(Again [part 1 here], this is not a prophecy. This is just me being a “Yankee guesser,” i.e. extrapolating on observations out to a possible future scenario.)
President Nelson’s changes have me thinking “What next?” And “What else could be done?” And “Why?”
1. My guess is that there will be some re-allocations of full-time proselyting missionaries, away from North America, to the faster-growing areas of the world, such as Africa and India.
2. Instead of one missionary companionship per ward, in North America, I think there will be (a tendency towards, not universally) one companionship per building that houses multiple wards. And if a ward/unit produces sufficient investigators, then the mission president could still consider having a companionship dedicated/restricted to just that unit. (more…)
I’m writing mostly about myself. Maybe I’m projecting onto others, but I sense that I’m not the only one who needs to catch fire, to wake up, to get on the move.
I was going to title this post “Are we doing Fast & Testimony Meeting right?”, but then I remembered my previous light-versus-heat comments about chapel socializing, and realized our tepidness in bearing testimony is a bit like a lack of heat.
First off, the Brethren (First Presidency plus Quorum of 12) are always right. The way they say to do F&T Meeting, and all sacrament meetings, is the right way.
But is the way we’re doing it really the way they say to? Are both the form and the content, and the actions correct/optimum? The Brethren say to follow the Spirit, but are we really? I’m not. (more…)
[Updated with photos, June 22, 2019]
One of the most frequent questions I get after offering someone a Book of Mormon is “Where is your church?”
So I came up with what I call an “invite-to-church card.” It’s in the standard business-card size.
I envision that the card will hang around as long as the copies of the Book of Mormon that I give out are kept on-hand. Therefore, I wanted something that would be useful through a few years of time changes, including the exceptions of Stake and General conferences.
It is written for non-members as the intended recipients, and more specifically, for folks who are not yet “investigators.” It might even be useful for ministering to less-active folks who may have forgotten the chapel location, meeting times, or conference schedules, and just might want to sneak into a meeting some day without having to first call someone to find out where and when. (more…)
You are listening to the sacramental prayer. The voice is unfamiliar. It’s a grown man’s voice, reciting the prayer precisely and with conviction but with slightly unusual touches. “Ahh-men” rather than “Aaay-men.”
It’s not unusual for young men’s leaders to assist with the sacrament from time to time, but you thought you knew all the young men’s leaders. You look up at the end of the prayer and see that it is the investigator who was just baptized, after years of attending church and deciding he was absolutely sure of what he was doing. It is his first time to bless the sacrament.
You surprise yourself by laughing out loud, for joy.
There was a young lady named Dot
Who had red hair because she’s a Scot
And like all her kin
She had brilliant white skin
Except where she happened to not.
–Pseudonymous Internet poster
As much as I see trouble and sin in the world, one thing I am also beginning to notice, is a hunger for spiritual meaning. I think this is a lot of the reason Jordan Peterson has done so well. It might be thin, but it is more real nourishment than many people are getting. Likewise, David Brooks has an article in the NYT talking about growing occultism and wicca.
There is a hunger growing out there. And the more unrest and upheaval there is, the more people will be restless with the empty calories of modern idolatries.
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Newer-construction LDS chapels have “Visitors Welcome” carved in one of the exterior building stones, or cast in an exterior cement block, that is visible from the street or parking lot. (more…)
I was listening to an interesting talk by Bruce Porter on the Book of Abraham. He explained that the Prophet Joseph was extremely generous in his use of the word translate, but that he did not call what he did with the Facsimiles in Abraham, translation. It was an explanation of a representation. It was an explanation of what they meant, not what they said.
He pointed out, we can read what the Egyptians wrote, but we can’t always tell what they meant.
He went on to show what was probably a scrap, in Egyptian, of the Book of Joseph, and to show numerous examples of a Melchizedek Temple Endowment (vs. the Aaronic Temple that the Israelites had).
We first learned to translate Egyptian because the Rosetta Stone was discovered, and it has parallel scripts in two forms of Egyptian and in Greek. Can we do the same thing for the actual meaning of Egyptian Temple documents, using the Book of Abraham?