Perhaps you don’t remember me well enough in the bloggernaccle to recall that I am politically liberal. I am. Very. And I just want to be up front about that.

There have been a number of political stories this week that will last longer and almost all of them are more important, but the story that caught me this week was the one about Mitt Romney reportedly bullying a classmate in high school by cutting off his long hair. I know! So Amish! Read more »

“A ward member has had a bedbug infestation and bedbugs have been seen in the Chapel. We’ll try to get that taken care of this week. Please let me know if you see any elsewhere.”

This was an actual announcement at my ward today. Bummer.

What announcement would you most like NOT to hear?

There is something happening in my ward that I can’t quite wrap my head around.  In fact, I can’t tell if it is past tense or not.

Like many (most?) wards, we have a crazy lady.  She is homeless (by choice, it seems), mentally ill, alcoholic (in recovery for many years), and excommunicated.  Read more »

In our case, grandmother’s house is only 20 minutes a week and we visit regularly anyway, but this time we’ll eat turkey.  A friend posted this recipe on her blog and she claims it is fantastic.  Maybe I’ll try to commondeer the corn dish and substitute this this year.  What do you think?

Incredible Cream Corn
2 lbs. frozen white baby corn (thawed)
24 ounces whipping cream
3 Tblsp melted butter
4 Tblsp flour
2 tsp salt
4 Tblsp sugar
white pepper
Parmesean cheese Read more »

I called in sick to Church last Sunday.  As a Sunday School teacher, I always feel a little guilty about that kind of thing, but who else is going to keep the Sunday School presidency on their toes, if not teachers who need last minute substitutes?  No one in my family actually felt that bad, but I knew we sounded contagious and I didn’t want to worry anyone in nursery or primary. Read more »

Not de rigueur, for a Mormon ward, but increasingly ubiquitous is the ward Trunk-or-Treat. Every American ward I has been in for the last decade have hosted one, and I know lots of other wards do as well. Whether it is strictly a parking-lot based event, or an entire Halloween festival started in the cultural hall, we Mormons seem to have grabbed on to this questionable American holiday with vigor. From best-decorated-trunk to haunted house in the Primary room to jack-o-lantern carving competitions, All Hallows Eve has made an oddly warm impression on us. Read more »

As I read a post last week complaining about sister missionaries having to bike in skirts (and proposing that they be allowed to wear pants instead), I got this strange feeling I have every so often in the bloggernaccle: a provocation to defend the status quo.  This is not a position I am in regularly in my real life.  Or my Church life.  I quite like change, especially change that makes sense.  And I am one of those poor beleaguered sister missionaries who both had to wear skirts or dresses (and nylons!) every day and had to use a bicycle as my only mode of transportation.

I hate wearing skirts and dresses (and nylons!).  I hated biking much of the time.  The combination of the two was a giant pain in my tookus and a cramp in my style. Read more »

This past weekend I took the combination of a three-day weekend and Stake Conference as a sign that I should take a little trip. Since I have not previously been, we headed to Maine to visit a friend, but stopped a few places between here and there. One stop was the birthplace of Joseph Smith in Sharon, Vermont. While I wonder why we have created this kind of a shrine for someone we do not worship, it was a perfectly lovely place and prompts my first question Read more »

I don’t know if you saw this

I suppose this would be really fun for some families to put together and submit. I predict there will be much cinnamon-roll eating, snuggling on the couch, smiling families, and maybe even some tears. That is not my General Conference experience, though. In fact, probably none of the things my family does General Conference weekend would make the cut. Read more »

I spent Saturday night watching the Relief Society Broadcast.  It only happens once a year, you know.  That might make some people uncomfortable.  Maybe they would feel that it demonstrates the gender inequity in our Church.Men get their own (super secret) session every six months and women are only addressed once a year!  No fair. 

Does that get your goat?  I don’t really care.  Well, I would prefer that the Priesthood session was broadcast like the women’s sessions are, but I’m not losing sleep over it.  When I had a calling in Young Women, I attended both the YW and RS broadcasts.  I suppose I still could.  I like the idea of having seperate meetings for the youth and the adults, because, frankly, we likely have different kinds of lives and could benefit from a different sort of meeting.  Those poor men have to go and sit through a bunch of advice geared toward middle-schoolers.  That must be a drag.  Yeah.  In fact, maybe the women are better off, only being on the hook for our once annual apostolic pep-talk.

