By: Joyce Kinmont
My husband and I joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1964, in our early twenties. We were the standard, clueless products of the 50′s and 60’s. Neither of us had any religious background, although we would later find out that my husband had early Mormon ancestors from Denmark who came by ship and train to Salt Lake. I’m sure they reached through the veil and stirred up the events that brought us into the gospel net.
The day the missionaries taught us about the Word of Wisdom, my husband handed them his cigarettes. They left us a pamphlet to read about Section 89 of the Doctrine and Covenants of the Church, which defines a healthy diet. In it the Lord says, “it is pleasing unto me that they [animals] should not be used, only in times of winter, or of cold, or famine” (v. 13). We took the words at face value. We thought we were joining a vegetarian church. Well, OK, we thought we can do that. Living in warm, famine-free Southern California, we assumed these folks would not be eating much meat. Naively, we went happily off to our first church social, a ham dinner!
We had a testimony that the Church was the Lord’s authorized organization on earth and were soon baptized, but we wondered why the behavior of the Saints did not match the doctrine. I continued to watch for information from the prophets about diet. I found much support from early Church leaders as I searched the Journal of Discourses and read Elder Widtsoe’s book, The Word of Wisdom: A Modern Interpretation, which I learned had been used as the priesthood lesson manual one year. Apparently it had made little impact on the brethren. It seemed to me that the latter-day prophets had tried to lead out but no one was following.
My husband and I loved the Lord and His church, and we wanted to please Him by not using meat (D&C 89:13), but we soon found that “pleasing Him” did not please others or make us popular. Sometimes it was a lonely road. At one point of frustration I wrote a list of the reasons why we didn’t eat meat. I mimeographed it (yes, it was that long ago) and handed it out whenever I could.
