The Mormon Way

So with all of the famous Mormons and Mormon related stuff in the media these days, I get more and more questions from my non Mormon friends about the church.  This is a good thing and something I actually really enjoy, but there are days when I wish that I could broadcast my answers so that people who don't know a Mormon personally could be enlightened or disallusioned- whichever is necessary.
Today on FB a friend of mine posted this link to a Newsweek article on Mormons .  It was actually a decent overview of the religion- or at least as decent as one can get in so few words.  There are just a few things I would like to clarify: 

1)  The HBO show Big Love is not about Mormons.  It is about members of the Fundamental Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Thanks for the correction, Zack).  The actual LDS Church, or people that you commonly refer to as Mormons, outlawed polygamy over 100 years ago.  It was a practice done only by a few members of the church in the 1800s. 
2)  The Broadway musical "The Book of Mormon" is not put on by or sanctioned by the LDS church.  It is used to poke fun at the church not to proselytize.  This is not to say that it is all bad.  I personally haven't seen it but I have LDS friends who have seen it and who really enjoyed it.

If you want to know what we believe, that Newsweek article did a good job of explaining a few things about us.  Here is one more.  Our 13th Article of Faith states:

"We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul (yes, as in Paul from the New Testament)—We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things."

To read the other 12, click here.


If you are confused about all of the misinformation about the church in the media go to http://www.lds.org/ or http://mormon.org/.- (Thanks for the suggestion, Sam.)  You can read everything you want to about the church and actually get a comprehensive understanding for yourself.

Questions?  Comment below.

Happy Birthday, James!

We have hit the busy season so most of my blog posts have not made it from my head to the computer.  However, I could not miss this one.
 
My sweet Mr James just celebrated his 6th birthday!  Hooray!
 
I took brownies into school on his actual birthday then he had a party a Chuck E Cheese with his friends from school the next day and a family party at home on Sunday.  Lots of fun!

Here are some fun facts about James at age 6:
James still loves Lambies (he has 5 stuffed animal lambs:  Lamby the White, Lamby the Lamb, Lamby the Sheep, Lamby the Small and Lamby the Big), strawberries (he will eat an entire carton in one sitting if you let him) and playing Xbox or Wii with his daddy and big brother.  He also plays really well with his little brother Matthew- most of the time, anyway.  He is in his last two weeks of Kindergarten and is reading up a storm and loves to demonstrate his counting and math skills.  His favorite class is Music (so my kid!).  He also likes to swim and play soccer and he finally thinks that riding bicycles is a fun thing to do.  He loved his after school art classes.  His favorite tv show is the cartoon "Avengers" and he loves Spiderman and Iron Man (in that order) the best.  His most favorite movie ever is "How to Train Your Dragon."  His best friends are Jacob S. and Michael R and of course, Gracie K.

Here are some fun photos of James over the last year:

Happy Birthday to my sweet neglected middle child.  One of these days I promise you will get all of the attention you deserve! =)