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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Every night I go to sleep and have the most terrible dreams imaginable. I am torn to shreds by wild animals, my children die, I am forced to kill home intruders to protect my family, I show up to finals three hours late or without having studied, I am maimed, and a thousand variations on that theme. Occasionally, I am Superman, but even then, I usually develop some sort of flying disability just when it becomes important and I sort of drag along the ground rather than flying properly. (more…)

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

While I wait for Blake Ostler’s book 3 to arive in the mail from Amazon.com, I’ve been whiling away the free moments skimming Paulson and Musser’s excellent introduction. Mormonism in Dialogue with Contemporary Christian Theologies . (It’s a great book, with some great introductions to different schools of thought. Check it out if you get the chance.)

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Yes I know they’ve never been effective, but my stake does Priesthood Committee Meetings Every other Fast Sunday, which amounts to either 4 or 6 times a year, depending on whether you do them on the odd or even months. What’s odd is there is a rumor in our stake which has gone on for two or three years that the rest of the church got a first presidency letter years ago discontinuing these committee meetings, and though it’s [supposedly] in the handbook, that’s because book 2 hasn’t been revised since 1998. [I say supposedly because I only have book 1 and not book 2, oddly enough]

Here’s the thing: How do you look at first presidency letters? They don’t seem to be compiled or stored anywhere that is accessable.

Anyone have any ideas on how one can get this kind of information? I mean, I don’t want to vent, but I’ve never seen these things be effective in any stake or ward I’ve ever been in, and if there is a way I can free us from them and move on to better things, I’d love to hand a copy of it to my stake president. What drives me even more crazy is google searches pull back absolutely zero hits for priesthood committees outside of PEC and APC!

Further, I often hear little things like this “First Presidency Letter X said Y, so we need to do Z” and there doesn’t seem to be any general way to confirm or deny such.

Basically, I currently have this to take to my Bishop in the Morning to try to put a stop to this committee nonsense, but anything more would be nice.

One of our regular readers/participants, V the K, sent me this email recently. I figured I would put it up for all to respond:

I brought up this question in Sunday School yesterday, and no one had an answer for it beyond “there are just some things we don’t understand.” I wondered if you knew where it might have been addressed before. I did a search on New Cool Thang, but did not see it discussed. Here is the paradox:

1. Families are eternal, and once sealed together families are together for eternity.
2. BUT: After judgment, some of us are assigned to the Celestial Kingdom, some to the Terrestrial, and some to the Telestial.

OK, so if I’m judged worthy of the terrestrial Kingdom and one of my sons is assigned to the Celestial Kingdom and another to the Telestial Kingdom, then we’ve been separated, haven’t we?

I appreciate any insight you can bring to bear on this.

I know this is a touchy subject for some people but I am trying to get a feel from our readers exactly what you all think having one’s calling and election made sure consists of. This is one of those subjects that gets mentioned and hinted at on occasion but I am not sure if there is a universal definition in the church. Here are some of the rumors/ideas I have heard or read about it over the years:
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There is a famous episode in Mormon history when Orson Pratt and Brigham Young were having a very public debate over various points of doctrine. One of the many things they disagreed about was whether or not God was increasing in knowledge and learning new truths. Brigham taught that God does learn new truths and eventually laid the smackdown on Orson by way of a first presidency message denouncing Orson’s opposing view. Ironically, Orson’s view is probably the prevalent one in the church today, mostly because of folks like JFSII and BRM. (more…)

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.

In Mosiah 2, it says, in a rather long sentence:

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I haven’t posted on the BYU men’s basketball team this season. I have to admit that I have been afraid to get my hopes up. But at 25-6 and ranked in the top 25 in the country I guess it is safe to say that BYU is pretty good this year. The team started off hot, beating then #6 Louisville in an early season game and giving #1 North Carolina a real scare the next night. The Cougs found themselves in the top 20 and a loss to #10 Michigan State didn’t worry too many people. But then things started getting a little ugly. First there was the loss at unremarkable Boise State, then the big loss at having-a-down-year Wake Forest, and then there was a blow out loss at UNLV by something like 40 points. It wasn’t looking pretty. But somewhere along the line BYU found a team leader in rail-thin junior swing-man Lee Cummard. Cummard decided to step up and be The Man on this team his ascendancy catapulted the flagging team on to a major winning streak. Cummard finished the regular season as the co player of the year in the Mountain West Conference (along with JR Giddens from New Mexico) and the Cougs won their second straight outright MWC conference title.

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