LDS Member Accepts Senior Mission Call To Tennessee Almost Five Years After Receiving A Liver Transplant

Lanny and Gloria Littlefield of Henderson, Nevada have accepted a call to become senior missionaries. They will depart for Rogersville, Tennessee on December 2nd, 2013, and will spend the next 18 months driving through the area to visit less active Church members and encourage them to return to full activity. The Las Vegas Sun refers to it as a "leadership mission trip".

What makes this call even more impressive is that, according to the Las Vegas Sun, 67-year Lanny Littlefield received a liver transplant back on February 7th, 2009. Brother Littlefield's original liver had become scarred and swollen from a rare case of nonalcoholic cirrhosis; his odds of survival were marginal. According to a February 2009 Sun article, it was quite difficult to find him a matching liver because because matches have to come from a donor who is similar in stature, and Littlefield was 6-foot-4 and nearly 300 pounds at the time. He was forced to retire from teaching biology and coaching football at Green Valley High School, causing his family to struggle to make ends meet. At the time of his transplant, his liver was so deteriorated that it caused his heart to begin to fail. The organ donor was 27-year-old Nicolaas Unlandt Jr., a Dutch native who emigrated to the United States in 1990. His obituary does not give the cause of his death, but states that he was hospitalized the last two years of his life, and that he had arranged for his other vital organs to be donated to people in need as well.

The Littlefields did not serve ordinary proselyting missions when they were younger, opting to get married instead. But they always nurtured a desire to serve a mission. Even when Brother Littlefield's medical prospects appeared grim, he says he knew he would go on his mission. The fact that he received a liver transplant from a 28-year-old man merely strengthens his desire to give something back.

Seniors get considerable more latitude in selecting their missions than the younger folks. Senior couples can choose either 6-month, 12-month, 18-month, or 23-month missions. Senior sisters 40 year of age and older can also request mission calls. The LDS Church regularly publishes a Senior Missionary Opportunities Bulletin to provide information on the different calls available.

Two Female LDS Missionaries Assaulted In Kosovo; Two Of Six Suspected Islamic Terrorists Arrested Are Also Accused Of This Crime

This story first hit the wire late on November 12th, 2013, but the attack on the missionaries was almost an afterthought. Attracting more attention was the story of a group of seven Islamic terrorists in Kosovo, identified as Genc Selimi, Nuredin Sylejmani, Valon Shala, Adrian Mehmeti, Musli Hyseni, Bekim Mulalli and Fidan Demolli, who have been accused of preparing a terrorist act against the safety and constitutional order of the country, and six of them were arrested on November 5th. The seventh is still at large.

However, two of the suspected terrorists have also been accused of assaulting two female missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the capital of Pristina on November 3rd. According to KSL Channel 5, the two had been followed home, thrown down a flight of stairs, and then hit in the head with a sharp object. They had multiple head wounds. Medical personnel shaved their heads and stitched them up. The LDS Church said they had moved the two missionaries out of the area to the mission home in Tirana, Albania, and that the two were recovering. Kosovo lies within the boundaries of the Adriatic South Mission, which also includes Albania and Macedonia. Neither the two missionaries nor the specific individuals who attacked them have been publicly identified as of this post.

An August 2012 post on Religion & Politics provides more background on the challenges faced by LDS missionaries in Kosovo. The picture painted is that of a country that responds favorably to Americans because of our military intervention on their behalf in 1999 (the 78-day bombing campaign against Serbia), but less favorably towards Mormonism. Missionaries report that while the locals aren't particularly interested in hearing about the Church, they will still invite the missionaries in to socialize. Most of the locals are Muslim. It does not appear as if Kosovo is significantly more dangerous to missionaries than any other locations.

The LDS Church first dedicated Kosovo for missionary work in September 2010. The first actual branch was organized in Pristina in January 2011, and the first missionaries officially assigned to Pristina in July 2011. Since that time, proselytization has begin in a second Kosovo city, Gjakove. Cumorah.com also provides a detailed summary of Church growth in the Balkans.

