It was announced Sunday that the Edmonton Stake Center will be off limits from 10 PM to 1 AM for 4 weeks while they celebrate and break a fast.There are to be no activities or members in the building, 7 days a week for about 3 to 4 weeks as the Muslims celebrate this holy event. They are going to be using the Relief Society room.

Now for the fine print. There is some sort of a religious counsel set up in Edmonton. A small group of Muslims needed a room to celebrate this Holy Event. They have no mosque. No other Churches offered so the Stake President offered ours. He got the blessings from area Church leaders.

The letter from the SP indicates these people are our brothers and sisters and we need to help them out. It will help to create positive relationships between the Church and them. They will use the meeting to pray and break their fast everyday for this religious event.

Members were told in the letter that was read, to leave the building by 10 pm. Leave the building clean and tidy. And to be friendly.

I am very glad to see this kind of community cooperation and goodwill.

I hope this inspires more of the same in other communities.

Congrats to the SP, who did the right thing.

That's the kind of hospitality I would expect from those pesky Episcopalians.

Bravo to the Edmonton leaders!

A bit of surprising good news! Gotta love those Canadians!

This is something I expected from the Episcopalians or the UU church, but I have respect for that SP.

Good news

Finally, and LDS church building becomes a useful place. But I am confident that the event will occur in glowing terms in Church News and possibly Deseret News, and released by church PR reps to Salt Lake Tribune and whichever dust bin liner that they have in Edmonton. This is just too good for Church Co. to pass up.

Why does using it for one religious activity rather than another make it more useful?

I just hope they're paying market rental for the space.

And what right do they have to declare it 'off limits'? Muslims do not have temple-type restrictions for entry, anyone should be welcome.

Well, dual-use, we'll say. And Iftar (breaking the Ramadan fast) is more of a community event. The public are always invited, whether they know it or not. The food is great, incidentally, but it would be better with beer. But they don't do beer, because Muslims.

It's a rare, rare thing to see any LDS structure serve anyone else.

It was clear in the SP letter that was read, members are not to be present. I was going to present because I know the food is good. I guess the kitchen will get to be used a bit more these three or four weeks than on all year with the LDS congregations.

SEcular Priest Wrote:
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> It was clear in the SP letter that was read,
> members are not to be present. I was going to
> present because I know the food is good.

It's one thing to let them use the building...it's quite another to let them infest tender mormon minds with -- gasp! -- other ideas.

Elohim forbid they should learn about religions other than mormonism. They might start to connect the dots, and realize that all religions are making outrageous claims just like the mormons are.

Well, that is a bummer, innit? But iICHtK is right. They probably don't want little Mormon minds exposed to something else. After all, if they've bought into Mormonism, who knows what other things they could be sucked into? (I mean, BESIDES the pyramid schemes.)

Are the Muslims going to clean the building each time they use it? What about Sunday? Will there be no church meetings for 4 weeks? If Mormons miss more than 3 Sundays in a row, they will love life so much, they will never go back!

I don't think there are many mormon church meetings that start after 10PM.
Well, not the kind they *talk about* anyway :)

Wait until the Muslims smell the bathrooms. They'll abandon ship.

I think this is a bad idea. If you feed a stray dog, he will stick around and come back for more later.

It is a prayer meeting in which women sit isolated from men. They read the koran

Mormons do realize they are the infidel? Get out by 10!

I talked to local PR person for Church. We had a discussion and one person asked it Church in local area was going to post about it on line. She said no not right now. She and the Church leaders wanted to see if there were going to be any problems. That was all that was said other than the people were happy that the room has a room divider so they could isolate the women from the men.

As I was listening, I think that the local Stake and regional leaders are not understanding the membership. I think that the members understand they are the "infidels" and that the woman are treated badly in this religion. I think the members who are still active are having a "WTF" moment. Remember no other Church in Edmonton would accommodate them. The question I would ask is "why?" Since members have to sustain their leaders, I believe this is causing some serious questions.

It makes the SP and regional leaders look good. If you are working your way up to the top it helps. I guess only time will tell. In the group I was with Saturday (LDS singles activity) there was not a lot of support for this.

Again, I may be way off in my thinking. LDS leaders look at me as a person in 'faith crisis." Hey the singles activity was fun and had good food.

What if they use their prayer powers to cancel out mormon prayers ?

will some poor Mormon be stuck opening the doors for them and then locking back up after 1:00 a.m.?

I'm rather shocked at the idea of Mormons doing such a radically kind thing. It just doesn't seem in character. Not that there aren't nice Mormons; I have known many of them. But officially, as a group, they can be pretty disagreeable.

Kudos to this bunch, however.