The Gospel According to Jeffrey

adapted from a discourse given in the Lafayette 3rd Ward, Lafayette Indiana Stake, 29 June 2014 A couple of nights ago, I was sitting on my couch, computer in my lap, preparing my talk for today, and I saw that I had a new email. Surprise! Like that’s a big deal, right? It probably happens hundreds of times during the average preparation for a talk, but for some reason, this one caught my eye. It was advertising a “smart” device. Now of course, pretty much all of us have smart devices. We have smart computers and smart phones and smart TVs and smart cars and smart thermostats; the list goes on and on. But again, this one really caught my eye, because I couldn’t help but wonder what on earth would be the purpose of a smart basketball . Seriously, I’m wondering, by a show of hands, does anyone own a smart basketball? Anyone? Even my bishop, who is CEO of the local YMCA, doesn’t own one of these! But you know, it’s only $250, which is only like ten times the price of a pretty ...

In my first area of the mission field, we had our elders quorum meeting first and sacrament meeting last. Since I arrived in early March, it was my first Church meeting out of the Provo MTC  when the quorum president made an amazing announcement: in approximately two weeks, contractors would be installing a satellite dish behind our rented meetinghouse so that our ward would be able to watch the upcoming, and all future,  General Conferences  live via satellite, instead of waiting for videotapes to be snail-mailed in a couple of weeks. The excitement in our little quorum was palpable, including among the missionaries who had thus far spent their entire missions without seeing General Conference at all—a significant sacrifice for those who had been serving for a while. As the initial commotion died down, the president continued with a second announcement: since we’d be viewing General Conference live on 2 April, Fast Sunday would be postponed until the next Sunday,...

For the last few months, I’ve been having a very slow conversation on YouTube regarding the veracity of the Book of Abraham . (Longtime readers may remember I’ve dealt briefly with that topic  here , as well.) Recently, one of the participants in that conversation, Kevin Lunt , shared a lengthy post in which he shared the following: I remember when I was in the church hearing my teachers and church leaders say over and over “don’t believe it because we say so. Discover for yourself if these things are true.” Yet they then follow that by telling you to beware of anyone and anything that contradicts with the church and go on to explain why all other churches and beliefs are wrong and corrupt. All the while they are shoveling mormon literature into you. So it’s like they’re saying “Of course you should investigate other religions. They are all wicked and corrupt so I don’t know why you’d waste your time. But by all means, discover it for yourself.” Honestly I can't fathom how many ...

For those of you who aren’t regular readers (either here or on my Facebook page ), I’ve been self-employed and working from home, for most of the last 10 years. While I’ve absolutely loved almost everything about this arrangement, I suddenly lost my largest client in November, decimating my business and making short work of our family’s finances. Since my wife,  Anna ’s, parents and several siblings all live in the  Lafayette, Indiana , area, we’ve usually lived there or, when work took us elsewhere, at least within an hour’s drive, give or take 15 minutes. It’s all my children know; it’s about all that Anna knows! But now, out of sheer desperation, we’ve had to widen our net. The result: last month, I accepted a job in Birmingham, Alabama , over 500 miles away. We’ll be moving there in about five weeks. This past weekend, our family made the 1,000-plus–mile round trip to go house hunting. While there are certainly a lot of positives about the position and the area, on...