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

I loved Elder Rendlund's talk. I also thought it was awesome two apostles told of Congolese converts. Elder Renlund's talk telling the stories of faith and courage of the Bonzo family and Brother Indigwe (I probably butchered the spelling), of telling the meaning of the Congo Falls picture in the temple, or using the Congo River as symbolism is a level of acknowledgement we would not get from President Nelson if he had been the one to dedicate the last three temple dedicated. This leads to one thing about Nelsonian reforms. They fall into 3 areas. There are the ones that were announced and publicized. A few like releases of temple reccomend questions and mission interview questions (was that actually Nelsonian or was it late Monsonian, I do not recall) are most clear in this publicizing of the matter. It is not clear to me there was much if any revision interview questions, they are just more public. Others of these from 2 hour church to unified quorum to ministering instead o...

I'm tired of Muslim being treated as a race. If Ilhan Omar is defined as a "Muslim immigrant" than does not that make the attack on her religiously charged? On the other hand if Muslims are defeat non white, as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were in 1890 Idaho thus their exclusion from voting, then the census stats on Dearborn Michigan and Hamtramck, Michigan are total farces, and those for Dearborn Heights, Michigan next year will be a farce. The fact that census takers and school counselors have battled for 20 plus years to convince Albanians and Chaldeans in my old city of Sterling Heights they were white also seems to show farcical racial data. Sterling Heights' Muslim population is mainly Pakistani and Indian so it has not been eluded as white after the 1970 census, and didnt exist really until the 1990 census, so it was never actually elided. There are a few Muslim Arabs and Albanians in Sterling Heights but both groups are mainly Chr...

There are multiple Hmong wards and branches in the USA, although here in Detroit we no longer have one as we did in the 1990s. A large percentage of the Hmong fled Vietnam after the Vietnam Ward. Actually I think they were more in Laos, but their working with the CIA made them personas non grata when the USA lost.  There are various ethnic minority groups in central Vietnam bubbed the Montaignards, or mountain people. A certain part of North Carolina, near a large military base has many people from this ethnic group. It seems to me there is potential for missionary outreach to them in North Carolina. The Church of J.g Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Vietnam is confined to major metropolitan urban centers. We know from Nigeria there is lots of potential for outreach in villages, and I believe we see the same thing in Polynesia, but the interpretation of centers of strength has of late nade rural outreach rare. I think some of the Naya speaking stakes in Guatamala are a testi...

We just had stake conference in the Bloomfield Hills Michigan Stake of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints this weekend. It was truly a day in Zion. I have been called to invite others to come and see and come and share and to take a name to the temple. The latter I will do with the name of one of my wife's relatives. I was so glad to hear from Elder Peter M. Johnson of the 70 who made mention of being from New York, and the trouble of moving to the dry climate of Utah including having to work extra hard on his 'fro. Elder Johnson is the only African-American general authority (not the only black one though, Elder Sitati and Elder Dube are clearly black, African, just not in any way shape means or form American). The most moving talk was by a girl who just turned 12 last month. I wish I had had the vision of temple envolvement when I was her age. The failure to find as many names is partly due to a harder process, little internet access (we didn't get intern...

Word choice matters. We see this in Leftists use of scare quotes around terms like Religious freedom. We also see this in the case of the Salt Lake Tribune covering issues related to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They refer to the Sepetem Six purge, without even putting quotes around purge. A purge historically was a killing of leaders. That is not fit here. Also, since the people were not Church leaders the whole rhetoric of purge does not make sense. It only has resonance if you falsely assume the Church is lead by intellectuals instead of by the people who are called and sustainted to lead the Church such as the general authorities. The restored Church is lead by a lay priesthood, and this is something that the Tribune does not seem to want to understand. Even though the general authorities receive a stipend for their running of the Church on a fulltime basis this does not change their lay nature. They are not called based on having studied for the ministry. A...

The claim heard in some conners recently "no stakes created this month" does not bear up under scrutiny. It might be a reaction to what happened in July, but there are almost never new stakes in July. August has seen a stake was just created in Forteleza Brazil. Multiple stakes have been formed in Lima this year. Also multiple stakes have been formed in the Phillipines this year. The Church also continues to clearly grow in Utah. The Africa West Area being split in two is possible, but I do not know how likely it is. At present we have about 2/3rds the areas the Church had at the hight of the area phenomenon. That said, the history of administrative units between that of stakes/missions/districts and the Church as a whole is so complex, that I have only ever seen one article come close to getting it right. That is an article from the book on THe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Canada. Even there I am not sure they fully explain regional representatives (who o...

Some indications are that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints may not be gorwing as much in the US as we think. However I always question the results of the Pew survey. I question them even more on Islam. The Pew survey says that conversion is not a factor in the growth of Islam in the US. Why, because the number of former Muslims and converts to Muslims are both roughtly 20%. However with this being an adult survey and 58% of Muslim adults in the US being immigrants, I think the modeling involved here is flawed. Why, for one thing, without converts Islam would be 20% smaller. However more to the point, we need more indepth studies on the former Muslims. For one thing how does someone like Peter M. Johnson show up in this study? Johnson became a Muslim when he was about 12. I think he was either Pentecostal or Baptists before that. When he was about 20 he joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He is now a general authority. So does he count as a former ...