Mormon Bloggers

Shannon’s first pie. This blackberry pie is my youngest daughter Shannon’s first attempt. She made it completely by herself without any supervision. First she picked the blackberries that grow on our street. Considering the price of blackberries in your area, this may sound idyllic and picturesque – just walking out the front door and picking berries for a pie! I remember living in Southern California and going in with other ward members to buy Oregon blackberries at insane prices.  They were considered gourmet.  However for those of us here in Oregon, blackberries are fearsome, thorny weeds that take over everything in our yards.  They are hard to get rid of.  People curse them.  Blackberry pie and jam is so ubiquitous and been around so long, some Oregon folks won’t touch anything blackberry.  Funny how perspectives can be so different? Back to the pie.  It would be easy to critique this pie based on how it looks.  The... Read the rest of this entry »

Last year I had an eensy-teensy-weensy procedure done on my heart. As I laid on the table, waiting to go under so the hole in my heart could be patched, a 20 something year-old guy, whose most serious life injury to this point was probably a cut he got shaving, leaned over and said, “Don’t worry. This isn’t as bad as the dentist.” “Yeah,” I thought, “but the dentist doesn’t make you take off all your clothes and lie naked on a cold metal table.” That’s the last thing I remember before I woke up with drool running down the side of my face and a warm blanket on top of me and my husband holding my hand (he didn’t mind the drool. I think.) I went to Costco on my way home from the hospital and took pictures at a wedding the next day. Flash forward to last month. I went to the dentist to get a crown which is just another word for expensive porcelain to cover your own crappy-looking, nonfunctional tooth that you did not floss. I took valium before I went to the dentist.... Read the rest of this entry »

“ILLUMINATIONS OF THE HEART” by Joyce DiPastena Not a big romance fan? Don’t let the flowery teaser on the back cover of “Illuminations of the Heart,” fool you. This book is one meaty, intelligent, well-researched and exciting read for lovers of historical fiction. The romance? It’s smartly written and delicious. “Clothilde.”He spoke the name on a breath like a prayer. Then he lowered his head and kissed her.Her heart is lost in that first embrace, her world shaken to its foundations. There is just one problem: her name is not Clothilde. It is Siriol de Calendri. Trained in the art of illumination in the far-off city of Venice, Siri is directed by her late brother’s will to the county of Poitou in France, where she enters the guardianship of her brother’s friend, Sir Triston de Brielle. Once in Poitou, Siri hopes to find employment in an illuminator’s shop—until Triston unexpectedly snatches her heart away with a kiss. Triston is a man of quiet honor... Read the rest of this entry »

“Nevertheless, ye shall not cast him out of your synagogues, or your places of worship, for unto such shall ye continue to minister; for ye know not but what they will return and repent, and come unto me with full purpose of heart, and I shall heal them; and ye shall be the means of bringing salvation unto them.” 3 Nephi 18:32 Sometimes one comes among us whose heart is not right. Christ tells us to not cast out this person, but to gently minister unto him. We do not know at what point he will change, but there is always the possibility that he will repent and turn unto Christ. Christ heals all that turn to him. And thus we can be a means of support and direction in bringing the message of salvation unto one who is lost.  Read More →