by paulah | Aug 31, 2013 | About Mormons
Like many people, I have a bucket list of places I’d like to visit before I die. I also have a list of places I like to visit now. Some places on my list are unique to me and my personality. I can connect at least eight of them to my heritage or my life as a Mormon woman. I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (often inadvertently called the Mormon Church). These eight places are loved at least in part because the gospel of Jesus Christ has helped me learn to love them. Jesus often used the everyday, common objects and occurrences of life to teach his parables. My favorite eight places are listed (but not ranked) below.
Fabric Stores. Sewing is in my blood. My maternal great-grandmother, Karen, learned the dressmaking and men’s tailoring trades from her father when she was raised in Denmark. She taught her daughter Elsie (my grandmother) to sew. My grandmother, who was mother to nine daughters and four sons, made clothes for each of her children. My mother also learned to sew and taught me basic skills as I grew up. She required me to take a sewing class in high school. I loved to explore the stacks of fabric that she stored in one of her bedroom closets. She regularly let me pick fabric from her stash to make clothes for my dolls or myself. I also loved sifting through her large tin of buttons. (more…)
by liviw | Aug 19, 2013 | Mormons in the News
Two boys stare up, beaming out of a small photo in a gold locket. A picture of a newborn – the baby’s tag reads “born March 2011”. An old black and white photo of a couple that seems to be set in the 50’s. Photos of people she doesn’t know surround Brooke Porter, of Oklahoma, at home, and she is determined to find them.
Latter-day Saints Always Willing to Lend a Helping Hand
Brooke Porter volunteered in the Oklahoma tornado clean up with Mormn Helping Hands, the official community service program with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (often inadvertently called the Mormon Church).
In her characteristic yellow Helping Hands vest, Brooke joined fellow Church members in the clean up after the E-5 tornado in Oklahoma. Digging through the debris, Brooke began to notice some personal items left behind, mostly pictures. She volunteered herself to take home the hundreds of photographs she salvaged. She has started a Facebook page and is manually scanning and photographing the personal items and pictures and uploading them to be claimed online. (more…)
by Delisa Hargrove | Aug 2, 2013 | About Mormons
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, often inadvertently called the Mormon Church, strongly advocates the Cub and Boy Scout programs for boys and young men. Principles of discipline, interpersonal relationships, moral fortitude, and self-reliance learned in Scouting can positively affect the Scout’s future life.
As a woman, and a Latter-day Saint, or Mormon, I appreciate the character strengthening principles of Scouting! My three brothers are Eagle Scouts. I watched them learn skills—from survival skills to interpersonal skills which increased their confidence. I noticed their maturity as their attitudes turned more from “What’s in it for me?” to “How can I make a difference?” They still did crazy teenage boy things, but Scouting provided an opportunity for them to learn to value service to others. For example, one brother’s Eagle project included organizing police and other county health officials to enable parents to get identification tags from the county and information about their children into the county’s database. Kidnappings were prevalent at the time, so children were fingerprinted and photographed to document their identity. (more…)
by Charlotte Wilson | May 8, 2013 | Mormons in the News
Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (often inadvertently referred to as the Mormon Church) have great programs in place to help them serve the community. One of the most noteworthy programs is Mormon Helping Hands. Mormon Helping Hands reaches out to poor and struggling communities and provides volunteers to help accomplish community projects. One of the most recent Mormon Helping Hands took place in Rancho Santa Margarita, California.
Working together as families and friends
On April 27, 2013, families from all over southern California came to volunteer with Mormon Helping Hands. Men, women, and children donned the yellow vests and went to work on a landscaping project and a food drive. Parents brought their children with them, which made this day of service a wonderful family opportunity. Adult volunteers worked on applying mulch to a dog park, planting decorative plants by a parking lot, and repainting park benches. Youth and children volunteers collected food and hygiene items from neighbors and brought them to a local LDS chapel as part of a food drive for Second Harvest Food Bank.
On this one Saturday family members of all sizes had the opportunity to connect with others in the community. Through this service, parents not only taught their children about the value of hard work, but they also taught them the value of reaching out to those in need and the importance of connecting to your community. (more…)
by byustudent | Mar 18, 2013 | About Mormons
Brigham Young University (BYU) is operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, often mistakenly called the “Mormon Church.” As part of their undergraduate coursework, BYU students take multiple semesters of spiritually uplifting, stimulating religion classes.
In this series (see below), students enrolled in scripture study classes have shared their thoughts, insights, and reflections on the Book of Mormon. We invite you to take a look at their epiphanies and discoveries as they delve into the scriptures.
In publishing these, we fulfill their desire to speak to all of us of the relevance, power and beauty of the Book of Mormon, a second witness of Jesus Christ and complement to the Bible. The Book of Mormon includes the religious history of a group of Israelites who settled in ancient America. (The names they use are those of prophets who taught the Book of Mormon peoples to look forward to the coming of Christ—Nephi, Lehi, Alma, Helaman, and other unfamiliar names. We hope those names will become more familiar to you as you read their inspiring words and feel the relevance and divinity of their messages.) (more…)
