This was Stake Conference weekend for me, and aside from the plastic seats 3/4ths of the way back in the gym, a good time was had. I am a personal fan of unorthodoxy in relatively unimportant issues, so this was a good conference for me. Read more »

Someone sent me this link last week; apparently the Church is putting Personal Progress online. Young Women will be able to read, journal, and keep track of their progress at this site. I think it is a fine innovation. For some Young Women who spend significant time online, this will be an attractive idea, for others it might help them keep track of their accomplishments, and for some, it will not affect them one way or another.

On the whole, I’d say it is a step forward. Maybe not a very important step, but it is a step.

It is New Beginnings season and since I have a Stake Calling, I get invited to attend 9 of them. Lucky me. This year, most New Beginnings programs have included (whether featured or mentioned) an introduction to the “new” Personal Progress program. They are not talking about the previously mentioned website. They are talking about the new book, journal, theme cards, pendants and rubies, posters, stickers (yes, stickers), and ribbons. Whew. It’s a lot of stuff. Read more »

According to the Salt Lake Tribune the Ogden temple is getting a major makeover.

So here are some questions for you Mormon Mentality readers:

How lonely will the Provo temple feel after this?

Nothing against the new temples that have been built recently, but do all the Utah temples really need to look the same?

Finally, if it is going to cost the same as it would to tear it down and build a new one, is there a reason why that isn’t happening? The article indicates that the original building was something of an experiment in terms of lower quality construction. My understanding is that we’ve given up on that experiment. Why not just build a completely new building?

I dreamt that I was holding a tray and standing in a cafeteria line of about six people. There was another line next to us, with about a hundred people. Everything seemed to be going okay, and I thought I was very wise to have chosen the shorter line, when suddenly the cashier for my line just walked away, with no explanation! The six of us waited and waited, but the cashier never returned, and none of us wanted to get into the other line of a hundred or more cafeteria diners.

Eventually I started making noises and getting semi-belligerent. Another cashier showed up, finally, and charged me $40 for my three lunch items. I mentally calculated, however, that they could not cost me more than $15. Trying to be considerate to the people waiting behind me, pushed already to their absolute limit, I paid, and then examined my receipt. None of my lunch items were itemized: there was only a bill for $40!!

I then put my tray away and spoke to a manager, who advised me to write a letter of complaint. I was in the process of composing my thoughts when I awoke, and was left to ponder the meaning of it all.

I told my wife of my dream. She started groaning when I was still waiting in the cafetria line, and the groaning continued straight through to the letter of complaint. Her interpretation was immediate and decisive: she was appalled by the utter banality of my dream. It was, she said, the latest of a series of dreams that did not speak well for my character, where I am faced with trivial challenges, and overcome them in utterly predictable ways. My dreams, she said, suggested a squalid inner life, filled with ordinary preoccupations of the most inane and petty nature.

I’m wondering if there is not a Mormon perspective here that I am missing, and perhaps also my wife. Can anyone help me here? I stand accused …

I’ve only been to one book club meeting in the last couple of years, because of my job. It was at my house. We read, something about a Jewish person. I think it was by Chaim Potok—dang, I can’t remember the book! Anyway, this is what I remember: I made yummy chicken salad and green salad and brie baked in phyllo and shrimp cocktail. We had assorted cookies. I’d bought this really pretty china set at a yard sale and I set the table all pretty and we had a tea party in my new dining room filled with light. It was so fun. Read more »

Why does the Salt Lake Tribune report the news the way it does?

I have been reading newspapers since I was about 10 years old. A story like the this one would rarely even be covered in my experience. It takes a sensational murder or other really heinous crime to make the news.

If it was covered in an article the religious affiliation of the alleged suspect would never be mentioned.

Why is the Salt Lake Tribune so biased?

I never watched Fox News before the Bush/Gore debacle. I didn’t have an allegiance to either party. Yada-yada-yada. I know many of you have heard the story of my conversion and how I could have gone with Gore or Bush and how disappointed I was in Gore. Read more »

I was first introduced to fry sauce on my homeymoon in SLC. I was raised outside the Corridor and grew up with Ketchup. My new wife wanted to expand my palate so she took me to Crown Burger and insisted that I taste the fry sauce. WOW. It was great on fries and onion rings.

Fast forward 10-15 years.

Fry sauce is all the rage in my house. Read more »

Imagine your Relief Society President was your Bishop. How do you think she would fare? Read more »

I recently read an article about a really expensive elaborate birthday party that P Diddy held for his son.

I personally think that P Diddy is an uncouth yahoo and his kid in in process to be the same but I offer up this extreme example to illustrate the point that the birthday culture has gotten out of hand. Read more »

Conversation in the Church hallway after picking my son up from nursery:

Me: How was nursery?
He: (enthusiastically) Great! One more meeting?
Me: (also enthusiastically) No.
He: Oh man!
Me: But now we can go home for lunch.
He: I want one more meeting!