Alex Balinski Launches "Prepare To Serve" Website To Help Prepare Prospective LDS Missionaries Adapt To Foreign Cultures

KTVB Channel 7 in Boise, Idaho reports that Alex Balinski, a 23-year-old BYU student in Utah who previously served a mission in Argentina, has created a website cataloging thousands of videos about the food, history and traditions of many of the countries where Mormon missionaries serve. The website is entitled "Prepare To Serve", and is not an official website of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Balinski has been spending at least six hours a day indexing existing YouTube videos and shooting new interviews with returned missionaries; his goal is to supplement existing LDS missionary preparation and information resources by educating future missionaries about how best to interact in the cultures where they'll be proselytizing.

http://preparetoserve.com/

The site is now linked on my left sidebar under the category Pro-Mormon Websites. Since the site is still a work in progress, loading and navigation are still a bit erratic and clunky at this point, particularly on the main page. This problem will undoubtedly be corrected.

The site's video playlist links to over 10,000 videos, most of which are from missions outside the United States. In addition, the Resources header contains links to an alphabetical list of all LDS missions (405 as of this post) and a list of missionary websites and blogs. Most of the blogs are edited by family and friends of the missionaries, who receive their letters from the field and post the information on the websites. Balinski's website operating expenses are paid by commercial sponsors, who currently pony up $100 per month, which helps since he quit his full-time job in the Fall of 2012 and decided to concentrate full time on the website. He's currently earning $600 per month from his sponsors. He also says he vetted the idea with a local church leader before proceeding to ensure he was accurately reflecting LDS information. Balinski thinks the site will take about three years to complete, and wants to have as many as 50,000 videos posted when complete.

Even though KTVB is just now reporting it, this is not a new story. KSL Channel 5 first reported it back on April 14th:



Official LDS information about missionary service remains available at LDS.org.

Is China Slowly Inching Towards Allowing Unrestricted LDS Activity? Two Mormons Featured On Chinese Television

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints walks a political tightrope in the People's Republic of China. Although the Chinese government permits LDS activity, it is highly restricted. The Chinese government does not permit direct proselytization of its citizens by foreigners. Furthermore, worship services for foreign-passport holding Latter-day Saints are separate from worship services for Chinese citizens, whose branches are directed by their own local priesthood leaders. In addition, Church members are counseled not to mail religious materials to China or carry scriptures or other Church materials into China beyond a copy for personal use, and Latter-day Saints are advised not to discuss or promote the Church while traveling in China. The LDS Church has even gone so far as to establish the Mormonsandchina website to provide a common clearinghouse of information on dealing with China and to prevent misunderstandings. Church leaders last met with Chinese government officials in August 2010 to better regularize Church activity in China.

The scrupulous respect shown towards the Chinese government by the LDS Church, in keeping with the Twelfth Article of Faith which proclaims that "We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law", may be paying off. On Mormanity, Jeff Lindsay, a resident of China, discloses that two members of his branch, one of three branches in Shanghai, were recently featured on significant television broadcasts. First, there was a recorded TV broadcast about Jeff Olsen, who actually just returned to the US: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNTE0MjczMDY0.html. This was a lengthy story giving positive attention to a foreigner who has made a difference in China. And second, Debra Roundy, who teaches English with her husband at Jiao Tong University through BYU's Kennedy Center program, was on TV for a five-minute segment that highlighted her involvement with local Chinese people as she shares her passion for dance. She works with many local Chinese as they practice and perform group dances.

Since the Chinese government seeks to actively control information being transmitted to their citizens, the appearances of two Mormons on Chinese television would be most unlikely if the Chinese government was actively opposed to Mormonism. Consequently, this is a strong indication that the Chinese government may be slowly and incrementally relaxing their attitude towards Mormonism. If this trend continues, we could see the larger urban areas of China, such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Canton, opened to unrestricted LDS activity within five years, leading to the possible announcement of a temple in China within 10 years. At this point, this is strictly conjecture, but don't forget that the government of what was then the German Democratic Republic allowed a temple to be built on their soil while they were still officially "Communist"; the current LDS President, Thomas S. Monson, was instrumental in making that happen. Five years later, the Berlin Wall fell. I suspect the Chinese government would prefer a more orderly transition.

