Feedback

The New Era makes it difficult to do book reports, algebra equations, and biology assignments. Life just isn’t full of very many extra hours, but I really hope everyone will read the New Era stories anyway. One story that helped me was one called “Not All That’s Gold Glitters.” That story was read in MIA classes, seminary classes, and everywhere else LDS kids are.

Alene Hoggen
Clearfield, Utah

I received my May issue of the New Era yesterday and eagerly thumbed through it, as I usually do. It is the best magazine I have ever read, and I greatly appreciate and treasure it. My reason for looking was to prepare a lesson from some of its articles for our adult fireside. The article entitled “Revelations” immediately caught my eye, as I am a seminary teacher and this was to be my lesson for the next day. It is an excellent article. Our seminary lesson stresses very emphatically, however, that the book title is Revelation (completely, The Revelation of St. John the Divine, shortened to Revelation for convenience), not Revelations. Again, my compliments to you all on an excellent magazine; I am amazed at how consistent you are with the marvelous articles and testimonies that keep coming through this publication.

Shirlee Bartholomew
Willows, California

I have been reading almost every word of all the issues of the New Era since I have come on my mission, and I think it’s great. I especially enjoy the fiction stories. The photography and art are fantastic too. My mission work would be greatly hindered without the New Era because when we run out of copies of the Book of Mormon, we tract with New Eras. The English people love them. I remember one lady who read a whole stack of old issues of the New Era and the Ensign. She was baptized two weeks ago!

Some of the creative ideas in the New Era are very useful in my mission work. We use them when we share family home evenings with people we teach. One particularly good idea was making personalized envelopes. For a missionary on a strict budget, it comes in handy.

Mormonisms—wow! I almost died laughing when I read the one about the two years supply being eaten by a returned missionary. You want to know what I think would improve the magazine? Make it bigger. These English people are starving for the gospel, and the New Era feeds them the gospel with a spoonful of sugar.

Elder Danny T. Evans
England Central Mission

I want to thank you for the article “Revelation: the Plainest Book Ever Written.” I was always so confused trying to read it that I’d pass it off as strange and forget it. Now it makes so much more sense that I can really get involved with it. It is the plainest book ever written.

Eve Ann LaFollette
Greybull, Wyoming

I’ve been a convert to the Church for almost two years, and the New Era played no small part in my conversion. My favorite parts of the magazine are the Q and A section, the fiction, and the articles dealing with practical application of the gospel today. Especially timely and useful to me was the article on computer careers in the April issue. I’m graduating with my master’s in computer science this spring and am looking for a job. Since my conversion I’m amazed at the changes the gospel has brought into my life. Three years ago I was practically friendless, and now I have hundreds of friends at the institute. I’ve overcome to a great degree personal problems that have held me back, and best of all, I’ve found a wonderful girl to whom I will be sealed in the Arizona Temple on July 20. All of this has come about through the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Gary L. Rogers
University of Arizona

I’ve wanted many times to write and pat you on the back for the great issues of the New Era I’ve enjoyed. Here in the Cumorah Mission we’ve used these magazines as a teaching tool to show the people what the Lord’s church is doing today. The “Stories from the General Authorities” are an excellent tool in showing people that God does “call them to his holy work in this age and generation, as well as in generations of old.”

Elder J. Robert Weenig
Cumorah Mission

Today, while eating my donuts and milk (an after-school-snack) and deciding what to wear to work, I was singing melancholy songs to myself (in my head) and feeling blue. Then Dad, having sorted the mail, plopped the New Era on the table beside me. Instantly my sad song vanished, and as I opened the cover, my blues left too (unable to exist in a mind now full of anticipation and excitement). I read “Feedback,” “3 Rs of Free Agency,” and “A Visit with President Lee” before having to leave for work. Jonathan Seagull never had it so good. In the space of fifteen minutes I was transformed from the depths of apathetic blight (that attacks so strongly the last few months in high school) to that beautiful, sweet, tender, spiritual state that swells my heart and fogs my eyes with love for all that is good.

Bruce R. Snow
Carlsbad, New Mexico

Though I have had the opportunity to read only a few donated copies of the Church publications, I am greatly impressed and influenced by your inspirational messages, educational articles, and stories. They help me achieve a spiritual life. I have read only one copy of the New Era, but that one has really helped me. The article “Why Stay Morally Clean” has made me more determined than ever to keep myself morally clean.

Lawrence Gomes
Dacca, Bangladesh

I enjoy the New Era so much that if it comes to the school library before it arrives at my house, I check it out of the library. The stories in it are fantastic, and I enjoy reading it from cover to cover.

Nancy Cawley
Powell, Wyoming

We really enjoy the New Era. As we are transferred with the coast guard from coast to coast, it makes it easier to feel at home, knowing that the magazines of the Church are being read by our new ward members just as we read them. I wish there were more articles in each issue. The last page seems to come all too soon.

Elizabeth A. Bolin

I enjoyed the article on the New Era automobile in the February issue and would like to pass on some more facts about cars with that name.

This marque was first used by the New Era Motor Company of Boston, Massachusetts, in 1900. It was also going to be used by the New Era Automobile Company of Portland, Maine, in 1900, but they never got into production. Next came the 1901 and 1902 New Era by the Automobile and Marine Power Company of Camden, New Jersey, mentioned in your article. The New Era Auto Cycle Company of Dayton, Ohio, made trucks in 1911 and 1912. And the New Era Engineering Company of Lansing, Michigan, made automobiles in 1912. The New Era Engineering Company of Joliet, Illinois, mentioned in your article made automobiles in 1915 and 1916. In 1917 they made trucks. The automobile part of their operations was absorbed by Elgin Motor Car Corporation of Chicago, Illinois, which produced Elgins until 1924. There was also a New Era Motors Incorporated of New York City that produced automobiles from 1929 to 1931, but their cars were called Ruxtons.

Norman E. Clemens
West Covina, California

Surely you are aware that picking wildflowers is against the law. It was a nice March cover anyway. Tsk, Tsk!

Shirley Backman
Salt Lake City, Utah