--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 10 number: 2 published: 1906-12 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations, "Our Work: M. I. A. Fund; About the Era; Conjoint M. I. A. Conferences; Excuse Hunting," *Improvement Era* 10, no. 2 (December 1906): 152–154.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1002unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera1002unse start_page: 152 end_page: 154 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1906-12) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1002unse publication_year: 1906 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1906, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Our Work: M. I. A. Fund; About the Era; Conjoint M. I. A. Conferences; Excuse Hunting OUR WORK. M. I. A. FUND. Envelopes for distribution to the officers of the Mutual Improvement Associations of the various stakes of Zion, have been sent to the superintendents of stakes. We trust that the superintendents will lose no time in distributing these envelopes to their ward presidents with the necessary instructions for the collection of the Fund. This should be done in ample time for the first collection during the first week in December, and the first week in February. All remittances- for the fund should be sent to the superintendency of the stake, or the person designated by them to attend to this business. On receipt of the amounts from the wards, the funds should be promptly forwarded to the General Secretary with list of the wards, and amounts paid in each case. The envelopes sent will sufiice for both collections, in December and February. The stake superintendents are urged to look after this matter, so that as high a percentage as possible may be collected in their stakes for the Improvement Fund this year. ABOUT THE ERA. President Heber J. Grant has taken great interest in the circulation of the Era, and has written a large number of letters to presidents of stakes and bishops, soliciting their assistance in obtaining subscriptions for the magazine to the amount of 5 per cent of their Church population in each stake. It will interest the brethren to whom he has written, and the readers of the Era generally, to know his estimate of the value of the Improvement Era, and for that reason we take pleasure in printing the following letter written to the General Secretary. His good opinion is heartily endorsed by the Secretary, and will, we think, be endorsed by many of our readers. We trust that all will assist us in the circulation of our magazine: — Dear Brother Anderson : I am enclosing a lot of letters to mail to presidents of stakes and bishops. I will send you some more next mail or the mail following. To tell you the truth, I am surprised that one has to call the attention of the leading brethren to the lack of support of the Era. If the presidents and bishops knew just how valuable it is to their people to read President Smith's editorials, OUR WORK. 153 and how much unity and support they would have from the saints if there were more Eras taken in their stakes and wards, there would be no need of work to get an increased subscription. Personally, I would not do without the valuable instructions in the Era for ten times the price of the subscription. Many complain that they can get a larger eastern paper for less, but this only shows that they do not know how to estimate real value. Life eternal is the pearl of great price that we are after, and little if anything to aid us in securing it is to be found in the eastern magazines, if they do print more matter; but much is printed that will cause us to lose this, the greatest of all of God's gifts to man. If the Era had done nothing but supply the elders in the mission fields with the magazine free, it is worthy of the support of all of the Saints. From 1,G00 to 1,800 papers free to the elders per annum is no small matter, and the Saints should appreciate this, and support the Era to show their appreciation. Once more sending love and best wifihes, I remain, sincerely your friend and brother, H. J. Grant. Liverpool, Oct. 10, 1906. CONJOINT M. I. A. CONFERENCES. The General Boards M. L A., have named the following dates for the annual M. I. A. conferences throughout the Church. Superintendents of stakes are requested to make the necessary arrangements for holding tnese gatherings, and in case there is need to change the dat'^, notification should be sent, to the General Secretary immediately. The General Board will aim to have a representative at as many of the conferences as possible; but in case no member of t^e Board is present, the officers are requested to conduct the conference in the best manner that their experience may dictate. It is understood that the Young Ladies should be given an opportunity to occupy one-half of the time. The program should be prepared by conjoint officers meeting of stake officers, and should be indicative of the work of the associations, supplemented by music, reports, and general instructions. Blanks have been sent to the stake officers, and they are requested to report the conferences upon these blanks, in case no representative of the General Board is present. The attention of the superintendents is called to the monthly reports, and it is hoped that they will insist upon their ward presidents reporting to them promptly each month on the blanks provided, and then report their stakes to the General Secretary. M. I. a. conjoint conference appointments for 1906-1907. December 9— Emery, Juab, Malad. December 16— Panguitch, South Davis, Beaver. January 13— Oneida, North Davis. South Sanpete, Parowan, Hyrum. January 19 -Jordan, Bear Lake, Wasatch, Bingham. January 27— Benson, Granite, Millard, Big Horn. — February 10 Morgan, North Sanpete, Alpine, Tooele. Februarv 17 — San Luis, Pocatello, Sevier, Union. 154 IMPROVEMENT ERA. — February 24 Ensign, Bannock, Utah, Fremont, Star Valley. — March 10 Cache, Teton, Nebo, Salt Lake, Blackfoot, Taylor. — March 17 Summit, Alberta, Liberty, Pioneer. — March 24 Cassia, Woodruff. May 12— Box Elder. May — Weber. 19 The conferences of Wayne, St. George, San Juan, Kanab, and Uintah will be held in connection with the stake conferences. Snowflake, St. Johns, Maricopa, St. Joseph, and Juarez are to fix their own dates and notify the General Boards Edward H. Anderson, Joseph F. Smith, General Secretary Y. M. M. I. A. Gen'l Sup't Y. M. M. I. A. Ann M. Cannon, Martha H. Tingey, Secretary Y. L. M. I. A., President Y. L. M. I. A. EXCUSE HUNTERS. I regret that so many of our boys are doing their Mutual Improvement work in a very irregular, haphazard, slouchy way. This course is very bad for any boy, especially between the ages of fourteen and twenty; therefore, I would urge our junior class teachers to keep their eyes wide open, not entirely on the subject matter which they are presenting, but on the boy, himself ; keep a personal tab on the boy ; watch him and see what he is doing ; and how is his attendance? Is it regular or irregular? If you will just let a boy come and go as he pleases for the five or six years that you have him in the junior class, he will turn out to be a first class dilly-dally sort of a person who cannot be relied upon. See if he is there on time each night, and making a record for himself. With regard to their lessons amd punctuality, when they fail to come to meeting on time, and when they come unprepared, they always say there is something wrong. Let us kill off the excuse hunters; get them in the habit of doing their work so there will be no need of excuse hunting: If something has occurred so a member cannot get there on time, he can state the reason, and he does not have to hunt for an excuse. That is what counts with a boy. I remember, years ago, of becoming acquainted with a horse trainer, and it seemed to me that I got more valuable thoughts from that horse trainer than I got from the professors of pedagogy. Of all the horses this man trained, there was not one in twenty that was not reliable. He simply kept a horse repeating what he wanted him to do, and it became a matter of habit. He never gave him more than he could do, but brought it on by degrees, until, finally, you could hitch him to a tree and he would not give up, because he had been used to pulling everything he was hitched on to. This thought can be applied to our work. If you let a boy fail, you weaken his confidence in himself, and he becomes a failure. Failure is largely a habit, and success is largely a habit; nothing succeeds like success, and nothing fails like failing. Douglas M. Todd.