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Reuniting and remembering the mission at the reunion
Austria-Vienna mission reunion isn't always at conference time
Mormon Times staffers attended several mission reunions to get a look at this long-standing tradition.
HOLLADAY, Utah — It is one of the largest and one of the longest-running Mormon missionary reunions.
The all-Scotland reunion has been an annual event for 45 years and regularly draws 700 to 800 people, including bagpipe players and drummers.
With that length of tradition, some things don't change:
Scottish pride. The prophet Joseph Smith's mother, Lucy Mack Smith, was Scottish, said former mission president Thomas C. Fredrick during the April 2010 reunion, "so half of the blood of the people who restored the church is Scottish."
A meeting for everyone. The reunion begins with a general meeting in the chapel — and overflow — and cultural hall. Then attendees break into 22 mission-president groups for stories and renewing friendships. A favorite story is about the opening of the Scottish Mission in 1962. The first mission president, future general authority Bernard P. Brockbank, and 16 young men opened the mission, and the Scottish media referred to them as the "Mormon invasion" and the mission president as "General Brockbank." Elder Brockbank's response: "It was a million dollars worth of free publicity." Within a couple of years, Scottish membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints grew from 600 to 6,000.
A leader. Jim Pingree, who served in Scotland from 1962 to 1964, had been the reunion leader for almost all of the 45 years.
Culture and tradition. All attending sang "The Song of the Clyde," a tribute to the River Clyde in Scotland. One verse was sung at a speed that seemed comfortable for the Scottish natives, but too fast for some of the North Americans whose mission service was decades ago.
But some things change:
The LDS Church in July combined the Ireland Dublin Mission with the Scotland Edinburgh Mission. The mission now is the Scotland/Ireland Mission, with headquarters in Edinburgh. The two areas once before were a single mission, from 1961 to 1962.
This was Pingree's last charge. He has turned the reins over to youngster David Reeves, who served from 1987 to 1989.
The returned-missionary database now is kept on computers. If used to be a large file of 3-by-5 cards. "We didn't dare let them out of our sight," Pingree said.
And to the reporter attending a Scottish mission reunion for the first time, the dialect led to some confusion. Several speakers talked about a prominent Mormon family of Scottish heritage — the "McKigh" family. I consider myself fairly well-versed in church history, but for the better part of an hour I could not place the McKighs.
Finally, I had heard enough clues. It was the family I'd known all my life as the McKay family —as in late church President David O. McKay.
It's all in how a Scot pronounces the vowels.
e-mail: daves@desnews.com
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