Mormon Bloggers

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health: The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow. Crunchy numbers A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 4,400 times in 2010. That’s about 11 full 747s.   In 2010, there were 31 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 78 posts. There were 102 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 67mb. That’s about 2 pictures per week. The busiest day of the year was November 13th with 368 views. The most popular post that day was Remember Mary in Your Prayers. Where did they come from? The top referring sites in 2010 were facebook.com, inthedetailsoflife.blogspot.com, organizedstress.blogspot.com, blogsurfer.us, and cultivatecuriosity.wordpress.com. Some visitors came searching, mostly for satan, carl bloch, oquirrh mountain temple, ammon, and arthur henry king. Attractions in 2010 These are... Read the rest of this entry »

Thanks for this, Ash! So good! For fun: And for the coming holiday!! (My parents will probably watch this 15 times)    Read More →

Background from Mary, “June 19th was the best day of my life, because I started a new one. On June 19, 2010 a vessel in my brain burst and blood flowed into my skull putting pressure on my brain. Later that day my family learned I had been born with an AVM, a huge cluster of vessels in my brain that only 1/1000th of 1% of the people around the world are born with. 1-3% of those people ever have a bleed from the AVM. There are miracles day after day; living was the first. I spent two weeks in the ICU recovering and months more outside of the hospital. Still in my brain, and forever a blessing, it has changed who I am in every aspect. Today I am a sophomore in college living 800 miles from my family and most people wouldn’t know this ever happened.” Momma Goodwin’s latest update on Mary: “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Lao-tzu From the earliest days of Mary’s recovery, she was so sure that she would return to BYU in the fall. On August... Read the rest of this entry »

This prayer was quoted by Bishop Edgley of the Presiding Bishopric in a special Stake Conference we had this past Sunday in the Tabernacle. This event happened in the Kansas House in Topeka on January 23, 1996. Joe Wright is the pastor of Central Christian Church in Wichita and was guest chaplain that day. He prayed a prayer of repentance that was written by Bob Russell, pastor of  Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky. According to an article in the Kansas City Star from January 24, 1996, his prayer stirred controversy and one member of the legislative body walked out. Others criticized the prayer. The controversy didn’t end there. Later that year in the Colorado House, Republican representative Mark Paschall angered lawmakers by using Joe Wright’s prayer as the invocation. Some members there also walked out in protest. Citation Heavenly Father, We come before You today to ask Your Forgiveness and seek Your direction and guidance. We know Your word says, “Woe... Read the rest of this entry »

  Arthur Henry King by Nathan Florence   Wow! The new semester starts, with new classes and a new calling, and my blogging goes down the drain! I made a goal this week with some wonderful new friends that I would blog, though, so I planned all week to get here. I met with a member of our Stake Presidency a month ago, and we got talking about our common interests in philosophy and education. He pointed me towards a book, Arm the Children, by Arthur Henry King. It is a book of speeches and papers Brother King wrote on teaching and having faith in the contemporary world. From what I understand, Arthur Henry King converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when he was later in his life. He was raised Quaker (which I assume led to his unique perspective on some of our cultural habits), in England, where he learned to love the hundred books or so that his home held. From the love of reading those few books he went on to become the predominant scholar of Shakespeare... 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 that you appreciate and learn everything you can. I just wish I could have figured this out about myself six... Read the rest of this entry »

One of my favorite pictures from Japan Well, you know I can’t pass up a time lapse video of Japan. I don’t know what it is about time-lapse videos, but I LOVE them! I found this one on a Japan-culture-connection website, Pink Tentacle, that I frequent. Beautiful. Absolutely gorgeous. I love the change of the first half to the second half of the video. It’s a great representation of a Japanese mind-set about their country. They all act the first half: rushed; but, they all think of their beautiful country like the second half: serene and mystical. Thanks Brad, for this beautiful piece of work. It reminds me of my days walking, hiking, driving, and working in those cities of Japan. Enjoy: edit: Okay, I just checked out Brad’s other video, “Saijo Matsuri” and I definitely have to recommend it as well. For all you Japan die-hards, you’ll love it (at least skim through; it’s twenty minutes long). Love it! This is a three-day festival where... Read the rest of this entry »