This is why I was enthused when Barack Obama selected Jon Huntsman Jr. to serve as our ambassador to China. Huntsman is not one of those Mormons who locks into missionary mode and is obsessed with pounding on doors and spamming every living creature with the "Golden Questions". Instead, Huntsman preferred to soften Chinese hearts and provoke Chinese interest by exemplifying Mormonism through his behavior FIRST. All too often, we look upon other people as prospective converts first and human beings second; Huntsman is more mature and understands that taking the Amway approach to "sharing the Gospel" can drive people away from Mormonism. Too bad Huntsman chose to cut his mission short and run for President; who knows what he could have accomplished had he remained. Perhaps the Lord inspired Barack Obama to select Huntsman as ambassador in the first place.

Why is China important to us? Because as Latter-day Saints, we believe that one of the prerequisites for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ is for the Gospel to be carried to the ends of the earth. Not just transmitted through the airwaves, but PHYSICALLY carried by authorized messengers of the Lord. This requires missionary activity in China as well as in other remaining places not penetrated by the Church, such as the Middle East. Perhaps the removal of the Islamofascist President Morsi by the Egyptian military may be a precursor to the return to the Church to Egypt, and its subsequent spread throughout the Middle East. At the same time, we must continue to defend the Gospel where it is already established. This may be a tall order, but the Lord does not give us a task save He prepares a way for us to accomplish it.

Liveblogging The Work Of Salvation Mission President Seminar

By Common Consent is also live-blogging the meeting; between the two of us, you should get a good picture of what's going on. Mormon Newsroom has now published a story about the meeting and links to the archived video.

-- Elder Jeffrey Holland (Q12) is the first speaker and is conducting. President Thomas Monson will be there later.

Elder Holland says look to the Seventies for examples on how to do missionary work. Direction and guidance will come through the Area Seventies. Elder Holland is already talking up the old Member-Missionary Councils.

-- Elder L. Tom Perry (Q12) is up next.

New missionaries will be doing the same things missionaries have always done -- preach the Gospel. Bishops will identify each part-member family, less-active family, and new converts. Less emphasis on door-to-door tracting. More Internet outreach, including Facebook. Missionaries will be allowed to use the Internet much more for scheduling and confirming appointments and other similar tasks. This increased Internet outreach will be implemented incrementally -- mission presidents will be notified when they can implement it in their missions.

Members must also change how they think about missionary work. Ward councils will have their role magnified; they will identify those investigators most promising, as well as less-active members, and direct full-time missionaries towards those people. All members of the Church, regardless of level of activity, will be encouraged to share the Gospel more frequently with their friends and associates, then refer the most promising contacts to the full-time missionaries.

-- After a musical interlude, Elder Holland noted that we fear sharing the Gospel because we might offend people. But the Great Commission remains in place -- to preach the Gospel unto every creature.

-- Elder Neil Andersen (Q12) is up next.

Elder Andersen talked about ward council activities he witnessed recently in Florida. Interaction between the bishop, the ward council, and the missionaries was the key to success. They sought the Lord's guidance as to who they should approach, and they were surprised at the impressions they received from the Spirit. The Lord led them to people who had expressed no prior interest in the Church. The ward got more personally involved, and inactives and converts felt the Spirit more strongly when they attended services. As President Monson once said, when we are on the Lord's errand, we are entitled to the Lord's help. Elder Andersen also showed clips of him interviewing ward leaders over in Hong Kong who are employing a more interactive approach. Wishing won't make it so; action is necessary. In some cases, the Lord would not bless a ward with new converts until the ward took better care of existing members.

Elder Andersen also referred to the new website entitled “Hastening the Work of Salvation: A Unified Effort in Conversion, Retention, and Activation” (now online), which will provide information and help for priesthood leaders, for ward councils and ward mission leaders, and for members and missionaries.

-- Musical interlude

-- Elder Russell M. Nelsen (Q12) is up next. This talk impresses me as one of the most detailed and informative talks of the session.

Elder Nelsen noted that the increase of missionaries is a sign that the Lord is hastening is work. Current events throughout the world indicate a need for this increase. He presented the account of a 22-year-old lady who was converted to the Church. Despite her questions and skepticism, she kept seeing the missionaries, and everything came back top the basic Plan of Salvation. She prayed for a witness to the Book of Mormon, and she heard a voice in her heart that said "It's true". She requested baptism the following day. To get her thinking about redeeming her kindred dead, her first Church calling was to the genealogy committee. She also ended up married in the Salt Lake Temple just 13 months after her baptism. Interaction between ward members and missionaries was cited as positive, but also her kindred dead were given credit for influencing her.

