A ‘Precious’ film

I just came back from seeing the movie Precious and it is an absolute must see. Although it is dark and utterly draining, it is still a testimony to the power of the human soul that remains even in the most trying circumstances. It is a movie that in my view all Latter Day Saints and all professed Christians should see, but unfortunately too few will.

Of course, this film is rated R and the R rating is well deserved. It is a gritty and no holds barred look at a side of American life that we all too often choose to ignore. Dark and nearly unspeakable acts of human cruelty are shown and described. Language is foul and free with four letter words perhaps being the most common words uttered. Yet, this is reality for a sizeable number of Americans. This film does not glory in this terror but reviles it desperately hoping for a way for its characters to escape it.

 

The film is set in Harlem in 1987 and tells the story of Claireece “Precious” Jones an obese impoverished illiterate African American teenager born into the most deplorable situation possible. At age sixteen, she is pregnant with her second child that we quickly find out is the result of her father’s repeated raping her. Her mother is a welfare queen and an absolutely intricate and fascinating monster of a human being. Precious is constantly belittled, beaten and brought down. Her plight is almost unimaginable.

Yet, first time actress Gabourey Sidibe fills her character with such personality and soul that she almost flies off the screen. Precious has withdrawn into a shell and hardly engages with the outside world. Yet, her inner imagination is shown in wonderful bursts of creativity that reveal that ambition cannot be putdown completely. Her character has no time for self-doubt even as she has been taught to hate herself. She is simply living day by day and hoping for something better from life. At one point, she mentions wishing she were dead, before soon after snapping back to reality and thanking God for the blessing of new days.

 

Mo’Nique a comedian not known for her fine acting, here plays the mother in an oscar worthy performance for the ages. She is completely human and this makes her menace even more terrifying. She is the result of a life drained of hope, and we realize that she is a poor victim even as she is a vicious perpetrator of hate. It is a performance that shows an incredible nuance and poignancy.

 

Precious of course receives help from an alternative school teacher Ms. Rain (Paula Patton) and a social worker played by an almost unrecognizable Mariah Carey. Yet, the film manages to present hope without trafficking in cliché or melodrama. There are no simple solution, and yet we can see how simple words of kindness or moments of attention fill Precious with light.  Bit by bit, she develops a renewed sense of self and a purpose in life. This film is also a powerful expression of the empowerment of motherhood as Precious is empowered by the birth of her second child in a beautiful way. Every moment of joy feels improbable but utterly real.

 

In the end, one leaves the theatre with a greater appreciation both for how low people can go, and the power for people to rise up again. Spiritually, this film made me think about the incredible power of the atonement. Even someone born into the lowest of the low is capable of being redeemed by the light of hope. There is a powerful moment where Precious stands outside of a church looking in and imagining herself part of the gospel choir, and that image could be a metaphor for the whole film. Small acts of kindness, and examples of humanity at its best are the way to bridge the gap and bring people into a deeper sense of hope. Every human being is a child of god with dreams and ambitions. Precious is the kind of person that we would all judge in a negative way if we saw her or spoke to her. She is neither refined nor articulate. Yet, this film can help us realize that this judgment is precisely wrong. It is a message that is powerful and enduring.

 

Dayenu, praise and thanksgiving

In sacrament meeting today we had talks about faith during times of adversity. For some reason, these talks mad me think about the lack of faith expressed by the Jews in the desert. Even though they had been led out of captivity by god and miraculously brought through the desert, they still griped and complained about everything. Their problem was that they failed to recall the miracles that they had already experienced and be thankful

Jeffrey R. Holland referenced this in his talk Cast Not Therefore Your Confidence Away ( Which I have written about in the past )

“That is exactly the problem that beset the children of Israel at the edge of the Red Sea. That is lesson number two. It has everything to do with holding fast to earlier illumination. The record says, “And when Pharaoh drew nigh, the children of Israel lifted up their eyes, and, behold, the Egyptians marched after them; and they were sore afraid.”

