THE DIGEST
JANUARY 2025 VOL. 3 / NO. 1
Deseret Magazine
Church News
Deseret News
The singular hospitality of hutkeepers
More missionaries serving, more people joining the Church
Latest Sundance lineup includes Famous Actors — and a Utah-based film
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Martha Hughes Cannon statue installed in U.S. Capitol’s Emancipation Hall The trailblazing woman from Utah, Martha Hughes Cannon was a suffragist, doctor, senator, orator, wife and mother
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2 DESERET NEWS | JANUARY 2025
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We are pleased to introduce you to The Digest, a sampling of some of the best stories written every day by the dedicated journalists at the Deseret News, Deseret Magazine and Church News. Our hope is that you will make us your trusted news source each day at a time when there is confusion and contention in the nation. The Deseret News brand stands for unimpeachable journalism centered on the issues most core to the human heart. While the Deseret News since its beginning in 1850 has evolved to meet the demands of its audience — reimagining print offerings, launching an acclaimed magazine and increasing the visibility and reach of its award-winning website — the publication remains committed to certain timeless ideals. We stand for truth and light. We stand for faith and family. We stand for liberty and responsibility. We provide news and perspective, exploring society’s thorniest problems in search of solutions that will improve your life. That’s our commitment to our readers. We invite you to discover what we can offer you:
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Peripheral Neuropathy WARNING! South Jordan, UT - The most common method your doctor will recommend to treat your neuropathy is with prescription drugs that may temporarily reduce your symptoms. These drugs have names such as Gabapentin, Lyrica, Cymbalta, and Neurontin, and are primarily antidepressant or anti-seizure drugs. These drugs may cause you to feel uncomfortable and have a variety of harmful side effects.
3) How much treatment will your condition require? The treatment that is provided at The Scranton Clinic has three main goals: Increase blood flow Stimulate small fiber nerves Decrease brain-based pain
Figure 2: When these very small blood vessels become diseased they begin to shrivel up and the nerves begin to degenerate. they cause you to have balance problems, pain, numbness, tingling, burning, and many additional symptoms. Figure 1: Notice the very small blood vessels surrounding each nerve. Peripheral neuropathy is a result of damage to the nerves often causing weakness, pain, numbness, tingling, and the most debilitating balance problems. This damage is commonly caused by a lack of blood flow to the nerves in the hands and feet which causes the nerves to begin to degenerate due to lack of nutrient flow. As you can see in Figure 2, as the blood vessels that surround the nerves become diseased they shrivel up which causes the nerves to not get the nutrients to continue to survive. When these nerves begin to “die”
The treatment to increase blood flow utilizes a specialized low-level light therapy (not to be confused with laser therapy) using light emitting diode technology. This technology was originally developed by NASA to assist in increasing blood flow. The low level light therapy is like watering a plant. The light therapy will allow the blood ves-sels to grow back around the peripheral nerves and provide them with the proper nutrients to heal and repair. It’s like adding water to a plant and seeing the roots grow deeper and deeper.
The main problem is that your doctor has told you to just live with the problem or try the drugs which you don’t like taking because they make you feel uncomfortable. There is now a facility right here in South Jordan that offers you hope without taking those endless drugs with serious side effects. (see the special neuropathy severity examination at the end of this article) In order to effectively treat your neuropathy three factors must be determined. 1)What is the underlying cause? 2)How Much Nerve Damage Has Been Sustained. NOTE: Once you have sustained 85% nerve loss, there is likely nothing that we can do for you.
The amount of treatment needed to allow the nerves to fully recover varies from person to person and can only be determined after a detailed neurological and vascular evaluation. As long as you have not sustained at least 85% nerve damage there is hope! The Scranton Clinic will do a neuropathy severity examination to determine the extent of the nerve damage for only $45. This neuropathy severity examination will consist of a detailed sensory evaluation, extensive peripheral vascular testing, and a detailed analysis of the findings of your neuropathy. Dr. Scranton will be offering this neuropathy severity examination from now until December 31st, 2024 Call 801-210-6144 to make an appointment with Dr. Scranton to determine if your peripheral neuropathy can be treated. The patient and any other person responsible for payment has a right to refuse to pay, cancel payment, or be reimbursed for payment for any other service, examination or treatment that is performed as a result of and within 72 hours of responding to the advertisement for the free, discounted fee, or reduced fee service, examination or treatment.
Figure 3: The blood vessels will grow back around the nerves much like a plant’s roots grow when watered.
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4 DESERET NEWS | JANUARY 2025
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Martha Hughes Cannon statue installed in U.S. Capitol’s Emancipation Hall The trailblazing woman from Utah, Martha Hughes Cannon was a suffragist, doctor, senator, orator, wife and mother By Holly Richardson Deseret News
WASHINGTON — Current and former elected officials and religious, business and community leaders filled Emancipation Hall in the U.S. Capitol Visitor’s Center on Dec. 11 to celebrate the installation of a statue of Martha Hughes Cannon to represent the state of Utah. Wearing the suffrage colors of gold, white and violet, many were moved to tears as a place in history was secured for Martha — a frontier physician, public health reformer, suffragist, state senator, orator, wife and mother. Her legacy will now be shared with the more than 3 million visitors that file through the Capitol Visitor’s Center each year. In 2018, the Utah Legislature voted to replace a statue of television pioneer Philo T. Farnsworth with that of Martha Hughes Cannon, created by Utah artist Ben Hammond. The Capitol also features a statue of Brigham Young. Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson said because of Martha’s place in Statuary Hall — where she stands among the 100 statues representing two prominent individuals from each state and is one of just 14 statues of women — boys and girls, men and women from around the world “will learn about the tiny woman from Utah (Martha was 4 feet, 11 inches tall) who had a giant impact on the lives of so many.” Born in Wales on July 1, 1857, Martha’s family immigrated in 1861 to the Utah Territory as converts to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Utah House Minority Leader Angela Romero said that the placement of the statue of Martha, a Democrat who became the nation’s first female state senator, celebrates her accomplishments and life that not only broke a glass ceiling, but also paved the way for others. Martha Hughes Cannon symbolizes hope — “hope for a better future, hope for a better tomorrow,” she said. During the installation ceremony, U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson introduced Martha to the audience. Following a flag ceremony, President Camille N. Johnson, Relief Society general president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, gave the opening prayer. She later told the Deseret News how inspirational she found Martha — a pioneer in multiple aspects, committed to her faith, accomplished in her professional life and a dedicated wife and mother. “Martha Hughes Cannon had the desire to be a wife and mother, and it was in faith she fulfilled those roles. But those were not the only roles that she filled,” she said. “She had a desire and a passion to share her knowledge and expertise as a medical doctor.... Because of that expertise in medicine, (she was) particularly adept as a state senator.” The things she was doing in her time “probably seemed impossible, or nearly impossible, to achieve,” said President Johnson. “I hope that as people come to Emancipation Hall, they will feel inspired by Martha Hughes Cannon’s example of service, of loving and lifting those around them, and that they’ll set their sights high.” Also attending from the Church of Jesus Christ were Elder Gary E. Stevenson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and Elder Matthew S. Holland, a General Authority Seventy.
John McDonnell, for the Deseret News
Senator-elect Rep. John Curtis, R-Utah, left, Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, second left, Arline Brady, great-granddaughter of Martha Hughes Cannon, center right, and Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, right, unveil the statue of Martha Hughes Cannon at a dedication ceremony in Emancipation Hall at the U.S. Capitol, Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024, in Washington, D.C.
