This weekend our family (possessed of two seminary students) came face to face with the reality that reading the entire Doctrine and Covenants (plus a few other bits) is required to graduate from the Church History course this year.

Luckily, we had been reading from the Doctrine and Covenants this year. So though we had been a bit desultory, we’d read Sections 1-50 and 76-100 by Friday night. Tallying up the amount of time it would take to listen to the other sections, we only had 7 hours of reading ahead of us…

It’s been fascinating for me to consume the Doctrine and Covenants as fast as we’ve been doing today, listening with my autistic daughter to the audio narration available in the Gospel Library app at 1.5x speed, 20 minute stints broken up by 10 minute breaks.

It has been heartbreaking, knowing the story of the individuals mentioned (particularly in Section 124), to see the glorious blessings they were promised, if only they would remain faithful. And to those with an ear to hear, there are strong warnings to those in our own day who reject the gospel and try to make it over in their own image.

I have enjoyed participating in Book of Mormon read-a-thons. I believe a Doctrine and Covenants read-a-thon would be a great experience as well (and completely doable for a single day). Certainly our own little half-the-book marathon today has been memorable.

In that light, I encourage you to continue reading the Book of Mormon, but know that if you get a bit behind, you will have “light” days where you can catch up on readings if a particular experience takes more time that you have available.

To jump to a particular day, click on one of the links below:
Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7 | Day 8 | Day 9 | Day 10 |
Day 11 | Day 12 | Day 13 | Day 14 | Day 15 | Day 16 | Day 17 | Go to Top

Continue reading →

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Just a reminder for our readers and friends, “Funeral services for Elder L. Tom Perry, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, will be held in the Tabernacle on Temple Square on Friday, June 5, 2015, at 11:00 a.m. MDT. The funeral will be open to the public ages 8 and older.”

For more information please see the Mormon Newsroom, HERE

Elder Perry was also honored yesterday by the US Veteran’s Administration as their Veteran of the Day.

“Today’s Veteran of the Day is Tom Perry, who passed away this weekend at age 92. Tom joined the U.S. Marine Corps in 1944 and at the end of World War II was among the American forces that landed on Saipan. After the war, he was among the troops sent to occupy Japan.

“We were the first group to land in Nagasaki,” Tom would tell friends. “I will never forget that experience as long as I live.” Responding to the devastation all around them, Tom and fellow Marines helped in their off-hours to rebuild churches and secure food and shelter for orphaned children.

Tom continued a life of service as a senior leader in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His office was decorated with an American flag, jars of sand from Iwo Jima and Saipan, and a photo of the chapel he helped build on Saipan. “I would like to say I have always been proud of the time I served in the Marine Corps,” Tom would say.

Semper Fidelis, Tom. We honor his service.”

I was recently browsing the internet and came upon Brian C. Hales’ post of May 21 titled “Yes, Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph Smith Practiced Polygamy.” After listing the numerous testimonies gathered across the years regarding Joseph’s involvement in plural marriage, Brian concludes his post with the following:

“Plural marriage is an uncomfortable topic and understandably so. However, denying Joseph Smith’s involvement is not useful to the discussion. The evidences supporting his polygamous sealings to create time-and-eternity unions that included sexual relations is too great to ignore.”

I’m not sure Brian is responding to me in this post, since I don’t deny Joseph was involved in polygamous sealings. Nor do I deny that many were willing to imply that Joseph had been sexually intimate with women to whom he was sealed.

I simply question whether the data support a conclusion that Joseph necessarily consummated the ceremonial plural marriages he personally entered into. Continue reading →