Simple Utah Mormon Politics

In a 1984 LDS General Conference talk, Elder Ronald E. Poelman of the Quorum of Seventy made a statement that is exactly what the Church needed to hear at that time.  And it's especially something that would assuage a lot of anger between warring camps in the Church today.  Why don't we know about it? Because someone (it's not clear who) in the general leadership of the Church didn't like it, and required Poelman to re-deliver the talk with that part of the talk replaced by something different.

A Mormon historian recently said that we as Mormons need to "reconstruct the narrative" of the LDS Richard Bushman Church, because what we've been telling is somewhat of a sanitized version.  A believing member of the Church, Richard Bushman welcomes the healthy reconstruction that has been officially sanctioned by LDS Church leadership in recent years. Interestingly, another Mormon historian, nearly 35 years ago, attempted to do the same thing but was shut down when he suggested that the narrative needed to be reconstructed--to be told more accurately and openly.  Here is that story.

It would be difficult to find a religion that speaks more highly of women and their eternal potential than does the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  Here are some of those teachings.

High school graduation speeches are often so much, "rah, rah, rah!" cheerleading, that they can probably make at least a few high school graduates unnecessarily feel like failures.  So, as a member of the American Leadership Academy (Spanish Fork, Utah) board of trustees, when I was asked to speak at graduation, I prepared an unconventional high school graduation speech.  I told them about how difficult high school was for me.

Here are some of my favorite quotes from April 2016 LDS General Conference.

Have you ever thought of the story of Lehi’s family from the perspective of Laman and Lemuel? Nephi, from the perspective of Laman and Lemuel, was a twit. Nephi writes his OWN story, and he does so in epic fashion, with himself as the superhero. For example, he only could succeed in getting the plates. Only he had a solution when their bows broke. He was the only one who could build a ship to cross the ocean. On more than one of my bad days, I'd have REALLY been pissed off if I had a brother like that. ;-)

I am really beginning to like this Google Voice thing!  It allows me, using my smartphone, to "put my thoughts down on paper" as it were, much more quickly than if I had to type everything.  Here are some things that that I told Google Voice today about the Mormon doctrine of premortality.