Minority Whip Katherine Clark of Massachusetts also addressed the crowd of hundreds, praising Martha for inspiring others to “imagine the inconceivable, and then [make] it true.” She quipped that Martha had been scheduled to arrive in 2020, but “like so many of us, her travel plans were delayed.” She also praised Martha (often called Mattie) for her efforts in the fight for suffrage for all women in the United States. Mattie knew, she said, “that every break with precedent, every step toward equality, wasn’t just in service to her daughters. It was in service to all Americans.” Arline Arnold Brady said she learned about Martha Hughes Cannon, her great-grandmother, from an early age. “We all recognize how extraordinary she was,” she said, noting Mattie used the knowledge she gained to make real change. Henderson has previously called the bill to get Martha to D.C. the most difficult fight during her time as a Utah senator — and she wasn’t even the sponsor. Now that the statue has taken her spot in the Capitol, Henderson acknowledged that, like Martha, many others have found themselves standing alone, have felt the sting of injustice, “have fought for change that either never came or that we did not get credit for.” Her call to action was this: Do a little bit of good in the world, keep both eyes open and be intentional about remembering
the past while looking to the future. “Today,” she said, “is not the culmination of our efforts, but a continuation of them.” Henderson’s thoughts echoed the thoughts of several of the women key to the founding of this effort, including Katherine Kitterman and Naomi Watkins of Better Days 2020, a organization focused on elevating the stories of Utah women. They both told the Deseret News that to them, the placement of the statue of Martha was not the end of her journey, but another step along the way of elevating the many stories of Utah’s women. Rep. Celeste Maloy thanked her Utah colleagues for the opportunity to speak (the honor typically goes to the longest-serving legislator), and noted they were “no less excited” than she was. Maloy spoke of the need to remember Mattie as a whole person, and to not cherry pick parts of her story. She was a doctor, who was a polygamous wife who left with her infant daughter to escape religious persecution. There were many facets to Martha, and Maloy said she hoped that as Martha stands there, that “we let her be her” and respect all the parts of her, because there are aspects to Martha’s that will speak to everyone. Former Rep. Adam Gardiner, the original House sponsor of the bill to send Martha to Washington, remembers learning the story of Dr. Martha “Mattie” Hughes Cannon when he interned
DESERET NEWS | JANUARY 2025 in former Congressman Rob Bishop’s office. Congressman Bishop would lead tours past the Philo T. Farnsworth statue, and would quip that he personally would have preferred either a statue of John M. Browning or Martha Hughes Cannon. As Gardiner learned those stories, and then shared them as he led tours, he developed a deep respect for the nation’s first female state senator, and when elected to the Utah House, opened a bill file to make that happen. When Gardiner won a race as the Salt Lake County recorder, state Sen. Todd Weiler publicly told him on a radio show that he wanted to be the Senate sponsor. Then-Rep. Becky Edwards simultaneously told him she wanted to be the House sponsor of the bill. Both became ardent supporters and champions of Martha and her trailblazing. Edwards remembers how she thought the “Martha bill” should have been a simple bill, easy to pass. But it was not. The bill was held in House rules for weeks. Edwards and others pushed for grassroots efforts to “Free Martha!,” including Girl Scout troop members and young activists like Natalie Gunn. Finally, on Feb. 14, 2018, Martha was freed from rules. Serendipitously, it was the anniversary of Seraph Young casting the first vote in the nation under a state suffrage law. After much debate, the bill passed, with three House members voting no and five absent or not voting. For Maya Mercer, the journey of Martha to Statuary Hall is inspiring and motivating — and has taken almost half her life. Mercer, now 16, was one of those 9-year-old Girl Scouts when the “Martha bill” made its way through the Utah Legislature. She was in the House gallery when the bill passed in 2018 and she was in Emancipation Hall when Martha’s statue was installed on Dec. 11. Martha’s story has inspired Mercer to want to study history or political science. She will do an internship at the Utah Legislature next year, as a senior in high school. “I have grown up with Martha,” she said, and “I have learned that my voice matters.”
John McDonnell, for the Deseret News
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., bows his head in prayer during the Martha Hughes Cannon statue dedication ceremony in Emancipation Hall at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024, in Washington, D.C.
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6 DESERET NEWS | JANUARY 2025
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The singular hospitality of hutkeepers Rifugios, doms, cabanes, huts — they all offer hikers a welcome refuge from the trail in the mountain ranges around the world
Rifugio Boz, where one can sleep in converted stables and indulge in local cheese. By Lauren Steele Deseret Magazine
As far as I could see, there was no place to rest. My husband, Sean, and I were venturing up to the unworldly Puez plateau, a vast, undulating altopiano rich in limestone but scarce in plant life. We had clambered onto this island in the sky from Brixen, the oldest town in the Tyrol region straddling Austria and Italy, passing the flanks of Sass de Putia (where, with some patience and binoculars, one can look upon a view of 449 church spires) and crossing over high passes where peaks teetered in the clouds and signs directed us in Italian, German and Ladin, with times estimating how long it would take us to get somewhere. The thing about “somewhere” in the mountains, though, is the feeling that you’re somewhere and nowhere all at once is nearly constant. Each col, cliffside and valley has a name and has been tramped across to the point where the path of least resistance is (albeit still quite resistant) human-made via switchbacks and passes. You’re also nowhere that feels particularly hospitable. Despite what the wildflowers and families of surefooted ungulates may communicate, other living things, like people,
Sean Ryan Photography
don’t flourish in terrain where rockfall, avalanches, substantial winds and long winters make the rules. Despite being absolutely out of my mind gawking at the beauty around and settling into the feeling of vertical feet passing beneath me, that truth was dog-eared in my mind as the sun began to set, the temperature began to drop, and we realized we had to figure out where to sleep in this bizarre world of limestone. We puffed up a cable-aided stretch of via ferrata — Italian for “iron way,” these paths were built to aid the movement of alpine military units through the Dolomites during World War I — and peered into the steep canyon walls of Vallunga, sculpted by ancient vessels of ice, charting the courses of future travelers like us and carving canyons. Walls sheered away in each direction. Seemingly materializing through twilight’s filter like a will-o’-the-wisp, a hut appeared, perched in a grassy field hanging above the depths. We bashfully let ourselves into the Rifugio Puez, barely removing our gloves and unshouldering our packs before a tall, blonde woman sat us at a table nestled in the woodstove-warmed stube, or commons. Her name was Katrin. She is the wife of Costa Denis, the owner and operator of Rifugio Puez. She asked us if we could use a hot beverage. Could we ever. She came back with a mug of hot chocolate,
and I would put money on it being the most luscious I’d ever had — like what I’d imagined as a kid when I read about cocoa as “thick and rich as melted chocolate bars” in “The Polar Express.” I was giddy. Costa Denis’ grandfather, renowned mountain guide Pietro Costa, began managing the rifugio (a mountain hut) in 1940, before passing it down to his children, Oscar and Gemma. Costa Denis grew up spending his summers there, and, when the time came, took over for Oscar and Gemma. Now, he, Katrin, and their two little girls, Emma and Lena, spend weeks on end tending to the place, first built in 1889 and roosted in the same mountains that inspired the legends of dragons and giants that generations of his ancestors have told. Far from Jeep tracks and cable cars, they have supplies flown in via helicopter or packed up the trails by foot. Basking in the glow of the stove, I watched as Costa and Katrin heaped steaming dumplings and apple strudel onto plates, washed dishes, carried firewood to the stove, pillows to bunkrooms, and water to the kitchen. How? I stared at the whipped cream piled in my mug. After any day spent walking or working sunup to sundown, things just taste good. But this little hot chocolate was a panacea. An impossible treat made feasible in this place only by the hard work of the one who created it and the one who was lucky enough to enjoy it. As folks like Sean and I wandered in looking for a place to warm up, a place to sleep, and a bite to eat, only to flit away at dawn with our packs back on our shoulders to look for another place to awe, people like Costa and Katrin were here, watching the sun rise over Vallunga and keeping an eye on the small mountain lakes to ensure those mythic dragons didn’t rise out of the water. They remained. They knew so much more of these mountains than I ever would, and they gave me a place to rest in them. “Refuge” preserves its Latin root in both the noun (refugium) and the verb (refugere) interpretations of the modern word, used to communicate both a literal shelter and the figurative sanctuary that we seek — symbolic language fit perfectly to the shape of the rifugios and refugios of the Dolomites and the Andes, the doms of Slovenia’s Julian Alps, the cabanes of Switzerland and France’s Alps, and the
Sean Ryan Photography
Hot chocolate enjoyed by those traversing Italy's Dolomites.
