I Miss Ardis

I Miss Geoff and Kristen and Jeff and Jacob and Blake

I Miss Eric and Jonathan and Ben and Justin and Kevin and Julie

I Miss blogging

I am researching ChatGPT for work and am trying a variety of different things. Occasionally, I ask ChatGPT a question related to church.

(more…)

I was asked to give a talk at church this week. Here is what I have planned. Feedback welcome:

[potentially add icebreaker for time]

Hello, My name is Matt W., I’m here today with my wife, and two of our daughters. Our oldest is away at College. I’ll forgo a deeper introduction because today I was asked to speak on “How the restoration of the gospel has affected or changed my life?” which will require me to talk about my life to some degree. To speak on this topic, I need to cover at least 3 things. “The Gospel”, “The Restoration”, and “The Impact on my Life”. I’ll start with The Gospel: 

(more…)

In a recent ward conference, a local church leader made the claim that David Bednar told him the children’s songbook is full of false doctrine. This surprised me. I know there is the classic complaint from Neal A. Maxwell that “Give said the Little Stream” was “not exactly theologically drenched”, but being simple and being false are two different claims.

Is this common sentiment? Have you heard this? What Songs do you think this is pointing to?

A Trowel is a small handheld tool with a flat pointed blade, used to apply and spread mortar or plaster.

A Musket is an infantryman’s light gun with a long barrel, typically smooth-bored, muzzle-loading, and fired from the shoulder.

Both are very difficult, if not impossible, to use one-handed.
(more…)

A short one today:

A brief summary of

Moller, Stephanie, et al. “Determinants of Relative Poverty in Advanced Capitalist Democracies.” American Sociological Review, vol. 68, no. 1, 2003, pp. 22–51. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3088901. Accessed 10 May 2020.

This article reviews the development of a data set to measure the impact of multiple different variables on poverty and proverty reduction efforts. It does this by devising a means to measure poverty with and without “tax and transfer” (ie government intervention via wealth redistribution). It tests 17 different variables which had been hypothesized to be indicative of poverty rates across 14 different countries with different rates of poverty to determine which factors had the greatest impact of causing poverty and which factors had the greatest impact on reducing poverty. (more…)

Single Parent Families with Children under 18 have a markedly higher rate of poverty. 26.6% of single parent families (41.4 % in the US (, 2nd only to Ireland’s 45.8%) are below the relative poverty line. This is 3.5X the rate of dual parent or childless homes (which are similar, 7.6% and 8.9% below the poverty line). The number one cause of single parent families is still Separation or Divorce, followed by unwed pregnancy. (56% of childless homes from divorce per pew research for the US, and more dramatic in other nations like Japan, with 96%+ from divorce). While there are some indications that unwed single parents are financially worse off (30% of median 2 parent income vs 49% for divorced), there isn’t a good source I have yet found which breaks out single parents in poverty by these two cohorts and by the definition of relative poverty in the prior post, both would be below the relative poverty line. (more…)

Jeffrey Holland at one point said, speaking of the current pandemic: “We pray for those who have lost loved ones in this modern plague, as well as for those currently infected or at risk. We certainly pray for those who are giving such magnificent healthcare. When we have conquered it—and we will—may we be equally committed to freeing the world from the virus of hunger and freeing neighborhoods and nations from the virus of poverty. May we hope for schools where students are taught—not terrified they will be shot—and for the gift of personal dignity for every child of God, unmarred by any form of racial, ethnic, or religious prejudice.”

This is an amazing call to action from an Apostle of Jesus Christ: to end hunger, end poverty, increase education, increase safety, and end prejudice.

It’s also really big and complicated, and there are a lot of opinions about what does and does not work in this space. Many of these items are inter-related and have causal relationships one with another. Hunger is caused by Poverty. Poverty is impacted by lack of education, education is impacted by prejudice.

(more…)

20 Years ago today, I was baptised.

20 years on, I still believe.

This Summer, My Family will be moving to Seattle.

Questions I have:

What is church like there?

Why isn’t there a website that helps you find the right ward? (Reviews of YW programs and choirs would be nice)

Is it morally wrong to ward shop?

Rent or Buy? Is the AirB&B thing going to cause a housing price decline?

Alot of people are bothered that Trump won Utah. A couple things to keep an eye on.

In 2012, Romney won Utah with 740k votes. In 2016, Trump won with 375k. In 2012, a million people voted, in 2016, only 700k did.

So the reality is that trump did 50% worse than Romney,  and the top drop in support came from disenfranchised voters who didn’t vote for anyone.

If we estimate Utah voting population growth for the past 4 years at 2% a year (which per the census would be very conservative)  This would mean almost 400k people who would have voted, based on 2012 rates, didn’t. This is more votes than trump received.

So the Utah reality is that Trump won for a number of factors, but none of those factors was massive Mormon support for him.