The Kirtland Temple, as framed by my ten-year old son.
Category: Latter-day Saint Images
A Mormon Image: Communing With the Saints
My loved ones are embarrassed by public breastfeeding, so I retire to the mothers’ room to fulfill the measure of my creation. ~ Bethany West If you have a photograph you would like to submit for consideration in our A Mormon Image series, please see here for our submission requirements.
A Mormon Image: Izyek Steps into the Waters
On a cold day in January, Eldon Umphrey helps his son, Izyek, into Mission Creek in western Montana. The creek runs through the family property, and it has become a family tradition to perform baptisms there, even when there’s snow and ice. ~ Michael Umphrey (http://umphrey.net/) If you have a photograph you would like to submit for consideration in our A Mormon Image series, please see here for our submission requirements.
A Mormon Image: Calle del Templo (Madrid)
Calle del Templo, which in English translates to “Temple Street,” is the street on which the Madrid Temple stands. ~ Gabriel González (http://gabrielgonzaleznunez.wordpress.com/) If you have a photograph you would like to submit for consideration in our A Mormon Image series, please see here for our submission requirements.
A Mormon Image: Sunrise at the Corrientes Airport
With my assignment to the office of the Argentina Resistencia Mission, I helped pick up our new mission president. I snapped this photo as we walked to the terminal to await his arrival.
A Mormon Image: Scriptures Deconstructed
A few years ago I left my scriptures on the roof of my car when driving home from church. When I realized what I’d done I returned to find the pages scattered all over the road. These were my mission scriptures and they meant a lot to me so I spent about an hour gathering as many pages as I could. This is the result. In some ways this photograph symbolizes the process I have been through of deconstructing the very sure faith of my mission. My faith today is a lot less certain and much messier, but it feels a lot more personal and therefore more meaningful. ~ James Gregson If you have a photograph you would like to submit for consideration in our A Mormon Image series, please see here for our submission requirements.
A Mormon Image: From on High
The title of and inspiration for this photograph of the Moroni statue atop Hill Cumorah in Palmyra comes from the text of Parley P. Pratt’s hymn “An angel from on High” (Hymns 13).
A Mormon Image: The Kids Table Easter
I spent a lot of years at the kids table when I was young. Family dinners were a big deal. My grandmother lived for them. She was an excellent cook and a hostess extraordinaire. She would recite poetry and lead her guests in singing a few songs. She would also use her seating chart to try and make marriage matches. I have so many great memories of dinners and holidays and cousins and delicious food. I’m glad that the tradition is still alive with my own kids and their cousins.
Reviving Our “A Mormon Image” Photo Series
We’ve decided to revive our long dormant photo series “A Mormon Image,” which features photos and other images that carry meaning for us because they resonate with our “Mormonness.” As part of this, we’d like to issue a renewed call for photographs to be considered for inclusion in the series. What qualifies as a Mormon image? It should be a photograph or other image which relates to your own Mormon experience. It can be an image explicitly tied to religious ritual, such as a picture from before a baptism. It can be a family photo outside the temple, or a picture of the temple at sunset. It can be a picture from your mission. It can be a picture of nature — sunrise, flowers, birds — but if so, these should have some expressed link to a theme within Mormon life, broadly construed. Your image should have a title as well, and should have accompanying caption. The text can be simple description — “my son before his baptism.” It can tie the image to a Mormon theme — “this sunset reminds me of the glory of creation.” It can be a line from a hymn, or a scripture text. It should be related in some way to the image, but again we’re willing to read that requirement broadly. We hope that this series will allow us to showcase images that illustrate beauty in Mormon life, from the variety of perspectives of…
Partaking of the Fruit of the Tree
