After the Duchess I thought I was through with dogs forever. I know that Geoff really hoped deep in his heart that I was through with dogs but I think in another spot down deep in his heart he knew that I wasn’t, because I really like dogs. So, after about 3 years of constantly being asked for a dog by all of my little babes I decided to give in again. (more…)

So, moving on to “the Duchess” (or as I like to call her, Fat @$$). We now lived in Arizona and had settled in to our new home. The baby of our family was now about 2 and I thought things were calm enough to attempt dog ownership once again. (more…)

Last December, much to Geoff’s dismay, we (the children and I) brought a new addition home to the J household. It was a tiny, cute little Rat Terrier that, after much debate, we decided to name Fui (pronounced Phooey). The Rat Terrier breed is very similar looking to the Jack Russell, but with a smaller head and finer facial features. Our dog is black, tan, and white which is commonly referred to as a “tri-color”. Fui is mostly black with a white belly and legs and the occasional tan spot. He looks like he is wearing a little Zorro mask and cape. Duh…we should have named him Zorro! (more…)

A new report from the Center for Disease Control is out announcing that for the first time more than 25% of adult Americans are officially obese. Now you may be thinking, “my friends may be a little overweight but I’m glad they aren’t obese.” But of course this study is using the BMI index definition of obese. In that definition your chubby friends very well could be officially obese. Here are some examples of obese people:

– Anyone who is 6′ 2″ and more than 234 lbs.
– Anyone who is 6′ 0″ and more than 221 lbs.
– Anyone who is 5’10” and more than 209 lbs.
– Anyone who is 5′ 8″ and more than 197 lbs
– Anyone who is 5′ 6″ and more than 186 lbs
– Anyone who is 5′ 4″ and more than 175 lbs
– Anyone who is 5′ 2″ and more than 164 lbs

Do you know anyone who fits that bill?
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There was and interesting article today at Time.com (via Yahoo News) focusing on a recent survey from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. [Update: See more detailed survey results here and here] Here are some excerpts:

Americans of every religious stripe are considerably more tolerant of the beliefs of others than most of us might have assumed, according to a new poll released Monday. The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life last year surveyed 35,000 American, and found that 70% of respondents agreed with the statement “Many religions can lead to eternal life.” Even more remarkable was the fact that 57% of Evangelical Christians were willing to accept that theirs might not be the only path to salvation, since most Christians historically have embraced the words of Jesus, in the Gospel of John, that “no one comes to the Father except through me.”

Quizzed on the breadth of the poll’s definition of “Evangelical,” Pew pollster John Green said the 296-page survey made use of self-identification by the respondents’ churches, denominations or fellowships, whose variety is the report’s overriding theme. However, he said, if one isolates the most “traditionalist” members of the white Evangelical group, 50% still agreed that other faiths might offer a path to eternal life. In fact, of the dozens of denominations covered by the Pew survey, it was only Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses who answered in the majority that their own faith was the only way to eternal life. (Italics mine)

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Last month I was “fired” as Ward Clerk and moved to be Young Men’s President. Our Ward is Small, and so we combine Teachers and Deacons. We have 6 active youth who run the gambit in family settings.

Recently an apparent issue has come up where rumor has it that someone in my ward came up to one of my young men and chastised him for having black nail polish on while blessing the sacrament. (He’s Goth, or Monster Metal, or whatever it is called these days. ). Rumor has it that the boy was pretty angry about these comments. I don’t know what his reaction really is, but I can imagine. I don’t even really know which Young Man it was (I have two Goth kids, could be either one)

Now these are good guys. One always wears a suit to church and purposefully puts his “down to his waste” hair back in a pony tail. He blesses the sacrament nearly every week, and while he has no plans to serve a mission, attends mutual every week, and faithfully helps his grandfather home teach and serve half the widows in our ward. (By help, I mean he takes them the sacrament every week and takes some of them dinner almost every night.) The other is working with me every week towards achieving his eagle scout, despite great personal obstables he has come accross. Both have committed to me to work on their Duty to God awards and Both are 80% done or better.

More importantly, I have worked with these kids for years as a Sunday School Teacher, and I have a personal spiritual witness of their vital worth to God. Before I said these were good guys. Let me not understate this. These are AWESOME young men.

These are really smart kids, going through normal patterns that really smart kids go through, rebelling against the norms of society because let’s face it, the norms of society really suck for teenagers. Sure some could argue that “Goth” culture (or whatever it is) is just another norm of society (a trap as it were so that even those rebelling from the norms would fall into a consumer friendly market that is easy to produce product for). But the real thing is, I don’t want these Young Men to confuse praxis as applied by some members as the Gospel for the Way that brings happiness in this life and the next.

Being a teenager is hard enough. You’ve got the “circus in your pants” problem, the relationships problem, the accountability problem, the “church rules now apply to you” problem. I mean, what isn’t a problem or challenge at that age?

It reminds me of another young man I know who was once given crap by someone for having painted Toe nails while doing a baptism. He had a crazy Dennis Rodman fetish and apparantly Painted Nails were part of that Fetish. That guy later went on a mission to Indiana and baptised me.

