quote:- Ignorance regarding other faiths/lifestyles (I don't mean just sexual orientations, I mean lifestyles besides rich-white-western US.)
I disagree with this. I think the volume of LDS people who serve foreign missions makes otherwise "backward" rural communities a lot more world-conscious than many of their peers. I attended a Christmas program in an small, isolated Montana town where everyone in the congregation (mostly ranchers) who spoke a foreign language was asked to repeat a verse of scripture in their various languages. Out of a congregation of maybe 150 people, there were 14 languages represented.
I have known many returned missionaries who continue, years later, to tear up when telling about how much they came to love the Brazilian/Mexican/Australian/Russian/Taiwanese people that they served. Areas of high LDS concentration, notably the various campuses of BYU, are extraordinarily multicultural. Language, culture, and folklore presences from all over the world are found in an otherwise backward, conservative area.
I have a good friend who is from Beijing and got her master's degree here in Montana. She applied to several schools' PhD programs, and got the best funding offer from BYU. She is not LDS or religious at all. Since moving to Provo, she constantly writes and tells me how much she enjoys the tolerant cultural atmosphere there and the huge Chinese community. She feels much more at home there than she has in any of the (3) other US cities she's lived in and is constantly shocked when "white boys" talk to her in perfect Mandarin Chinese.
A lot of predominantly LDS communities have plenty of problems of cultural backwardness but lack of exposure to foreign cultures is not one of the causes.
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Good point. Alas, my experience with fellow-missionaries, since returned (I served in Ontario, most of my companions were from western US), is limited. I can totally see that with a group with lots of return missionaries from diverse places, you'd get an acceptance and love of other cultures as you've described. It's unfair of me to ignore the huge positive impact the missionary program has on keeping Church culture open, loving and kind.
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Beats the hell out of me. I took my sleep med hours ago and should be out cold.
Instead, I futzed around with the new pic gallery on madowl, charged the battery to the camera for the U-20 fencing tourney I'm helping out at in *looks* five-ish hours, and read.
Maybe I should read in bed.
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I know, I've been sick, so my sleeping patterns are all kaflooy. I really do want to get to church tomorrow, so I SHOULD be going to bed soon.
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I've never taken Greek. I'm just trying to figure out if they use a different word for "gift" in the occasions when they mean it in the context of "sacrifice."
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Fantastic. They are amazing and I love them to death. We did a killer setting of "Alleluia" (yeah, difficult text) for our christmas sac. meeting last week and it was a cappella, broke up into 6 parts etc. I had 3 new tenors for the occasion and I was so very pleased!!
My accompanist just married one of my altos today, so that sucks, but everything else is great!
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Oh, which one is she in the book???? Don't worry, I won't tell her....I never do see her anymore, isn't she married to that guy yet?
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Oh, and last minute is always the best time to write a talk. Makes inspiration so much more.. inspiring. (Preperation is a high ideal in my books - I'm just not very idealistic.)
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She is Brittany in the book. And yes - she and Mike got married in October. Their wedding announcements looked like campaign posters. Posts: 8504 | Registered: Aug 1999
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Holy cow!! I have had this calling for almost 2 years, haven't I? Sheesh!! (I've had this calling longer than I was a missionary. Isn't that baffling?)
YES!! Another tenor! And he's a good one too. Posts: 6415 | Registered: Jul 2000
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Is that smiley face and "I approve of the campaign poster design" smiley face or an "I'm smiling in sarcasm" smiley face?
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He's home in May, I believe, which is a few short months in my book.
WD - I hear you there. I had to give a lesson for the teacher preparation class on how to be a more effective teacher and one of my main points was about preparing in advance. I wrote the lesson earlier that afternoon. Eeek! Just to avoid being hypocritical, I stressed mostly that one should not be afraid to rely on the manuals and not be so tacky as to tell the class how little preparation you did.
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It was a smiley of approval. The front said "Brigette and Mike 2004" and the back said, "Brigette and Mike approve of temple marriage.... " I think it listed their parents as campagin managers.
I am a firm believer that most wedding announcements take themselves far too seriously.
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Well, there were more examples in the OT, but I gave up on the Hebrew. One of my NT examples is: Matt 5:23-24 (compared with, say, Matt. 2:11)
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That's an awesome wedding announcement. Goodnight dearies. Happy talk writing and I hope you get some sleep Jamie.
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quote: Cashew, I'm curious as to what exactly Stephens found. I googled it and from what I read, it doesn't look like he found anything that supports the more controversial claims of the Book of Mormon such as wheels, horses, elephants, and swords existing in Meso-America.
The point I was trying to make by referencing John Lloyd Stephens was that, at the time of the publication of the Book of Mormon, the fact that ANY kind of advanced civilisation had existed pre European contact WAS one of its more controversial claims. The writings of the Spanish conqistadors and their associates were either not well known, or were regarded as Spanish propaganda. Stephens' discoveries helped reverse the idea that American Indians were incapable of any kind of cultural sophistication. You have to look at 'archaeological evidence' for the Book of Mormon on a kind of continuum of developing knowledge. For example: Sophisticated cultures described in Book of Mormon: regarded as ridiculous until the discoveries of Stephens and others; Ancient peoples writing on gold plates: fairy tale, until numerous examples were discovered in all areas of the world of this being done; And so on, down to no evidence of wheeled transportation (although clear evidence exists that the wheel was known) AS YET. Things taken for granted now were regarded as unbelievable in 1830, when the Book of Mormon was published. Only a very small proportion of MesoAmerica has been excavated,and we constantly make the mistake that the sum of our knowledge now is the way things were and that's it. Ideas and attitudes change as further discoveries are made. We also can make the mistake of interpreting terms used in the Book of Mormon through what we understand of ancient American culture, i.e. of trying to assign Nephites to one of the cultural groups already known about in Ancient America. Who's to say that they are not a yet undiscovered group? No one. We just don't know, yet at least. We need to keep an open mind, on both sides of the question.
quote:Thus I think it is unwise to dismiss the lack of archeological evidence as unimportant when it is clearly important to helping nonbelievers consider the LDS church. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And, anyway, I think you place far too much importance on 'archaeological evidence'. The Book of Mormon has never claimed to be an archaeological handbook. What it claims to be is inspired scripture designed to help people come to Christ. (That's a far more controversial claim.) If it was a handbook of MesoAmerican archaeology you would expect to be able to test that claim by using it to find ancient ruins/cultures/artifacts/etc. The fact that it doesn't do that shouldn't be surprising. But, apply the same sort of test, one that IT prescribes as a test of what it DOES claim to be: read it, ponder its teachings, pray with a sincere desire to know one way or the other if it is true, and by the power of the Holy Ghost you will know. If it passes that test, then the other stuff will resolve itself. If it doesn't pass, then fine, dismiss it. But don't try to dismiss it on grounds that it doesn't claim.
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Yeah, I guess that's the implication (in the two times it was used in Annie's above post.) Edited, baleeted, etc.![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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I know, I've been sick, so my sleeping patterns are all kaflooy. I really do want to get to church tomorrow, so I SHOULD be going to bed soon.
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It's terribly late!!![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
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