Elder Nelsen also cited an interesting parable in which he likened ferreting out less active members with a father looking for a child who was missing from the breakfast table.

The role of the ward mission leader is being magnified and expanded. Two people in each ward set the pace for missionary work; the bishop, and the ward mission leader. While the bishop provides general supervision, the mission leader directs missionary work and holds coordination meetings with the full-time missionaries. We are not to be slaves to handbooks; while handbooks tell us what to do, they do not tell us how to do it.

-- President Boyd K. Packer (Q12) will follow by remote video.

President Packer says the Holy Spirit is the primary generating power after all we can do. Although the Priesthood provides the teaching power, no power can come close to the power of a mother. President Packer also reminded people of the importance of obedience. Trust the scriptures. He bore his simple but eloquent testimony that the Restoration is true.

-- President Thomas S. Monson is up next.

President Monson expressed appreciation for the condolences expressed upon the death of his wife. President Monson says we'll be blessed if we follow the counsel given by all today to go forth and teach all nations, baptizing people in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Missionary work is much more than "tracting"; it's about personal interaction. Members and missionaries must come together and form a seamless mix to share the Gospel effectively. He shared stories about corroborative experiences while a young missionary in Canada.

This effectively concludes the meeting. While it may not have risen to its billing by some as "historic", it was quite useful, and has the imprimatur of the Top Fifteen behind it. It was a worthwhile two-hour investment of time.

Special June 23rd Worldwide LDS Missionary Broadcast "The Work Of Salvation" Generating Considerable Buzz Throughout The LDS Community

A special worldwide broadcast by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to take place on Sunday June 23rd, 2013 is generating considerable discussion and excitement throughout the LDS community. What makes it unusual is that the entire First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve will be present. The broadcast is characterized as "historic", and the Salt Lake Tribune has picked up the story.

NOTE: Mormon Newsroom has now published a story about the meeting and links to the archived video. The broadcast was also live-blogged by By Common Consent and here on this separate post.

According to LDS.org, ward and stake council members, their spouses, full-time missionaries, and other interested Church members are invited to participate in a special session of a Seminar for New Mission Presidents entitled “The Work of Salvation”, which will be broadcast from the Marriott Center in Provo, Utah, on June 23rd at 4:00 p.m. MDT. The 90-minute program will be subsequently rebroadcast to many areas of the world. President Thomas S. Monson, President Boyd K. Packer, and members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles will share messages about how members and missionaries work together in a unified effort. Local leaders have been asked to adjust scheduled worship services so that members are able to participate in the live broadcast of this historic event. It is extremely unusual for local leaders to be asked to change local meetings for a church broadcast except for the Conference sessions, so I don't think this is being oversold. The official broadcast schedule is available HERE.

A new website entitled “Hastening the Work of Salvation: A Unified Effort in Conversion, Retention, and Activation” will accompany the broadcast. The site will provide information and help for priesthood leaders, for ward councils and ward mission leaders, and for members and missionaries. It will also help youth know how they can best prepare for and participate in the work of salvation as they serve in the priesthood, receive temple ordinances, and accept calls as full-time missionaries.

The close hold on the information has triggered much speculation, particularly on By Common Consent and LDS.net and the LDS Freedom Forum. One person was told by his local missionaries that the missionary department informed them that this meeting will be the most important meeting on missionary work in this dispensation, on the same level as Moses bringing the keys of the gathering of Israel.

Here are some of the more realistic projections:

-- There could be changes to the way a typical ward and its assigned missionaries interact. Instead of the missionaries being in charge of missionary work and the members being a resource to them, it will be reversed (ie, missionaries being a resource to the membership doing missionary work). This proved to be true.

-- The missionaries will ask the members to befriend people for them to teach or if any of their current non-member friends wish to be taught. What this means is that missionaries will spend less time on door-to-door tracting, which has become burdensome to them and the public, and spend more time teaching. On LDS.net, one person speculates the efforts of the ward mission and the full time missionaries will be combined. This also proved to be the case.

-- Missionaries will possibly be asked to spend a portion of each day on service projects and restrict proselyting/teaching to the late afternoon and evening hours. No such division was announced, but there will be a reduction in cold-call proselyting.

