Week 25: The Lord's Navy

July 6, 1988

What a week it has been!

On Thursday (June 30), we went up to San Jose to get the car inspected, but there is a sensor light that comes on when the car has gone 30,000 miles, which ours has done.  California law does not a allow a car to be tested for emissions while the sensor light is on.  We left the car with the mission mechanics and drove back down to Seaside in a different car.

When we got back to Seaside that afternoon, we went to finish tracting Noche Buena Ave.  We did not finish, however, because we got in a door and had a two hour discussion with Robert and Regina.  Robert is in the Army, assigned to Fort Ord; Regina will be having their first baby in the next month or so.  Both are Born Again Christians, as we spent the two hours just answering their questions, though we did manage to teach a few of the first discussion principles in with out answers.  We gave them each a copy of the Book of Mormon and committed them to read it.

We then hurried home, because we had team-ups that evening with the stake missionaries.  I went with one to see some friends of his, and we placed two copies of the Book of Mormon with them.

We finally finished tracting Noche Buena on Friday Morning, after four days.  We got in one door and gave a BoM discussion, placing two more copies with two teenage boys that expressed interest.

We got in another door on Saturday, and got all they way through the first discussion before we found out that we were teaching a member.  She is, however, less active, so maybe we still accomplished something.

On Monday, because of the Fourth of July holiday, we had our P-day.  We had a Zone activity up in Prunedale; first a service project, and then some touch football.  That night we went to a member's home in the hills of Pacific Grove to look down on the fireworks in Monterey.

Leaders meeting was on Tuesday, and Elder Friend spent the day in Salinas with the companion of the district leader up there.  I spent the day with Elder Victor.  We were up in Marina, visiting members and contacts.  At one place he left the keys in the ignition of the car but, fortunately, forgot to lock the driver's side door.  At the rest of our stops, I reminded him to take his keys with him.

Wednesday was a normal proselyting day.  We had a district study in the morning with the zone leaders.  After that Elder Friend and I went on team ups with the ZLs.  Elder Mac and I started tracting a street and at the first door we met Nancy.  She said that she knows some members and has been to some Relief Society homemaking meetings.  We gave her a copy of the Book of Mormon, and place another copy further down the street.

Elder Mac is highly motivated in his service to the Lord, some might use the words "gung ho."  At one point in our conversation, he expressed how happy he was serving in the Lord's army.  I said that I was not serving in the Lord's army, but in the Lord's navy, instead.  He didn't seem to know what to make of that.  Just me being me.

Later Elder Friend and I went back to finish the street.  After that we did another street and place a third copy of the Book of Mormon for the day.  We talked to a Born Again who said something rather unusual.  She believes that there are, in fact, commandments that we need to keep.

For those who haven't been counting, we place eight copies of the Book of Mormon this week.  Anchors aweigh, my boys, anchors aweigh.  That's the weekly update.

Love
Douglas

Prepare Yourself for the Great Day of the Lord

I came across this video today containing excerpts of a talk given by President Ezra Taft Benson in 1982, when he was president of the Quorum of the Twelve.  He became the president of the LDS Church in 1985.

The full talk, which was directed at the youth of the church, was printed in the May 1982 issue of the New Era.  See: https://www.lds.org/new-era/1982/05/prepare-yourself-for-the-great-day-of-the-lord?lang=eng

"I wish to present to you some thoughts about the times in which you live and about the quality of faith you will need to survive some of the difficulties yet to be experienced," said President Benson.  "I speak as one who loves you and has been given a responsibility, with my Brethren, “to testify and warn” about the impending crises facing mankind."

In this talk, President Benson discussed the missionary work of the church, saying "The gospel is being extended to all nations which permit our missionaries to penetrate their countries. The Church is prospering and growing."  He asked, "Knowing what we know as His servants, can we hesitate to raise a warning voice to all who will listen that they may be prepared for the days ahead?"

Crashing the Simulator

While astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were training for the first landing on the Moon, an incident occurred in the Landing Module simulator that has since become notorious.  At some point during the simulation a problem "occurred" which called for an abort of the landing.  What happened next is a little bit fuzzy, either Mission Control in Houston, which was also participating in the simulation, failed to call for the abort, or Armstrong ignored the call.  Whatever, the cause, the simulation continued until the lunar module "crashed" into the lunar surface.

