Priesthood Leadership Training with President Russell M. Nelson

Our Ward Selfie. Left to right, the Bishop's Counselor, our Elders Quorum President, and this blogger.

There was much more to this wonderful meeting last Saturday than the question I asked and the later, tragic connection.

Notice went out just a few days ahead of time that the Stake Presidencies, each Bishop-or a Counselor, the High Priest Group Leader-or an Assistant, and the Elders Quorum President-or a Counselor from each ward were invited to a muti-stake, Saturday morning training session with President Russell M. Nelson, President of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles and other General Authorities of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The call to me came from our Stake Exec Sec who happens to be my son-in-law's father. As a shortened relationship status, we refer to each other as Co-Grandpas.

The meeting involved seven or eight stakes and we met in a stake center in North Centerville filling the chapel with no overflow but packed in with a few extra folding chairs added. Just before the meeting began we were invited to file by, row by row, to shake hands with President Nelson and the others. I gave Elder Ulisses Soares, of the Presidents of the Seventy, a hearty "Bem-vindo, Elder Soares!" as he is native Brazilian. He conducted the meeting and noted in opening the warm greetings he had from several in Portuguese or Spanish.

Also present on the stand was a Seventy from our Area Presidency, newly called, Elder Gene Chidester, President Spendlove from the Salt Lake City North Mission, and President Winegar of the Bountiful Temple. Only later did I learn that their wives were at a similar training session with the women leaders of the same stakes and wards as my daughter went as part of a Primary Presidency. She said Sister Nelson spoke for two-hours straight!

My rough notes follow in my usual style, occasionally enhanced with notes shared by my bishopric counselor buddy:

4-Star Book Report: "Taliesin" by Stephen R. Lawhead

These aren't really reviews because I'm more attuned to the book reports I used to do in grade school. (Man, I wish I had smply taken a pic with my phone of my bookworm on the wall of Mrs. Baker's 3rd-Grade class at Thoreau with each segment representing a book I had read that school year! But alas, "my" phone was attached to the wall at the end of the hall in the 3 bedroom, one bath, rambler I grew up in on 137th Street on Finn Hill, Kirkland, Washington, and it didn't even have a camera. The number was VAn-dyke 2-3072. And I couldn't afford to re-purchase that house now costing more than my present house of three times the size and more phones that we can keep track of. OK, that was a serious digression.)

It was a little house in the big woods. There was some magic in that.

But at that time in 3rd grade, I was searching for the kind of books I am only finding now - about my Celtic heritage I only vaguely sensed, but through the inspiration of my good Dad, who told stories to us and built us an amazing toy castle with knights of the round table. (See here for more digression that will soon connect.) My dad didn't know it either, but he still felt it in his blood. (I now have his DNA results!!)

Book of Mormon Proof

A representation of Nephi fashioning the plates for what became part of the Book of Mormon
(From LDS.org. Thanks, Elder Bednar!)

I'm in a good mood just back from Temple service. So without even asking (it's late), I'm just going to cut and past Anonymous D's email message in here with minor edits and a final comment or two:

I was just thinking about proving the Book of Mormon. Of course I know it's not possible. That seems to me to be the point. Just imagine for a minute that you're God, and you are trying to get the point across that the only way you can get your children to come back to you is to trust you? So you give them a book of instruction that essentially explains their situation and pleads with them to trust you. If the whole point is trust, would you give explicit, irrefutable evidence that your book is true or you would ask them to experiment upon it themselves and learn that they can trust you because it works? Especially in the light of the fact that trust/faith seems to be essential in really learning something for yourself, and changing from a fallen/dark being into an enlightened being.

Zion Bound on the Enoch Train

You can't make this stuff up! The name of the ship was the Enoch Train!

The Enoch Train, Boston

And I can't remember the date I was baptized. Sometimes I have to think real hard to remember how old I am.

OK. Sure. I can walk over to my file cabinet and pull out my baptism certificate. And with a split second of cogitation I can remember that I'm 56 years old. But if I was about 70(!!), walking across the plains with a handcart, a long way from home - not to mention a long way from the strange, new home I was walking to, I think I might have a harder time remembering dates with exactness. Besides, my wife just quizzed me on the date of my youngest son's baptism and I hadn't a clue even if I could eventually approximate it.

And it doesn't help that so many people were named Elinor on the Welsh border country. Jenkins and Vaughan are pretty common too. But how can it be possible that my ancestress Elinor Jenkins Vaughan, baptized on 17 December 1841 according to Elder Needham's Missionary Journal, is not the same person as the Eleanor Jenkins Vaughan who went across the ocean in 1856 and was a member of the very first handcart company to cross the plains?

The Miracle of the MOTB Dress

Remaining a believer in the Spirit guiding me not knowing beforehand where I was going, I have to share how I was inspired to buy a dress yesterday. Then I learned that it had to be confirmed by the mouths of two or more witnesses.

