A friend shared a story with me yesterday about his favorite uncle that left me both amused and thoughtful. The uncle is a dyed-in-the-wool man of faith; a stake president, solid testimony, the kind of guy to whom the concept of disobedience would never occur. I know the type: A friend and mentor of mine, currently the president of one of the MTCs, fits this description. I’m envious and in awe of such men, for their unpolluted spirits and natural surety of providential collaboration.

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When people talk about someone having or passing on “good” genes they are usually referring to one of two things: physical attributes or intelligence. While it is true that being born with either or both of these advantages should aid in one’s quest for happiness, we all know that the results don’t always align to the expectations. There are plenty of really really good-looking people out there who are unhappy, perhaps only outnumbered by miserable smart people.

Yet we still claim that those are “good” genes. (more…)

Since Vincent Price fell out of the window 70 years ago, I’m thinking now is probably a good time to release another big-budget movie about Joseph Smith and the early Saints. The Church has been generating some copious ink these past few years, so I’ll bet in the right hands (Martin Scorcese?), a Hollywood production about the most complex story of 19th century America  would attract interest– if not at least set a firestorm across the ‘net. Or am I the only one who thinks this?

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I have a top five list of all time best… well, I have a top five list for pretty much everything, but this particular post concerns speeches.  Not necessarily GC speeches, but religious speeches. (more…)

We’ve all had surprises, good and bad.

Rusty and his wife Sara just set up one of the best surprises ever! (For those of you who don’t know, Rusty has a beautiful little 2 yr old daughter) My wife and I “Skype” with Rusty and Sara regularly, it’s actually so my wife can get her “Lucca Fix” – she loves seeing and talking to her granddaughter.

Without telling my wife, Sara and Lucca flew out to visit. Sunday after church I told my wife I was going to a meeting. I went to the airport and picked up Sara and Lucca.

When we arrive home I came into the house and we Skyped Rusty. My wife started talking to Rusty (I went out to the car and got Sara and Lucca, we sneaked in behind my wife while she was still talking. She asked Rusty “Where’s Lucca?” Rusty told her to turn around, she didn’t understand so she asked again. Rusty told her to turn around. The expression on my wife’s face was what we all were looking for and planning on! What a wonderful surprise and gift – a week with our granddaughter (and her mom)!

What’s been your biggest surprise…share the joy with us.

We’re very active in the Church, but mine is not a particularly religious family. That is to say, we’ll find where the sacrament meeting is wherever we’re vacationing, but we don’t quote scripture to each other in conversation, or note how a particular challenge we’re facing reminds us of something Elder Bednar said in a talk (and can even name the title of the talk). Sometimes I feel I should be more gospel-minded, especially for my daughter. She’s 14 now, and maybe the train’s already left the station, because when I do try to talk of spiritual things with her, she gets uncomfortable, and then I stammer, and then the subject sort of limps away behind the sofa to die in peace.

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1) Don’t click on them.

Sorry, that’s all I’ve got. I had “2) don’t push the mouse button when the arrow is hovering above the link that would lead to a post you don’t want to read,” but figured that’s kind of the same thing. I also considered “3) If there is a title of a post that looks like its contents will not be something you are interested in, don’t read it,” which, again, is a little redundant.

Considering the above, I guess my title is a bit deceiving. Sorry. But that leads me to mention the entirely plausible scenario in which you find yourself erroneously reading a post you were fooled into clicking, something like, let’s say a post about Banner of Heaven. What should you do then? Stop reading. Seriously, reading histories of controversies is just too controversial. Besides, you didn’t mean to click on it anyway.