Category: Life in the Church

  • A Marvelous Work and a Cacophony

    Kent Larsen

    Last week’s sacrament meeting was unique. While on the surface it was just the annual Primary Sacrament Meeting program, the room was packed and the overflow took up most of the cultural hall. But the best part was the congregational hymns, a joyful cacophany that mangled the hymns, making them hard to understand, but communicating…

  • Halloween treat

    Kathryn Lynard Soper

    Strangely enough, I didn’t catch the irony until just now, as my first- and sixth-graders ran outside to catch the carpool. First grader=John McCain Sixth grader=jihadist Afghani

  • 12 Questions for the LDS Newsroom, Part One

    Dave Banack

    Representatives from LDS Public Affairs who manage and direct the Newsroom site at LDS.org agreed to respond to a dozen questions submitted by the T&S permabloggers. We are pleased to post the first six questions and answers below, with the second set of six to follow shortly. We appreciate the time and effort that went…

  • Girls, Are You Hip Enough?

    Kathryn Lynard Soper

    I kissed a girl and I liked it The taste of her cherry chapstick I kissed a girl just to try it I hope my boyfriend don’t mind it It felt so wrong It felt so right Don’t mean I’m in love tonight

  • Mormon Halloween: Its Origin and Destiny

    Kent Larsen

    I’m not sure whether or not Halloween is actually “Mormon” to any significant degree. Mormons generally participate in the holiday here in the U.S., of course. And we even have a few requirements of the holiday in a Church setting — for example, we don’t allow masks at Church-sponsored Halloween events. But I don’t think…

  • Two-headed Hydra

    Kathryn Lynard Soper

    Thirteen-year-old son: Mom, can I watch “The Sarah Connor Chronicles”? me: No. son: Why not? There’s nothing bad about it. me: I disagree. son: Well, I disagree with you. me: That’s okay.

  • Calendar Guy indicates he’ll sue BYU for degree he earned

    Matt Evans

    BYU recently chose to rescind the diploma of Chad Hardy, the missionary calendar guy, because he was excommunicated from the church between the time he earned his degree and the graduation ceremony.

  • Priesthood Session Online

    Julie M. Smith

    According to this, the priesthood session of conference will be available online starting next year.

  • A Worse Job At Everything…

    Marc Bohn

    Conference this past weekend (and the lengthy list I made during it of all the ways I need to change) got me thinking about a conversation I had with a recent law school grad in our ward who was studying for the bar this summer. He’d been complaining to me about having no time and…

  • Key to the Culture of Mormons

    Kent Larsen

    Last Saturday I gave a walking tour of Mormon history sites in lower Manhattan, one of the services our stake history committee offers regularly. One stop on the tour is the location where an early LDS newspaper, The Mormon, was published by John Taylor. That newspaper featured an interesting statement in its masthead–what it called…

  • Mormons Like the Suburbs

    Brigham Daniels

    For my last post as a guest blogger, I have written something a lot more dough headed than the stuff usually posted on this blog. This is a flavor of what I am up to on my own dough headed blog. While I hope you enjoy it, I also want to thank Times & Seasons…

  • M Gets a Joke

    Patricia Karamesines

    A while back our household sat down to watch an episode of Monk. We like Monk because not only is it funny, it’s also sad and tender and offers good – sometimes very good – cultural satire. As I fed M she kept turning her head to look at the TV, watching whatever it is…

  • Parenting Tips from the Life of Warren Buffett

    Frank McIntyre

    “The deal that Buffett made with [son] Howie concerning the rent for Howie’s farm was … linked with weight; the amount rose and fell with Howie’s poundage. Warren thought his son should weigh 182.5 pounds. When Howie was over the limit, he had to pay twenty-six percent of the farm’s gross receipts to his father.…

  • Family Home Evening Ideas

    Julie M. Smith

    After almost three years, we’ve just about made it all the way through the Bible in felt. These have been great FHEs for us. Now I need something new.

  • The Great Unity

    Kent Larsen

    Last weekend I went to the penultimate game in Yankee Stadium, and the next night watched the last game on television, complete with its post-game wake. Over nearly 20 years I’ve attended meetings there, letting a place and a culture become an almost religious part of my life. Its a Temple of baseball.

