Because we blog, too.
Twice a year, the hustle and bustle for many Mormon the world over seems to slow down a bit as we gather together and refocus.
For those of your friends who may be wondering why you industrious Mormon-types will be spending some 10 hours this weekend watching television, Larry Richman, the Church’s top social media evangelist, has posted on his blog a few different graphics you can use to share with them. He’s posted four graphics. Is there one you’d share?
See Larry’s post, Images to Share.
“I did not ask for this opportunity. I never considered I might someday have an office in a church. I have no professional training for this position. I am not a scriptural scholar. I have not walked through vineyards with robe-wearing monks. And, if you’re wondering about vows of celibacy let me introduce you to my four kids.
“All I did was answer a phone call. Show up for a meeting. And nod when asked if I would serve.”
Read Russ Hill’s candid account of what he’s learned from his calling in his post, Confessions of a Mormon Bishop.
Going off the rails a little bit for this one, in that it’s a post by a Mormon mommy (gasp!). But it is, frankly, too good to resist, and it has a nice little message for our Mormon daddy community, too.
Kacy Faulconer speaks beautifully of what it means to be enmeshed in a ward of her “peeps,” fellow Lattter-day Saints, with all their weirdnesses mixed in with their beautiful acts of kindness. (My favorite line: “Every ward has a few weirdos and if yours doesn’t–it’s you.”)
“Peeps in my ward plan parties for me that I don’t even want to go to like they are some over-eager friend. But then I go (begrudgingly) and it’s fun and good. I used to plan those parties for them and they came (begrudgingly) and it was fun and good. Left to my own devices I would stay home and do nothing (don’t get me wrong–this is not without merit) but sometimes a little nudge to do more is OK. You can’t anticipate what you’re going to get from these peeps because you don’t always know what you need. I didn’t know I needed a frozen chocolate drumstick with nuts from my gal-pal/80-year-old neighbor yesterday but as it turned out, it hit the spot quite nicely.”
This Easter season, Kacy’s post, which you can read here, hit the spot quite nicely.
This week, MDB featured a post, called “I’m a Mormon and I Don’t Watch Fox News,” which served as a timely reminder for the need for civility and respect for those who may share your chapel but not your politics. While we’re speaking of Fox News, there’s another MDBer who not only watches it, but is frequently an invited guest on Fox News.
In a recent post, author Jason Wright gives an intriguing description of the five hours that are required to generate a 3-minute interview segment in Behind the Scenes of a Fox News Appearance.
When I visited a new website, called Mormon Explorer, one word popped into my brain: genius. It’s an innovative site that is designed to facilitate connections between Mormon families in their travels throughout the world. The idea for Mormon Explorer began two years ago when Mormon dad Jeff Paul took his family on a 3-week adventure through a number of European countries.
“With two kids (one and three years-old) on a student income (or lack thereof), we had to be creative in how to stretch our budget to be able to experience the best Europe had to offer. We quickly identified our nightly hotel costs as the largest and most manageable expense. We experimented with the different options available; budget hotels, hostels, and staying with friends (some whom we met at church and others through online communities). By far, our most memorable experiences from the trip were the evenings we spent in the homes of strangers, sharing meals and sharing stories.”
Read more about the creation of this site in Mormon Explorer – Uniting Through Travel.
I hope I might be forgiven the self-indulgence of highlighting Will People Come, Ray?, but it is for a good cause. As a Mormon daddy, I am witnessing one of my daughters who, in addition to working full-time as a Special Ed teacher at a local high school and taking a full load as a Master’s degree candidate at BYU, is doing her best to generate funds for her school’s new Best Buddies chapter.
Best Buddies is an organization that seeks to foster meaningful friendships between kids with special needs and mainstream kids.
My daughter has been doing everything she can to help fill the auditorium for a benefit concert. It will feature a terrific line-up (The Whits and Allred). If any of you are in the Provo area on April 7, I hope you can join us and bring the family. (There’s a $2 discount if enter promotional code “buddy” at the Get Tickets Here box at her online ordering page.)
If you do, please say hello. It would be a pleasure to meet a fellow MDBer.
Photo by sidknee23. Creative commons license. Some rights reserved.
Two things we generally try to avoid on this blog are politics and religion (not that there’s anything wrong with them, it’s just that they are already well-covered elsewhere). So what do we feature in our first post from Brett Nordquist‘s blog? Politics and religion!
Brett gives us a timely reminder that there is more than one side in the political realm, even within the Church. You may agree or disagree with what he has to say, but one thing’s for sure… forsaking civility and spewing vitriol towards those on the other side of the political spectrum won’t get us any closer to fixing anything.
