Today I am working on my Resume. The Thing is, I have my mission on there.

I have it like this:

-Volunteer Work Cebu City, Philippines 2000 – 2002
Assistant to the President; Zone Leader; Volunteer

Promoted moral concepts and family values in one-on-one and group scenarios. Recruited local people as volunteers and members for LDS Church. Worked with the local communities to improve living conditions, to build housing, to help with employment, and to teach English. Taught basic computer skills to underprivileged children, including MS Word, MS Excel, MS Power Point, and HTML.

Key Accomplishments:

• Trained and gave motivational speeches to approximately 200 volunteers over a six-month period for the purpose of accomplishing the organization’s mission

• Kept records of organization achievements and budget in Microsoft Excel

• Learned Cebuano Language, became fluent.

• Supervised and managed the activities of approximately 200 volunteers

• Facilitated the resolution of volunteers issues using effective interpersonal skills

• Coordinated all travel, transportation, and lodging arrangements for 200 volunteers

Should I have it? Is that pompous? Should I drop it?

For the sake of expediency, I am going to take down my previous two posts in this series. While initially, I had intended to allow Widtsoe to speak for himself, the way I was parsing his quotes by topic was creating some confusion where it otherwise would not be, and was causing me to respond too often “wait and see” to issues which came up. More important, I was frankly just being lazy in my blogging. I hope no one is offended as my removing the two prior posts will delete comments. (more…)

Several people or organizations have made attempts to subdivide the church into classes of people. Some examples include “iron-rod” and “liahona” members, “liberal” and “conservative” members, and even “orthodox” and “heterodox” members. Typically these labels seem to have the intent of looking down upon some other group of people, and do not seek to improve the church in any way shape or form. Thus, I consider these labels worthless, and would like to suggest a different line that may be more useful to define in the membership of the church. I would like to move away from the theological foundations of our beliefs, and instead focus on the activity of two types of members. In my dichotomy, I will label these two groups participants and volunteers. The basic concept here is that there are two groups of people who are at church, those who go to church to be helped, and those who go to church to help others. This is much like any other charitable organization, and it doesn’t mean either group is evil.
(more…)

Ok, as may be apparent by some of my previous posts, I am very interested in retention in the LDS church. In scholarly research, there have been studies done on employee volunteer retention, student retention, member or participant retention, patient retention. There have even been studies of church retention. Which do you think applies to Mormonism?

In other words, what is the Church? Is it a Church like other Churches? Is it a Volunteer organization with it’s vast unpaid clergy? Is it a therapy session where we are all patients? Is it a school where we are students? Is it a club where we’re all members? Perhaps it is all of the above depending on the individual? Perhaps it is none of the above? What do you think?

Personally, I hypothesize that there are multiple distinct groups within Mormonism, with either Volunteer, member, student, or patient mentalities, depending on the situation. Thus I hypothesize that the most effective retention program in the LDS church is going to be an amalgam which seeks to identify members into these groups, retain them at their needs level, and also to run larger more generalized retention processes as well.

Lastly, if you know of any really good impactful retention studies in any field, I’d be interested in them.

In 1937, John A. Widtsoe presented the following test as a measure of spirituality. I really like what he says:

Spirituality in man or woman may be recognized by simple tests, of which the three following are of major importance:
(more…)

Some people are offended by the sensibilities of two scriptures by Paul which seem to note a secondary status of women in relation to men. This is my attempt to analyze one these two scriptures. (more…)

THe Following is a lengthy excerpt from evidences and reconciliations, which was quite possibly the most popular book by John A. Widtsoe. In it he rejects reincarnation. I submit it here for your amusement and comment. For those concerned with copywrite issues or interested in reading more of evidences and reconciliations, the whole text is available online here.

Three doctrines lie at the foundation of belief in reincarnation.

First, the pre-existence of the “soul” of man; second, the indestructibility of the “soul” of man after death; and, third, the possibility of constant development of the pre-existent, eternal “soul.” These are all necessary doctrines to the thinking mind. They are supported by divine revelation. But, in the explanations and applications of these truths, the proponents of reincarnation have failed dismally, and have shown how the semblance of truth, becoming untruth, may lead men into vast fields of deception…
(more…)

Welcome to the world, Sarah Anne.

Due to some confusion I caused myself in the last post, and also due in part to the following [il]logical problem, I have developed 5 graphical models of eternal progression that are possible alternatives which I believe are the only models there are, from a reductive standpoint. [1]
(more…)

1. The two track Question: If Spirits are without beginning, God has always been God, and Time is Infinite, Why did God wait forever(an infinite amount of time) to begin the Plan of Salvation? How can he ever introduce the plan of salvation if it takes him forever to do so?

2. The God via self-effort (one track) Question: If Spirits are without beginning, Time is Infinite, and God Developed himself to be God via self-effort and obedience, it took him forever(an infinite amount of time) to do this. How can God ever reach the time where he is who he is, if it takes forever to get there?

3. The infinite regress of Gods (one track) Question: If spirits are without beginning and God became God by going through a process just like we are now, even down to the fact that he had a God like we do, and his God had a God, etc etc. God had to wait forever for his God to make him God, so how can God now be God if it takes him forever to become such?

Ok, so I’ve given up on orderly systematic analysis of this book. Why? Because the more I read of Widtsoe, the more I see that he begins ideas in one chapter and ends them much later. (For example, his view of epistemology from chapter 2 is returned to in Chapter 33).

(more…)