religion

House Cleaning and General Conference

So this past weekend was General Conference. For those “Mormon-Impaired” readers out there, General Conference is a twice a year meeting where church leaders (the prophet, the twelve apostles and the like) address the church as a whole. I can answer more specific questions about it if any of you would like, but I’m trying to keep this blog as preachy-free as possible. (Is preachy-free anything like peachy keen? Or squeaky clean? Because I’d like my blog to be all of the above, if possible. Maybe I should send out clean peaches to readers or something.) Anyway. General Conference consists

Speaking in Church

I’m giving a talk in church on Sunday. Part of the territory when you don’t have a paid clergy is that the members of the congregation are regularly called upon to speak, teach lessons and the like. In fact, when I was in Slovakia, I talked twice in three weeks (fewer members = more frequent speaking duties). What am I going to talk about? Missionary work. Specifically, why I was surprised so many people in my church thought my new calling (Ward Mission Leader) was a bad one. I think sometimes members of the Mormon church look at the church’s

Updates

So now I can also mention the other thing that’s gotten me thinking. I was called to be the Ward Mission Leader in my church. Now, for those of you who aren’t Mormon, this no doubt requires a bit of explanation. I’ll try to keep it as brief as possible. But in case this kind of stuff bores you, I’ll put it behind the jump. ‘Cause I’m nice like that. First of all, Mormons don’t have a paid clergy. Members of the local congregation volunteer to fill in all the different roles necessary. (A local congregation in Mormon-ese is called

Token Mormon

I’ve got a fifteen minute break here, and I have another thing I want to post before I forget about it. I had an experience today that I haven’t had in years and years. I finally remembered what it’s like to be a token Mormon. What I mean by this is the feeling you get when you realize people are looking at you and thinking, “So that’s what a Mormon’s like.” Now, even as I write this, I want to clarify that I know in this situation the person didn’t really break things down that black and white, I’m just