  • When Being Right is Wrong

    Craig H.

    If you’re a teacher of any sort, you know how disruptive a couple of talkative or rude students can be, especially when you’re trying to get a discussion going. In an effort to regain control, you flash a forced smile in the direction of the goof-offs. You pause and wait until they’re finished before you…

  • BYU in the Memory of the AAUP

    Nate Oman

    Among the other academic spam that I get are regular emails from the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), which is always eager to remind me of their fights for academic freedom, higher salaries for professors, and various trendy and hip progressive causes. Today, the AAUP sent out an email commemorating the ten year anniversary…

  • Stewardship and Politics

    Brigham Daniels

    With elections coming up and my time as a guest blogger running out, I like to take up the topic of Mormonism and voting. First, what should we make of the many Mormons who seem completely disengaged in politics?

  • The Epitome of Not Forgetting

    Marc Bohn

    I linked to an article earlier that I have since decided is to good to leave just to the newsfeed. It’s from a Chicago Tribune religion reporter who is Jewish with Mormon relatives. In it, the reporter describes a rift that formed in her family after her great-uncle Al married a Mormon and then later…

  • First Things Articles

    Julie M. Smith

    First Things has published two articles about the Church; one by Bruce D. Porter and the other by Gerald R. McDermott.

  • Are we not funny?

    Kylie Turley

    I freely admit that I’m not the funniest person in the world, but I do think I have a sense of humor. I like a good laugh as much as anyone. Or perhaps I should say, “I like a good laugh as much as anyone who is LDS.”

  • Missions and the Art of Togetherness

    Ben Huff

    One unique aspect of the missionary experience is the opportunity to focus everything you do, day and night, directly on the goal of serving God. It can be kind of scary to set that as your project, because it is a tall order. Serving God for one day is hard enough; you run out of…

  • Missions, art, and surveillance

    Jonathan Green

    One unique aspect of the missionary experience, quite distinct from life before and after, is the feeling that someone is always watching you. It’s probably the one aspect of my mission that I could have done without, although I wouldn’t say that it was entirely unproductive.

  • Kindness and Technology

    Kylie Turley

    “I seriously doubt whether there will be anyone in the celestial kingdom who is not kind.” “An important measure of our efforts for the celestial kingdom is how we treat others.” (Elder Jensen, Regional Conference meeting, September 7, 2008).

  • Doctrines of Localization

    Kent Larsen

    In April, 1998, President Hinckley visited New York City to speak at a special fireside held in Madison Square Garden, and our stake provided a 100+ voice choir for the event. I remember thinking at the time that with all of the talented Church members in New York City, the choir should be permanent.

  • New Mormon Studies Clearinghouse: MormonConferences.org

    Ben Huff

    Have you been wondering where to go to find out what all is going on in Mormon Studies? Now you know: MormonConferences.org, just launched today, keeps track of all the major public events in Mormon Studies and lists them all on one calendar

  • Only a Clerk

    Kent Larsen

    Soon after I was made a ward clerk 20 years ago this month, I walked into the clerk’s office to find a xerox copy of an article posted there. The article was the text of a letter, sent by one of my predecessors, to the Church’s membership department, and had somehow found its way to…

  • Special Feelings (more on Mormon Language)

    Kylie Turley

    This morning I heard a member of Utah’s delegation to the Republican National Convention tell a radio talk show host that “there is a really special feeling among the Republican delegation.” Could you run that by me again?

  • Moderation in all Salt

    Kent Larsen

    Like in many Mormon families, my siblings and I helped fix dinner. On Sunday’s I loved to fix the mashed potatoes. It was in making mashed potatoes that I learned early that though a little is good, a lot is not necessarily better. Early on, I served a large bowl (there were 8 of us)…

  • Three Million Strong (and Growing)…

    Marc Bohn

    A little more than a year ago, Russell wrote a post commemorating Times and Seasons 2 millionth hit. A feat he said wasn’t bad “for a blog that doesn’t feature kittens or porn.” Looking back, he also noted that while “We’ve weathered storms and squalls, and some people have gone overboard… Still, old Times and…