By concerns, I don't mean concerns about the validity of the Church. At age 69, she is very unquestioningly committed to the Church. I and, I must add, much more moderate and less judgmental than a lot of hard-core mormons (ahem ... my in-laws). Anyway, we had a discussion on what she sees going on. she said it seems like there is a "mass exodus" from the Church right now. She wi
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So my wife saw an ad for a free seminar in advances in Book of Mormon research. That seems hokie enough, but if it floats her boat fine. Since I was going to be out of town that night, she invited her parents to go. They are ultra-orthodox, so I thought they would have been excited. However they railed on her for seeking signs and trying to prove things factually. They said it shows a lack of
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I got a note that Brad Wilcox is going to be speaking to my daughter's seminary class. For those who don't know, he is a motivational speaker who makes a living giving talks, appearing at youth conferences, EFYs, writing books for LDS youth etc. Aside from the awful boredom of such a profession, I can't imagine what it would be like to have that be my career. Your whole career is based on a
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Heard an ad for Mormon Heartland Tours on KSL this morning, and just shook my head. Only in Utah According to the ad, great advances in Book of Mormon studies have led researchers to identify that Lehi's family landed on the Florida Gulf Coast and then spread northward until the end at the Hill Cumorah in New York. "Recent breakthroughs decoding its geography are allowing a tour where
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On my mission Elder Holland visited. A sister missionary brought a blind lady who said she had the faith to be healed if Elder Holland would give her a blessing. He totally side stepped the request and said she would blessed for her great faith and then moved on without giving a blessing. It was an early item on my shelf. My mission president was furious at the sister missionary for putting an
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Our bishop gave a modern-day interpretation of Lehi's dream. The temple of course was the tree of life. The river of filth was the internet. But the great and spacious building was a shopping mall. This was said without a hint of irony. Lest you think this is far removed from City Creek, this is in the Salt Lake valley, less than 20 miles away.
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I'm not talking about Church leadership necessarily. At least not the General Authorities. But sometimes I'll happen to notice guys, usually in wrinkled cheap suits, coming out of a chapel on a weeknight or late in the day on a Sunday. I wonder what was so important there that they would give up so much of their personal time with their families or hobbies to sit in stuffy rooms in uncomfo
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Even if he could do that, I would strongly disagree with that approach. One of the biggest complaints I have is when people manipulate others through the Priesthood/GA Quotes/Scriptures etc. It's just a way for people to justify what they want.
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My wife is the opposite. She had a really bad experience with her calling as YW president that resulted in her early release. She still wants to go to Church, but hates facing the people in our ward. She wants to move just to go to another ward. There is no way we are selling out house just to go to another congregation. Can you imagine that needing to happen in any other denomination?
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Well there are a couple of young women who used to babysit our kids when they were younger. They are now in college, but will probably be home for the summer. We are going to check to see if one of them would come and stay with them. Not a sure thing though.
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They didn't offer to take them. I think that is part of the passive-aggressive approach. But I didn't push them on that either. It is a 12 hour drive and to be honest they are getting up there in age. So I'm not entirely comfortable with them driving that far with the kids.
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About 6 weeks ago we talked to my in-laws about watching the kids for four days while we went on an anniversary trip. They agreed. So we went ahead and bought plane tickets. Well today MIL called and said they could no longer watch the kids because another grandchild, in another state, is going to be baptized that weekend. So my logical reply was maybe they could wait another week for the b
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Learned a few important gospel truths today. First, Brother Henderson said that he grew up in a family that wasn't so strict about Sabbath observance. As an adult, his family still enjoyed the occasional dinner out on a Sunday. But with the encouragement of his wife, he learned to tell them they would not longer be joining them. This was hard on his family. Moral of the story, staying home
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We watched the new first vision video. In my opinion it was just a rehashing of the traditional narrative. It didn't go into detail at all about the versions where he only sees angels or "the Lord." But I digress. So anyway after we were done, my wife said "I absolutely believe Joseph Smith saw Heavenly Father and Jesus, and translated the Book of Mormon." "But
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He said he was a "soft Mormon." Such a weasel move to try to play both sides of the fence. Other than that, he seems pretty qualified.
