When me and my wife were married, the sealer repeated to us some counsel given by David O. McKay to Thomas S. Monson: Never go to bed angry at each other.

Having heard this counsel on many occasions and then on our wedding day, I took it to heart. It wasn’t long before we had the chance to implement this counsel and I was particularly vigurous with it. So much so that the counsel itself created its own arguments. You see, I’ve had the blessing of marrying a very reasonable and understanding woman. 95% of our anger is the result of issues outside the home which then creates impatience, irritability and agitation within our relationship. For us the best solutions to these bits of contention is often a good night’s sleep. It’s usually the next morning that the feelings have left my mind and heart. In short, this counsel that I treated as doctrine, has proved to be a very good suggestions that just doesn’t work for us personally. This experience has made me think more about the counsel we are given and try to discern the commandments from suggestions.

I’ve been wondering about a few gray areas and would appreciate your input. Feel free to present any of your own.

No tattoos- ?
No piercings for men- ?
Only ear piercings for women(one in each ear)- ?
Write your congressman in support of a constitutional ammendment to ban gay marriage- ?
Don’t get cremated when you die- ?

Great Logo Rusty. It is just so right on - don’t you get tired of the “investment” emails you get? I’ll bet I get at least two of these things a day.

The other emails I get tired of receiving are (more…)

Thanks to everybody who made suggestions for my trip. I had a blast.
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Because the Church has chosen the American businessman as the ideal model of dress, I base my advice on the same model. These are not rules and you don’t have to follow them, I’m just offering some tips for those who are looking to button up (har!) their look a bit. For the most part these are generally accepted ideals for how a man should dress when dressing up, I’m just passing them on to everyone else. (more…)

I’m headed there tomorrow night and staying for a few days. (more…)

I was reading “Jesus the Christ” and Talmage was discussing that there are no marriages performed in heaven. That got me thinking about the Millenium. (more…)

We all know D&C 130 the law says we keep a commandment we get the blessing. So is that it? We want the blessing so we keep the commandments with the expectation in mind? Or do we keep the commandments so we can have a temple recommend and we’ve been told that a temple recommend is a measurement of worthiness. (more…)

I’ve lived in roughly 15 wards in the 18 years I’ve been a member of the church. I’ve been in large wards, and I’ve been in very small, struggling wards.

I prefer the small wards.
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A few years ago a Muslim friend of mine made a pilgrimage to Mecca, birthplace of Muhammad and site of the holiest shrine in the Islamic world. This journey is expected of all able Muslims at least once in their lifetime and was highly anticipated by my friend. He knew I was a Mormon and asked me about sacred sites that we have and pilgrimages that we make. Thoughts of Palmyra and the sacred grove, the Kirtland Temple and Nauvoo filled my mind with pleasant and spiritual thoughts. But it was Utah that gave me mixed feelings. (more…)

The former first counselor of our ward is a coding/programming guy and he created a database with all of our ward’s information on it. Legion are the uses and possibilities. Sadly, the two current counselors and the two clerks are all graphic designers (total coincidence by the way) who are still trying to figure out why the Church doesn’t use Macs, let alone how to utilize the database. There are, however, a couple other technologies we’re putting to work for us. (more…)

One of the Bloggernacle’s great commentors, CJ Douglass, has agreed to do a guest-posting stint here at the ‘Moons. Let’s give him a warm Nine Moons welcome on the count of three. One…two…THREE……….

Sam MB has put up a post over at By Common Consent on “Stories of Origin” and the values these narratives have on our identity as communities and as individuals. He asks whether it matters if they are true or not.

Don’t know. But it inspired me to share my own, so here you are: (more…)

Sometimes, when I’m in a self-pitying mood, I start to think that death is following me around.

I’ve lost a lot of loved ones. All my grandparents are dead. My brother and sister both died when they were in their early 30’s, and I was in my early 20’s. My 2 year old nephew died when I was 10. My uncle died somewhere in there, too. A really good friend of mine passed away a few years ago.

So I think I’ve dealt with a little more death than the average person. That combined with the fact that I’m diabetic, and I’ve almost died a few times myself, makes me very aware of my own mortality. It’s weird having a disease where just eating can kill you. I’m insulin-dependent: if I don’t have insulin, I’ll die. If I take too much insulin, I can die.

I saw an interview with Sharon Stone a few years back, I think it was on Oprah. She was sharing a story about a brain aneurism that almost killed her. She said one thing she took away from that experience was that death is very near.

I knew exactly what she meant.
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I’m actually not all that interested in feminism in general. So much of what they (or certain brands of them) espouse seem like foregone conclusions to me. What I’ve always considered to be “the way it should be” is what many of these different brands of feminism use as their megaphones. Of course there are things I don’t agree with (i.e. some of their definitions of choice (my simplified definition here); sensitivities to phantom sexism; etc.) but on the whole I’d have to say that I agree with most of their ideals.

All that being said, my feeling on the women/priesthood issue is somewhere between “this is the eternal way of things” and “I don’t know” with a healthy dose of “no righteous priesthood holder would abuse that priesthood”. If it were ever revealed that women could get the priesthood I wouldn’t even bat an eye. A female bishop? Fine. Whatever. But I personally don’t think the system is broken the way that it is, I think it’s the people (men abusing their priesthood) that are broken.

I’ve had a couple conversations about this issue with a friend of mine in my ward. She’s a very intelligent Mormon feminist. The title of this post is her basic sentiment. I’ve heard a number of different explanations as to why women don’t have the priesthood in our church, many of which are reasonable, others that are ridiculous. This one is intriguing to me because the same could have been said about blacks and the priesthood. This parallel raises the obvious question: the prophets did it once before and it worked, who’s to say it couldn’t happen again?

Of course the answer might be that they have asked and received an answer but don’t feel the need to tell the general membership, “we prayed about women and the priesthood and have been told that it’s not going to happen.” The other possibility (or probability) is that they haven’t asked that specific question because our current doctrine is fine just the way that it is (gender is different than race and has different implications). In other words, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

What do you guys/gals think? Why don’t women have the priesthood? And do you have a problem with the fact that they don’t?

NOTE: This topic has a propensity to heat up so I’ll warn you upfront that disparaging remarks about prophets will be deleted. Polite disagreement is welcome.

I’ve been taught that Elohim was the plural of “El” which is God. That just as the plural for a seraph is seraphim, and cherub is cherubim and even the plural for shamay (heaven) is shamayim (heavens). So Elohim means more than one god. (more…)