DESERET NEWS | JANUARY 2025
Sean Ryan Photography
Trail markers posting time estimates — not distances — to destinations.
huts of the U.S.’s Rocky Mountains. Etymology has a helpful tendency to provide an anchor for the often-elusive ways in which words float around the feeling of what we’re trying to say. But simply, the refuge … is for taking refuge. Even for hutkeepers themselves. “It’s meant to be a shared refuge,” says Jeff Colt, who worked as the hutkeeper at the Carter Notch Hut in New Hampshire’s White Mountains and was caretaker at two of the range’s eight American Mountain Club-owned huts between 2011 and 2016. “As the hutkeeper, you are asked to take pride in the space. You’re asked to take care and upkeep it and make it hospitable so people feel welcome there. But at the end of the day, it’s not your space. That’s maybe the biggest lesson I learned through my time working in the huts. I have my own bed and I have my quarters, but this place is meant for anyone who’s seeking refuge from the elements in the mountains. That’s when I started to adopt that stewardship mentality: I am also a visitor here in this lineage of caretakers.” It’s a relatively small community, even globally speaking, of people who know what it means to steward a mountain hut. The AMC huts hire just 49 caretakers each season. Some huts in the Alps — like the Great St. Bernard Hospice in Switzerland, a 975-year-old hostel that serves as a stop on the ancient Via Francigena pilgrimage, running from the cathedral city of Canterbury in England to Rome and Apulia, Italy, to ports of embarkation for the Holy Land — are manned year-round. In the case of St. Bernard, four canons (the people, not the weapon) and one oblate reside in the monastery full time, welcoming skiers and religious pilgrims alike in the winter, keeping carafes of hot tea at the ready, waking guests each sunrise with Gregorian chants, and holding the keys to the treasure room and crypt — where it’s rumored that the bodies of weary winter travelers who didn’t survive the deep snow and frigid temperatures remain.
Dec. 10, 2024 Mar. 15, 2025
The Opus Hut, which sits on an old mining claim between Telluride and Silverton, Colorado, is run by one man: Bob Kingsley. Legend has it he hasn’t owned a TV since 1987. He instead busies himself with the hut — filling gaps in the timber-framed cabin (which he built from reclaimed wood handed down from a dairy farm), maintaining the compost toilets, perfecting his chicken pot pie recipe and organizing the logistics of carrying between 8,000 and 9,000 pounds of winter supplies up to 11,600 feet from the valley floor. There’s a misconception about choosing a simpler, more deliberate way of life. The simple life is not easy. A job listing for the post of Yosemite Ostrander Ski hutkeeper puts it well: “Given this is a residential position, the work of the hutkeeper really is never done. The ideal candidate will take joy in connecting with overnight guests and helping create a convivial environment as part of the hut experience. This is a position for someone who loves to ski and host people as well as clean and maintain a precious old building.” The typical morning for any given hutkeeper starts at 5:30 a.m. with the preparation of breakfast, followed by the serving of said breakfast and assisting travelers with their checkout and payments. Around 8 a.m., hutkeepers begin cleanup before finally enjoying a short breakfast and break for themselves. To finish off the morning, there’s more cleaning to do — the bunks, the bathrooms, the hearth room. After lunch, hutkeepers often spend the late-afternoon hours prepping bread, baking pies or cakes, prepping water and the kitchen, chopping wood, doing laundry, accounting and the all-important task of inventory. Then, dinner calls. Then, dishes. So many dishes. Hutkeepers save their dinner for last, savoring it a bit after the drying racks are full and CONTINUES ON PG. 8
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An unmanned bivouac for emergency shelter perched high in the hanging meadows of Val Canzoi in Italy.
Sean Ryan Photography
guests are washing their faces or shuffling decks of cards. At some point, the accounting for the day is in the books, the kitchen is clean, bellies are full and it’s time for bed. One AMC caretaker once jokingly described the work as “the reverse 9-to-5.” Oh, but to keep alive the delight of that simple life. Nearly 100 miles from Rifugio Puez, I draped my jacket across the back of a wooden chair in the living area of another hut called Rifugio Boz, a converted farm where schiz, a fresh local cheese pan fried with cream, is often served at dinner and where we slept in stables that now serve as a bunkhouse. How many had hung their wet jackets up in this room before me, grateful for the roof overhead? Behind us on winding trails were the huts we had called “home” for the night. Rifugio Mulaz, where a loving-but-dutiful border collie named Stella greeted guests as the sunset fired up the surrounding peaks in a red blaze of light, and Rifugio Treviso, a hut run for over 20 years by mountain guide Tullio Simoni, his wife Mara and their son Igor. After a late-day storm chased us down a grueling 5,700-foot descent — past the remains of a 1950s plane crash — Igor heard the squish in my shoes as we plodded onto the creaking wooden floors of the hut to ask if they had room for two more. Before guiding us to our bunks, he showed me to the hearth and strung a line above the stove for me to hang my socks. They were dry again before he doled out a second helping of minestrone and read the weather report for the next day from notes scrawled out on a piece of notepad paper: blue skies. “I’m pretty sure I’m a better friend, a better husband, a better lot of things because of my time in the huts,” reflects Colt. “And that’s not just because I learned that you should clean as you go and whatnot. It’s the pace of life and appreciation. It takes recognizing that you’re doing something for something much bigger than yourself to have that type of connection with a place.” Back home in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah, months after returning from the Dolomites, a cluster of brick-red stems and sharp purple petals clinging to the rocks lucky enough to have landed atop Mount Tuscarora caught my eye. I knew something looked familiar. They were alpine snowbells, the same wildflower that had dotted that impossibly green pasture that Rifugio Puez sits in. These flowers are one of the few with the ability to push through the snow and bloom before the thaw, thanks to an “antifreeze” carbohydrate its root system stores through the winter. Even in the harshest environment, it finds what it needs to blossom. I laugh to myself, recognizing that in some funny way, Katrin’s cocoa was my antifreeze nourishment that evening on the Puez Plateau, sustaining me in the mountains I, too, want to know. This story appears in the December 2024 issue of Deseret Magazine. Learn more about how to subscribe.
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10 DESERET NEWS | JANUARY 2025
CHURCH NEWS
More missionaries serving, more people joining the Church ‘The reality is more people are coming to the Church of Jesus Christ than we’ve seen in decades’ Mary Richards Church News
The number of missionaries serving right now in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has reached a high mark of around 80,000. Why a missionary serves is contained in the missionary purpose: to invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, repentance, baptism and receiving the Holy Ghost. “When it gets into a person’s heart, it changes what they do and how they look at other people, that every individual out there in the world is a child of God, and we can bring them back home through making covenants,” said Elder W. Mark Bassett, a General Authority Seventy and executive director of the Church’s Missionary Department. And people are responding to that invitation, said David N. Weidman, managing director of the Missionary Department. “Every region of the world is seeing an acceleration in the growth of convert baptisms,” Weidman said. Not only are people accepting the invitation to enter into the covenant of baptism, they are also continuing to progress along the covenant path, Elder Bassett said. This good news comes at a time when people may feel like they only see bad news — particularly on social media. “But the reality is more people are coming to the Church of Jesus Christ than we’ve seen in decades,” Elder Bassett said.
New missionary preparation course
Elder Bassett and Weidman joined the Church News podcast on Dec. 3 to talk about missionary work — including announcing new resources.
A new Churchwide missionary preparation course, based on “Preach My Gospel,” is coming in January 2025 for parents, wards, stakes, seminaries, institutes and others to help young men and young women prepare to serve missions. “This course helps teachers teach in a way that will be engaging and will allow the young people to participate. And we really feel great about it and think it’ll be a great resource for our teachers that are in these classes,” Elder Bassett said. The course can be done as a self-study program as well, with modules, visual content, go-and-do activities and more. “The better prepared a missionary is, the faster they can jump in and feel like they’re really being a blessing to others,” Elder Bassett said. “And it helps them to understand, when they go to the missionary training center, what the experience will be like and what they’ll be focusing on.”
Changes to missionary work
Recently, the First Presidency announced that single senior men can now serve full-time missions. And last year, service missionaries were integrated into teaching missions. This has changed the service missionaries, the teaching missionaries and the culture of the mission overall, Weidman said. Missionaries used to knock on doors and be invited into homes to teach. Now missionaries are finding much more success inviting people to church on Sunday. Elder Bassett said the quicker individuals go to a sacrament meeting, the more engaged they will be in learning. Members are there to welcome them, and they find friends who are their neighbors. Weidman said when people come to sacrament meeting, the Spirit can convert them and change their hearts. “We found tremendous, tremendous change in people’s lives just by attending one meeting in the church,” Weidman said.
