The Gospel According to Jeffrey

Just over a year ago, in late 2011, I was called to meet with the first counselor in our ward bishopric and extended a call to serve as a Primary worker. My assignment was to be one of two instructors for the 10-12–year-old boys, a class with about half a dozen active members. The first counselor, Brother Gardner, informed me that the bishopric tried to call Primary workers for about a year, which I immediately assumed was wishful thinking. My wife, Anna, had previously been called into Nursery “for about a year” and wound up serving from before our son David started Nursery (age 18 months) until well after his fourth birthday. Nevertheless, I accepted the calling and was sustained on 1 January 2012. Yesterday morning, I arrived at the ward building at 9:30 a.m. for our annual “Meet Your Teacher” breakfast. I dropped my daughter Leah off at her CTR 7 table and was about to drop off David at the CTR 5, when the new first counselor in the bishopric, Brother Asay, told me he needed to ...

One of the most beautiful practices of The Church of Jesus Christ  is that of performing ordinances for the deceased, by proxy. Latter-day Saints believe that baptism is essential to salvation, and that other temple ordinances ( e.g. endowment , sealing , etc.) are essential to exaltation. We also believe that, since God is just, absolutely everyone will have the opportunity to accept those ordinances. A just God, for example, would not damn one of His beloved children just because that child was unlucky enough to be born in, say, eighth-century China, and go his entire life without even hearing the name of Jesus Christ. Because this practice is so beautiful to us, it confuses us to no end when people react so adversely to it. An extreme example of this occurred in the late 20th century, when a Holocaust-survivors group objected to somebody having submitted the names of hundreds of thousands of Holocaust victims for proxy baptism. The Church’s response was to issue an official...

A few days late, I realize, but I’ve just discovered that Liam Hoare (sorry I misspelled your name, by the way; I’ve fixed it in the original) has responded to my earlier post,  I Believe… . As my regular readers know, brevity is not my strong suit, but I will attempt to deal with his complaints succinctly. Liam’s response deals with the Church’s position on race—an issue which I asserted, and continue to assert—has been a non-issue from the start (see previous post). I will thus deal with his arguments in turn. 1. “Jeff makes the assertion in his reply that Joseph Smith was some kind of Lincoln before there was a Lincoln.” I actually didn’t say that, but it’s a good point. Joseph Smith, Jr., actually did run for President of the United States on an anti-slavery platform, in 1844. His position was that the United States government should outlaw any new slavery, then sell all federal lands and use the money to purchase the freedom of all existing slaves—which, by the way, wou...

So this morning, Guy Kawasaki tweeted a link to this page: The True Cost of a Wedding.  Looking at these numbers, it amazes me how much the world has taken something beautiful and made it into something gaudy. First of all, I find it extremely telling that out of the 50 states, the lowest average wedding cost is Utah. I suspect this is because so many people there get married in the temple , which not only assures that your marriage can last a lot longer , but also includes the side benefit of being absolutely free. But even in Utah, the average cost is $13,214! I know these are 2010 costs vs. our 1997/98 wedding and receptions, but still. Let’s break this down: Average number of bridesmaids: 4 Bridesmaids at our wedding: 1 Average number of groomsmen: 4 Groomsmen at our wedding: 0 Average number of guests: 141 Guests at our wedding: 4 Guests at our first reception: about 100 Guests at our second reception: about 30 Average length of engagement: 14 months Our engage...

Today was an awesome day! Many readers will know that our family has been in Wichita, KS, for the last several days, getting to know the birthmother of a little girl (due 8/6) that it looks like we’re going to be able to adopt. Today, though, was quite different, which is why it winds up in this particular blog. After leaving Wichita at about 8:30 AM, we made it to Independence, Missouri, at a bit after noon. As it turns out, each day, there is a ten-minute “Prayer for Peace” service in the Community of Christ ’s Temple . 1 The service was nice, but we later agreed that it just didn’t have that certain je ne sais quoi that allows the Spirit to flow so freely, in our own meetings. (More on that, later.) After the prayer service, we decided to go downstairs and sign up to tour the temple. We were the only ones to do so, so an older gentleman showed us a ten-minute video (which identified Joseph Smith, Jr., as the “founder of the Latter-day Saint–tradition churches”) and then showed ...

Those of you who follow me on Facebook may have seen my status update, some 36 hours ago, in which I stated that I think I’ve finally decided on a new family history program. This status led to a rather humorous discussion of what I meant by that, but the point is that I’m finally ready to move into the 21st century, when it comes to tracking my genealogy and family history. So here’s a little background, so you can understand just where I’m coming from. Back in 1991, I accepted Christ as my Savior and became a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints . One of the basic tenets of the Church of Jesus Christ is that God loves all of His children, not just those that are lucky enough to learn His plan during their short time on Earth. However, we also know that Christ taught that baptism is essential for entrance into the kingdom of God (see John 3:1-5 ). So what about all those that died without ever having the chance to be baptized, or even to accept Christ as Savior...