-- Because the lowering of missionary age limits has produced a glut of missionaries, Church members will be asked to personally house more of them until the available lodgings can catch up with the increase. This was not addressed.

-- One person thinks that some mention will be made about the last days and what we should prepare for. This did not happen.

-- Church leaders may announce that all missionaries in North America will be issued iPads and required to work a certain number of hours per day as part of the “internet mission” effort. This proved to be the case.

-- One person thinks that the Church may raise the monthly allowance (perhaps gradually) from $400 for North America, to $500 or even $600. It was $350 US/$400 Canadian when it started in 1991 – that would be $605 now. This did not happen.

However, one person posted a rather intriguing link on LDS Freedom Forum. The link is six pages of notes from a NASW Mission Presidents' Seminar entitled "The Scattering And Gathering Of Israel", held in Scottsdale, AZ on April 13th, 2013. The poster seems to think the information could be a precursor to the June 23rd meeting, since Elder Russell M. Nelsen of the Quorum of the Twelve was present. It's embeddable, so I present it after the jump and you can make up your own mind: [This was not discussed.]

Ex-Mormon Ryan McIlvain Writes Fiction Novel Entitled "Elders", Draws From His Own Missionary Experiences

The wisdom of a stake president in refusing to accept a missionary application from Emmett Clayton, who expressed doubts about his ability to condemn gay marriage while serving in the mission field, is further buttressed by this story about a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who served a mission despite his own doubts, and later left the Church.

Ryan McIlvain is from a sixth-generation Mormon family; he was born in Utah and grew up in Massachusetts. But before he embarked upon his mission, he experienced doubts about his own faith beginning as early as age 13; those doubts grew as he served his mission. Subsequently, he left the Church, and is now living in Los Angeles and pursuing his Ph.D. in literature at the University of Southern California; you can visit his personal website HERE. McIlvain decided to draw on his own experiences to write a novel entitled "Elders", which follows a young American man and a young Brazilian man as they carry out their missions in Brazil. From the official back-cover description:

Elder McLeod -— outspoken, surly, a brash American -— is nearing the end of his mission in Brazil. For nearly two years he has spent his days studying the Bible and the Book of Mormon, knocking on doors, teaching missionary lessons -— “experimenting on the word.” His new partner is Elder Passos, a devout, ambitious Brazilian who found salvation and solace in the church after his mother’s early death. The two men are at first suspicious of each other, and their work together is frustrating, fruitless. That changes when a beautiful woman and her husband offer the missionaries a chance to be heard, to put all of their practice to good use, to test the mettle of their faith. But before they can bring the couple to baptism, they must confront their own long-held beliefs and doubts, and the simmering tensions at the heart of their friendship.

NRP provides a brief excerpt HERE, and even more excerpts are available HERE.

In his NPR interview, McIlvain reveals that door-to-door tracting was nerve-wracking, saying that it can be emotionally very taxing, especially when those doors close again and again and again. The frustration can accumulate, considering that McIlvain wanted to avoid being the overly-pushy type. But he does credit Mormonism with a lot of his literary acumen, citing his daily attendance at seminary when he was a high school student and the close attention to and meticulous interpretation of Scripture paid as having taught him to read closely and pay attention to each word within a sentence. Thus, although McIlvain is ex-Mormon, there's no evidence that he's anti-Mormon or intends to launch a grand Steve Benson-type crusade to "rescue" people from Mormonism.

Two reviewers agree that the book is not anti-Mormon. First, from The Blue Bookcase:

...the book was excellent. It was not an exposé, nor was it necessarily faith-promoting, which was a relief to me. I've found that both of these approaches tend to flatten out, polarize and oversimplify a subject, which in my opinion does not make good literature. In fact, this book is forthright in a way that would make devout Mormons uncomfortable; there is quite a bit of language, for example, and candid portrayal of masturbation and some sex, things that I think would be unnatural not to include in a book about 20 year old males trying to understand themselves and their place in the world.

Next, from River City Reading:

What I thought might be a fiery exposé of Mormonism was actually written in a delicate way that is neither accusing nor particularly supportive of the religion, rather it focuses more on the relationship between the Elders themselves. With different languages, backgrounds and cultures, McLeod and Passos have plenty to cause a rift between them. However, it is the different way they approach the Mormon religion and their beliefs that leads to the tension in their partnership.

