The Gospel According to Jeffrey

So in case you’ve been hiding under a rock for the past week or two, the Rapture is upon us . According to radio broadcaster  Harold Camping , tomorrow, 21 May 2011, will begin the “End Times” as millions of Christians are taken up into Heaven and everybody else—presumably including those of us who do not revere Mr. Camping as God’s duly authorized mouthpiece—will be left behind (perhaps with Kirk Cameron ) for Earth’s last five months of existence before the end. (And you thought that the end wouldn’t come until 21 December 2012. Of course, dear reader, you are wrong.) Of course, the biggest tragedy of all this is that after fourteen months of waiting, our ward’s  new meetinghouse  isn’t scheduled to be dedicated until Sunday evening, 22 May 2011. This wouldn’t be so bad, except I would think that Elder Lansing—the seventy who is scheduled to dedicate it—will presumably be twinkled into his resurrected state tomorrow, and I guess he probably won’t come back until after...

I just had a very interesting experience. I’ve technically been on Twitter for several months, but I’ve just started getting the hang of following stuff. Recently, I noticed that a lot of blogs have been using the  #mormon hash tag, so I added that to my list of stuff to follow, and the results have been—shall we say—less than 100% enjoyable. Besides the wonderful pages that have popped up with information that’s actually relevant, this morning I saw a British preacher tag his podcast with the #mormon tag. Interested, I listened to the entire thing: it was a one-hour sermon on how to identify a cult, and was actually quite good. In fact, I agreed with virtually every word he said, except when he offhandedly ran down a list of so-called “cults” and, with absolutely no indication of why he was doing so, included the slur “Mormons” as part of his rapid-fire list. It frankly rather amazed me: the whole sermon was wonderful, and then he tossed in that one, tiny, off-the-cuff slu...

“…and having seen many afflictions in the course of my days, nevertheless, having been highly favored of the Lord in all my days; yea, having had a great knowledge of the goodness and the mysteries of God…” As I pointed out in my last post (seven months ago! Wow! How did that happen?!), education was obviously very important to Nephi. Given the fact that we are reading scripture, though, it should come as no surprise that his education includes more than just secular learning. What may surprise us, though, is how fully this integrates into the dichotomy expressed in 1 Nephi 1:1. For those that have read the Book of Mormon before, the subtle hint that Nephi has “seen many afflictions” is a subtle use of understatement. While he indubitably lived much of his life in happiness, the scriptures rarely teach us of mundanities, preferring instead to focus on the major events of the prophets’ lives. Thus, we read of many trials through which he passed, the “ refiner’s fire ”of his mortali...

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 ...

First of all, if you’ve somehow missed the first four parts, I invite you to start at the beginning . Enjoy! At some point this morning, a friend wrote me to see if I had noticed the major differences between President Packer’s spoken Conference address. Curious, I decided to listen to the audio of the discourse while reading the official transcript. I didn’t have any trouble with the obvious verbal slips that anyone can make (misread words, etc.), but I thought it rather interesting that one of the paragraphs I cited in Part III —the one that had so many people up in arms—had, in fact, been slightly changed. Spoken version: “Some suppose that they were preset, and cannot overcome what they feel are inborn tendencies toward the impure and the unnatural. Not so. Why would our Heavenly Father do that to anyone? Remember, He is our Father.” Printed version: “Some suppose that they were preset, and cannot overcome what they feel are inborn temptations toward the impure and the unnatu...

I’ve had quite a few people contact me about this post, both those few who took the time to comment on this blog and many others with whom I’ve discussed and debated on other sites. I think a fitting conclusion to this topic, however, comes not from me, but from a self-described “(Gay) Mormon Guy,” whose treatment of President Packer’s discourse is more powerful and poignant than anything I could ever hope to write. Please check out what he has to say about President Packer’s talk. You won’t be sorry. Update: I thought this was the end, but of course, people just can’t let it go. Check out The President Packer Postulate Revisited   for even more on this long-dead horse. ;-)