Mormon Bloggers

On Sunday, an LDS bishop was shot and killed in Visalia, California. He was in his office after the three-hour block of meetings when a man asked to see him. He entered the bishop’s office and shot the bishop in the foot, then pulled him into the foyer and shot him in the face. The man was later fatally shot by police. (See Deseret News story.) Bishop Clay Sannar and his wife have 6 boys, including a 6-month-old infant. This has been on my mind since I heard the news. But a man in Utah who had never met Bishop Sannar did something about it. He spent a few minutes and set up an online fundraiser to help support Bishop Sannar’s family (see tinyurl.com/sannar). The power of social media and the goodwill of good people: within 24 hours, people had donated over $26,000. The total is now nearly $50,000. Here are two news reports about how Connor Boyack responded by setting up the fundraiser: story 1, story 2. Here’s a comment someone left on Connor’s Facebook page: “Connor,... Read the rest of this entry »

A Mormon bishop was shot and killed on Sunday. Bishop Clay Sannar of Visalia, Calif. was conducting interviews after the three-hour block of morning meetings when an unidentified man asked to see him. He entered the bishop’s office and shot the bishop in the foot, then pulled him into the foyer and shot him in the face. The man was later shot by police and pronounced dead at the hospital. Read more at http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700061255/Mormon-bishop-fatally-shot-in-California-chapel-gunman-killed.html Bishop Sanner and his wife have 6 boys, including a 6-month-old infant. Please donate to help support the family. About $50,000 have been raised so far. Donate at http://pledgie.com/campaigns/12975 See an update about the fundraising efforts. AKPC_IDS += "250014,";Popularity: unranked [?] Read More →

Mormon teens are dedicate and engaged in their Church. AKPC_IDS += "248069,";Popularity: unranked [?] Read More →

“To fathers and mothers, to grandfathers and grandmothers, and to those without children of their own who lovingly nurture children and youth, my counsel is to speak more frequently about Jesus Christ. In His holy name is great spiritual power. ‘There [is] no other name given nor any other way. . . whereby salvation can come unto the children of men, only in and through the name of Christ’ (Mosiah 3:17).” –Neil L. Andersen AKPC_IDS += "245151,";Popularity: unranked [?] Read More →

Who says nothing happens in August?  This is the month that makes its own news, and most of it is weird! Filed under: Bizarre, Current Events, Election 2010, Humor, Politics, Religion, The Economy AKPC_IDS += "244754,";Popularity: unranked [?] Read More →

On Sunday, as has been the case for as long as I can remember, My family and I went to our local Latter-day Saint chapel and attended worship services.  All-in-all it was an unremarkable sabbath, we attended Sacrament Meeting and our Sunday School classes and came home with no greater worry than what we would be eating for dinner that evening.  There were no crowds protesting the existence of our chapel, no politicians loudly calling for a moratorium on permits for Mormon chapel or temple construction in the United States, no one calling our patriotism, morality or general decency into question, just an American family going to church and worshiping Deity according to the dictates of our own consciences. I bring this rather banal episode up to illustrate a point that seems to be lost on a rather large and vocal segment of my fellow Americans:  We take our freedoms of religion and religious expression for granted and in doing so have developed a disturbing tendency to devalue and debase... Read the rest of this entry »

A few weeks ago I went with my Brother and we watched Christopher Nolan’s most recent film “Inception.”  If you haven’t seen it, don’t worry, I’m not of a mind to give away spoilers, nor am I going to wax poetic over the special effects, writing, acting etc., etc., this is the business of film critics who have already spilled about as much digital ink as can be justified on the subject.  In my case, what made the movie truly interesting was the way in which it explored the nature of reality and asked us the age-old question “what is real?” Surely this is not a new question, even for Hollywood, the Wachowski Brothers’ “The Matrix” discussed this issue in the last decade, and it has been a working staple of science-fiction, fantasy and philosophy for the better part of a century.  Why?  As a Mormon, I might venture in part that the argument that what one sees and perceives through the senses is not the sum total of existence... Read the rest of this entry »

“I don’t divide the world into the weak and strong, or the success and the failures; I divide the world into the learners and the non learners.”                                                                                                               – Benjamin Barber “As a man thinketh . . . , so is he”                                                                                                           – Proverbs 23:7 I randomly saw an article on BYU’s homepage a bit ago and was instantly pulled into it. I read the entire article and then read the connecting links to newsletters and research that other schools have done on the subject and read all of them. It was one of those, “Oh my gosh, it IS something real!” moments then you appreciate to learn everything you can. I just wish I could have figured this out about myself six... Read the rest of this entry »

“Agency—our power to choose—is fundamental to the gospel plan that brings us to earth. God does not intervene to forestall the consequences of some persons’ choices in order to protect the well-being of other persons—even when they kill, injure, or oppress one another—for this would destroy His plan for our eternal progress (compare Alma 42:8). He will bless us to endure the consequences of others’ choices, but He will not prevent those choices (compare Mosiah 24:14–15).” –Dallin H. Oaks, “Love and Law,” Ensign, Nov. 2009, 27–28 AKPC_IDS += "237702,";Popularity: 1% [?] Read More →

The Prophet Joseph Smith had a favored descriptive term for the tactics of his opponents, saying that they traded in “making a man an offender for a word.”  In the parlance of the early 19th century, this essentially meant twisting the words of an individual so that they appeared to be precisely what they were not in order to discredit them.  The Prophet’s words came back to me this week in reference to the Shirley Sherrod scandal. By now this mess has cluttered the airwaves for enough news cycles to induce vomiting in all but the most hardened news consumer, so my recounting for posterity (whom I delusionally flatter myself may one day read this stuff) will be brief.  Shirley Sherrod, a black woman working for the Department of Agriculture in programs to aid rural farmers in the State of Georgia was caught at a taped event of the local chapter of the NAACP allegedly admitting that she was less than helpful to white farmers who treated her with an air of “superiority.” Within... Read the rest of this entry »

AKPC_IDS += "230967,";Popularity: unranked [?] Read More →

The new Mormon.org launched today. See profiles of 2,000 who explain why they are Mormons. 13,000 more in process. We need 100,000. One of the key features of the new Mormon.org site is the personal participation and stories of thousands of Mormons who have completed profiles about themselves in their own words. 2,000 members have completed profiles that explain why they live their faith and why they are a Mormon. 13,000 more are in process, and that number is expected to eventually jump to 100,000 as the Church continues to ask its members to share their faith online. Learn how to create your own profile on Mormon.org to participate in this historic event. Learn more about this new Mormon.org. AKPC_IDS += "227007,";Popularity: unranked [?] Read More →