Another General Conference has ended and I’m in the mode of poring over the paper copy of addresses. I’m reading the inspiring messages and oohing and ahhing over the photo shots. It’s been a long time since my mother made batches of “Million Dollar Fudge” to bribe me to watch as much of conference as I could sit still for. Now I find it ends too soon. I laughed when I read my nephew’s Facebook status right after conference was adjourned: “No!!! I say we make a sustaining vote to not end conference!!”
In the spirit of fun, and since this is blog devoted to writings and writers, here is a General Conference challenge. See if you can match the literary references to the speaker who used them in a General Conference talk. They are of my very random choosing and not in any chronological order. Try to guess them without any help first off. Note: the speakers may be used/matched to references more than once.
The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien
The Hiding Place, Corrie Ten Boom (could be more than 1 right answer)
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis (could be more than 1 right answer)
The Life of King Henry V, Shakespeare
Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie
Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
Peanuts comic strip, Charles Schulz
Les Miserables, Victor Hugo (could be more than 1 right answer)
Bleak House, Charles Dickens
Middlemarch, George Eliot
Rumpelstiltskin, traditional
Beauty & the Beast, traditional
Cinderella, traditional (Perrault)
Pursuit: The Chase and Sinking of the Bismark, Ludovic Kennedy
Nabucco (operatic work), Giuseppe Verdi
My Life for the Poor, Mother Teresa of Calcutta (ed. Jose Luis Gonzalez-Balado)
Gerald Causse
Quentin L. Cook
Dieter F. Ucthdorf
Timothy J. Dyches
Lynn G. Robbins
D. Todd Christofferson
Thomas S. Monson
Susan W. Tanner
H. David Burton
Jeffrey R. Holland
Scroll down for answers.
The Hobbit – Uchtdorf
The Hiding Place – Dyches
The Great Gatsby – Uchtdorf
The Screwtape Letters – Robbins
Henry V – Christofferson
Peter Pan – Burton
Alice In Wonderland – Monson
Peanuts – Cook
Les Miserables – Causse (and others too I’m sure)
Bleak House and Middlemarch – Tanner
Rumplestiltskin, Beauty & the Beast, Cinderella – Uchtdorf
Pursuit – Monson
Nabucco – Cook
Mother Teresa – Holland
So, what was the Hobbit reference? I remember wanting to cheer back in 1998 listening to Elder Maxwell quote Gandalf about hope…
.
I love seeing these out of context. I don’t know why. I sure do though.
“And of course there is Bilbo Baggins, the small, unassuming hobbit who would have very much preferred to stay home and eat his soup. But after a knock at his door, he follows the call of the great unknown and steps out into the world, together with a wizard and a band of dwarfs, to fulfill a dangerous but vitally important mission.”
–from April, 2013: Your Wonderful Journey Home by President Dieter F. Uchtdorf
I’m glad you enjoyed this. Certainly there are more references to have fun as well.
For some reason, the Middlemarch reference surprised me most. Here’s the actual reference from the April 2006 conference:
Another literary figure comes to my mind who is quite the opposite of Dickens’s character. Dorothea is the heroine in one of my favorite novels, Middlemarch. She is remembered at the end of the book for her quiet, selfless deeds to family and friends. It says: “Her full nature … spent itself in channels which had no great name on the earth. But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs” (George Eliot, Middlemarch [1986], 682).