Brett lives in the Seattle area with his wife and four children and works as a custom PC builder. You can check out his blog post: I’m A Mormon And I Don’t Watch Fox News, or other posts on his blog simply titled: Norquist’s Blog.
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Because of the nature of his job, Firefighter/Paramedic maintains anonymity for himself as well as his department. He also maintains the privacy of his patients by not revealing their personal information and by changing minor details of the calls he goes on.
I knew him briefly when I lived in California, before he took up his chosen profession. He’s a 34-year-old who is married and has three young children. Not surprisingly, he serves as his ward’s emergency preparedness coordinator.
Welcome Firefighter/Paramedic to the MDB blog.
“Engine 51, Medic 143, you’re responding for a 1 year old unconsciousness and not breathing. PD is also en route.”
Thus begins the latest post by a new blogger to MDB, a firefighter/paramedic working in California.
The blog is a fascinating account of the life of a firefighter/paramedic, from rolling in the middle of the night on calls where an elderly woman is spending her last moments of mortality to lighter fare where the subjects get what’s coming to them.
The experiences, even the big ones, are typically recounted in a very matter of fact way, from the unresolved end of the 1-year-old’s episode to this resolution about the elderly woman:
“We followed the ACLS protocol without success. The patient went from a ventricular PEA into asystole. After 30 minutes resuscitation efforts were terminated.
“90 minutes after the tones went I found myself back in bed, slowly drifting back to sleep….but not before turning off my alarm.”
Because of the nature of his job, he maintains anonymity for himself as well as his department. He also maintains the privacy of his patients by not revealing their personal information and by changing minor details of the calls he goes on. I knew him briefly when I lived in California, before he took up his chosen profession. He’s a 34-year-old who is married and has three young children. Not surprisingly, he serves as his ward’s emergency preparedness coordinator.
Welcome Firefighter/Paramedic to the MDB blog.
Mark Wilcox decided the time had come to cut his losses. After mulling the matter of his own male pattern baldness for some time, Mark decided to beat nature to the punch by shaving off the remainder of his hair.
It was a brash move not without its consequences. Mark learned a number of random lessons, including the fact that a bald head can make a wife cry and a kid laugh.
All things considered, would he do it again? Find out in Should I Shave My Head or Not? Randomness I Have Learned from Going Naked Up Top.
It’s a day for remembering. Remembering those who put their lives on the line to protect us. Remembering loved ones who have gone before us. Here is a pair of posts that remind us to remember.
Band of Brothers
The Art of Manliness turns its attention to the men of World War II’s Easy Company, just one company of many who sacrificed much to preserve our freedoms.
AofM’s post features a series of motivation-style posters capturing the voices and images of some of the men of Easy Company, who still have much they can teach us today.
Read Motivational Posters from the Band of Brothers.
The Men Behind the Crosses
If you live in Utah, you may have driven by them many times. And you may have heard about them in the news, as they have attracted considerable legal attention. But Scott Taylor recently stopped to learn more about a pair of crosses he drives by regularly.
He learned that this particular pair of crosses marks the location where two Utah Highway Patrol officers had fallen 40 years apart. He dug deeper to learn their stories, which he shares briefly on his post, but also provides links where you can learn more about the men behind the crosses.
Geoffrey Sagers is just a regular Mormon dad who blogs (in Chronicles of Geoff) about whatever project he is working on, be it home improvement, self improvement or family outings.
But more than a decade after his wife didn’t get asked to prom, Geoff did something pretty extraordinary. When it comes to prom, maybe late isn’t just better than never, maybe it’s just plain better.
Geoff even let his wife tell the story in her blog. We can learn a lot from Geoff. (Let’s hope our wives don’t see this.)
When Geoff isn’t working on earning husband of the year honors, he is busy being the father of five. His oldest daughter has special needs. “She is my incentive to live right,” says Geoff.
Welcome Geoff to MDB by starting with his link to his wife’s post in Prom 2011.
Seti Matua loves this journey called life. Indeed, he’s chronicling his in a blog called Le Folauga, Samoan for The Journey.
In addition to being a rugby coach, Seti is a former editor for a number of publications and is now a free-lance writer. He writes frequently on sports as well as the Pacific Islander/Polynesian community. He especially loves to write about when those two worlds combine to produce the likes of NFL stars Troy Polamalu, Haloti Ngata, Jonathan Fanene, Ray Feinga, Rey Maualuga and Aaron Francisco.
Seti and his wife, Jennifer, live in Utah, where they are raising their five sons.
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