One of my favorite parts of Christmas is sitting in the darkened living room, gazing at the lighted tree. There is something magical and transfixing about the warm, gentle light, the fragrance of pine, and the palpable presence of nature that fills my home with its incongruous beauty. I have many memories of reading Scripture by the light of the Christmas tree. Usually we read from Luke, with Matthew’s bit about the Wise Men added in; sometimes we expand into Isaiah, either spoken or set to Handel. This year, though, when I stole a moment of stillness out of the hectic holiday rush to sit beside the tree, the words that came to my mind were Nephi’s: “I looked and beheld a tree . . . and the bbeauty thereof was far beyond, yea, exceeding of all beauty; and the cwhiteness thereof did exceed the whiteness of the driven snow.” It had never struck me before how much meaning the Book of Mormon adds to our celebration of the Christmas tree. Scripture is rife with references to the Tree of Life, and the notion of everlasting life certainly accords well with what I was taught as a child: that the evergreen Christmas tree was a symbol of the eternal life brought to us by Christ. But Nephi’s education about the interpretation of the tree in 1 Nephi 11 is more specific. In answer to his query about the meaning of…
Book of Mormon Word Cloud [updated]
I’ve been curious what a word cloud of the Book of Mormon would look like, so , just for fun on a Friday, I finally made one. I don’t have a lot to say about it, other than that “unto” seems to be a very popular word (which doesn’t really surprise me, but I didn’t expect, either). “Lamanite” shows up more than “Nephite,” though the usage of both is dwarfed by “people.” I took the text from the 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon, and I copied it from here, and I made the cloud using WordItOut. (Note that I actually prefer the look of the Wordle cloud, but I couldn’t get it in the post at a decent size. That said, I’ve included it below.) Update: Ardis pointed out that, in many ways, the word cloud would be more useful if some of the dull words came out (really, other than an interesting look at word choice, having “unto” as the biggest word doesn’t tell us anything interesting about the themes of the Book of Mormon). So, in the interest of a more telling word cloud, I’ve run it again, taking 11 words out. And, thematically, I think it is a better representation of the Book of Mormon. So below is the Book of Mormon word cloud without unto, ye, came, pass, yea, even, thou, thy, saith, said, or thee:
A Mormon Image: Surrender Dorothy
I grew up in the Washington DC area, and fondly remember driving on the capitol beltway from the east toward the Temple and seeing the “Surrender Dorothy” graffiti on a railroad bridge, soon after the Temple had appeared to rise from the ground in front of me. I’ve regularly laughed at the sly commentary on the Temple’s architectural similarity to the Emerald City of the Wizard of Oz. Yesterday, the Washington Post’s answerman ran the above photo and asked for information about who the graffiti artist was and why he risked life and limb to repeatedly make this statement. I would find it quite amusing if the perpetrator were LDS! Kent
A Mormon Image: Greater Love
A Mormon Image: Cemetery in Carrol County
After retirement, my father turned to family history and temple work to fill his time. Most of this work has focused on researching ancestors from Virginia and North Carolina. I took this photo at a cemetery in Carrol County, VA, near the the birthplace of my father’s grandparents. My father is shown in the picture. While in the cemetery he was able to locate headstones of people for whom he had completed temple work. It was the first and only time that my father has visited this place that has taken so much of his attention. As a side note, I have to feel for my ancestors who left lush, green, beautiful Virginia for the desert of Vernal, Utah! Sorry Vernal. By L-d Sus ___ This picture is part of our ongoing series highlighting Mormon images. Comments to the post are welcome; all comments should be respectful. In addition we invite you to submit your own images to the Mormon Image series. Other images in the series can be found here. Rules and instructions, including submissions guidelines, can be found here.
A Mormon Image: Joseph’s Birthplace Memorial At Dusk
“I was born in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and five, on the twenty-third day of December, in the town of Sharon, Windsor county, State of Vermont.” Joseph Smith History 1:3 By Gary Boatright Jr. ___ This picture is part of our ongoing series highlighting Mormon images. Comments to the post are welcome; all comments should be respectful. In addition we invite you to submit your own images to the Mormon Image series. Other images in the series can be found here. Rules and instructions, including submissions guidelines, can be found here.
A Mormon Image: Brothers
We’ve been teaching our oldest son Peter that he’s a big brother to our younger son Jeremy. When Peter learned that Joseph Smith also had a big brother, he fell in love with the concept. Now whenever we go somewhere church-related, he asks, “Will there be a picture of Joseph and Hyrum?” By Robert Gibbons ___ This picture is part of our ongoing series highlighting Mormon images. Comments to the post are welcome; all comments should be respectful. In addition we invite you to submit your own images to the Mormon Image series. Other images in the series can be found here. Rules and instructions, including submissions guidelines, can be found here.