Links to numerous other interviews and reviews are available HERE.

Not only does this book provide a candid inside look at the lives of a typical LDS missionary companionship, albeit fictional, but it also shows that despite making all the right stops and getting all the right training, a person can ultimately decide the LDS Church is not for him. It also shows that "ex-Mormon" and "anti-Mormon" are not always synonymous; when we reflexively and thoughtlessly merge "ex-Mormon" and "anti-Mormon" together, we risk driving away ex-Mormons permanently and catering to popular stereotypes of us being a cult. Ryan McIlvain has plenty of time to change his mind and come back if he wants to. But let's not repeat Lucifer's mistake of trying to scare everyone into the celestial kingdom. Since our Heavenly Father respects our free agency, we need to respect the free agency of others to effectively mirror Him. Remember our 11th Article of Faith: "We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may".

LDS Man Rejected For Missionary Service After Telling Stake President He Would Defend Gay Equality In The Church, To Include Gay Temple Marriage

A member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been rejected for missionary service after telling his stake president that he would defend gay equality within the Church, to include temple marriage for gays. The Salt Lake Tribune has a condensed account, but the value is also in the 250 comments appended to their story.

The original story was published by Joanna Brooks in the form of an interview on Religion Dispatches, where the man is simply identified as Emmett C., a 20-year-old community college student somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. Emmett comes from a family of 11 siblings, including one gay brother and one gay sister, so he's personally affected by proximity (his gay brother actually expressed himself on this subject on No More Strangers). The two gay siblings are still active Mormons, and the parents have come around to the idea of supporting them. In summary, as he prepared to go on a mission, Emmett was afraid that the issue of gay marriage would come up during his mission and he didn't think he could tell people that it was wrong, because he had come to believe in marriage equality. Because he didn't want to be sent home early from his mission for cause, he wanted to get it sorted out before he left.

So he went to his bishop, who was sympathetic, but didn’t know what to do and asked for time to talk with the stake president. A week later, Emmett talked to the stake president, who wasn't particularly sympathetic after Emmett told him he believed that gay Mormon couples who meet all other criteria for temple marriage be gays be permitted to get married in a temple. This, of course, directly conflicts with core LDS doctrine. Since Emmett refused to back down, the stake president not only refused to accept his mission application, but said he would also refuse to give Emmett a temple recommend if he didn't recant. The latter decision hit Emmett even harder, and he says he "died inside" and suffered depression for a month until he could get control of his anger and restart. Nevertheless, Emmett remains a member of the Church at this time, so he may be accepting this as a test of faith.

I hope he does choose to remain with the Church. As a matter of fact, he's still young enough to be reconsidered for missionary service should he come around on the issue. But he must understand that missionary service is the most exacting and rigorous form of service in the Church -- the idea is to serve as a microphone for Jesus Christ for two years. A missionary can privately favor civil gay marriage, but he or she cannot preach that gay Mormons should have temple marriage without a revelation and expect to be allowed to continue serving on a mission. After all, how long would one last if one went to work for a Ford dealer and started pushing Toyotas on the job?

One person published a strong defense of the Church on Religion Dispatches:

Rodney Spuddie • a day ago
The leaders of the church, the first presidency and apostles, discuss and pray for guidance among themselves and then when they receive revelation and guidance, it is relayed to the rest of us via conference talks, scripture, letters to wards and branches, etc. That is how revelation worked in Biblical times and in Book of Mormon times. This is still how it works. It isn't a democracy. It is a Kingdom. God's Kingdom. His truths ARE NOT open for debate. When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, he didn't first poll the populace to decide on what the commandments should be. That should be abundantly clear if you studied LDS doctrine at all. I respect that you may not agree with that process. You may feel that all religions should behave like a democracy in setting doctrinal standards. That may be how many churches do it, but not this one. We know this is Christ's restored church on the earth. The issue here for all mankind is whether or not they want to investigate those claims seriously, pray about them and then upon receiving an answer, adjust their attitudes, beliefs and behaviors accordingly.

To clarify slightly what was published above, the Church leadership receives revelation and guidance applicable to the entire church and transmits it down. However, individual members are free to get confirmation from the Lord through prayer at any time, and are entitled to separate and personal inspiration and revelation affecting themselves and their families and callings. LDS members are not automatons incapable of original thought; in fact, in January 2013, President Dieter F. Uchtdorf counseled LDS members not to blindly accept everything they hear, but encouraged people to think and discover truth for themselves -— expecting that they ponder, search, evaluate, and come to a personal knowledge of truth.

