Best hymn: “Oh, What Songs of the Heart,” Saturday evening. It gets bonus points for mention of Heavenly Parents, but I really liked it musically too. Worst hymn:  “Lord, I Would Follow Thee,” Sunday morning. This was just very bland. Fastest hymn: “The Lord Is My Light,” Saturday evening. Slowest hymn: “Did You Think to Pray?” Saturday morning. Best and worst choir: I really liked the Utah Valley Institute choir that sang Saturday evening. I was much less a fan of the BYU-I choir that sang Saturday afternoon. It wasn’t a knock on their singing; I just felt like the arrangements they sang ..read more

Flush with success after its recent purchase of the Kirtland Temple from its sibling church, Community of Christ, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced today that it will be attempting to purchase other historic religious sites. Spokesman Orson Pratt-Whitney-Young explained that although the Church has expanded its temple-building program under the leadership of President Russell M. Nelson, that the acquisition of the Kirtland Temple “opened his mind to a vision of expanding our temple program in another direction.” Specifically, Pratt-Whitney-Young explained that the Churc ..read more

Image credit: Openclipart If we’re between Palm Sunday and Easter, that must mean it’s Holy Week. But more importantly for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, after Easter comes General Conference! I have some guesses about things we will and won’t hear about. Church purchase of Kirtland Temple: 70% Church top purchaser of land in Nebraska: << 1% Church purchase of Pacific Gateway Industrial development in 2022: << 1% Kirtland Temple, the first temple of the Restoration: 90% Kirtland Safety Society, the first financial institution of the Restoration: < 1 ..read more

When I blogged last month looking at temple activity in Utah, and how patrons move between temples when their first choice is closed, several commenters asked about utilization: What fraction of endowment session seats are being filled? In this post, I’ll show some summaries from the same endowment session data I used in the last post. But first, commenters also pointed out that I left out a huge disclaimer in that post: The data I have is only for people who schedule online. Online scheduling is still relatively new (maybe even only becoming available during Russell M. Nelson’s presidency if ..read more

The LDS Church purchased some historic sites, documents, and artifacts from Community of Christ last week. If you read Mormon stuff on the internet, you’ve probably already heard plenty of commentary on the exchange. I have little to add to the commentary I’ve read. I feel especially bad for people I know in Community of Christ for whom this blow came out of left field. Of the historic sites sold, the Kirtland Temple is probably the most recognizable. It’s also the most important to me personally. My family moved to the Midwest about a decade ago, and since then I’ve gotten to visit Kirtland a ..read more

Previous years: Correlated Cards for Valentine’s Day, Happy Valentine’s Day from the Trump Administration, More Correlated Cards for Valentine’s Day, The Most Correct of Any Valentines on Earth, Old Testament Valentines, New Testament Valentines, Even More Correlated Cards for Valentine’s Day, Yet More Correlated Cards for Valentine’s Day ..read more

This post is a list of the funniest comments (and lines in posts) that I read on the Bloggernacle last year. Even among the comments, I’ve typically excerpted just a part of a longer comment. Each person’s name is a link back to the original comment or post, so you can go and see the larger context if you’re interested. In case you haven’t read them yet, here are links to compilations for previous years: 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008. Jack Hughes, commenting on Dave B.’s post “Next Up: New Testament” at W&T: I believe in the basic Gospel t ..read more

The Church announced a few days ago that Patrick Kearon of the Seventy Image credit: churchofjesuschrist.org has been called into the Quorum of the Twelve to fill the vacancy created by M. Russell Ballard’s death. I’m very happy at President Nelson’s choice. First, I’m of course a complainer, so I do want to mention a few concerns I have. One is that President Nelson seems to be in a rush in not wanting to wait for Conference, and having Elder Kearon ordained already really makes clear that sustaining votes from the membership are 100% loyalty tests, and not at all what they originally were. A ..read more

A few days ago, Peggy Fletcher Stack reported in a Salt Lake Tribune article that wards in the San Francisco Bay Area, where Relief Society presidents had been sitting on the stand during sacrament meeting, were told to stop this by the area president. She also reports that many women, both in the area, and in other places, are unhappy with the change. For example, over at the Exponent, Kelly Ann posted her letter to the area presidency, and pointed out that one of the people quoted in the Tribune article is also collecting letters to send. I share the frustration of the women and girls quoted ..read more

The Church is unusual among Christian churches in having two different types of worship spaces, chapels and temples. Chapels are open to anyone, even if most people who participate are members. Temples are open only to members, and not even all members, but only those who have cleared hurdles of belief and commandment-following. Chapels are, at least potentially, at the center of community-building. We not only go to worship services there, but also to ward activities or activities run by organizations within the ward, like the Relief Society. There are even sometimes public-facing events in c ..read more