That night the crew quarters, according the Apollo 11 crew mate, Michael Collins, Buzz was rather upset about the "crash."  According to Collins, "I could not discern whether he was concerned bout his actual safety in flight, should Neil repeat this error, or whether he was simply embarrassed to have crashed in front of a roomful of experts in Mission Control."  As Buzz continued to complain, Neil suddenly appeared in his pajamas.  Collins quickly excused himself, allowing Neil and Buzz to hash it out.

According to Buzz, Neil merely complained that "You guys are making too much noise," saying that he was trying to sleep.  Neil apparently, did not try to defend what he had done in the simulation.  "That wouldn't have been Neil," explained Aldrin.  Armstrong's personality was more of the quiet, introspective type.  As Collins explained, "They say 'no man is an island'; well, Neil is kind of an island. . . . Sometimes what he is thinking and his inner thoughts were more interesting to him than somebody else's thoughts were to him, so why should he leave his island, go wading out into the shallows to shake hands with somebody, when he's perfectly happy back in his little grass hut or wherever."

The disagreement between Armstrong and Aldrin was the result of how each viewed the purpose of the simulators and their respective goals in a simulation exercise.  Armstrong, who had helped develop some of the first flight simulators when he was a NASA test pilot at Edwards Air Force Base before becoming an astronaut viewed the simulations as an opportunity to explore potential problems, whereas Aldrin viewed the simulations as a game that he should try to win.

"People who had not been involved in simulator development during their career usually just tried to 'win,'" said Armstrong.  "They tried to operate perfectly all the time and avoid simulator problems.  I did the opposite.  I tried actively to encourage simulator problems so I could investigate and learn from them.  I am sure that some of the guys were well aware of my approach."

In contrast to Neil, Buzz was more outspoken, he was also highly driven to excel and his drive often alienated him from his fellow astronauts.   "I thought were were playing a game," said Aldrin, "and we should make an attempt to do everything we could to win the game, and the sooner we did it when we saw that things were going bad for us, the better off we'd be and the more in keeping with what we'd actually do in a real situation like that."

Aldrin had told Collins that the most important thing was not to crash.  "I felt analyzing this and that system and whatever was not playing the game properly as far as the simulator people were concerned.  If they threw a failure at us and we were losing control of the LM, would we in real flight actually go on and land?  I'm not sure we would.  They same way that if something disabled the commander, or disabled the primary guidance, or disabled the landing radar, why, we wouldn't land on the first try, we'd abort and come back.  Clearly there was a difference between Neil and I in how we reacted to the simulation.  Neil had his reasons for doing what he did."

Did Aldrin suggest during the simulation that they abort?  "I don't recall that Buzz asked me to abort -- ever -- I don't remember that," said Armstrong.  "What I do remember is that the descent trajectory that we were on during the simulation and the information we had available to us had become seriously degraded, and I thought that it was a great time to test the Mission Control center, 'Okay, guys, let's see what you can do with this.'"

Armstrong continued, "I knew I could abort at any time -- and probably successfully -- but then you lose the mission, the rest of the simulation.  This was a chance to test the control center.  Buzz took that as a black mark against us.  He thought it was a mark against his ability to perform, a mark against both of us and against our crew ability.  I didn't look at it that way at all."

According to his biographer, Armstrong wanted to promote technological learning through dialectical experimentation.  "If we couldn't come up with a solution or the ground controllers couldn't come up with a solution, that was an indication to me that, for one, I needed to understand that part of the flight trajectory better," said Armstrong.  Neil did learn from the "crash," and built a "plot of altitude versus descent rate with bands on it that I hadn't had before, so that I could tell when I was getting into a questionable area.  If I had aborted when everyone wanted me to, I probably would not have bothered to make that."

Mission Control also learned from the "crash," as the flight controller and his team reevaluated how they had handled the simulation.  "I'm sure they improved their approach to understanding it, too, and knowing when they were getting into a dangerous area," stated Armstrong.  "So it did serve a valuable purpose."

Like the lunar module simulator at NASA in the 1960s, prospective missionaries can have the opportunity to make mistakes and learn from them.  Before entering the MTC, young men and young women can prepare to teach investigators by making lesson plans of the discussions found in Preach My Gospel and teaching mock discussions to members.  By making these lesson plans and teaching these mock discussions, they can learn the gospel before they attempt to teach it for real to investigators in the mission field.  These simulations should be looked upon as an opportunity to make mistakes and learn from them.


Source:

Hansen, J. R. (2005). First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong. New York: Simon & Schuster.