Member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Michigan

I know that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the only true and living Church on the face of the earth. I know that Jesus Christ is our saviour and redeemer, and it is only through him we can overcome sin. Only His atonement pays the price for our sins. I know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God. I know it was written anciently and translated by the gift and power of God. I know that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God. I know Russell M. Nelson is the prophet of God today. He is a man called, prepared and chosen to lead the Church at this moment in time.

With several missions having clear sub-regions, the past reasons to support specific missions are not as clear in the present. Also, missions are one place where calling more than 2 counselors to the presidency is a generally allowed practice. So if the number of missionaries does not justify a seperate mission, there are various ways to appraoch the issue. It should also be born in mind that the logistics of finding enough Church members willing to committ 3 years to leading a mission, with a couple where both meet the full worthiness and sportual maturity requirements and such is not easy. Leaving for 3 years is a big burden in some cases, and I have known people who were in academia and told if they accepted a call as mission president by other they knew there that these other people would make sure they never returned to the academic world. So these logistics do mitigate against creating more missions than needed. Other issues to consider. Many of the reasons to have unfied...

Well the main reform of 2018 in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 2018 were the move to 2-hour church and the connected more home centered curriculum combined with the move to one Melchizedek Priesthood quorum in each ward and the move to ministering. Changes in mission calls include one system for full-time and church service calls for young people, sending them electronically and a shift to using smart phones by missionaries, although the last may pre-date 2018. A year ending one was the move to cohorts for youth and allowing people to start in Aaronic priesthood, young women and temple attendance when they are still 11 is they will turn 12 that year. Also the year has seen clear statements against abuse, policies allowing women and youth to have a second adult present during interviews, and clear publication of interview questions. The second one seems not so much a full change as more publication of an already existing but little known policy. The final set...

I am old enough to remember some of the early debates about including individuals with various homosexual tendencies and actions in fiction. Specifcally I remember that from the beginning those justifying it argued that fiction was meant to reflect reality, not an idealized goal. I have also been around long enough to realize that by and large this is a lie. The key reason I can say this is because the "fiction is meant to reflect reailty" group very heavily corresponds with those who used boycott and other anti-literary freedom means to stop DC from publishing Superman works written by Orson Scott Card. Why did they object to Card as a writter? A little because Card had been bold enough to support Proposition 8, and they objected to anyone who disagrreed with them having a say about public policy. However it was mainly because Orson Scott Card told the unvarnished truth about the lived experiences of interactions that infleunced many to have homosexual tendencies. Howeve...

Here is the text of the Wikipedia article on the Kinshasa Democratic Republic of the Congo Temple. It may be about to be deleted so I will post it here to presever until May when we will hopefully have more sources to recreate the article. The '''Kinshasa Democratic Republic of the Congo Temple''' is a [[Temple (LDS Church)|temple]] of [[The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints]] (LDS Church) under construction in [[Kinshasa]], [[Democratic Republic of the Congo]]. The intent to construct the temple was announced by [[President of the Church (LDS Church)|church president]] [[Thomas S. Monson]] on 1 October 2011. The temple was announced concurrently with the [[Barranquilla Colombia Temple|Barranquilla Colombia]], [[Durban_South_Africa_Temple|Durban South Africa]], [[Star Valley Wyoming Temple|Star Valley Wyoming]], and [[Provo City Center Temple|Provo City Center]] temples. When announced, this increased the total number of temples worldwide to 166. A...

The most recent reform in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was announced this week. It involves changes of the age at which youth can advance in the priesthood, receive limited use temple reccomends, and related issues. The change involves shifting movement to being fixed by birthday, to the start of a year in which a person's birthday occurs. The change is not universal. Baptism is still at age 8, and rules about advancement to relief society, the Melchizedek priesthood and being able to go on missions have not changed. Nor has the age at which the Church allows dating, 16, changed at all. Cub scouting and boy scouting seem to be largely unaffected, but if I read it right the move from 11-year-old scouts to regular scouts is at the start of the year one turns 12. This means some will be 11-year-old scouts for weeks, while others for virtually a whole year. Since the Church is fully leaving scouting at the start of 2020, this is not a long term issue. Starting ...