My first instinct is to paint my nails black, but I don’t want to exacerbate the problem by openly being a jerk to someone who was a jerk, and it’s only a rumor at this point, so who knows. And besides, wearing nail polish bothers me. My second thought was to have a mini lesson on hedges, based sort of on Geoff’s recent post. Or maybe a mini lesson on stupid people and the church, or even a mini lesson on social conformity and cultural misunderstanding across generations.

anyway /end rant.

Any ideas?

It’s finally over. After about 4 years of enjoying the higher law in our stake — a 2.5 hour block every Sunday — we are switching back to the standard 3 hour block. Lament and wail oh ye Queen Creek saints; Zion hath fled!

I know what some of you are thinking: “A 2.5 hour block?? That must be awesome.” It has not just been awesome… oh no. It has been the most awesomely awesome awesomeness that ever inspired awe in some… uhhh… people. But alas it is over. Starting this Sunday we are back to three full hours. I don’t know how we’ll survive it. But survive it we must I suppose.
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My third grade daughter was distraught the other evening. She has/had a crush on a boy and after school that day, fearless girl that she is, she asked him if he wanted to “go with” her. She never did find out his answer, but what made her distraught was that she later asked someone if it was ok for kids like her to “go with” a boy and she was told the answer was no because there was a “Mormon law” that said you shouldn’t date until you are sixteen. That kind of freaked her out. So that night after bedtime she tearfully came to Kristen and me to confess her perceived sin of earlier in the day. I calmed her fears the best I could and explained that basically it was really nothing and that she had not broken a Mormon law. I explained that there is nothing wrong with her having a crush on a boy and there is nothing wrong with her admitting it to him. And there is no law or rule against such crushes.
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A few months ago, I enjoyed being in a Question and Answer session with Elder Anderson of the Presidency of the Seventy, as our stake was split, This weekend he has returned as we are being moved from our stake into another Stake, which is also splitting. Having anticipated this meeting for some time, I began compiling a list of questions I’d ask him, some about things like the second anointing, others about theodicies, others still about the atonement and pre-mortal life, but this morning, I felt a strong prompting to ask my wife what to ask, and she laid out her concern, which I am sure our sisters over at Zelophehad’s Daughters could empathize with. So feeling prompted by the Spirit, I asked Elder Anderson tonight in the Stake General Priesthood meeting:

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So I found out just yesterday that the church officially announced it will be building a new temple here in Gilbert Arizona. I thought that was pretty cool. Then I found out where they plan to build it and realized that it is like 2 miles from my house (as the crow flies). That rules. No more of those arduous 45 minute drives into Mesa!! But seriously, I’m pretty stoked about it. Rumor has it this will be a fully operational temple, albeit not a giant one. I guess there are benefits to living near a lot of Morms.

Update: Brian Duffin sent me the picture below but it is reportedly actually a picture of the Panama temple:

Update 2: This one should be more accurate

A few weeks ago, my wife and I were talking about Christ and how he never gives up on his relationship with us. We were talking about how he is perfect, and understands us, and wants us to be like him and his Father. And we were talking about how he loves us so much that he leaves it up to us, and doesn’t force us. Lastly, we talked about how he never gives up on us.

Then my wife reminded me of a friend of mine who I’d been avoiding, who had been really hateful to me, and hurt me badly, and we hadn’t spoken in years. He’d quit the church and tried hard to get me to quit, calling me intellectually dishonest for believing in God and Evolution. My wife reminded me that as Christ doesn’t quit loving, and neither should I.

As a man, I began thinking of How th Scriptures do say that “The Spirit shall not always strive with man.” and how Christ does quit in his efforts to reach some. Then I thought about how this could be: How does Christ quit on us? There is only one reason I can think of why Christ would back off. That is because it would be more painful for us for him to continue than for him to go on. It’s not his own pain Christ was concerned with, but it is our pain. He lets go and steps away because he knows it hurts us more for him to hold on sometimes. He allows us to “shrink” away.

This is kind of what I think is happening here in this life, Our Father in Heaven saw it would cause us more pain in the pre-existence if we were’nt able to progress. Joseph Smith once said that in the preexistence that we were oppressed, and the primary reason for gaining a body was to be free from this oppression. I think part of that freedom is freedom from the presence of God. It is God quitting. Cutting his apron strings, He let go, like the old cliched of when you love some one. If we love him, we’ll come back, right?

When I was in High School I dated this girl, we dated for six years, she slept with some other guy, and we broke up. I was crushed. I hurt all over. I wanted her back so badly, but after a while, when the guy moved away, and she was lonely and came back, I realized, as much as I wanted to be with her, to have ger be my life again, I had to let her go, because the pain we caused each other together was to great. I was hurting her, she was hurting me. We were bad people. In that pain, I, a wanna be atheist, called out to God and asked him to make the pain stop. A year and five months later, I joined the church, and the pain was gone. Looking back, I learned a lot from that year of pain. I learned a lot about letting go. I learned there is a God, and I am not him.

And I am not Jesus. Jesus quits because he knows it would be more painful for us if he continued. I have no such knowledge. Last night, I had dinner with my friend, grateful not to know, grateful for the ability to quit. To quit being angry. To quit feeling upset. To let go.