Mitt Romney's Presidential Campaign Ends Up The Longest And Possibly Most Expensive Service Mission In The History Of The LDS Church

The presidential campaign of Mitt Romney came to an unsuccessful end on November 6th, 2012. Despite the fact that Romney avoided the scandals that normally accompany such campaigns and projected a personal image of sterling character, a majority of American voters decided that snake oil was more attractive than substance. The latest count from CNN indicates that Barack Obama won the electoral vote count, 303-206, and also the popular vote by just over 1.9 million.

Even before the count was complete, allegations of chicanery surface. James Buchanan found out that by comparing an election map with a map of states requiring voter ID, Obama lost in every state with a photo ID law in effect. A list of closely contested state elections with no voter ID, which narrowly went to Obama included: Minnesota (10), Iowa (6), Wisconsin (10), Nevada (6), Colorado (9), New Mexico (5) and Pennsylvania (20). This amounted to a total of 66 electoral votes. When added to Romney’s total of 205 electoral votes, that would have given him 271 electoral votes even without Ohio or Florida. Nevertheless, unlike Al Gore in 2000, Mitt Romney decided to be gracious and conceded much more quickly than I would have expected. You can read the text of Romney's concession speech HERE, and listen to him on the video embedded below:



Romney thanked all those who played major roles in his campaign, and explained that continued partisan bickering and political posturing is risky, noting that our leaders have to reach across the aisle to do the people's work. He asked people to earnestly pray for Obama and for the country.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints officially got into the act. After a year of staying aloof, the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve issued a statement congratulating Barack Obama, calling for unity, and commending Romney on the example he set during his campaign:

We congratulate President Obama on winning a second term as President of the United States.

After a long campaign, this is now a time for Americans to come together. It is a long tradition among Latter-day Saints to pray for our national leaders in our personal prayers and in our congregations. We invite Americans everywhere, whatever their political persuasion, to pray for the President, for his administration and the new Congress as they lead us through difficult and turbulent times. May our national leaders reflect the best in wisdom and judgment as they fulfill the great trust afforded to them by the American people.

We also commend Governor Romney for engaging at the highest level of our democratic process which, by its nature, demands so much of those who offer themselves for public service. We wish him and his family every success in their future endeavors.

Even though Mitt Romney did not succeed in becoming President of the United States, he was hardly a failure. In fact, one could consider Romney's campaign one of the longest and most expensive service missions in the history of the Church. His campaign exposed countless Americans to Mormonism who had previously heard little or nothing about it. His campaign also served to rebut negative biases and stereotypes about Mormonism. And perhaps most importantly, Romney's campaign changed Evangelical thinking about Mormons and Mormonism; leading evangelicals such as Billy Graham and Jonathan Falwell no longer consider Mormonism a "cult", and some Evangelical leaders urged their followers to hold their nose if necessary and vote for the Mormon rather than the Muslim. We will still have our theological differences with Evangelicals, but more of them now understand we all work for the same Boss, and share the same Savior.

Don't be surprised if the next call extended to Mitt Romney would be a calling as an Area Authority or perhaps as a member of the Quorum of the Seventy.

BYU-TV To Air New Reality Series "The District", Which Follows Mormon Missionaries In San Diego

Finally......a reality T.V. show that's not only credible, but can also be watched by people of faith without becoming nauseated by ungodly behavior and language. BYU-TV is launching a new reality T.V. show called "The District", which follows eight missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints around as they share the Gospel in San Diego, CA. Media stories from the Salt Lake Tribune and BYU-TV.

Summary: "The District" will premier on BYU-TV on Sunday October 7th, 2012 at 6:30 P.M. MDT, and is the first reality series to follow missionaries on their rounds. The eight-week-long series follows six male missionaries and two female missionaries from across the country as they work to spread their faith in San Diego. It is completely unscripted, and the missionaries are real. Film crews followed the missionaries six days a week for three months, ending up with about 800 hours of footage to edit; the series captures the variability of mission life, documenting successes and disappointments. Subsequent episodes will air at the same time each Sunday until completion.