What do you think?

Confession: I am a temple attendence slacker.  Sure, I magnify my calling.  My visiting teaching is 100%.  I even go to those optional church meetings like ward parties, Relief Society: weekday edition, and service projects!  But my temple attendance would not win any awards and I am defineitely way sub-par.  No question about it.  Of course, I’ve got a number of reasons for this, but none of them qualify as good, so I won’t bother you with those. Read more »

Recently, my newish Bishop announced that henceforth, there would be one baptismal service per month and all children of record would be baptized during it. He said that this is the way the Handbook says we should do things.

I am sure that sounds very normal to many of you. Whether this was the way you were baptized, or this was the way your kids were baptized, I realize it is the way things are done in some parts of the world. The Mormon parts of the world. In my part of the world, though, we have done things a little differently. Read more »

We had a few hours to kill between family obligations when we visited Salt Lake City a few weeks ago, so I took my crew down to Gilgal to visit the Joseph Smith sphinx. Read more »

I have been asked to teach the lesson on The Law of Chastity in my Relief Society in a few weeks and I am pretty excited about it.  First, I just like Relief Society and I like teaching, and the combination is the most fun.  Second, I can think of a lot of ways this lesson could go wrong in some hands, so I hope to be able to keep it productive.  Third, it is kind of a unique topic.  Chastity is a bedrock social practice and belief, yet it is one that adults (perhaps especially women) and long-time members rarely, if ever, discuss.  Read more »

From time to time in the course of Church life, we are asked to fulfill responsibilities for which others may be better qualified or more experienced. Some of us manage quite multifaceted organizations and really have our hands full. Others, perhaps, don’t have enough to keep us busy. Occasionally, people feel compelled to suggest or complain about certain practices in anothers’ jurisdiction. Below is one such example.

Dear Sister Primary Counselor–

As I carried my two-year-old kicking and screaming out of Church today, I thought I would finally put this in writing. When you guys give treats to the Primary kids, it causes a big problem for their siblings in Nursery. I don’t think I need to elaborate on that, but let me a suggest a few alternatives to offering super-delicious looking treats to your kids as they exit your care to sit in the car on the way home with (generally irrational) children who have none. Read more »

Sorry, you may be halfway through summer, but this is my first day of it, so I am looking forward and planning the next two months.  I’d love to here what you have going on.

(Not an endorsement).

I am still settling into my new calling teaching the Gospel Essentials class and while I have a few qualms with the way it is set up in my ward, I want to talk a little bit about the manual.  In the past, I have sat in on this class, but have not taught it.  As we have all been using the manual for Priesthood and Relief Society for the last year, though, I wonder if you have felt that some of these “essentials” were not, in fact, entirely essential.  I have.  Read more »

8:50–Find primo parking spot and head inside.  There are about 3 people seated in the chapel, including the organist.  Head to the stand to sit with the speakers seats with my kids (ages 6, 4, and 2) in tow.  I am their only adult at church, so they are sitting with me. Read more »

You are all aware of the female Mormon modesty problem. We have different enough ideas of modesty and how it should be practiced and taught that it has been covered in many blog posts and even more lessons. Generally, it does not seem to be an issue for Mormon men.

One phrase often used in such discussions is “cover the Garment” as in, “it’s so hard to find stylish clothing that covers my garments” and “I won’t let my teens wear anything that wouldn’t cover the garment” and “even as babies, my kids don’t wear tank-tops and spaghetti straps–they don’t cover garments.” Read more »

From time to time, I have heard people discuss the ABC abomination, The Bachelor/ette, and wonder at a hypothetical Mormon Bachelor/ette.  Guess what?  It is happening.  Am I the last to know?  Perhaps.  I only know about it because one of my Facebook friends “liked” a candidate’s audition video.  Yup.  Not only do these battered too-long-a-single Mormon adults have to humble themselves to sell themselves to some other too-long-a-single Mormon adult with odds not too different from a singles ward, but they have to do it on YouTube. Read more »