With the finale of LOST still fresh in everyone’s mind, we all wonder where we will invest our critical analysis skills next. Luckily, Jer3miah is going to start their second season soon. If you haven’t ever heard of Jer3miah then you should check out their website Jer3miah.com. Watch the trailer for Season 1, and then watch the entire season (the episodes are all under 10 minutes each). It’s pretty awesome what these film students are producing. There has been a TON of praise for it (i.e. The New York Times covered it!). I’m terribly excited for the second season. And today I found the teaser for it was posted online 7 months ago! What’s funny is I ran into Jared, aka “Jeremiah”, on campus very recently and I asked him what he knew about a second season. I thought it was pretty suspicious how he deflected with complete ignorance on the matter and spoke of how complicated it is to coordinate producers, directors, writers and the like. Of course,... Read the rest of this entry »

Senator Wyden on the left with Senator Bennett on the right Bipartisanship shouldn’t be a political death sentence By Ron Wyden Friday, May 21, 2010; A17, The Washington Post The message that many partisan activists want me and my congressional colleagues to take away from this week’s primaries and Utah’s recent GOP convention is that engaging in bipartisanship is tantamount to surrendering your political party’s most-prized principles. In fact, some in my party will undoubtedly criticize me for writing kind words about my friend Sen. Bob Bennett, just as some in Bob’s party thought that his working with a Democrat was sufficient grounds for losing his seat in the U.S Senate. In other words, many of the most committed activists believe that the only way for Republicans to win legislatively is for Democrats to lose, and vice versa. Meanwhile on Capitol Hill, legislating is treated as if there is a giant congressional scoreboard that will ultimately determine... Read the rest of this entry »

Ammon. 'Nuff said. This is for all the Japanese returned missionaries out there. There were always rumors circulating in the Sendai Mission about an “Ammon Project” that, through various recounts and exaggeration of facts, was viewed as one of the great tragedies of the Church in Japan. How can the bottom of the hierarchical authority chain (i.e. 19 and 20 year-old missionaries) really understand the events and the reasoning behind them from 15+ years in the past? I am currently reading Elder Neal A. Maxwell’s biography, A Disciple’s Life, by Elder Bruce C. Hafen and I came across this passage concerning the “Ammon” Project: “During his years as first contact for Asia, from 1990 to 1995, Neal had similar concerns about Church growth in Japan, where the number of less-active members had been growing at a faster rate than the number of active members. The Fukuoka Mission President was Cyril Figuerres, a former researcher for the Correlation... Read the rest of this entry »

Thought-case: A stranger walks up to the missionaries, states that he is moving to a place for the rest of his life where the church will never be. He wants to get baptized but doesn’t have a testimony of the church. Do you baptize him or not? If he is baptized what benefits/blessings would he receive for being baptized? What is the intrinsic value of being baptized? Without testimony, without passing D&C 20:37 or batismal interview questions, as if they don’t exist, what effect would being baptized have on a person? They will receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost and (those who are within church contact) get connected to the church. End question: Is it better for a person to be baptized than not?  Read More →

Rep. Gifford's office and other politicians have had death threats With the largest legislation that has passed in the recent many years I feel I need to speak on what I saw here in the nation’s capital this past Sunday. I had the opportunity to go down to the National Mall and the Capitol after watching the North Eastern Regional church conference in the visitor’s center of the Washington D.C. Temple. A group of ten of us interns went down to look at the three massive rally’s that were happening down there, the key one being the health care rally by the conservatives. It was almost like getting excited to go to a state fair or something. I was shocked and amazed at what I experienced. But, I was not surprised. I knew what was coming. That’s why before I left I knew I wanted to keep my emotions in check so that I wouldn’t be spiritually affected by the debate that we were walking into. Let’s hear about what it was like. In the Washington Post there... Read the rest of this entry »