Boy Scouting is possibly about to declare bankruptcy. I will here consider the reasons for this. The first major question is why is Boy Scouts close to bankruptcy while girl scouts is not. The answer is multi-faceted but I will attempt to answer it. The biggest reason is that Boy Scouts faces 140 suits over sexual abuse of scouts. The boy scouts kept a very large file of banned scout leaders. It has been forced into the open. On the other hand, some of the suits involve leaders who were never in the file. Many of these suits bate back 30 years or more. Boy scouts is not the only organization facing bankruptcy over this issue. about 20 Catholic dioceses have filed for bankruptcy protection. So has USA Gymnastics, which is mainly saddled with the Dr. Nassar scandal, but also faces lots of issues with abuse by coaches. The answer to why Boy Scouts faces this problem but girl scouts does not is probably because men are much more likely to commit sexual abuse against children than w...

A great-granddaughter of Brigham Young just died. https://www.chattanoogan.com/2018/12/12/381409/Brigham-Young-s-Great-Granddaughter.aspx She was 101 years old. This means she was born 116 years after her great-grandfather. To keep this in perspective I believe I was born 80 years after my oldest great-grandfather. So this is not a super amazing feet, since my youngest brother was born 90 years after that same great-grandfather, and my youngest counsin was probably born about 110 years after that great-grandfather. Actually, I think more than that. More like 113 years.

Gina Colvin has become a cause celebre of some liberals in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She is facing a disciplinary council. Amazingly it is not for her very questionable writings calling for things like "decolonizing Mormonism". No, it is for being baptized into the Anglican Church. The amazing thing is that anyone thinks it is worth spilling ink to defend her against excommunication. If the Church fails to excommunicate her it would be a total travesty of Church teachings on the gospel of Jesus Christ being found in the Church and the uniqueness of priesthood authority. However such ideas I guess have become abhorrant to the Ordain Womyn crowd. It is high time to secure doctrinal unity.

I just realized that a very big reform of last year escaped mention in my previous post. That was the official publishing of the questions asked to missionary candidates. This flows in line with later reforms and so makes some of them seem less stark. The start of reforms under President Nelson might be seen in his choice of President Oaks and President Eyring as his counselors. This is the first time since the release of Marion G. Romney in 1985 that someone was released from the 1st presidency by other than death. It also represents the first time since 1951 that someone was moved from 1st conselor to 2nd counselor. Since the combination of the two is unprecedented, it is worth noting. However it may not be as much a sign of as symptom of reform. The trends of incorporating the Quorum of the 12 more into central decision making that seem to have happened under President Hinckley would make being in the 1st presidency seem less of a major change. I may be reading more into what is g...

I was reading comments on the Deseret News article on the ending of 4 of the 7 pageants, one commentator attacked President Nelson as a man with unmeet goals that he is no implementing because he is now in charge. I think this is far too simplistic an understanding of Nelsonian reforms. To begin with, they are often as not continuations of previous reforms, not stark contrasts to past courses of action. The end of the BSA relationship was clearly long in the works. As early as 2015 Church spokespeople indicated the Church had long been working on a way to have one youth program worldwide. It was in spring 2017 that the Church announced it was ending BSA membership for youth 14-18. Thus the steps were already in place to reach the the total split by 2020 before President Monson died. If anything the biggest change is that President Nelson has chosen to announce the Lions share of his changes in general conference, while previous changes were often announced at other times. The...

I have come to see that one of my biggest problems is that I do not live the gospel at all times. I need to learn how to treat others with kindness and respect for their humanity. I need to let go of rage and anger. I need to stop acting out of anger and start acting out of love. I need to build more on the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Utah just reached a major political compromise on the issue of proper regulation of medical marijuana. Like all good things in Utah it is being threatened by Ross "Rocky" Anderson and his fire eater associates. The timeline is important. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints came out in opposition to the ballot initiative last Spring. They did so with very well reasoned arguments against its scope. This was followed by forming a coalition in September. The next step was in October the main supporters and opponants of the initiative agreed to a compromise plan, to stop pushing the initiative or heavily opposing it, and to seek to call a session of the legislature as soon as possible after the election. The initiative passed, but some percentage of people who voted for it did so because they wanted to make sure the compromise was enacted. Others did so fully supporting the compromise. Due to less than forceful campaigning, we can not say what an all the stops ca...

Just listing the seven dispensations while at a lesson with the missionaries today made me wonder why the Great Apostasy was so long. While I do not have all the answers, part of me has always thought readings of the Bible were often too quick to assume son of when descendant could also be meant. There are two not the same lenghts of years given, and several numbers would work more easily if more time were involved. So I think the likely partial answer is there is more time from Adam to Jesus than we sometimes estimate.