Activity sharing
Church members are a key part of the work of love, share, invite, Weidman said, and it doesn’t have to be complicated; it is about sharing beliefs and faith in normal and natural ways. A new tool announced in the leadership meeting of October 2024 general conference is called “activity sharing.” When a ward council has an activity or sacrament meeting or anything that is already happening, they can put that into their Church calendar, and then it will be populated on a website. It makes inviting simple, Elder Bassett said. For example, a ward in Texas posted a Halloween trunkor-treat activity that was then shared on social media. Neighbors found the activity and attended. The response was so great, the ward ran out of food. Then several of those families came to church on Sunday. Weidman said in North America in particular, well over 50% of those who are baptized into the Church come through use of technology of one type or another, such as social media posts or digital ads in their feeds.
A remarkable season
Elder Bassett said Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are fully engaged in the work. “Recent converts are staying. More people are being baptized, more missionaries are serving, and that’s why we had to create 36 new missions. And now we have more missionaries than we had estimated, and it’s likely that will continue as more people respond to the call of a Prophet. It’s just a blessing to witness.” Weidman said it is a remarkable season in the history of the Church. ”I think all of us feel, in many ways, that we’re witnessing miracles on a day-in-and-day-out basis.”
Missionaries from the four missions in Guayaquil, Ecuador, listen to Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles on Friday, Aug. 30, 2024.
Leslie Nilsson, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
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12 DESERET NEWS | JANUARY 2025
DESERET NEWS
Latest Sundance lineup includes famous actors — and a Utah-based film The future location of the Sundance Film Festival is still uncertain, but one thing that’s clear is the massive effort that goes into putting together the lineup By Lottie Elizabeth Johnson Deseret News
The future location of the Sundance Film Festival, which for 40 years has been headquartered in Park City, Utah, is still uncertain, but one thing that’s clear is the massive effort that goes into putting together the lineup each year. “The focus has always been on a place of discovery and new voices. That’s what Sundance is about, and that’s not going to change,” John Nein, who has been a Sundance Film Festival programmer for over 20 years, told the Deseret News on a Zoom call. “Regardless of what happens in that process, the festival this year and in 2026 will be in the same place and serving a community that we’ve been part of for more than 40 years.” Programming the lineup, Nein said, is a delicate balancing act of highlighting newer filmmakers in the industry along with new projects from familiar faces. The process takes almost a year. Tough decisions are made — for the 2025 selection, festival programmers started with roughly 16,000 entries and condensed that into a lineup that includes 87 feature films and six episodic projects. Festival programmers saw more international submissions than ever during the latest cycle, Nein said, illustrating the festival’s wide reach. “People are making movies — it’s a great sign. It’s a sign of the health and vitality of independent storytelling,” Nein said. “And there’s always ones that are really hard to let go of and to not see in the program. We have a very tightly curated program, and in the end, it’s difficult to have it not include all the films that you love.” On Dec. 11, the festival revealed the films that did make the cut for 2025. And there’s one statistic that makes Nein especially proud: 36 of the 87 film entries (41%) highlight first-time feature filmmakers. “We always want to have a very high number of films that are from either first-time directors or, in many cases even if it’s a second or third feature, it’s not necessarily someone who has become well known or whose work has seen a lot of visibility,” Nein said. “It’s about … really shining a light on people whose work hasn’t really had that visibility yet.” But the festival — which will run in Park City and Salt Lake City from Jan. 23-Feb. 2 (there will be an online presence during the latter half ) — will also see the return of several established writers and directors. That includes Justin Lin, who came out of Sundance in the early 2000s with “Better Luck Tomorrow” and went on to direct a few of the “Fast and Furious” films and 2016's “Star Trek Beyond.” Bill Condon, who released “Gods and Monsters” at Sundance in the late 1990s and went on to direct “Chicago,” “Dream Girls” and part of the “Twilight” saga, also returns to the festival for what will probably be one of the buzzier films due in part to its cast. The list of celebrities featured in the 2025 Sundance films will likely generate a lot of excitement for festivalgoers —
Pedestrians cross Main Street on the opening day of the Sundance Film Festival in Park City.
Condon’s film, “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” stars Jennifer Lopez and Diego Luna. Other well known stars who are part of the 2025 lineup include Benedict Cumberbatch, Conan O’Brien, Mark Ruffalo, John Malkovich, Steven Yeun and Lauren Graham, to name a few. As people sift through the program and consider purchasing tickets for individual films, which go on sale Jan. 16, Nein has one piece of advice. “I just encourage people to take a risk on watching something that doesn’t feel like a sure thing — the same way that those filmmakers took a risk making it,” he said. Here’s a brief overview of the 2025 festival lineup — including some of Nein’s top picks.
The popularity of biographies and ‘larger-thanlife figures’
Documentary filmmakers are back in full force in the 2025 Sundance lineup. There are a number of music biographies on the slate. Questlove — whose Sundance film “Summer of Soul” won the Oscar for best documentary feature in 2022 — is returning with what Nein described as a “fantastic, energiz-
Spenser Heaps, Deseret News
ing film” about Sly & The Family Stone. Amy Berg, whose 2006 documentary “Deliver Us From Evil” was nominated for an Academy Award, brings to life a film that explores late singer Jeff Buckley, who had released just one album before his unexpected death in 1997. Both the Buckley film, titled “It’s Never Over,” and a film about “Queen of Tejano Music” Selena Quintanilla explore the lives of musicians gone far too soon, pulling from family archives to provide never-before-seen footage, Nein said. “One to One: John & Yoko” highlights another late musician by exploring the 18 months John Lennon and Yoko Ono spent living in Greenwich Village, New York, back in the 1970s. Outside of major music figures, other documentary subjects include Marlee Matlin, who in 1987 became the first deaf actor to win an Academy Award — and who starred in “CODA,” the first film out of Sundance to win the Oscar for best picture. A film about Sally Ride, which is the 2025 Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize Winner for its depiction of science and technology, explores the life of the first American woman in space.
DESERET NEWS | JANUARY 2025 A year and a half after Paul Reubens’ death, “Pee-wee as Himself,” a two-part documentary, gives viewers a glimpse of Reubens’ (aka Pee-wee Herman’s) influences and struggles as an artist. And “Prime Minister” explores former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s life and five years in power. But in striving for balance, the Sundance lineup isn’t just putting the spotlight on well-known names. “As a counterpoint to biographical films about larger than life figures ... one of the things you see in the program this year is a lot of movies about ordinary people and ordinary lives,” Nein said. “Working lives, people who are demonstrating resilience.” Viewers will find that theme prevalent in a number of films, Nein said — including one that comes from a Utah director.
A Utah film — and a theme of resilience
The 2025 Sundance Film Festival has at least one Utahbased film. “Omaha” comes from director Cole Webley, who studied film at Brigham Young University and has lived in Utah for more than 20 years, according to information shared with the Deseret News. Writer Robert Machoian and director of photography Paul Meyers also live in Utah, and much of the film was shot in and around Salt Lake City. The film centers on a father driving his kids across the country after they’ve lost their home to foreclosure, Nein said. “It’s very much a story of facing hard times and adversity, but it’s a really beautiful story about resilience and family,” Nein said. That theme, Nein noted, comes up in a few films. “Rebuilding,” starring Josh O’Connor from “The Crown,” tells the story of a rancher in Colorado who has lost his home and family to a wildfire and ends up developing a
relationship with a community of people in a trailer park who have also lost their homes. “Train Dreams,” an adaptation of the Denis Johnson novella, focuses on a logger who helped build railroad lines as the country was expanding to the west. “Even though it’s a historical drama and it’s epic, it’s also really intimate and small in this story about one life and one person trying to make sense of the world,” Nein said. The festival programmer also noted a number of films that highlight the power of young people affecting change. “Deaf President Now!” chronicles the effort from students at Gallaudet University, the world’s only deaf university, to secure a deaf president in the late 1980s. “Middletown” highlights a group of teens in upstate New York who in the early 90s worked to expose the hazards of toxic waste in their community. ”These kids are incredible,” Nein said.