Some, just like those Paul had described earlier, said, “Let’s go back. This isn’t worth it. We must have been wrong. That probably wasn’t the right spirit telling us to leave Egypt.” What they actually said to Moses was, “Wherefore hast thou dealt thus with us, to carry us forth out of Egypt? . . . It had been better for us to serve the Egyptians, than that we should die in the wilderness” (Exodus 14:10–12).

And I have to say, “What about that which has already happened? What about the miracles that got you here? What about the frogs and the lice? What about the rod and the serpent, the river and the blood? What about the hail, the locusts, the fire, and the firstborn sons?”

How soon we forget. It would not have been better to stay and serve the Egyptians….”

There is a famous Passover song that beautifully expresses this idea the Dayenu that expressed the appreciation that each act of God in and of itself is sufficient to deserve our praise.  It goes through 15 things that God did for the people of Israel in taking them out of Egypt and bringing them to the promised land. They progressively intensify from acts involved in leaving slavery, to miracles in the desert, to the formation of a spiritual relationship with God.

A typical Verse

“ If he had given us the Torah and had not brought us into the land of Israel – Dayenu, it would have sufficed.”

On this week of thanksgiving this is a beautiful way to become more thankful for all that we have. Recount your blessings beginning with the most simple of all—life itself. Realize that each blessing by itself would be enough to put us in God’s debt eternally. Yet, he has given us more and more infinitely. He has given us bodies, a loving and caring savior and a plan of salvation. He has let us be born in the fullness of time to be able to experience the blessings of the temple and to help our ancestors become more perfected. He has given us much more than we can ever adequately recall. What a lovely way to think about Thanksgiving.

Disturbing issue of Facebook privacy

This post is not LDS related, but I really feel a need to comment on this news story

A Canadian woman apparently lost health related employment benefits because of pictures on her Facebook.  Conclusions must be tentative because we only have her side of the story, but purportedly she had received time off from work for depression. Her doctor advised her to get out and try to have fun. She took this advice and went to a bar with friends, whom took pictures of her which were posted on Facebook. Her insurance company Manulife used the images on her Facebook as a way to argue that she was no longer depressed and needed to return to work. Thus, her insurance company looked at private images on her Facebook and used that information to justify a termination decision.

I have been a public advocate for laws protecting individuals from termination due to information gleamed from Facebook. Because one often has little control over information or images placed on the internet today, it has become much more difficult to control the flow of confidential information. Thus, individuals are often held hostage to whatever reputation harming information others wish to place on the internet. In effect, the internet has turned everyone into a tabloid page celebrity. This diminished expectation of privacy is harmful to social interactions and civic discourse in society.

The contractualization of Marriage

( I now more clearly see how the contractualization of marriage has contributed to the growth of no fault divorce and leads to the decay of the American family. Back in 2009 I just began to understand this process.)

The contractualization of marriage

I am currently taking a class on the legal foundations of American capitalism and we have been speaking extensively about the trend in American capitalism to turn everything into contractual obligations and relations. I was reflecting on this topic and it made me think about the dispute over Gay Marriage in a new light.

In the past, I have advocated the notion that the state should get out of the marriage business altogether and merely grant civil unions. In this way, the state could allow religions to create their own marriages unmarred by any civil obligations. Any two people could get a civil marriage, while each faith would determine its own marriage policy. In Europe this has been done with success, as religious marriages are view as ceremonies of choice rather than integrally connected to the state grant of marriage.

My thinking today has made me realize that the opposition to this concept is actually rooted in the way that it turns marriage into merely a contract. Indeed, all too much of the language of the Gay Rights movement today paints marriage in this light as well. Marriage is the state granting a specific package or bundles of rights to a union between two people. In our rights heavy culture this seems like a natural way to conceive of such a union.

Yet, my realization is that this can seem like an overly mechanistic way of looking at a marriage. Indeed, religious notions of marriage do not tend to think of marriage in terms of ‘rights’ but instead think about it in terms of sacred responsibility. For instance, LDS families are often encouraged to sacrifice their self-interest and to work to produce and provide for children. Thus, Marriage is less about being given bundles of things from the state and more about having the state recognize and facilitate a series of relations and mutual obligations.

