1984
LDS Scene
April 1984


“LDS Scene,” Ensign, Apr. 1984, 80

LDS Scene

Elder Bruce R. McConkie of the Council of the Twelve is recuperating from surgery for cancer of the colon. Chemotherapy treatments began for him after he recuperated sufficiently from the January 20 operation.

Flames destroyed the LDS chapel in Marlboro, Massachusetts, January 28, wiping out in just a few hours the results of a nine-month remodeling project. Fire investigators determined that the blaze was the work of an arsonist.

It was the fourth fire at a Boston-area church in recent months. A Catholic church and two Protestant churches had been damaged by arson fires earlier. The cost of damage to the LDS chapel was estimated at half a million dollars. Architects said the building was too severely damaged to rebuild.

The damage to the building brought an outpouring of support from the community. Methodist, Catholic, Baptist, and Jewish leaders all offered to provide meeting facilities until another LDS chapel can be built. The mayor of Marlboro and a bank president visited the bishop and announced the opening of a drive to provide funds for a new LDS chapel. “We’re going to have to learn to be gracious recipients,” Bishop Murdock said.

The Marlboro congregation is currently meeting in the Weston Ward building, about twenty miles from their former meeting house.

In Little Rock, Arkansas, Church members were praised for their heroism during a fire, after they helped rescue fifty-seven elderly residents of a nursing home that burned.

When the flames were spotted in the building next door, sixteen- and seventeen-year old young men of the Little Rock First Ward, waiting for basketball practice, dashed inside, going from room to room evacuating the patients.

Teacher- and deacon-age boys then walked or carried the patients, or rolled their beds, into the ward’s cultural hall, which served as a temporary shelter. There, members of the Young Women and other ward members offered warm blankets, food, and helping hands.

Though no one was burned in the fire, two of the patients died of smoke inhalation later. The LDS youth were praised by firefighters for their rescue efforts. They were observed using lifesaving techniques learned in Scouting, and two patients who had stopped breathing were revived by the young men. Those involved in evacuating patients from the home have been nominated for the Scout lifesaving award given only to Scouts who have risked their lives to save others.

Disastrous January flooding in Salmon, Idaho, brought on by freezing of the Salmon River, left ice and water damage in the homes of twenty-five LDS families and in the homes of many of their neighbors.

Church members were among the volunteers who joined in a community effort to keep the flooding from becoming worse, and to clear out ice and water. After the flooding, plans were being made for cleanup efforts once temperatures moderated. But residents were keeping a wary eye on the weather, knowing that a too-sudden thaw could bring on the problem again.