Top picks for the Sundance Film Festival
With such a robust lineup, it’s nearly impossible to choose a favorite. But Nein did share some of his top picks. • ‘Kiss of the Spider Woman’ — With Bill Condon at the helm, and stars Jennifer Lopez and Diego Luna (”Andor”) in the cast, this film about two prisoners who share a cell and form an unlikely bond over the plot of a Hollywood musical is sure to draw a lot of interest, Nein said. • ‘The Thing With Feathers’ — In this film, a young father grappling with the unexpected death of his wife “loses his hold on reality as a seemingly malign presence begins to stalk him from the shadowy recesses of the apartment he shares with his two young sons,” per a film description. Nein said Benedict Cumberbatch gives a “phenomenal performance” in this film. • ‘The Ballad of Wallis Island’ — Starring Carey Mulligan, this comedy-drama tells the story of a long-broken up mu-
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sic duo that is brought back together at the request of an eccentric millionaire to play a concert. “It’s really funny,” Nein said, “and I think a creative way of telling the put-theband-back-together story.” • ‘DJ Ahmet’ — Ahmet, a 15-year-old shepherd in a small North Macedonian town, just wants to be a DJ. He “finds refuge in music while navigating his father’s expectations, a conservative community and his first experience with love — a girl already promised to someone else,” according to a film description. “It’s such a warm, delightful story about the clash of tradition and modernity and about the power of music to bring people together,” Nein said. “I think people will come out of that one just so happy.” • ‘Come See Me in the Good Light’ — This documentary focuses on two poets, Andrea Gibson and Megan Falley, one of whom has an incurable cancer diagnosis. “This is such a deeply moving and unexpectedly very funny story about the journey that they take together, and also the way that they try to understand it ... through poetry, and it’s heartbreaking, but it’s so inspiring,” Nein said. • ‘All That’s Left of You’ — From Palestinian American director Cherien Dabis, “All That’s Left of You” looks at three generations of a Palestinian family, a story that spans almost 75 years, Nein said. The festival has highlighted some of Dabis’ previous work, and Nein believes “All That’s Left of You” will not disappoint. “It’s really epic and also very small and very personal,” he said. “It kind of fits into the great family sagas, those movies that we see that are really about family over generations. I think it’s a very, very powerful film.” In-person ticket packages and passes and online ticket packages and passes for the film festival are currently on sale. Single film tickets go on sale Jan. 16. For more information about the lineup and festival schedule, visit festival.sundance.org.
14 DESERET NEWS | JANUARY 2025
DESERET MAGAZINE
The uncertain fate of America’s iconic Christmas tree
Jason Holley for the Deseret News
By John D. Sutter Deseret Magazine
The best way to identify a Douglas fir — that ubiquitous American evergreen that, it turns out, is much more than a staple of the Christmas season — is to look at the cone. Not the “pine cone,” as it were, because the Doug (a friendly nickname), definitely is not a pine. Don’t even call it a “fir cone,” as the Douglas fir is not a true fir, either (too many chromosomes; cones that dangle from branches rather than levitating upward). “Cone” will do. Anyway, pick a cone off the forest floor and you’ll quickly notice its hallmark ornamentation: Each woody scale is overlaid with a tan, paper-like veneer that is shaped like a mouse’s tail and hind legs — as if the rodent were caught trying to scurry into the center of the cone. I’m attempting to note little things like this while switchbacking through the forests of southern Oregon behind Rich Fairbanks, a quick-moving and even faster-talking Doug fir fan. A retired wildland firefighter and forester in his early 70s, Fairbanks has the approximate air of a Columbia Sportswear Santa. His beard is ash gray, eyes emerald blue, glasses wireframe. He carries a walking stick and wears hiking boots and a plaid shirt. Less jolly, more just-keep-up. “Have a fig at some point,” he says, snapping one from a branch. Our boots crunch on the dusty trail as we make our way up the north-facing slope of a mountain on his 20-acre property.
“Yeah, that’s the Douglas fir,” he says without pause. “You have incense cedar and Baker cyprus and sugar pine and redbud. And you see this is a ponderosa pine?” Fairbanks likes to list trees and tree factoids while you walk. I have a hard time telling them apart. I notice another possible Doug that has a constellation of cones at the very top of its branches — the “crown” of the tree, Fairbanks says — a few dozen feet above the ground. The cones catch my eye because they are so incredibly dense that they almost look like holiday decorations on a tree someone just started decorating. They’re clustered at the top against a rich backdrop of green. “There’s a Doug fir,” Fairbanks says, looking at the same tree. “And look, it’s got a stress crop. Sometimes the tree will put out a whole bunch of cones all of a sudden.” Why’s that? “It knows it’s dying.” The conference room has evergreen-colored carpet and fluorescent lights. Jena Volpe, a fire ecologist with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, clicks to the next slide of a PowerPoint, revealing an aerial hillside of Doug firs, not far from where Fairbanks lives. Nearly all the trees are in various states of decay. Some are blanched red. Others have lost their needles entirely — literal skeletons of their former selves. It looks almost like a fire’s come through. “Gray-stage mortality,” Volpe calls this end state.
Seven government employees sit around a U-shaped conference table at the BLM’s office in Medford, Oregon. They’re here to try to explain to me a phenomenon dubbed “firmageddon.” Another slide shows an entire valley that looks like this. Thousands and thousands of trees. Volpe focuses on the conditions that create the crisis. Red, orange and yellow charts show how this part of the West has been drying out at an alarming rate since about 2001 — with an unheard-of drought walloping the region starting in about 2012 and continuing to this day in October. A “heat dome” settled over much of Oregon in 2021, killing more than 100 people in Oregon, setting a 119-degree temperature record there, several hours north, and scorching the forests in these valleys down south. “Some trees are just dying from the drought,” she says. And all of that, according to scientists, is linked to the climate crisis, which is making drought and heat more frequent and more intense. Then comes the kicker: A native beetle, the flatheaded fir borer (“FHFB” on the slide), an insect so tiny it would fit on the tip of a pencil, attacks drought-stressed trees and kills them. The beetle enters the tree via little holes in the bark, lays eggs in the cambium — the critical growth layer just inside the tree’s bark — and then “girdles” the tree, essentially strangling and killing it. Between 2015 and 2020, the flatheaded borer contributed to the deaths of more than 250,000 Douglas fir trees in this area — more than the four previous decades combined, according to a 2023 study published in the Journal of Forestry. The paper warns of a “decline spiral” for the tree as this native beetle takes advantage of intensifying drought conditions. Doug firs may not last much longer here. I realize these scientists have the ability to see into the future, in a sense. Laura Lowrey, a forest entomologist with the U.S. Forest Service, says Doug fir needles flashing red is one early sign of fir-borer infestation. Another dark omen: Clear globes of sap-like goo — “pitch jewels” — emerge in the bark, small enough that they’re hard to detect unless the light hits them just right, in which case they glisten like tinsel. The pitch is a defense mechanism — one that works if the tree is healthy and has enough water; it can be futile if the tree’s roots are pulling from dry ground. How eerie this must be, knowing a tree will die in two or three years. “I don’t want to get too gruesome here, but honestly … it’s like when you have a human being that has cancer,” says Jesse Kiene, a fire management specialist at BLM. “You can see that color change. You can see the body type change, you can see the loss of muscle and you can see those things, right? … (It’s) the same thing as with a tree. You can see that tree just slowly wilt away. “It’s a foregone conclusion of where it’s going to end up.” “That’s rough, Jesse,” another researcher says. Laughter ripples across the room. It’s one of those awkward laughs that covers something true. David Douglas, a Scottish botanist and the eponym of the tree, once said it is “one of the most striking and truly graceful CONTINUES ON PG. 16