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President Nelson is admonishing me to "prayerfully consider what kind of sacrifice … you can make to do more family history and temple work this year." I think President Nelson is one of the more likable apostles, but I'm irritated by any requests for more sacrifice to the Church that has been a source of difficulty in our lives for the past several years. I'm doubly irritated t
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The racial makeup of the pictures online and the ensign have bugged me for a long time. Not because I think showing diversity is bad. But because I have never been in a ward with more than a couple African-Americans. Even when we lived in Washington DC, the wards only had one or two African-American members, usually married to a Caucasian spouse. Same thing with "Meet the Mormons."
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He approached me at Church. He was flustered because his companion was home with sick family members and he didn't feel like he should come alone. That by itself is an odd concept. Why can't a person come over by themselves for a visit with a whole family? Anyway, I didn't want to encourage him. He then tried to schedule something for Tuesday the 28th. I told him we were busy that night.
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Just got a message from the Elder's Quorum president, who is also our home teacher, wanting to know if he can come over and do his hometeaching for the month. He's really living on the edge, this being that last Sunday of the month and all. This is the same guy who wanted to come up with a candy-bar reward system for those who do their hometeaching early. What would it look like if he isn't
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The topic was was Helaman 5:12. Building on the "Rock of Your Redeemer, Who is Christ." Interestingly, her mom's stake also had a women's conference. The topic of which was service.
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Someone reached out to my wife to attend stake women's conference. It's been talked up for weeks. So all morning, she gets to attend gospel classes. I'm not sure of the topics, but doubtless to include: -- Dealing with feelings of inadequacy -- What to do if your husband is into porn -- The importance of motherhood. Anyway after a full morning of enlightenment, the sisters will
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Ha ha .. never thought of him as Fabio Jesus, but that's a good description. I used to look at other Church's depiction of Jesus and think they seemed so fake. But now I realize the LDS version seems just as fake.
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I just went to the Church website. Topics aside, the entire presentation seems so artificial. The pictures are all professionally done, but just not "real-life" at all. It seems so staged. It doesn't speak to me spiritually. The other day, I walked past someone showing a church-produced video on the life of Christ. I had the same feeling. The production quality was decent, but
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I've been reading lately on lying for the Lord, blood atonement, and polygamy. One thought occurred to me. In the Book of Mormon, Nephi is commanded to slay Laban even though that is against the commandment of "thou shalt not kill" I wonder how often Mormons have used that story as justification to change actions based on the current situation. Don't want to discuss the true nat
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I am in charge of the ward programs. I got a note from the bishopric counselor to make sure to get them printed and ready early. Apparently the stake presidency will be attending our sacrament meeting tomorrow and the bishopric wants to make sure everything is ship-shape. It's literally like if a colonel was coming to visit the unit. The stake does the same thing if a general authority is
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I would take it further. I would say that the Mormon culture in general is bifurcated. There is extreme avoidance of tobacco (good) and extreme avoidance of alcohol (mixed since moderate amounts in wine etc. could be beneficial). There is extreme avoidance of coffee and tea (benefits of abstinence unproven), and almost a total ignoring of the Word of wisdom's admonition against too much meat.
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That's very nicely said. I also had an experience with local leaders mis-applying gospel principles and causing harm to my family. In my family's case, it had to due with them extending a calling as YW president to my wife who has bipolar disorder. It triggered a severe episode that led to hospitalization and many months of trying to restore stability. They have no idea the difficulty and har
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She did what she has always done to this point when disconcerting information about the church is presented. She gets worked up about it for a little bit, and then files it away and continues on the auto-pilot ingrained by her upbringing. I hope that by subtly bringing items up, it will cause her to start thinking and analyzing the church a little more independently. I do think putting her a
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There is a guy at my work who did some research and decided the church is not true. He told his wife his feelings and she flipped out. Her first call was to their bishop. Her second call was to his parents. He is now getting hammered from his wife, his bishop, and his parents. He was released from his calling as executive secretary. I assume he lost his temple recommend too. He is in a to
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My wife was feeling guilty over something minor she had done, but in her eyes was sinning. Something that 99% of the rest of society wouldn't think twice about. As she shared her guilt with me, and how she feels like she was not living up to the Church's requirements, I felt like it was an appropriate time to share some church history with her. I said it made me angry that she was feeling so
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