LDS Scene

Hijacked Mission President!

Their plans for the day were more than a little disrupted when hijackers sidetracked the flight and took a planeload of passengers to Lima, Peru. On 5 July 1977, President Berkley A. Spencer of the Santiago Chile North Mission and Elder Joel T. Peck thought they were going from Arica, Chile, to Santiago. The hijackers decided otherwise.

There were several nervous hours until Venezuela granted political asylum to the hijackers, and the passengers, including President Spencer and Elder Peck, were released without harm. And what happened next?

They caught the next possible flight out of Lima and went on with their work. They may have been delayed—but they were not stopped!

LDS Youth Wins International Science Fair

Wayne R. Moyle of Ogden, Utah, took first place in the 1977 International Science and Engineering Fair in Cleveland, Ohio. His project, “The Effect of Breakwaters on Erosional Shorelines,” was prompted when he noticed on several Scouting trips that the causeway to Antelope Island in the Great Salt Lake was constantly being eroded.

He built a linear wave tank and tested different types of breakwaters to see which was most successful in stopping erosion. The answer? Wooden breakwaters were best, especially large piles arranged diagonally to the shore.

Among other things, the first place award meant a trip to the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. Brother Moyle is a student at Weber State College, and plans to go on a mission soon.