Part of the deep-seated opposition to Gay Marriage thus seems to me perhaps to stem from this more general discomfort with the turning of marriage from something of a duty to something of a privilege. Of course, the reality of marriage is always far away from the mythic ideal. We allow couples that are infertile, elderly or that will be a tax burden on society to marry freely. Moreover, we seem to have a culture of marriage for convenience, where emotions rather than commitment dominate. As I’ve said elsewhere, banning Gay Marriage will unfortunately do little to change these realities. Gay Marriage is in this sense a lagging indicator of trends in society that many religious individuals are uncomfortable with.

Yet, what I have also learned as I’ve looked at the history of marriage is that what marriage is has never been static. There is no mythic time of perfect marital bliss. Instead, societies have the ability to define the institution in a secular sense just as religious have the obligation to define it in a religious sense ( its clear the LDS notion of what a proper marriage is have changed over time) The question needs to be not one of tradition but one of an ideal condition whereby marriage is made sacred and preserved. One of the strengths of federalism in the United States is that it allows laboratory for democracy in order to allow us to truly see the impacts of different marriage arrangements. In the next decade I think we will see a lot more clearly what effect certain policies have on the institution of marriage and its strength in society.

Maestro of Dissent: Opposing gay marriage does not a bigot make

(This post shows my evolving views on gay marriage from 2009 to the present. It was also my first public statement on the topic in my very liberal university.)

Newspaper op-ed I wrote for my campus paper, The Hoot

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints on Tuesday announced its support for an anti-discrimination ordinance that would provide homosexuals with protection from housing and employment discrimination. The ordinance was ultimately approved by Salt Lake City. Although the church had issued several statements in the past declaring that it would support such measures, so long as they contained robust religious freedom protections, this was the first time the influential church actually threw its weight in favor of a specific piece of legislation.

In the wake of Proposition 8, the LDS church has acquired a reputation as homophobic and hateful. Its members have been targeted for boycotts and terminated from jobs by purportedly liberal Jewish organizations merely for being Mormon. Its meetinghouses have been subject to graffiti and protests. A no on Proposition 8 advertisement hatefully depicted caricatures of Mormon missionaries entering to a couples house and ripping up their marriage license. A large advertisement campaign in the northeast warned that the ‘Mormons were coming’ to take away rights. These hateful tactics have to some measure discredited the gay rights cause and turned some potential supporters, such as myself, away.

Indeed, the results of this city ordinance as well as the election night contrast between the successful amendment in Maine taking away gay marriage and the successful amendment in Washington State granting robust domestic partnerships reveal that current feelings towards gay rights are much more nuanced than a simple divide of the world into a pro- and anti-rights camp. Of course, there are some virulent homophobes and they do not have my sympathy, but contrary to the writings of some such as Hoot Editor Bret Matthew last week, those that voted to oppose gay marriage do not merely need to ‘grow up.’ Indeed, they have some valid fears about the decaying state of marriage in society as well as legal protections for religious groups. Gay rights movements would be more successful if they were able to understand these fears and strive to show how their cause would actually help rather than hurt the stability of marriage.

It’s been noted that those most likely to oppose gay marriage are likely to come from states with high divorce rates, single parent households or teen pregnancies. One can be cynical and use these measures as evidence of hypocrisy, or more realistically I think one can view the struggle over ‘traditional families’ as a representation of the failure between dreams and reality. Many rightfully want to stop the collapse of families and have, rightfully in my view, linked this goal with the need to return sacredness to the concept of marriage. We have become a culture where love is treated like a magic state of being rather than a spiritual relationship that requires hard work. Kids have all too often become a disposable commodity.

