I enjoy watching BYU television for many reasons. There are devotional messages from various speakers covering various subjects. The Conference Reports are a favorite. On Sunday we can watch Music and the Spoken Word and a worship service of our Church. There are so many other programs with uplifting content.
Since the first of the year some new programming has joined the broadcast schedule. My mother and my children are hooked on a program called The Wind at My Back, about a family in northeastern Canada in the early 1900’s. I am beginning to warm up to it, but could take it or leave it. It is not so with my boy.
I didn’t realize how bad it had gotten until yesterday, when on our way home from a family get-together in Brigham City, my son realized that he had missed the latest episode and there were no more chances to view it before the next installment. He was very upset. It is occasionally suspect in relation to portraying the values my wife and I would have our children learn, but it is definitely not as far gone as the Disney channel ½ hour programs we encourage them NOT to watch.
Two of my absolute favorites from the new line of programs are The Road to Zion, a series that explores the international history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The top of the list currently, is The Generations Project. I happened to catch an episode this very night, and it touched me greatly.
I have been AWOL for about a week, not posting anything, and hope to get back to the family history stories I had started here. The Generations Project is a new reality series that helps those who have questions about their family history investigate their own identities by walking in the shoes of their ancestors.
Tonight’s episode was a rerun but I had never seen it before. It was the story of Maile Mossman who has lived all her life in Maui, Hawaii, where there are strong oral traditions. Maile is a Kupuna, a teacher of oral tradition through Hawaiian music. Unfortunately, Maile knows very little about her maternal side of the family and is unable to pass on oral traditions to her own children.
I was especially drawn to the experience of a grandmother of Maile, who was a leper exiled to a leper colony. There she met and married a man who had also been diagnosed with leprosy. While together they had 6 children, 4 who lived. The children were removed from the colony shortly after birth to prevent them from contracting the disease, never to be seen again by their mother.
Circumstances allowed her grandmother’s husband to be declared cured, but instead of leaving he stayed with her until her death. He was then able to leave the colony and rejoin his children who had been sent to live with other relatives. Such a heartbreaking story, with its accompanying evidence of love and devotion that was discovered by the research the project was able to perform for her.
My favorite part of this episode was a visit to the same island where the colony was located, walking the ground her grandmother walked, and hearing about the circumstances these people lived under. This quote from the episode exhibits the purpose of the project, as well as the importance of genealogy to the LDS Church.
Maile said, (speaking of the grandfather she never knew of until this research) “I like him. He’s admirable to me. He made her life wonderful and she probably did for him or he would have gone when he was cured. The explanation of her coming in …. It’s the buildup of the details and data I have learned, together with the little bit I already know of her …. It was 115 years ago, but time means nothing, families are forever, so time means nothing. That is why it affects me … but in a good way. I’m not weeping for her suffering, I’m weeping for the good in her life.
If this is also interesting to the few who might come across this post, I hope each of you have a way to view the program, possibly online at BYU TV. I can relate to the desire that those featured on this program have, to learn more about their heritage.
My father died when I was 23. Unfortunately it was also before I really became interested in the things he experienced that I could have learned from. In turn, I never knew my grandfathers in this life, both had passed away before I was born. All I have left is the information that others have taken the time to write down or relate to me.
Finding a way to connect with those who have come before us …. What a powerful thing that is.
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