This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Editor's note • Robert Kirby is on vacation in England and dropped his laptop off the London Eye. This is a reprint of an earlier column.

Every once in a while, I come across a bit of obscure LDS history that lets me know this is the right church for me. Not the usual eye-popping stuff such as Mountain Meadows Massacre, plural marriage, the United Order or even the fact that the Three Nephites founded Las Vegas (where two of them currently work as parking garage attendants).

What encourages me is the same thing that encourages any member of any organization, specifically any bit of history that validates a strongly held personal prejudice.

In this case, it is a little-known LDS Relief Society program that operated during the 1920s and significantly increased the population of Utah. Hint: Not double-secret polygamy.

From an official LDS news release: "In the mid-1920s, women in [the Relief Society] had a 'Swat the Fly' campaign to cut down on disease." LDS women swatted flies by the billions, collected them in fruit jars and then buried them.

This wasn't just busy work to keep them from thinking about why only men had the priesthood. Flies are known carriers of disease. Having fewer of them around could only make things healthier.

It wasn't easy. Since No-Pest Strips had to be left behind in the Garden of Eden, it stands to reason that man would have to find another way of controlling them. He got woman to do it for him.

Even so, I am a little fuzzy about the fruit jar and burial part of the "Swat the Fly" program, unless it's because someday we will have to dig them up and do their genealogy.

It is also highly possible that canning flies serves some future Relief Society purpose. Perhaps future generations of homemaking meetings will have to tole-paint all those flies.

Nevermind. Being a Telestial spirit — and not the least bit ashamed of it — I prefer religious programs and counsel that make a certain blue-collar sense. Gospel mysteries only confuse me. Forget all that stuff about the apocalypse, signs of the times and numbers on heads. Killing flies is exactly the sort of religious advice that speaks to me. I can almost hear it as scripture.

"Verily, why doth thy neighbor vex thee so when flies cause thee to clutch thy bowels and make haste for thy outhouse? Yea, therefore kill them exceedingly."

So why wouldn't flyocide be part of the gospel plan? People with the runs are less patient with their fellow human beings than those who are regular.

Not that flies are completely bad. After all, God made them for a reason, possibly even a reason other than making us miserable.

Flies can come in handy. I once got through a High Council talk by watching one buzz the bald head of the worshipper in front of me. My brother and I bet on which liver spot it would land on next.

Then again, maybe flies are from the devil. Don't forget a particular fly that kept buzzing George Bush Sr. during a televised presidential debate. That fly helped Bill Clinton keep an adulterous appointment with a White House intern.

We need more Christian service projects like this. Surely God hates mosquitoes every bit as much.

Robert Kirby can be reached at rkirby@sltrib.com or facebook.com/stillnotpatbagley.