Readers of this award-winning newsletter may have noticed that the name of the publication has changed from time to time over the past few years. To you who are ignorant of the publishing business, this may have seemed a foolish and childish ploy to garner attention. Nothing could be further from the truth. Plato, the great Greek philosopher, also published his own paper. On a regular basis the name was changed to tweak his readers interest. Thus today we have Plato's Politics, The Republic, Laws, The Phaedo, Crito, and a host of other works, each of a different name. In this time-honored manner, the name of this paper is hereby permanently changed to The Complete Works of Plato. Those of you who may have been exposed in the past to other books claiming to be the complete works of Plato should call my attorneys, Dewey, Cheatem, and Howe. There are no levels to which we will not stoop to protect ourselves against unprincipled plagiarists.

As any student of Latin remembers, these were the immortal words of Julius Caesar when he was preparing to disembark from his ships on Britain's rocky shore in 55BC, leading his Roman Legions in the invasion of Britain. Translated, the phrase means "Where oh Where Is My Underwear?" Caesar had just done his laundry the night before and was trying to sort out his clothes so he could lead the invasion in a clean outfit. He had found his socks and tee shirt, but couldn't find his skivvies, hence the immortal phrase, Ubi Ubi, Est Sub Ubi. 

Today there are few activities that will end a mission as fast as being caught by your mission president leaving your assigned area of labor and going into the neighboring city to chase loose women. Apparently this was not the case in Alma's time. A careful reading of Alma 39-42 reveals that Alma's son Corianton did just this when he sneaked over to see the harlot Isabel in the neighboring town of Siron. Instead of being packed off to home and stripped of his membership in the Church, he got off with a four-page sermon and was back on the doorsteps shortly thereafter. It seems that the entire missionary force of the Church at this time may have consisted of Alma and his two sons, Shiblon and Corianton. Giving Corianton the "old heave-ho" would have cut the mission staff by one-third, hence the soft treatment.

In today's age of the information superhighway, the Church has decided to shorten the time formerly spent in the Missionary Training Center. Henceforward, all missionaries called to serve in areas served by proven networks of reliable telephone and modem communications will not report to the MTC at all. Rather, they will be asked to log on to the Church's MTC Web Page (http://www.no.dates.org) where all their pre-mission training will be downloaded to them at home.

All of us have had a good laugh at the story in the 20th chapter of Acts when the Apostle Paul was in Ephesus and was giving an overly long speech in the local synagogue. As Paul was droning on, a boy named Eutychus fell asleep from boredom and tumbled to his death from the third loft in the synagogue. As it was totally Paul's fault, he later restored the boy to life and health. Few members of the Church are aware of the fact that when General Authorities today stand in the Tabernacle to deliver conference addresses, they are all reminded to keep their talks short by a small brass plaque on the podium that says, "Remember Eutychus."

It has been disappointing for the Editor of this paper to have received several pieces of the most virulent hate mail over the past several months by ignorant numbskulls who doubted the authenticity of several important archeological discoveries that have been announced in this paper. These discoveries (the finding of King Benjamin's Recipe for fried Curelom – June '96; Nephi's wallet discovered – August '96; Joseph's third son, Lloyd – September '96; Nephi's Iron Rod unearthed in Rexburg, Idaho – May '97; Lehi's ship found – July '97; and Ancient Nephite Jokebook found – November '97) are all true and are in the process of being studied and put on display in the Monty L. Bean Museum at Brigham Young University. To show how uninformed those chuckleheads are who doubted the truthfulness of these earlier discoveries, we are happy to announce yet another remarkable archeological find. This latest discovery proves the oft-repeated truth that God works in mysterious ways. Here is the whole and totally true story.

This year has been particularly wet due to the El Niño weather patterns. As it was too wet to ruin the flowerbeds he usually destroys this time of year, our dog, Ruff, was digging in a part of the yard he seldom visits when he unearthed what he hoped was a bone or something. I had hoped he had dug up an uninsulated electrical wire and was about to bite into it, but something about the strange shape of his find caught my attention. I rushed into the yard and quickly diverted Ruff's attention by throwing some doggie biscuits into the deep end of the swimming pool. I pulled a tightly wrapped leather pouch out of Ruff's mouth and carefully opened it. Imagine my surprise when some old letters fell out. One of them bore the signature of the Prophet Joseph Smith and was addressed to Martin Harris. It was an official letter advising Martin that his transcripts had been received and he had been accepted as a freshman in the newly formed School of the Prophets. The rest of the papers were material about housing, tuition, athletic schedules, and things like that. In keeping with our principal of giving all relevant materials to the Church, we sent these items to the office of the Church Historian where they are sure to be authenticated soon.

Adding to the many honors received by this paper, we are pleased to accept the 1998 Award for Aggressive Spelling and Contempt for Punctuation. The ASCP award is given annually by the Association of People Who Never Graduated From Anything.