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16 DESERET NEWS | JANUARY 2025 objects in nature.” Driving three hours south of Eugene, Oregon, where I live, to Rich Fairbanks’ land near the California border, it’s almost impossible to imagine Doug firs having any trouble anywhere in the world. There are just so many, and something about their abundance makes them feel eternal. This particular morning, a “Twilight” mist hangs over the Willamette Valley, cloaking the ridgelines in fog. From afar, Doug firs look almost like they are one organism — a fuzzy blanket of green that covers the mountains, protecting them from harm. Up closer, you notice their spear-like tips — the branches that stretch skyward in youth before drooping like the wet arms of a scarecrow as the trees mature and settle into heights that, in Oregon, can top 300 feet (and can reach ages well over 300 years). It’s not a tree to be underestimated. Doug is a dominant species of the West, able to survive in sopping-wet conditions in the Cascade Mountains — and in true desert, including in the cracks of dried-up lava flows in New Mexico, Stephen Arno and Carl E. Fiedler write in “Douglas Fir: The Story of the West’s Most Remarkable Tree.” The authors refer to Doug as “nature’s all-purpose tree,” noting that it has “pro-
“It’s a foregone conclusion of where it’s going to end up.” vided more wood than any other species for building the infrastructure of the American West,” and that it has the widest distribution of any conifer on the continent. I recently moved to Oregon from Washington, D.C., and, until now, many of my Doug fir experiences involved micro-versions of these trees that had been snapped up from farms in infancy for December placement in my living room. Christmas lovers know Doug for the soft needles, which extend from its branches in a pattern that one scientist out here refers to as a “star.” Oregon grows and farms more Christmas trees than any other state, and Doug firs make up much of the lot. Fairbanks, for his part, does little to sentimentalize the trees. In December, he puts a Noble fir in his home — not a Doug. After growing up outside New York City, 18-year-old Fairbanks uprooted himself and drove west across Canada. It was 1970, the year he fell in love with the forests of the West and decided to work toward protecting them. He studied forestry at a community college in Northern California (he would later earn a graduate degree in community and regional planning from the University of Oregon) and then joined a crew fighting wildfires. Over time, however, he started to think that his role in fighting fires might be part of the problem. He’d always had a hunch that the Smokey-the-Bear policies of the 1970s — essentially mandating that any forest fire would be put out, and gaslighting Americans into believing that only they could prevent forest fires — were making massive fires more likely, not less. He watched forests that hadn’t burned in a century fill in so densely that they looked ready to combust. And he watched as fires increased in size and severity — taking oldgrowth Dougs and ponderosa pines with them. Things only became more dramatic as the climate continued to warm. Now the forests are starting to behave in ways he never could have predicted. His response? Roll up his sleeves. In the last few years, Fairbanks estimates he’s pulled out hundreds of dead Douglas firs from his little 20-acre property. In 2023, he says he hauled
something like 50 pickup truckloads of Doug fir firewood to a tect the forest, it needs to burn occasionally. nearby town, Ashland, to give it away. “There’s some nice flowers that come up” after a fire, he Critically, the former wildland firefighter is also doing says, “shooting stars.” something many in the West consider anathema, but is inOn our walk, I keep trying to ask Fairbanks big, philosophical creasingly becoming part of how scientists view a safer future questions about what’s happening to the Douglas fir — about for forests. his attachment to the forest and the sweat he puts into it. He’s setting fire to the land. Usually, he responds by pausing, looking into the distance Dense columns of gray smoke billow from the forest. This — and then listing tree species for me. is the Oregon Gulch Fire of 2014, as seen from an airplane. Perhaps this stay-in-the-weeds focus is healthy. Fairbanks The gray chimneys converge in a massive, bomb-like cloud loves the forest. His house is decorated with drawings of of white. A “pyrocumulus,” Jena Volpe calls it. It’s the kind of plants, he dedicated his professional life to this stuff. Yet “mass fire” everyone here fears. he’s able to accept that his little patch of the world is changWe load up into vehicles, me and the government sciening, and — unless he’s able to stop the use of fossil fuels and tists, to go see a patch of forest the BLM has tried to protect miraculously reverse the climate crisis — there’s not much from this sort of thing — a prescription that involves setting he alone can do to halt firmageddon. Instead, he’ll manage low-intensity fires. as best he can. On the drive, I ask Lowrey, from the Forest Service, how And he can celebrate the forest — the Dougs but also the far “firmageddon” could spread. It’s mostly concentrated for ponderosa pines, white oaks and sugar pines, the last of which now in the Applegate Valley, she tells me, but there’s evidence is among his favorite trees. The sugar pine doesn’t have the it’s spreading north into other valleys, including the Willaart-deco cones of a Douglas fir, but its pine cones are impresmette, where I live, affecting trees on particularly dry slopes. sive — as tall as a human head. We pull up to the patch of land that the BLM “treated” for They stand up to fire quite well. mass fire prevention. On the way, dead and dying forests were “Magnificent tree,” Fairbanks says. so commonplace that they almost started to lose their shock Unlike Fairbanks, I move through the world with a fair value. The difference on this plot, which has an aspect that’s amount of tree blindness. The holidays are when I touch wetter and more favorable to Doug fir than many others nearthe needles and read the tags. I envy his way of seeing. His by, is that the trees are still green and largely healthy. They’re is a world not of “trees” or even “evergreens” and “conialso spaced out more than usual. If a typical forest out here fers” but of individuals. As an early forester, he cut into the is like an elevator crammed with people almost shoulder to trunks of Doug firs — the slices are called “cookies” — and shoulder — a result of logging and fire suppression — then stared back through hundreds of years of time, across years this feels more like a Covid-era elevator. There’s enough of drought and plenty. space for you to extend your arms in both directions and not Trees truly are magnificent when you stop to look closely hit another Doug. enough. The least we can do is know their names. The agency follows up these tree-thinning efforts with conThis story appears in the December 2024 issue of Deseret Magtrolled, low-grade fire. That’s meant to restore balance and azine. Learn more about how to subscribe. prevent the mega-fires with flames tall enough to torch older trees, like Dougs. 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18 DESERET NEWS | JANUARY 2025
DESERET NEWS
Will the next Musk or Knight emerge from Utah’s Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute? The University of Utah’s entrepreneurship education ranks as one the nation’s best
A student looks out of the window at the University of Utah's Lassonde Studio in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2024. By Jason Swensen Deseret News
While it’s been a rough season for the Utes on the gridiron — the University of Utah is finding other ways to ascend the national rankings. In November, Utah’s flagship university was ranked No. 3 in the West for undergraduate and graduate entrepreneurship education by Princeton Review. Nationwide, the University of Utah cracked the top 25, coming in at No. 24. Kurt Dirks, dean of the university’s David Eccles School of Business, is, no surprise, pleased with the recognition. The Princeton Review honor is a source of pride for alums. It’s a reputation boost. But Dirks is most enthused talking about the fundamentals being taught at the university that earn such rankings. “Our focus is making sure we have strong programs that make our students successful,” he said. Central to the University of Utah’s aim to foster the next generation of Phil Knights, Elon Musks or maybe Canva’s Melanie Perkins is the school’s Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute. Launched in 2001 through the vision and support of Utah business school alumnus Pierre Lassonde, the university’s vast entrepreneur institute is a sprawling campus hub of student collaboration and innovation. Thousands of the University of Utah’s students — including business majors along with students from any other college degree program — are taking their first steps here into
the often turbulent world of entrepreneurship. “Entrepreneur” is a verb, say institute leaders. So start doing.
Lassonde’s mission: Live. Create. Launch.
