http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/new-taiwan-website-marks-80-mormon-newsroom   We’re you aware that the Church maintains local websites, where you can keep tabs on, say, your original homeland, the land of your ancestors, your old mission field. the place where you hope to serve with your husband when he retires, and/or the country you’ll soon be visiting?   You can, where appropriate, use such websites to work on or maintain a language.  And so forth.   Here, for example, is the Mormon Newsroom for the... Read more

    In the Interpreter Foundation’s 176th scripture roundtable, Stephen Smoot, Martin Tanner, and Bruce Webster discuss Alma 53, 56-58, which are the focus of Lesson 32 in the 2016 Gospel Doctrine lesson manual:   http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/scripture-roundtable-176-book-of-mormon-gospel-doctrine-lesson-32-they-did-obey-every-word-of-command-with-exactness/   Posted from Oslo, Norway   Read more

    When I began my service as the bishop of a large singles ward adjacent to Utah Valley University, a friend with a great deal of ecclesiastical experience gave me some interesting advice.  “You’ll be so busy with counseling and similar things that can’t be delegated,” he effectively told me, “that you should just divide everything else 50/50 and have your two counselors take care of those matters.”   He was right.  Interviews of various kinds and counseling of... Read more

    ‎“Supposing there was no intelligence behind the universe, no creative mind. In that case, nobody designed my brain for the purpose of thinking. It is merely that when the atoms inside my skull happen, for physical or chemical reasons, to arrange themselves in a certain way, this gives me, as a by-product, the sensation I call thought. But, if so, how can I trust my own thinking to be true? It’s like upsetting a milk jug and hoping... Read more

    “Hence, if it requires, say, a thousand years to fit for easy flight a bird which started with rudimentary wings, or ten thousand for one which started with no wings at all and had to sprout them ab initio, it might be assumed that the flying machine which will really fly might be evolved by the combined and continuous efforts of mathematicians and mechanicians in from one million to ten million years — provided, of course, we can meanwhile eliminate... Read more

    “VIDEO:  Welcoming Refugees to America”   “I Was a Stranger”   “Give Back”   I’m so very pleased that the Church is actively engaged in this matter.   May we be, too.  However small the contribution might be, it’s still something.  Which is considerably better than nothing.   Posted from London, England     Read more

    Bruce Webster and Martin Tanner come together for Interpreter Foundation scripture roundtable #175, which is focused on Gospel Doctrine lesson 31.  In other words, it treats Alma 43-52.   http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/scripture-roundtable-175-book-of-mormon-gospel-doctrine-lesson-31-firm-in-the-faith-of-christ/   I’m very grateful to all those who participate in these discussions.   Posted from London, England     Read more

    I’ll be speaking at 7 PM on Sunday evening, 13 August 2016, at the Oslo Ward of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  For those who’re in town and are interested in attending, the building is located at Hekkveien 9, 0571 Oslo.   Posted from London, England     Read more

    http://www.mormonnewsroom.org.uk/article/manchester-sacre-approves-new-re-syllabus   I was interested to see this kind of curricular work going on here.  The religious and religious-educational situation in the United Kingdom is very different from that to which people in the United States, with its famous wall of “strict separation” between church and state, are accustomed.   Posted from London, England     Read more

    Stephen Smoot calls my attention to this extremely interesting little essay about science and its history:   http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/08/occams-razor/495332/   It touches on some ideas that I mentioned a week ago at the 2016 FairMormon conference.     Read more