Just wanted to throw this up to get anyone’s thoughts that went to the World Leadership training today.

If you didn’t go, it’s playing every three hours on church satellite today.

Elder Holland Conducted
Elder Packer gave an Opening Address
There was a Round Table discussion by Elder Holland, Elder Oaks, and Sister Beck, Sister Tanner, and Sister Lant (I think)
Then President Monson addressed us.

Highlights:
Not everyone is meant to have a big family, but we should not discourage members from having big families, but help those who have big families. Other nations are much better than the US in having extended families. Husbands and Wives should be equal partners and communicate openly. Women leaders should be consulted in Church Leadership. Men preside, Women Facilitate Men Presiding. Church activities should support the family, rather than the church programs expecting to be supported by families. It’s ok to not have a perfect family or not to have a traditional family. Homemaking is not housekeeping or making bread. (At one point during the broadcast, my wife looked at me and said they must read Julie Smith)

If anyone else went, we were there with the kids, so were occupied, but it sounded like Packer said something like there was life before Adam and Eve. My wife and I wished for Church Tivo…

Let me know what you were interested in or what stood out to you.

This weekend our stake is splitting, so Elder Perry M. Webb of the Seventy and Elder Neil L. Anderson of the presidency of the seventy are here for a special stake conference for this purpose.

Yesterday, as is typical, we had a priesthood session followed by an adult session of conference.

As the typical nature of priesthood session, this is where the GAs are at their most candid. It was especially interesting yesterday as rather than having any prepared remarks, Elder Anderson opened the time up to be a question and answer session (with the caveat that we kept the questions spiritual and not intellectual, and with the preemptive example that he did not know where the sword of Laban was currently.) I never ask questions in these sorts of forums (Maybe because my first instinct is always to ask about the second anointing, which shuts me up pretty quickly) but there were some very interesting comments made, and I thought some would be interesting to share. (more…)

This year, my new years resolution was to read and seriously study the book of Mormon. Tonight I finished first Nephi, and thought I’d take a moment to share 10 things I learned that I didn’t know before. If it’s old hat to you, your name is probably Kevin Barney.
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This year for sunday school we are studying the Book of Mormon. It is my new years resolution to take this study seriously and to make a real effort to have a positive experience with Studying the Book of Mormon this year. So far, I have gone through the first ten chapters, using various study aids, and am having a good experience. I figured I would pass on some the aids to you, and give you a review of which ones I found worthwhile and which ones, not so much.

First, let me give you the basis of my analysis. I graded all the materials with scores of either great, ok, or disappointing, with the idea being that the book, to be worthwhile had to be as good or better than the very affordable (free) church produced material, and the book had to supplement actually studying the text of the Book of Mormon itself. (Sorry, that means I disqualified the excellent “By the Hand of Mormon”)

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USA today has a fun little candidate match game which tells you who you should vote for.

Just for fun, who does the site tell you to vote for?

(It told me to vote for 1.Ron Paul or 2.Mitt Romney)

As it is the current tradition of the Church to publish the majority of it’s texts online, The Church has now done so with Preach My Gospel, the current Guide to Missionary Work in the Church. As this Manual will shape the thoughts and feelings of missionaries and converts for years to come, and thus, arguably, the majority of the future leadership of the church, I’d like to take the opportunity to examine the definition of the atonement as given in this important text.
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One of my favorite “doctrines” within the LDS faith is the charge to go and seek out the good of other faiths and to bring them home to Mormonism. This is an effort to do this. If anyone out there is a true expert on Hinduism, apologies abound and corrections are welcome.

The Problem of Evil has been a delightful pointy stick which many have used to argue against the existence of God. For a long time, I thought the LDS church had a unique out for this particular problem, the eternal existence of souls. I was wrong, but not in the way you may be thinking.
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It’s pretty obvious that the historian Mormon had a fairly strong case of hero worship for Captain Moroni. First, he named his son after him, second, major portions of his history are dedicated to Moroni, and third, he notes in a moment of commentary, that he believes if all men were like Moroni, “the very powers of hell would have been shaken forever; yea, the devil would never have power over the hearts of the children of men” ( Alma 48:17 )
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A couple months ago, the was a discussion at ZD about obedience and blessings. I said I thought there was a scripture which said God had to make exceptions for us when we fail to do what he says.

The scripture I was thinking of was D & C 103:31 which says:

Behold this is my will; ask and ye shall receive; but men do not always do my will.

In Context, this is the Lord telling Parley Pratt and others to get together a group of 500, as this is his will, but then he makes the above notation and haggles himself down to 100 men.

So the scriptures say seek and ye shall find, knock and it will be opened, ask and ye shall receive, except when people are involved, as they do not always do God’s will.

In context of the conversation at ZD this means that Man can force God to change his plans, as man disobeys God.

Interestingly, this scripture also implies that in this instance God did not know whether 500 men would or would not do God’s will in the future. A God “outside of time” would not have had such a problem, it seems to me.

Finally, this scripture, while not renouncing determinism, does imply we either are not or can not be completely determined by our God. This suggests Libertarian Free Will.

So a friend at work found out I am LDS today. (Which is easy to do, since I have a book of mormon on my desk and tell everyone I am a member of the Church.)

Anyway, his reaction was really surprising to me. He said “So you believe Jared discovered America.” This really threw me off, as I had never really thought of it that way. I muttered something off about how people probably crossed the bering straight thousands of years ago, but that I did, as a believer, hold true the story in the scriptures.

so he said “so they came accross the ocean in submarines?”

I responded “um, not exactly” and briefly mentioned a us news and world report that came out five or so years ago about pre-columbus transoceanic voyages and the evidence for them. We then quickly switched topics to work.

It felt really awkward.

So why did terms like “discovered america” and “submarines” throw me off? (This is a friend we are talking about, not some anti-mormon attacker, just to make sure we are clear.) How do you deal with odd questions like these?

This past Sunday, I gave a talk on service. (In which I embarrassed my wife, as usual.) Then I took our 7 month old to the bathroom to do the dirty work of changing her diaper. (before anyone gets impressed that I am such a good dad and husband, I’m not. I’m the guy who starts to gag and almost pukes when I smell poopy diapers. I do them when necessary, and take the wet ones strategically so as to be able to hand the baby off on poopy ones. In short, I’m a wimpy jerk) The diaper changing table is in the only stall in the men’s room at our church.
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