"THE JOURNALS OF GEORGE Q. CANNON: Hawaiian Mission, 1850-1854," edited by Adrian W. Cannon, Richard E. Turley Jr. and Chad M. Orton, Deseret Book, $42.99, 832 pages (nf)
In an invigorating era of “hastening the work,” it can be inspiring to peer back into LDS Church history to see how missionary work was done by men and women of remarkable faith, and with very little else.
Such is certainly the case when reading about the missionary service of Elder George Q. Cannon as found in “The Journals of George Q. Cannon: Hawaiian Mission 1850-1854,” recently published by Deseret Book.
Elder Cannon’s inspiring journals capture an important era in the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, while also providing an in-depth glimpse into how his mission prepared him for a lifetime of devoted service.
Elder Cannon was called to serve in the Sandwich Islands, as they were then known, in October 1849 while fulfilling a unique assignment in California: He was mining for gold. It was not his favorite assignment. “I heartily despised the work of digging gold. ... There is no honorable occupation that I would rather not follow than hunting and digging gold.”
Elder Cannon’s mission proved to yield much greater treasure, both for him personally as well as for the LDS Church generally. His journals provide a powerful window into the challenges, miracles, heartaches and trials of missionary service. With no Missionary Training Center, language training, iPads, Facebook or any of the other components of modern-day missionary service, Elder Cannon and his numerous companions of necessity learned to rely solely on the Jesus Christ.
General editors the late Adrian Cannon, a grandson to George Q. Cannon, and Richard E. Turley Jr., assistant LDS Church historian and recorder, as well as editor Chad M. Orton, church history specialist for the LDS Church History department, bring both devotion and scholarship to their oversight of this significant volume.
Particularly fascinating is his grandson's role in the publication of these journals. As noted in the book’s introduction, Cannon, who passed away in 1991, spent more than four and a half decades taking notes and transcribing the bulk of his grandfather’s Hawaiian mission journal, with the hope of eventually publishing a biography.
Scott Livingston occasionally opines about the uphill climb of becoming a writer at facebook.com/sleye1stories.