A Mormon Image: Hand in Hand on Temple Square
Walking hand in hand with my family on Temple Square in April 2009. Taking our one year old daughter for the first time was very special, and as we walked I looked around to ask someone to take our picture. We were alone. As I looked at our shadows, I thought that was a much more powerful image; for me, it invokes the feeling of moving forward and facing the future together. This is my favorite photo from that trip. By Christy D. ___ This picture is part of our ongoing series highlighting Mormon images. Comments to the post are welcome; all comments should be respectful. In addition we invite you to submit your own images to the Mormon Image series. Other images in the series can be found here. Rules and instructions, including submissions guidelines, can be found here.
A Mormon Image: Knocking on Dracula’s Door
A Mormon Image: Mormon Helping Hands
About 800 Members of the Sacramento California Stake and their friends donated more than 2,000 man-hours at the City of Sacramento’s William Land Park, which has seen its finding cut by 60 percent in recent years and its maintenance staff trimmed from 22 to seven employees. Volunteers focused on numerous work projects, including historic trail restoration, power-washing of park amenities, landscape maintenance, specialized gardening, and the cleaning out of the park’s three ponds. The volunteer service in Land Park has an estimated value of more than $70,000. by John S. McKinney ___ This picture is part of our ongoing series highlighting Mormon images. Comments to the post are welcome; all comments should be respectful. In addition we invite you to submit your own images to the Mormon Image series. Other images in the series can be found here. Rules and instructions, including submissions guidelines, can be found here.
Renewed Call for Photo Submissions
Since instituting the “A Mormon Image” series last fall, our submissions have slowed from a glut to a trickle. As a result, we thought we would issue a new call for photographs to be considered for inclusion in the series. The instructions for submissions can be found here and the images we have featured since kicking off the series can be viewed here.
A Mormon Image: Nauvoo Temple at First Light
The Nauvoo Temple at about 4:15 in the morning. I was up watching the equipment for the pageant and saw the Temple at the first early light.
A Mormon Image: Apostle and Cowboy
A Mormon Image: Generations
In honor of my grandfather, who passed away yesterday at the tender age of 93, I thought I’d post a few photographs. He was a kind and generous man who was always upright in his dealings and loved to surround himself with family. He was not a member of the Church (my mother is a convert), but he led a moderate and principled life that will continue to serve as an example to me. His memory will be carried by his children and numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren. This last fall, my wife and I were lucky enough to sneak away to Switzerland with our son and spend some time with him while he was still in good health. Here we are visiting the grave of my late grandmother–my grandfather’s wife of 65 years. by Marc Bohn ___ These pictures are part of our ongoing series highlighting Mormon images. Comments to the post are welcome; all comments should be respectful. In addition we invite you to submit your own images to the Mormon Image series. Other images in the series can be found here. Rules and instructions, including submissions guidelines, can be found here.
A Mormon Image: San Diego Temple at Sunrise
[Editors: As the San Diego Union-Tribune takes a look at the current temple renovation, this image seemed fitting.] Early morning at the San Diego Temple (just 1 of over 100 photos I took of the Temple that morning!).
A Mormon Image: Apostle and Grandfather
A Mormon Image: Never Too Old for Trunk or Treat
As I dressed my 3 year old in her Halloween costume for the ward trunk or treat, she asked “and mom, what are you going to be?” Oh, I’m too old for this stuff, I thought. Then as we walked in that night, I saw this 70 year-old clown and realized, we’re never too old to feel like a kid again. by Dana Willard of 88 Miles Per Hour ___ This picture is part of our ongoing series highlighting Mormon images. Comments to the post are welcome; all comments should be respectful. In addition we invite you to submit your own images to the Mormon Image series. Other images in the series can be found here. Rules and instructions, including submissions guidelines, can be found here.
A Mormon Image: Saturday Afternoon Session
A Mormon Image: Temple Lovers
The night after we buried my mother, in a hill at the foot of the Wasatch from where her second favorite temple can be seen. Her favorite was Logan, where she was sealed to my father, who would soon follow her to the grave.
A Mormon Image: Elijah
The most recent baptism in our family. I wish I had a similar photo of our daughter, but, of course, I wasn’t in the change room with her.