Many Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute participants, such as students Ethan McQuarrie and Ali Phillips, are business founders utilizing the institute’s resources to launch and grow their ventures. Others will never initiate a start-up — but they are picking-up the entrepreneur’s toolbox that’s designed to serve them well across wide-ranging careers and life paths. The Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute is also home-sweethome for hundreds of University of Utah students — literally. The university has traditionally been a commuter school, although on-campus living has increased in recent years. Some 400 students are now living in the center of campus in the Lassonde Studios’ four floors of residential space. The cost of living at the Lassonde Studios varies with each bedroom type and housing option, but it’s estimated that a student living in a single room will pay a little more than $11,000 for a nine-month period. Life in Lassonde Studios is designed to foster an open, diverse student community where ideas and innovations first germinate and are then tossed about with fellow student entrepreneurs and mentors. It’s hoped that ideas grow into successful businesses. Much of the institute’s “entrepreneuring” takes place in
Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News
Lassonde’s Neeleman Hangar, a 20,000-square-foot “innovation space” on the Studio’s main floor. It’s a 24-7, mixeduse activity hive where students of all academic backgrounds can network, attend events, bounce ideas off each other, build prototypes in the wood shops or 3D printing design labs and then learn, experiment and learn some more. Troy D’Ambrosio, the university’s vice president for innovation and the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute’s executive director, points to Neeleman Hangar’s openness. That’s by design — an architectural cue to collaborate with the guy next to you. The Neeleman Hangar offers work stations and meeting spaces for gatherings. But there’s also a pool table and a grand piano available to anyone who wants to decompress for a few minutes before getting back to the grueling trial-and-error process of innovating. And the free coffee brewing on the main floor draws bleary-eyed students from all corners of campus, jokes D’Ambrosio. “No other school provides the same depth and variety of experiences for students and alumni who are interested in entrepreneurship,” said D’Ambrosio, who has co-founded and directed several successful startup companies through his own entrepreneurial adventures.
Hands-on, real-time entrepreneurship
Ethan McQuarrie and Ali Phillips reflect the start-up diversity found at the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute.
DESERET NEWS | JANUARY 2025 McQuarrie is an undergraduate. Phillips is pursuing a Master of Business Creation degree. The former recently launched a line of all-natural men’s hydrating cologne called OCOVES. The latter is the founder and CEO of MedicalMatch, a company designed to connect healthcare organizations with qualified professionals. Both say Lassonde and the university’s business school have been elemental to their burgeoning business ventures. “The Lassonde Institute is really just an incubator for us young entrepreneurs to be able to create entrepreneurship with our own hands,” said McQuarrie, who has competed in institute-sponsored entrepreneurship challenges. “That’s all helped me to receive funding for my own personal business and to get advice on running a business and figuring out ways to grow and expand.” For many would-be business founders, entrepreneurship can be an intimidating, lonesome place. Lassonde, say participants, delivers a confidence-building community to student entrepreneurs. Besides traditional business training, McQuarrie points to the Institute’s networking resources and its vast mentor pool. “There are great opportunities to not only meet professors, but also to meet directors of different clubs and businesses — as well as just meeting students who are growing and becoming better at what they do.” The Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute, added McQuarrie, equips student-entrepreneurs with the pieces they need to launch. “Here they have multiple funding and marketing opportunities and so many other things that can help you expand your business and look at different ways to grow it.” Phillips points to the school’s many business educators who are also seasoned business founders. “Most of my professors are not just, say, theory professors,” she said. “They are entrepreneurs themselves who have successfully started and exited several companies —
some of them, dozens of times.” Such mentoring components in an academic setting are unique, added Phillips. “As a founder, that’s hugely beneficial because it allows for a level of understanding and depth of knowledge in the entrepreneur scene that most other programs would not be able to provide.” A registered nurse, Phillips, has already launched MedicalMatch in Utah and Nevada and is serving approximately 800 clinicians. From her lengthy health care career as a nurse and an administrator, Phillips comes equipped with an understanding of the medical industry. Now the business savvy she’s adding from the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute is proving invaluable as her company grows. Phillips also relishes being part of the university’s diverse entrepreneur community. “There’s been a bond within our cohort that is really unmatched.”
entrepreneurs,” said Dirks, “but they will have the mindset that they can go out and make stuff happen.” The aim of the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute is to offer students an experiential approach to education and develop the entrepreneur’s sensibilities. Business professors will continue to offer classroom instruction. But the next step, said Dirks, is “To Do.” That’s the best way to learn. “If you want to know how business works,” he said, “there’s no better way than to go out and start to create.”
Go and ‘make stuff happen’
D’Ambrosio buys into the state of Utah’s reputation as rich producers of entrepreneurs. Many Utahns, he noted, learned interpersonal skills that are priceless for would-be business founders while serving Latter-day Saint missions. And the state’s frontier heritage captures the optimism demanded of start-ups. The Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute, added Dirks, is a boon for students from all academic disciplines who want to start a business or simply learn how businesses work. Meanwhile, he added, the University of Utah’s business school commits to every one of its graduates that they will leave with an “entrepreneurial, enterprising mindset,” — and imbued with the confidence needed to venture out and improve their world. “Not all of our students are going to go out and become
Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News
Student Shea Markoff sews pants at the University of Utah's Lassonde Studio in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2024.
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CHURCH NEWS
Church launches new website for people to discover, learn and visit historic Nauvoo The Church is planning to launch similar websites in the near future for historic sites in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Missouri By Trent Toone Church News
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has launched a new website featuring information and resources for learning about and visiting Historic Nauvoo, Illinois, and Carthage Jail. The main purpose of the website is to serve as a companion resource for Latter-day Saints studying Doctrine and Covenants with the “Come, Follow Me” curriculum throughout 2025, said Marshall Tapp, a product manager in the Church History Department. “When you can see it and visualize where things happened, the scriptures begin to come to life,” he said. “That is the backbone that is formed around this website — it is focused on helping people learn.” The new website (ChurchofJesusChrist.org/learn/history/ sites/historic-nauvoo) which has been under construction for more than a year, provides an interactive map and detailed information on historic buildings and locations, and is designed to help visitors, both in person and virtual, better understand the places where key events in Church history occurred. A variety of Church history resources, including the Joseph Smith Papers and the “Saints” series, have been incorporated into the website. Recognizing there are more members living outside the United States, the website will soon be available in 14 languages. “Knowing the story and where it happened is an important part of maintaining the record of our Church,” said Ryan Saltzgiver, a curator for historic sites in the Church History Department who helped create content for the website. Nauvoo receives approximately 75,000 visitors a year. For those who wish to visit the area, the website offers information and resources for trip planning and addresses the challenges of visiting Nauvoo, which is in a remote area with limited dining and accommodation options. “People need to figure out what their itinerary is, or where to eat, where to stay, what to do, how to get there. All of those things we brought into this website,” Tapp said. “Hopefully it’s a useful resource, especially for someone who has never been there before.” The website also offers service opportunities in Nauvoo. Latter-day Saints began gathering in Nauvoo when it was little more than a swamp in 1839. Within six years, they built a thriving city of more than 10,000 residents that included a house of the Lord. During the early 1840s, Joseph Smith received several revelations, taught foundational doctrines, organized the Relief Society and established temple ordinances. In June 1844, the Prophet Joseph Smith and and his brother Hyrum Smith were martyred at Carthage Jail. In March, the Church acquired historic properties in Nauvoo from Community of Christ, including the Smith Family Homestead, the Mansion House, the Nauvoo House and the Red Brick Store. The Nauvoo and Carthage website is the first in a series of
Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News
The Nauvoo Illinois Temple in Nauvoo on Wednesday, March 27, 2024.
similar websites the Church plans to roll out in the near future for other historic locations, including New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Missouri. “There will be maps that help you understand the locations. ... We are including links to places that are lesser known,” Saltzgiver said. “The purpose is to build around the relationship between where Joseph Smith is living, the people he is interacting with, and the revelations he is receiving.” Those creating the websites hope the information and resources provided will enlighten understanding, strengthen faith and deepen testimonies. “When I went and visited these sites, it changed the Doctrine and Covenants for me,” Tapp said. “It became definitely one of my favorite books of scriptures because I can visualize where these things happen now, and it really came alive. We recognize that not everybody is going to visit them, maybe not even in their lifetime. So my hope is to give a little bit of that same experience of being on the ground as much as we can to anybody who is visiting the website.” Learn more at ChurchofJesusChrist.org.
The Red Brick Store in Nauvoo, Illinois
Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News
DESERET NEWS | JANUARY 2025
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© 2024
41, No. 5
TIMES SQUARE
PARTY CELEBRATE MIDNIGHT BALLOONS CALENDAR CLOCK 2025
RESOLUTION 1. Cut out these bingo cards and give one to each player. 2. Once the game starts, everyone looks or listens for the words on their card.