Scene Read more »

Don’t forget to make your vote count!

I got two new students today. So far, I have only met one: he is a quiet fifth grader from Haiti. We hope his younger brother will join us in second grade next week. The family of five are here staying with a sister for a while. After the earthquake, they got out of Haiti by driving to the Dominican Republic, getting to Puerto Rico, and then to Miami, and finally up here. For some reason, the seven-year-old ended up in New York City, but they hope to drive down to retrieve him this weekend. Can you imagine? I couldn’t quite understand why or how or when they became separated from the seven-year-old (my Creole sucks), but they didn’t seem TOO worried about it, so I won’t be.

Can you imagine? Any of it? Having your country tumble down on you? Fleeing with about nothing and not being able to communicate with anyone at home to find out how your loved ones are? Rooming with your sister and her whole family and your whole family for an indefinite period? Arriving from the Caribbean in upstate New York in January?
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It took only two weeks for the Relief Society teacher in my ward to break out a Bruce R. McConkie quote from Mormon Doctrine (of course since I taught last week, this is the first week it could have happened). It made me laugh as some have noted that the McConkie quotes were removed for this new edition of Gospel Principles. Read more »

Just a little while ago I was sitting at my desk and happened to be chatting a little bit with an older man I had not met previously.  He seemed very nice and I was enjoying the conversation.  It was basically just small talk.  He asked me about where I had been employed previously and among other things I told him I had worked in Salt Lake City.  He then asked me if I was Mormon and I said yes.  He said he knew we had a beautiful chapel with a congregation for single people nearby (he was referring to our chapel in Inwood) – I asked him how he knew and he said he’s interested in religion.  Then he simply told me (I’m paraphrasing here): Read more »

Much to my disappointment, my current calling does not include any song picking. I would, quite frankly, be happy to select the songs sung at any and all of the Church meetings I attend. Ben Pratt apparently has that privilege and yet abuses it; look at his list of hymns that they did not sing even once in Sacrament Meetings in his ward last year. There are some shocking omissions. I am not sure if you qualify as an LDS congregation, for example, if you don’t sing “The Spirit of God.” Go look at his list if you like, but more importantly, consider your own musical worship.

What LDS hymn do you think is vital to our LDS-hood?

[By the way--thanks to Ben for being such a good sport about this--I would hate to post all of the things I should have done in my calling last year and did not!]

The Church’s newsroom blog just put up a post here to address this Idaho political candidate’s nutjobbery, which centers around the White Horse Prophecy of the constitution hanging by a thread, and the Elders of the Church (perhaps led by Mitt Romney or David Archuleta) somehow coming to the rescue of our constitutional system of government.

I would also point out that in Dallin H. Oaks’ landmark 1994 talk Our Strengths Can Become Our Downfall, Elder Oaks singled out people’s obsession with the U.S. Constitution as being an annoying, possibly dangerous, gospel hobby:

My first example [of a personal strength becoming a weakness] concerns Satan’s efforts to corrupt a person who has an unusual commitment to one particular doctrine or commandment of the gospel of Jesus Christ. This could be an unusual talent for family history work, an extraordinary commitment to constitutional government, a special talent in the acquisition of knowledge, or any other special talent or commitment.

Read more »

Is there an increasing trend of grandparents giving themselves weird nicknames?

I recently had a conversation with a friend who has a baby that is the first grandchild of his wife’s parents. He said the new grandparents were trying to decide what they’d like to be called. His brother-in-law had recommended “Poompa” (?!) for the grandpa. The grandpa didn’t like that option and instead wanted to be called “Misha” (??). My friend just wanted to call him grandpa. This has set off a rhetorical tug-of-war, with the grandpa referring to himself as “Misha,” and my friend insisting on “grandpa.” My question is why this grandpa feels compelled to have any nickname at all. What’s wrong with just being grandpa? Read more »

Tonight my wife and daughter were out of town and I found myself in traffic on a DC-area freeway.  Rather than seethe in traffic hell, I pulled off the freeway and went to a theater to see James Cameron’s new movie Avatar.  This is a film that has conservative-leaning people in a tizzy these days, as they try to reconcile the left-leaning messages of the movie with the indescribable awesomeness of its viewing experience.  What follows are my five reasons why conservatives and others should put aside ideology for a few hours and head to a really good theater (this is critical) to see Avatar:
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I am lucky enough to be the go-to substitute in my ward. In the last three weeks, I have substitute taught in Primary, Young Women’s, and Nursery. Next week it is the Relief Society’s turn to hear from me, and I can only hope some Sunday School teacher falls ill the week after. I think there are two major reasons I am such an attractive (if I do say so myself) substitute: 1–I have a stake calling and therefore am free for ward gigs most weeks, and 2–I never say “no.” Read more »