On Sunday, I received this account, from Larry Clifton, who lives in the area. I thought that some readers might be interested, and I share this with Brother Clifton’s permission:
President & Sister Nelson & President Eyring held a special devotional in Seattle last evening. . . . Just a bit of background: in planning the event the local authorities didn’t know how many to plan for so they began looking at venues that would seat somewhere around 20,000 . . . all were already booked. They looked at Safeco Field (home of the Mariners baseball team) but felt it might be too large and there were 2 other groups interested in it for the same time frame. But the other venues were not available and the Church ended up as the only group that still wanted Safeco . . . so there we were. They issued 40,000 tickets (optimistically . . .) and said anyone who didn’t have a ticket could come and they’d try to make sure they got seated. Turns out over 49,000 showed up! It’s the largest non-sporting event ever at Safeco!! (The Mariners would give their eye-teeth to have a crowd like that!) Pretty impressive for one of the least religious states in the Union!!
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An official statement from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints:
“Typhoon Mangkhut Strikes the Philippines”
From the Saturday, 15 September 2018, issue of a Filipino newspaper:
This item was released on Friday, 14 September:
There are some wonderful reports here:
“Latter-day Saints Around the World Country Newsroom Websites September 14, 2018”
If you listened to the excerpt from President Nelson’s remarks in Seattle that are featured at the link I supply above, you heard him comment that the Church provides humanitarian disaster relief to everybody, not just to Latter-day Saints. I hear the claim fairly frequently that we help only Church members. That is, at best, a careless and cavalier falsehood. Otherwise, it’s just a brazen lie.
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Some critics of the Church like to portray Utah as something of a hell on earth, largely because of Mormonism. How does that portrayal actually accord with reality?
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There are, however, problems even in my adopted home state. This is how the southern end of Utah Valley looked on Friday or Saturday night:
(I hope, with this an the other images, that I’m not violating copyright. I couldn’t see any indications of copyright restrictions.)
For some dramatic additional images, see here:
“Remarkable Photos Show the Payson Temple Surrounded by Fire”
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Massive wildfires, hurricanes, typhoons, and the usual human misery . . . How you can help:
https://www.lds.org/topics/humanitarian-service?lang=eng&old=true
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Despite the Church’s opposition to Proposition 2, specifically, on the November Utah ballot:
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