Start 2025 with smiles and laughs with these silly games! Being silly can bring smiles and laughs to your friends and family, too!
New Year Guessing Game Each player chooses something related to New Year celebrations, like balloons or confetti. The other players ask YES or NO questions to try and guess what it is, asking no more than 20 questions. Each time someone asks a question with a NO answer, they have to dance and cluck like a chicken! How many socks do you see here?
Hey, kid! That is NOT how I dance! What the heck?
3. When you see or hear one of these words related to New Year’s celebrations, cross it out. 4. After one hour, time’s up! The player who crossed out the most words wins! Standards Link: Language Arts: Follow simple written directions.
Stinky Sock Game
TIME RESOLUTION CONFETTI 2025 FUTURE HOUR PARADE DAY EXCITED MUSIC HOLIDAY PEOPLE HAPPY LAUGHTER
Seat everyone in a circle. Quickly pass a pair of rolled-up socks around as music plays. When the music stops, the person holding the socks leaves the game. The last person left is the Toe-tally Tops! Standards Link: Language Arts: Follow simple written directions.
BALL RESOLUTION
2025 GOODBYE
Toilet Paper Tower Toss
Make a tall tower of toilet paper rolls. Take turns trying to knock over as many rolls as you can by tossing a rolled up sock at the tower three times. Which player knocked over the most rolls? Add up how many rolls they knocked over with each turn to see who won.
Aziz 6 4 2 Carlos 3 2 4 Kendra 4 4 5 Anna 1 4 6 Mia 5 2 3 Standards Link: Math: Calculate sums and differences.
ASK BALL CLOCK DANCE GAME HOUR MIDNIGHT MOON MUSIC PARADE PARTY SOCK TOSS TOWER YEAR
Find the words by looking up, down, backwards, forwards, sideways and diagonally.
T M D A N C E N E A
M O L L A B L O C D I F W A G Y H O U R
D H L E K A E M C Y N P Y S R D M S I K I Z A S A E S E S C
G L V R E O C J U O H Q A R T B G W M S T P V J W Y E A R J
Standards Link: Letter sequencing. Recognize identical words. Skim and scan reading. Recall spelling patterns.
DESERET NEWS | JANUARY 2025
23
EVENTS Stockton Kings at Salt Lake City Stars
Jan. 14 - 16 Time: 7pm Location: 3200 S. Decker Lake Dr. - West Valley City
Damn These Heels
Jan. 16 Time: 7pm-9pm Location: 677 South 200 West - SLC http://www.brewvies.com/events/eventcalendar.html
Sneddon Hof Germanfest
Drusky
Jan. 25 Time: 7pm Location: 741 Kilby Court - SLC https://www.24tix.com/events/a2ksqz6ad5cw5otgr4rdd723hi
UCA Spring Sandy Classic
Jan. 25 Location: 9575 S. State Street - Sandy https://www.visitsaltlake.com/event/uca-springsandy-classic/56113/
Jan. 17 - 18 Time: 11am-9pm Location: 2415 Washington Boulevard - Ogden https://www.nowplayingutah.com/event/sneddon-hofgermanfest/
Utah Grizzlies vs. Wichita Thunder
Critter Circus
Jan. 28 Time: 5pm-6pm Location: North Salt Lake https://www.nslcity.org/calendar.aspx
Jan. 18 Time: 9pm Location: 7711 S. Main St - Midvale https://www.24tix.com/events/7y6hluobifa4tb3g5zimff4qhu
Houndmouth
Jan. 19 Time: 7pm Location: 400 W South Temple - SLC https://www.facebook.com/events/1507862123267896/
Utah Hockey Club vs. Winnipeg Jets Jan. 20 Time: 7:30pm Location: 301 W South Temple - SLC
SLCSE Showcase
Jan. 21 Time: 7pm Location: 741 Kilby Court - SLC https://www.24tix.com/events/slo2fdbzgbbixmduunbrzo5rne 2025
UHSAA State Cheer
Jan. 22 - 24 Time: 6am-9:59pm Location: 800 W. University Pkwy - Orem http://uccucenter.com/index.html
Sundance Film Festival
Jan. 23 - 2 Time: 9am Location: Main Street - Park City https://www.nowplayingutah.com/event/2025-sundancefilm-festival/
BYU BLAST
Jan. 23 Time: 7:30pm Location: 1 University Hill - Provo https://onstage.byu.edu/venues#MBConcertHall
Ramin Karimloo
Jan. 24 - 25 Time: 7:30pm-9:30pm Location: 1 University Hill - Provo https://onstage.byu.edu/bravo-events/raminkarimloo-2025-01-24
Jan. 27 Time: 7:10pm Location: 3200 S. Decker Lake Dr. - West Valley City
YCC Mobile Food Pantry
BYU PHILHARMONIC: EVENING OF CONCERTOS Jan. 29 Time: 7:30pm Location: 1 University Hill - Provo https://onstage.byu.edu/venues#MBConcertHall
Utah Boat Show & Watersports Expo
Jan. 30 - Feb. 2 Time: 2pm-9pm Location: Sandy https://festivalnet.com/3663/Sandy-Utah/Boat-AutoCamping-Shows/Utah-Boat-Show-Watersports-Expo
Utah Symphony's The Rite of Spring
BYU Cougars Mens Basketball vs. Arizona Wildcats Mens Basketball Feb. 4 Time: 9pm Location: 1497 N 450 E - Provo https://calendar.byu.edu/athletics/mens-basketball-vsarizona-2025-02-04
WINTER CHOIRFEST
Feb. 5 Time: 7:30pm Location: 1 University Hill - Provo https://onstage.byu.edu/venues#MBConcertHall
Lost Gems of Sundance - Film Series
Feb. 6 Time: 6pm-8pm Location: 1885 Ute Blvd - Park City https://www.thesummitcountylibrary.org/events/lostgems-sundance-film-series
Ogden's First Friday Art Stroll
Feb. 7 Time: 6pm-9pm Location: 25th Street between Wall Avenue and Washington Boulevard - Ogden http://www.ogdencityarts.org/
DISNEY'S BEAUTY AND THE BEAST IN CONCERT
Feb. 7 - 8 Time: 7pm Location: 123 West South Temple - SLC https://www.nowplayingutah.com/event/disneys-beautyand-the-beast-in-concert/
South Towne Bridal Showcase
Jan. 31 - Feb. 1 Time: 7:30pm Location: 123 West South Temple - SLC https://www.saltlakecountyarts.org/events/the-rite-of-spring/
Feb. 8 Time: 11am-8pm Location: 9575 S. State Street - Sandy https://festivalnet.com/91577/Sandy-Utah/BridalWeddings/South-Towne-Bridal-Showcase
Utah Valley University Women's Basketball vs Grand Canyon
Westminster University Women's Basketball vs Colorado School of Mines
Feb. 1 Time: 2pm-4pm Location: 800 W University Pkwy - Orem https://uvu.edu/events
Alt Bloom
Feb. 2 7pm Location: 741 Kilby Court - SLC https://www.24tix.com/events/ocfc3ccr6jdytbvudzvoiwxsye
Debra Fotheringham
Feb. 3 Time: 3pm Location: 6965 E Powder Mountain Rd - Eden https://www.bandsintown.com/e/106063878?app_ id=pkvts0on0m&came_from=287&utm_medium=api&utm_ source=partner_api&utm_campaign=event
Feb. 8 Time: 1pm-3pm Location: Salt Lake City https://westminstergriffins.com/calendar.aspx?game_ id=12384&sport_id=13
COIN: I'm Not Afraid Of Tour Anymore Feb. 9 Time: 8pm Location: 235 North 500 West - SLC https://www.bandsintown.com/e/105676775?app_ id=pkvts0on0m&came_from=287&utm_ medium=api&utm_source=partner_api&utm_ campaign=event
Utah Jazz vs. Los Angeles Lakers
Feb. 12 Time: 7pm Location: 301 W South Temple - SLC https://seatgeek.com/utah-jazz-tickets/2-12-2025-salt-lakecity-utah-delta-center-1/nba/6481457?aid=605
*Events and details are subject to change. Please visit the event websites for the most up to date and correct information.
24 DESERET NEWS | JANUARY 2025
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