My wife is a simple dresser. She's not one for fancy fashions or trendy display. She is a beautiful woman even though she sometimes doesn't believe that. She hates buying things for herself unless she can find them at a super sale at Kohl's taking advantage of all the coupons, stickers and Kohl's cash she can. That's how she justifies her personal purchases.

Closing in now on our daughter's wedding with no time left to put it off, there has been serious discouragement in the house because she now has to find a suitable Mother-of-the-Bride (MOTB) dress. We've checked on-line. Our two daughters have given her considerable advice and suggestions. I've even been to Macy's and Nordstrom's at City Creek with her and thought we had things that would do but she is a challenging shopper. She's been to a lot of other stores around the Valley. She's even been to Kohl's. She has a skirt or a top that she thinks will work. But this is our youngest daughter and she, and all of us, are entitled to present ourselves well (within our moderately respectable means) for this wonderful occasion. (We even like the guy she's going to marry!)

Yesterday for my lunch break, I walked over past the Gateway to the UTA place that sells bus passes. It was the last day of the month. As I passed the Gateway there is a Bridal & Prom shop with "Latter-day Brides" line of wedding dressing prominently advertised. I wondered if they might have MOTB dresses that would work (there is the whole appropriate Latter-day MOTB attire-thing to consider as well). I walked on by then stopped. Yeah, I should just go in and check. I went to the door just as a young bride-looking woman and her mother went in. My girls watch those Bridezilla shows on TV and I wanted no part of that scene. (And we do have a bit of a Bridezillita at our house). So I turned back and went on down the street past the store.

How Do You Solve a Problem like Mitt Romney?

Bye, bye Mitt, American Guy!

Utah is heart-broken. (See this article in the Deseret News). The Republican establishment is throwing Mitt away. They are also, finally, going after their former intellectual leader, the infamous Bloviator, Rush Limbaugh. But maybe that's a story for another day. And we'd like to see them successful first.

I'm pretty upset about Mitt Romney too. He used to be one of my heroes as the guy who saved the SLC Olympics in 2002. Then he went on to be a moderately progressive Republican Governor of Massachusetts (i.e., Romneycare). He even gave Ted Kennedy a run for the money as a progressive Republican competing for the Senate a few years earlier. That's why I was so confused when I saw Romney running in the Republican Primaries of 2008 and 2012. I was sure he wasn't ever "Severely Conservative" (whatever that is) except for maybe the neo-con part. I don't think the Republican Party has a Mitt Romney problem, the Republican Party has a Republican problem.

"Nattering Nabobs of Negativism"

The Less-than-Honorable Vice President of the United States, Spiro Agnew

Maybe I'll rethink my blog-writing style that does occasionally resort to alliteration. I am currently reading a good book, Very Strange Bedfellows: The Short and Unhappy Marriage of Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew, by Jules Witcover (Public Affairs, New York 2007). And it reminds me that Vice President Spiro Agnew was the master of musical messaging (oops).

It's a good book by a veteran journalist from Baltimore, so he has a good grasp on the former Governor of Maryland and his background. I know how it ends. Agnew resigned the Vice Presidency in disgrace as part of a plea deal with prosecutors in Baltimore because they had the goods on him for old-style political graft - receiving cash kick-backs for government contracts in Maryland. 

Turning the Hearts and Hands

My Third Grandson - Born this Sabbath Morning

The Spirit of Elijah is to turn the hearts but there is also something about the hands.

Up from Racism: The Revelation on the Priesthood

I deeply regret my past racism and have been in recovery for years now as I try to progress in my understanding of life and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

As another "eye-witness to history," I went back to check my missionary history of President Kimball's announcement that the Priesthood ban as to men of Black African descent was lifted. The embarrassing part is that my racism is evident along with erroneous speculations about scripture and doctrine that the LDS Church has since disavowed. Most recently, the Church issued this statement:

Personal Revelation 101

As I have already blogged on "practical spirituality," I have some healthy skepticism caution even within my own religious tradition. For me, spirituality has to mean something even if I sometimes have to wait patiently to understand that meaning. Until then, I've learned to be quiet about it. While respecting the claims of personal revelation of others, I tend to remain skeptical because I've learned to be cautious with my own.

I can best explain with another example from my own missionary record. First, the context-- As explained in my piece about the MTC dedication, I spent some extra time there in what was then the LTM or Language Training Mission. And that was somewhat of a disappointment. After our scheduled eight weeks of intensive language training and memorization of missionary discussions, four of our district of eleven elders left for Portugal. We remaining seven were left waiting for our visas to go to Brazil.

Ye Elders of Israel, Come Join now with Reid

My wife, still a Republican, was questioned recently why she wasn't supporting Romney, "Don't you believe he's the fulfillment of the prophecy that the Elders of Israel will rise up to save the Constitution hanging by a thread?" My wife's response was, "Why couldn't it just as well be Senator Harry Reid or someone else?"

