation through the power of the Holy Ghost--that they know Satan exists, that they know many things concerning his origin and career, and that they are able in many cases to expose his deceptions.

The evidence presented in this thesis supports a view of the first Mormon men as coming from the agrarian majority of early nineteenth-century American farmers and artisans who embraced a set of manly ideals that differed significantly, in many ways, from those embraced by their middle-class contemporaries. These men's life writings attest to boyhood experiences of working alongside their fathers as soon as they were physically able, and subsequently of acting as substitute farmers and breadwinners as well as being put out to work outside the direct supervision of their fathers. Such experiences enabled them to frequently follow in the occupational footsteps of their fathers and almost always to marry at ages significantly lower that those of their more upwardly-mobile urban counterparts. Thus, they were able to follow a path to manly independence that was difficult yet direct and relatively rapidEarly Mormonism attracted an unparalleled percentage of men, who, in turn, embraced and supported the development of a the more self-confident and self-assertive theology of man in early Mormon doctrine. Compared to the other denominations of the day, a disproportionate number of early Mormon converts were, or were led to Mormonism by, men. Although these men had received prior religious instruction in their earliest years, typically from their mothers, the content of that instruction was not of the feminized variety stressed by many historians, and a significant portion of these men had been unable to achieve evangelical conversion experiences. Since many of them had previously turned to more liberal religious beliefs regarding the nature of man and his relationship to God, these men undoubtedly supported Mormonism's development of similar doctrines. Their rejection of revivalist rites of passage, which stressed submission and self-abnegation, is also consistent with their enthusiastic participation in more traditional, physically assertive, unrestrained and combative passages to manhood and rites of male bonding. Such beliefs and behaviors were in marked contrast to the manly self-restraint increasingly enjoined by the Northeastern middle class which has provided the model for most previous studies of nineteenth-century American manhood.

This thesis attempts to treat four problems: What is the gospel, as defined in Latter-day Saint literature? Do ancient and modern sources agree? Has there been an historical development of the definitions? Can any disagreements be rationalized? The results of this research reveal that the gospel is complex in that it is capable of handling all the problems of eternity, yet it is simple in that it is a plan of specific principles which lead man step by step to perfection. The author determined that ancient and modern sources do agree in placing six "first principles" at the beginning of man's gospel knowledge, but they then add many advanced principles of the gospel to aid man in his climb to eternal life. In the broad sense of the term, the gospel does include all truth, but all truth in a systematic structure. There has been an historical development of the definitions, for they gradually became more explicit in including all truths and principles. The differences in definitions are apparently due to the progressive revelation of principles, and to the authors' efforts to teach the principles needed by their audiences.