The new LDS manual for Mormon Women is now available in PDF format.
The official website for the book is:
http://lds.org/relief-society/daughters-in-my-kingdom
The book is unique among the church’s modern manuals in that it is the work of a single author, Sister Susan Tanner, and not written by a committee.
A few years ago my brother, Ben, visited Ghana to do some research into how music, drums, and rhythm are used in traditional practices and shamanism. While he was there he shot a lot of video and during part of the visit he got to go teach with some of the missionaries there.
Even though it’s been a while, he recently rediscovered this video he shot of a couple of Mormon missionaries from West Africa singing the LDS missionary anthem, “Called to Serve” and he just put it up on YouTube.
With all of the potential pop-cultural misperceptions of Mormon missionaries resulting from the “Book of Mormon” Musical, I thought it would be useful to share a taste of real LDS missionaries in Africa. Enjoy!
A week ago I took my kids over to BYU campus for a short while to kill some time while my wife was at the doctor. Even though we have lived in Utah Country for as long as we’ve been married, we rarely make it over to BYU campus anymore. Our kids know some parts of campus better than others.
Last week I took them to the Joseph Smith Building. We have a special connection to the Joseph Smith Building, and I wanted my kids to experience it.
The construction of the Joseph Smith Building was completed in 1991. At that time, my family lived across the street from brother Franz Johansen, who had been a BYU professor of fine art. He was a wonderful neighbor, and a very talented artist.
It’s time to talk about Apostasy. Again.
In this post, however, I want to introduce a new approach to thinking about personal apostasy by drawing what I think are compelling comparisons between apostasy and conspiracy theories.
Conspiracy theories appeal to some very fundamental aspects of human nature and can wield a great deal of influence over people. I believe that a closer look at the appeal and mechanics of conspiracy theories can help illuminate some important aspects of personal apostasy from the church.
My hope is that by exposing these aspects of apostasy I can help not only those members of the church who are dealing with family or friends who have apostatized, but also give pause to those who find themselves being drawn down the path of apostasy, and raise doubts among those who are already a far distance down that path.
Ultimately this is a warning about the limits of reason and logic and the potential dangers of the rational mind.
The concept of conspiracy is deeply ingrained into our entertainment, our political discourse, and even our religion. Conspiracy theories exist among the atheistic as well as religious. They propagate among liberals as well as conservatives, and among the educated as well as the ignorant.
Over the weekend I got a chance to see a portion of the 2008 movie Speedracer. I only saw a couple of scenes, so I’ll have to go back and watch the whole thing, but the portion I saw featured actor Matthew Fox (who also played one of the main characters in LOST) as Driver X.
I don’t have anything to say about the movie, but I was struck by how much Matthew Fox looked like current Mormmon Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney. If Romney is ever elected President of the United States, my money is on Fox to play Romney in whatever theatrical creation eventually results.
So what about the other current candidates or potential candidates? If any of them were to become President, who would play them in the inevitable movie that will someday be created?
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