I set my tray on the table with a clatter and flop back in the chair. I let my 200 pound backpack slide to the floor and my shoulders sing in relief. It had been an exhausting day. Every day is exhausting when you are a college freshman living in the dorms and your only form of transportation is your feet. (more…)

Mondo Cool, or Walt Cowart, is my Father in Law. He is a great man, with a great lineage. Anyway, I asked him, on a whim, if he had a post he’d like to put forth. He did.

My father is an old man. I do not say that disrespectfully, but matter-of-factly. He recently retired after 50+ years of practicing medicine. Truly, he is a unique example of service to his fellow beings. He converted to the Church over 40 years ago and has also been an exemplar of service to God. He was a child of the Depression; an onlooker of WWII, Korea, and Viet Nam; and a concerned observer of the societal change of most of the past eight decades. Genetics, however, has been his toughest challenge. His health has been mainly determined by a predisposition towards hypercholesterolemia which has affected his heart, and now his brain. The father I have known as a Lion of the Lord is now, because of health conditions, feeble – physically, mentally, and emotionally.

This, of course, is hard on me. And, it has intensified my thoughts about the purpose of aging. I, after all, am not getting any younger. I think we all wish we, and our loved ones, could be vibrant until the very end of our mortal probations, much like Pres. Faust. But for many, that is not the option.

What are your thoughts on the lessons to be learned by these final years? We all have challenges throughout our lives, but what, in particular, is the “purpose” of old age; or, what does old age teach us that the rest of life does not? Is it just part of the package or does it have special significance in our earthly sojourn? How does this phase of life, in particular, relate to our salvation? How should we prepare to care for our elder families and church members? What are the things we are doing to prepare ourselves for the “twilight years?”

For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things.

-2 Nephi 2:11

When I was young, there was this comic book “What If?” which answered all sorts of brilliant questions, such as “What if Mary Jane were Spider-man and not Peter Parker?” Or “What if Captain America were the Incredible Hulk?” In order to get at and understand the question of LFW versus CFW. I would like to ask a “What if” question myself.
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UPDATE Ok, I have gotten a sample set of 23 different wards at this point, so I thought I’d give you a bit of info which can be gathered from what I have. The Average size of a Ward, with all the data I have, is about 165 people attending church on Any given sunday. This means that if we take the 13M members of the church and divide them into there 27.5k congregations, 165 on average of the 473 average members are at church any given sunday. This is about 35%, or 4.5M mormons attending church on any given sunday. END UPDATE

I am trying to figure out what the average sized congregation is in the church. If you would please post whether you are in a ward or branch, where you are at, and the average sacrament meeting attendance.

Here’s my Ward, for Example.

Ward
San Antonio, Texas
145

Fifteen years ago on this date I found myself grinning uncontrollably in a sealing room of the Seattle Temple. I must have looked utterly ridiculous to the large-ish group of (mostly) strangers who were there looking on. I wanted to act solemn and sober and all but I couldn’t help myself — that giant goofy grin just would not go away.

But I have an excuse for looking like a clown that day… On July 2, 1992 Kristen J and I were married. Those of you who know Kristen can understand why I am still grinning from ear to ear about that event.

A brief exchange in a recent thread made me aware of an assumption I have been making that may not be as common as I had thought. For as long as I can remember, I have considered the Tree of Life as depicted in our various Garden of Eden narratives to be completely figurative rather than a literal tree with actual fruit that could make one wise. I had assumed for some (probably unfounded) reason that most Mormons shared that view with me but now I am not so sure.

What do you think? Was there a literal Tree of Life in a literal Garden of Eden on the earth (and could its fruit actually make Adam and Eve wise); or is the idea of such a tree and its fruit entirely figurative and representative of the general concept of the Fall?

About a month before I went on my mission, I made this movie while I was trying to teach myself Maya. I obviously thought “The Matrix” was a great movie. And No I didn’t think this is what being a missionary was like. Anyway, I never did figure out the kinematics, but I thought this was a fun way to let you know me a bit better.

ArNMWHJW7rg

One of my favorite bloggers, HP, took a friendly dig at me the other day, and it set my mind in motion and first reminded me that the word “love” is problematic, but then that my conception of love is perhaps vastly different than others. This post represents a meandering look at “love.”

We live in a capitalist society of consumerism, which is based on the laws of supply and demand. This means that we often have a concept of scarcity ingrained upon us, and we are typically unable to think in terms of abundance in many areas. This concept of scarcity works in time, where we only have so much time to give. It works in money, where once it’s all spent it’s gone. It works in cars, and clothes, and slices of pumpkin pie.
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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?

So Q-Dog is five years old now and we have made our first foray into the world of little league baseball. I gotta tell you folks — I’m not liking the looks of this so far. (That’s not him in the pic BTW — just some random tee ball photo I found)

Doggy has two older sisters so I already have experience with some sports and activities for kids. We have done the dance thing, gymnastics, swim team, and I even helped coach the volleyball team for Number One (that’s our oldest who turned 10 yesterday). At most those activities required one practice per week and perhaps an hour long game on a Saturday. Not bad.

Enter Tee-Ball.
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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.