LDS Perspectives will be switching to bi-weekly podcasts in 2018. In this inaugural podcast for 2018, Dr. Grua talks about the conflicts in Missouri during the 1830s, which Dr. Grua indicates is well known in American history as an unusually violent decade throughout the nation.

Website link
There is no online transcript for this episode.

Dr. David Grua talks about February 1838–August 1839. This was a tumultuous period in the life of Joseph Smith and the history of the church, marked by internal dissent, the abandonment of Kirtland, Ohio, as church headquarters, the outbreak of violence with anti-Mormons in Missouri, the emergence of the Danite Society, the Missouri–Mormon War, Governor Lilburn W. Boggs’s infamous “extermination order,” Joseph Smith’s imprisonment in Liberty, Missouri, and the exodus and relocation of the Saints to Illinois.

Dr. Grua estimates Missourians killed roughly 40 Mormons during this era. While there was violence on the part of both Mormons and non-Mormons, the Northern (e.g., Mormon) style of violence was against property and considered personal injury sacrosanct. The Southern (e.g., non-Mormon) style of violence included murder and rape in addition to destruction of property.

This was also a time characterized by spiritual outpourings and revelation, with the Prophet dictating D&C 115–120, writing the letters that included D&C 121–123, and delivering several doctrinally-rich discourses to the Twelve Apostles as they prepared for their mission to England. Taunalyn and David review this history in detail and the documents published in the volume.
David also discusses his “Joseph Smith’s Missouri Prison Letters and the Mormon Textual Community,” an essay that will be published in Foundational Texts of Mormonism: Examining Major Early Sources in February 2018 from Oxford University Press.

David W. Grua holds a Ph.D. in American History from Texas Christian University and an M.A. and B.A. from Brigham Young University. He is the author of Surviving Wounded Knee: The Lakotas and the Politics of Memory (Oxford, 2016) and was awarded the Robert M. Utley Prize from the Western History Association.

This past year I had the privilege of being called as Self Reliance specialist in my ward, something of a replacement for what used to be the Ward Employment Specialist. But when I was called, no one could tell me what, exactly, this new calling was supposed to be.

I am not a patient person, so the wait to see this new program get rolled out officially in my Stake was excruciating. Finally we had our initial event, where the idea that God wants to help us was rolled out. There are four workshops: Better Job, Starting/Growing Your Own Business, Getting an Education, and Personal Finances.

I’m within a decade or so of retirement, and I have a good job as an employee. So when I was given the My Path booklet and assessed my needs, it was pretty clear I needed to attend the Personal Finances workshop where I learned new tricks  to improve my cash flow including how to diversify BTC investment projects to maximize the return. Meanwhile I got assigned to facilitate the Better Job workshop. The workshops nominally occurs over a twelve week period, with weekly group sessions that last 1-2 hours.

An awesome thing about doing this workshop within an official LDS setting is that you can get a certificate from LDS Business College for the effort. But the materials are all available online for free, so you could do this workshop with a group of friends without waiting for an official LDS setting to occur near you.

Surprises

We thought a workshop on personal finances would start off with budgeting and savings advice. Instead the workshop starts off talking about faith.

The second surprise (for me) was that I was really opened up to new ideas that I hadn’t seen elsewhere. In particular, I and my spouse for the first time really sat down to talk money in a productive way. Other participants in our workshop reported the same phenomenon.

A third surprise, as we started recording and discussing our expenditures, was where the money was going, and how that compared with our income. Our biggest “problems” were somewhat surprising, and we discovered that there were deep emotional issues attached to those problems.

A fourth surprise was how we moved from being a bit ashamed that we “needed” a Personal Finances workshop to being openly happy to tell people we were doing this super cool thing that was making our lives better and more peaceful. Continue reading →

President Thomas S. Monson passed away of natural causes on January 2, 2018. He had celebrated his 90th birthday in August 2017.

Thomas Monson became an apostle in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1963 at the age of 36. He became President of the Church in February 2008. His ministry was characterized by love of people, a love which often broke down seemingly insurmountable barriers. For example, he was the driving force behind the agreement of East Germany to allow a LDS temple to be built behind the Iron Curtain, as so many Mormons from East Germany were seeking to travel to Europe to attend temples in non-Communist Europe.

As an apostle, Thomas Monson would often tell stories from his tenure as bishop in Salt Lake City, where his large Ward included many widows. His care for those relying on him as bishop gave us a window into what it meant to care for the widow and the fatherless, yet President Monson would tell the stories with self-deprecation, always amazed at the goodness of the people he served and often admitting his own failures to strictly heed every prompting.

As a senior apostle and Church president, Thomas Monson would often talk of his childhood, where he portrayed himself as an unruly and problematic child. His addresses were often centered around amusing stories of how he had been lovingly corrected in his youth.

One particularly memorable story was told in April 2013, of a time when he and a friend decided to clear a field by burning the grass, apparently thinking the flames would magically extinguish themselves once the task was complete. Though the story was amusing, the clear warning was that when we attempt to take shortcuts to get to a desired end, things can get out of control. It does not seem coincidental that the Ordain Women organization was founded the following month, eventually leading to the excommunication of its founder, Kate Kelly. Around the same time Kelly was excommunicated, long-time activist John Dehlin was also excommunicated. Dehlin had for years prior to 2013 been suggesting that Thomas Monson was not fit to preside due to increasing dementia associated with his advancing age. Dehlin had also been providing guidance to people on how to transition out of the Mormon faith.

After I learned of Dehlin’s comments, I watched for how President Monson comported himself. I was frankly amazed at how well an allegedly impaired man was able to carry out the public duties of his office. And I became extremely grateful that Joseph Smith appears to have created a leadership  structure prior to his death [ref]Precise details of the leadership structure were not made public at that time, which Wilford Woodruff’s journal suggests was marked by death threats against Joseph and his presumed successor, Hyrum Smith. Various individuals other than the senior apostle attempted to claim they were the proper successor. Hence my use of the term “appears.”[/ref] whereby many individuals together hold the keys, in support of the one individual at the head of the Church who has the right to preside (see D&C 24). Continue reading →