Almost 50 years after watching Church leaders close the 1949 Sunday School centennial box, four former Sunday School general board members viewed the box on display July 6 in the Museum of the Church History and Art.

The opening reception for a new exhibit at the museum - "Sunday School: 150 Years of Teaching the Gospel" - was part of the official kickoff for next year's Sunday School sesquicentennial.As part of the celebration, the box will be opened shortly before the April 1999 general conference. Former Sunday School board members Lorna Call Alder, 91; Claribel W. Aldous, 86; Wilford M. Burton, 87; and Vernon J. LeeMaster, 93, all hope to be there.

They served on the 1949 Deseret Sunday School Union General Board and have a special place in their hearts for the Church's first and oldest teaching organization.

The former board members were also honored that day at a special luncheon by the Sunday School general presidency - Elder Harold G. Hillam of the Presidency of the Seventy, and Elder Glenn L. Pace and Elder Neil L. Andersen, both of the Seventy.

Other special guests included Delecta B. Moench Davis, the granddaughter of Sunday School founder Richard Ballantyne, and WordPerfect founder Alan Ashton, who in 1949, at age 6, attended the Sunday School centennial celebration and watched as his grandfather President David O. McKay opened the 1899 Sunday School jubilee box.

Melba Glade, the only other surviving member of the 1949 Sunday School general board, was unable to attend the event.

In anticipation of the sesquicentennial year, Elder Hillam said a committee of Church members will decide what will go in a new bicentennial box - which will be opened in the year 2049.

He noted that the new box will have to be representative of a Sunday School organization that now spans the globe - unlike the Church of 1949, when no stakes existed outside the United States and Canada except those in the Mexican colonies.

Elder Hillam told the special guests that he had looked forward to celebrating Sunday School with them for several months.

Sister Davis told the group of the beginnings of the organization that her grandfather founded. "Grandfather Ballantyne wrote in his diary of looking out his window and seeing children playing in the dust and he thought they should be in Sunday School," she explained. "He went up into the mountains and cut wood and built another room onto his one-room log cabin."

He then cut trees in half for benches and sent out invitations.

"Children came in such numbers that in a year's time there were more than 100 of them trying to fit into that little room," Sister Davis recounted. "That is when they started Sunday School in the church buildings."

The members of the 1949 Sunday School general board looked at scrap books with Sister Davis and recalled the days when Sunday School included the sacrament and the reciting of sacrament gems.

They also viewed the museum exhibit which highlights Sunday School topics such as the scriptures, lessons, music and teaching aids. Included in the exhibit are old Sunday School attendance rolls, manuals and photographs.

Sister Alder, Sister Aldous, Brother Burton and Brother LeeMaster each spoke of the special privilege it was to work on the Sunday School general board. They recalled writing and rewriting Sunday School manuals, working on newsletters and traveling together.

"The

board membersT are treasures in your memory that you will never, never forget," said Sister Alder. "We worked hard."

Sister Aldous called her Church service a "wonderful privilege," noting that others often comment on how much she has given to the Church. "I say, `I haven't given, I have received.' "

After visiting with his old friends, Brother Burton noted that he really enjoyed the company of everyone on the Sunday School board.

Brother LeeMaster recalled organizing the Sunday School centennial choir for the 1949 celebration and the numerous practices he attended. "I am grateful for the Church," he said. "I am grateful for the Sunday School."

Elder Pace called the event a "sacred reunion of the past," noting that he was 9 years old when the sesquicentennial box was closed in 1949. He said he enjoyed watching the former board members renew their memories. "I feel like I was able to have a vision of the past through you," he said.