When the LDS Church began filming the segments three years ago, their original intent was merely to make training videos for new missionaries. But because of increased public interest in the Church fueled by Mitt Romney's candidacy, as well as the success of the reality series concept in mainstream television, the creators were soon inspired to expand the project into an actual reality series. According to Scott Swofford, director and producer of the series and director of content for BYU Broadcasting, it is the first time the Church has really allowed such an intimate level of access to the process of being a missionary.

How about that -- a reality series with no F-bombs, and the only time you hear the Lord's name uttered will be in prayer.

Mormon Messages: The Value Of A Full-Time Mission

LDS Media Talk calls our attention to a new Mormon Messages video designed to spur greater interest in fulfilling full-time missions for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Entitled "The Value of a Full-Time Mission", it includes snippets of personal experiences and testimonies of European youth who are either preparing for missions, currently serving as missionaries, or have recently returned from the mission field.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aKU2rkvFQU



Note that President Thomas S. Monson says that every young man should prepare to go on a mission. This does not necessarily mean that every young man will go on a mission or may prove to be a missionary candidate; it simply means one should prepare in case one gets the call in his heart to submit an application for missionary service. But as President Monson himself proved, not every young man necessarily can go on a mission; he enlisted during World War II in the Navy in 1945-1946 and never got the mission call as a result. But President Monson did take a copy of The Missionary Handbook with him just in case.

Our version of The Missionary Handbook today is "Preach My Gospel". Visit the Missionary Service page of LDS.org for more official information about missionary service.

Mormon Times: William Monahan Cites 10 Excuses Holding LDS People Back From Member Missionary Work

In order to amplify the ability of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to deliver the message of the restored Gospel worldwide, the Church decided to augment the efforts of the full-time missionary force by getting individual members more involved. Fifty years ago as he closed the April 1959 general conference, then-President David O. McKay twice pronounced the phrase "every member a missionary." That simple, four-word statement immediately thrust missionary work into the consciousness of the general Church membership and has since thrived over the past half-century as an oft-repeated reminder.

Yet there are those who criticize us for it. Not only ex-Mormons and anti-Mormons, but also a number of more progressive Mormons have expressed concern that we look upon people we have just met as investigators first, and friends second (if at all). They decry our occasional tendency to lose interest in a person if they rebuff our efforts to evangelize them.

Thus many members become hesitant to share the Gospel altogether. On June 17th, 2011, in a Mormon Times article entitled "Friday Minute: Overcoming excuses about missionary work", William Monahan identifies 10 common excuses used to avoid member missionary work, and tips to overcome them. At first glance, it may seem like Monahan is urging people to "spam the Gospel" more. But his 9th excuse, "I don’t know what to say", shows that he recognizes the value of making other connections first. He writes, "When your goal is friendship, you will build relationships of trust. Trusted friends will often approach you about the gospel first. When that happens, you will know from the Holy Ghost what to say".

This means you fellowship them first, then evangelize them. Oftentimes they'll make the first move simply out of curiosity -- then they're all yours.

But William Monahan still believes we must not preclude making the first move ourselves altogether. An account published today on By Common Consent provides a rather embarrassing tale. The individual, a college professor, was not in the habit of sharing the Gospel with his students. It came back to bite him; here's part of what he wrote:

...A few years ago, I had a former student email me, a bit out of the blue. She had graduated about six years before, but I remembered her well. She had been a stage manager when I directed the school play, and we had a fair number of quite serious conversations. In this email, she explained that something had happened to her that she wanted to share with me. As you’ve already guessed, she had joined the LDS church, and she wanted to share her testimony with me. She wrote that the gospel would help me find the answers and (I remember the quotation very well) ‘leave my confusion behind.’ I sheepishly returned her email, explaining that I had been a member of the church when she knew me, although perhaps not very deeply involved with the church at that time...

Oops!

Being a member missionary simply means we seek out and capitalize upon any opportunities as the Spirit prompts. We are not substituting for the full-time missionaries; instead, we make them more efficient through a form of "pre-screening". We direct missionaries more towards those who have actually displayed some interest in the Gospel; we make their efforts more fruitful. Thus the full-time missionaries can spend less time tracting and more time teaching.

Member missionary work can be as simple as sending an LDS-related attachment to a friend in an e-mail.