Going back to the temple

Our local temple in Fort Collins, Colorado will be open for appointment-only baptisms this month for the first time in 16 months or so. As soon as I got the email, I immediately signed up, and dozens of others had already made their appointments. I imagine there will be pent up demand to return to the temple for months, if not years.

I will be heading there in two weeks with my wife and two teenage sons. I can’t wait. I find myself thinking about it all of the time — when I first wake up I remind myself I will be able to go back to the temple again soon.

Sometimes we don’t realize the blessings of the restored gospel until we are reminded how important the ordinances and rituals really are. I find that the temple glow lasts several days after i go to the temple, and I am a calmer and happier person.

And, yes, we will be wearing masks to the temple, even though it may be one of the last places in northern Colorado where a mask is needed these days.

A More Honest Explanation for Medical Skepticism

Jacob, Z. Hess, Ph.D.

Stop pretending your friends and neighbors, brothers and sisters with serious questions about prevailing COVID-19 policies are simply selfish, ignorant, or dishonest. As gratifying as that might feel to those of you frustrated over their dissent, it’s simply not an honest or fair position to take – at least, not if you intend to represent the full scope of people’s motives. If you’re open to it, there’s another way to explain much of the public resistance, in a way that doesn’t misrepresent the experience of those who continue to maintain it.

David Brooks wrote recently suggesting that people hesitant to go along with the program and get vaccinated (or mask up) demonstrate an insufficient trust and willingness to “sacrifice for the common good” and support “collective action.” Jay Evertsen similarly argued in recent days that hesitancy around wearing masks among those who have opted out of the vaccine largely reflects a question of “basic honesty of Americans” – hinting that those resistant to these measures are perpetuating at least some “sort of lie.” 

Many others have insisted that those harboring such skepticism for prevailing public health guidelines are willingly ignorant – even hostile to – “the science” and the common knowledge they see as indubitable and obvious.

Ignorance. Dishonesty. And selfishness. 

That’s about the extent of many people’s conceptions regarding what’s behind the skepticism significant portions of America feels towards prevailing medical dictates. And it baffles me, to be frank, that so many of these same people struggle to imagine any other explanations for resistance.  

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Come Follow Me: D&C 58-59

My blog post on Come Follow Me: D&C 58-59


Excerpt:In D&C 58, we continue to see the Lord discussing the Gathering. The Lord explained that the Gathering requires a righteous people, and the Lord prepares a righteous people through tribulation and challenges.


“For after much tribulation come the blessings. Wherefore the day cometh that ye shall be crowned with much glory; the hour is not yet, but is nigh at hand.” (vs 5).


His/ promises here are conditional for those particular saints. But they will come to pass. There will be a center city/place of Zion established in Independence Missouri someday.
For this, the Lord often talks about things as if they are near. We just don’t live on the Lord’s timeline. Moroni spoke to us as if we were present, even though we were 1500 years in the future. Alma spoke of the first coming of Christ as if it had already happened. Time, in this instance, is not viewed as linear, but cyclical.


The Lord’s time, while perhaps having a linear dimension of some sort, focuses more on cycles of time, what the scriptures call an “eternal round” (1 Nephi 10:19, Alma 7:20; 37:12, D&C 3:2; 35:1).

https://joelsmonastery.blogspot.com/2021/05/come-follow-me-d-58-59.html

LDS Congressman Burgess Owens warns about critical race theory

I encourage readers to watch carefully this interview with Rep. Burgess Owens (R-UT) on the dangers of critical race theory:

https://www.newsmax.com/newsmax-tv/burgess-owens-critical-race-theory-racism-history/2021/05/22/id/1022378/

Let me highlight a few quotations:

“I’ve seen this before,” Owens said. “I grew up in the deep south, in Tallahassee, Florida, in the days of the KKK, Jim Crow segregation, and the evil of hard bigotry; that was low expectations that I grew up around.”

He recalled, when the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and other civil rights leaders protested, they wore white shirts, dark ties, and suits.

That is because they were overcoming the narrative “of the hard, hard Democratic left of that time” that “Blacks were not smart, they weren’t intelligent, they weren’t educated; they weren’t able to control themselves,” Owens told host Heather Childers. “Those negative narratives were part of the process of trying to put my race down.”

And critical race theory, or the idea racism is something that is embedded in legal systems and policies and is not the product of individual biases or prejudices, is more of the “same thing,” said Owens, because it “lowers this expectation for everybody.”

“This is a very evil process,” he added.

And the curriculum is taught by “bullies and cowards who hide behind labor unions,” Owens continued. “They hide behind school boards so no one knows what they’re doing.”

But over the past year, Owens said, parents started to recognize what was going on because their children were learning from home, and they realized “our children are under attack.”

Owens said his bill says critical race theory cannot be taught on the federal level, but still, states must take it on themselves to “make sure they’re doing things on the local level that they need to do to make the changes.”

“We are under attack and is the absolute opposite of the American way,” Owens said. “They’re teaching us not what I was going up with: The love of God, love of country, family, respect for women, and authority. They’re telling us to hate everything that I just mentioned. So, I’m thankful for parents across this country.”

Owens has introduced federal legislation to ban the teaching of critical race theory on a federal level.

To read the inspiring story of Owens’ conversion to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, please read this story.

To read more about the evil of critical race theory and other left-wing narratives, please read this post.

To read more on what the prophet has said about the evils of racism, please read more here.

What can we do to prevent attacks on liberty?

A commenter asks an excellent question: what can we do about the many attacks on liberty from the unscientific promoters of lockdowns and mandates over the last 14 months? Billions of people worldwide haver suffered during these times because of these assaults on liberty. What can we do about it now and what can we do about preventing these attacks in the future?

Each person has to decide for him or herself what to do. The reality is that if you take a strong stand on issues like these you will get endless abuse from “friends” and family members and co-workers, among others. You will be unpopular with all kinds of people, so you must accept that from the beginning. Here are my suggestions.

1)Believe in the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ and modern-day prophets. Jesus will eventually come and heal all wounds, and modern-day prophets will guide us through difficult times. I cannot over-emphasize how much peace I got from April General Conference and the messages from prophets at conference.


2)Know that standing up for other peoples’ liberty is always the right thing to do, even if many of them will not appreciate it at the time. I have been against the lockdowns and the mandates from the beginning, and this made me extremely unpopular with many people, including “friends” and family and co-workers, but in the last few weeks several people have come back to me to sheepishly admit I was right from the beginning. You will always be on the right side if you stand up for liberty.

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