In spite of the generally ignored disavowal by the LDS Church of the White Horse Prophecy, it still hangs on through the tenacious threads of  folklore, and maybe for some, as justification for the candidacy of Mormon Mitt Romney.

Race and Ron Paul (and Mormons)

The best thing you can say about the Ron Paul newsletter controversy is that his Libertarian sentiments are broad-based to the point that they simple don't recognize race. Worse, and more accurately (IMO), with Paul's attempts to distance himself from an unidentified author, and allowing such expressions under his name without much contemporaneous concern, reflect societal cancers of racial prejudice--at least the prejudice of neglect and avoidance of the malignancy.

I've been reading a quite a few reports on the Paul controversy, mostly on the Atlantic website and on Andrew Sullivan's where he initially endorsed Paul then withdrew the endorsement after a reconsideration of the newsletter issues.

Christians? Maybe A Fourth Way

Or first, depending on where you start counting. The whole dispute over "Are Mormons Christians?" I find kind of silly. Besides the total irrelevance of the question in political considerations - as in, "no religious test" under the U.S. Constitution, I see the conversation going something like this:

"You're not a Christian!"

"Yes, I am!"

"No, you're not."

When Jesus Christ Himself had silly questions or accusations leveled at Him, He either refused to answer or turned it back on the challengers. "Sayest thou this thing of thyself, or did others . . . ?" "A certain man went down from Jerusalem . . . ." Maybe we should respond with something like, "Have you asked of God?"

Practical Spirituality

I'm sure I'm going off the deep end here into metaphysical and theological issues that have been argued through the ages by intellects infinitely greater than my weak mind. My whole point here, though, is to try to keep this as simple as possible. With my posting of late last night about an inexplicable, possibly spiritual impression, I realized that my personal faith which I'm pretty sure is well grounded in my religious tradition, requires spiritual revelations to make sense.

That's maybe going to be a howler to many out there who have a good time with the oddities of historical and theological Mormonism. I'm going to put that aside for the moment as I have addressed it elsewhere on this blog to some extent. My point is very personal and very practical. Spiritual manifestations have to mean something. My mind and spirit both require an answer to the question, "What is the point?"

LIVE BLOGGING! LDS General Conference Notes: Sunday Afternoon, October 2, 2011

Sorry. I'm not asleep. Dinner was late. So, we're back at it: See it live here.

Elder Russell M. Nelson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
Spoke about covenants [I was listening]
If I got this right, he said the visit of the Father to the Prophet Joseph Smith was to restore the Abrahamic Covenant.
We take on the Abrahamic Covenant by entering into sacred covenants in this life.

LDS General Conference Prep: Actually, Review from 35 Years Ago

One of my few blog followers expressed that she is looking forward to my live-blogging of LDS General Conference. I still find it surprising that those are some of my most popular posts. Looking forward to this weekend (and I do enjoy conference weekend) I remembered that I have my digital transcription of my mission journal/letters/notes including the conference I watched while in the Language Training Mission (LTM). That was in the original buildings of the current Missionary Training Center (MTC) in Provo, Utah, just after its dedication (9/27/1976 - also in my journal!). So, as a little conference preparation and with some interesting historical perspective, I cut and paste my notes here below.

I am most pleased that my note-taking as a 19-year-old holds up pretty well. But then, so do the messages. Asterisks were added contemporaneously to the talks or points I found especially of interest. The bold highlight on Elder Maxwell's name reflects that as well for his classic discourse.

To whom shall we go?

Yesterday a good friend of mine announced his declaration that he no longer believed the LDS Church was true. He prepared a short explanation that clearly has a lot more thought and detail behind it. I was impressed by the charitable tone of his presentation. It wasn't about acrimony or attempts to tear others down. It reflected his own spiritual and intellectual struggles with a lot of issues about which I have thought deeply myself. I could go down the list and address each point in one way or another. But I am neither a polemicist nor an apologist. In fact, I don't even like those disciplines. And I have too much respect for my friend to attempt to dissuade him with those tactics.

Andrew Sullivan - Almost Fair and Rational

Well, you have to give me some credit for getting quoted. And Andrew's style is to quote his readers' e-mails anonymously, which is just fine. And I will reveal here that the second block quote in this recent piece of his is none other than little old Passionate Moderate Mormon - me. But I think Andrew still doesn't get it.

Live-blogging LDS Conference April 3, 2011

This is a lot of fun! It helps me stay awake and pay attention to do a good job knowing my notes are going out to the whole world. I hope I'm being respectful enough to the speakers. This should be no substitute for going to the official transcriptions or the live and recorded broadcasts at lds.org. But it also pleases me that this conference blogging has had more hits than anything else I've ever posted.

Daughter Anne is fixing breakfast burritos. Of course, I have already broken into the 72-hour snacks we eat every April Conference to rotate out the old stuff so when the earthquake strikes we're not eating stale goldfish crackers, etc. But it's nice to have Anne home from BYU for the weekend.