Somehow, voters in every state in the nation that has voted on gay marriage are convinced that changing the definition of marriage to include homosexual pairings would further dilute the meaning of marriage. It seems that they have grabbed on to this as some way to heal all of what is very wrong in reality and ‘protect the family.’ Yet, this seems to me to be a mistaken idea. Gay marriages bring no more or less stability than heterosexual marriages, but allowing them certainly does more to promote cultural values of monogamy and stability than forbidding them. Indeed, conservatives should be reminded that a generation ago the gay rights movement rooted in the free love culture of the Castro district of San Francisco mocked the pursuit of marriage as a heterosexist delusion. The desire for marriage rights is profoundly a conservative one. Indeed, the gay rights movement should in my view focus less on the individual rights aspect of gay marriage and more on this rather traditional focus on stability. Voting down gay marriage will not end the high divorce rate or lower the teen pregnancy rate. Instead, it just makes things worse.

Likewise, while some of the catastrophic legal impacts emphasized by the campaign against gay marriage are likely overstatements, it is absurd to suggest that religious expression rights will not be adversely affected at all. Churches would not be required to perform gay marriages, but they might be required to lease out space to gay couples to perform their marriages, for instance. Since legalizing gay marriage, Canada has seen many cases of arrests and law suits for actions that would clearly be considered legal under U.S. law. Yet, gay marriage is only at most a peripheral legal issue. We cannot allow, as Canada has, expansive notions of ‘hate speech,’ and political correctness to take away individual freedoms. The disturbing trend of prosecuting hate speech is rightfully viewed as an ill portend for religious individuals that hold biblical objections to gay marriage.

The broader move towards mandatory tolerance thus rightful makes individuals paranoid and less likely to compromise on matters of clear discrimination. Likewise, this is part of the reason why the distinction between civil union and marriage is treated as so significant. It seems to many that the main reason that gay marriage, rather than civil unions, is pressed is not for varying rights, but in order to force acceptance. The civil rights language of the movement rightfully gives the impression that opposition to homosexuals will soon become the equivalent of racism and carry the same legal consequences. Religious individuals fear more than anything else being told that they can no longer express their biblically based viewpoint freely in society without liability. We must make a promise and a commitment that acceptance and respect will not become mandated.

This brings me back to the referendums and Salt Lake City’s ordinance. The referendum in Washington and the vote in Salt Lake City have gained religious backing in large measure because legislatures in the state expressly worked to protect religious protections. The Maine legislation also was initially successful in passing because of attempts to do so, but fears of religious persecution were able to convince many to vote for the repeal referendum. Making it clear that religious speech and association ought to be protected is the kind of light that will disinfect some of the false rumors and allow voters to truly evaluate the costs and benefits of gay marriage. We can also see that it will take time for voters to fully evaluate these claims and come to these conclusions. Expecting instant results and change will only result in additional feeling like the goal of a whole movement is to impose its ideas and values rather than the actually conservative goal of preserving strong families.

LDS church takes a stance for Gay Rights!

I am incredibly overjoyed by the news that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has come out in strong support of a new Salt Lake City ordinance protecting homosexuals from discrimination in housing and employment. The New York Times has the story here  “Mormon Support of Gay Rights Statute Draws Praise”

(Side Note: The New York Times is supposed to be the best in terms of journalistic standards….What’s up with using Mormon on first reference and only using the official church title in the third paragraph. That’s pretty shoddy.)

Up to this point in time, the church had issued tepid approval of acts protecting the rights of GLBTQ individuals in theory, but had done little to actually support such acts. In Utah, lack of approval from the church usually equals legislative death. A position stating that the church ““does not object to rights for same-sex couples regarding hospitalization and medical care, fair housing and employment rights, or probate rights,” was far far too vague and indecisive. Almost a year ago, I wrote an op-ed in my campus paper urging the church to come out in active support of Equality Utah’s moderate and reasonable legislative agenda. It is disheartening to see that those bills failed despite the support of popular Former Governor Huntsman. Moreover, there is a lot of ground to cover as Salt Lake City is the first city in Utah to pass such basic protections. At the time, I was very disappointed to see the church’s absolute silence.  Today is at least a first step in the right direction.

The rhetoric of church spokesperson Michael Otterson was especially encouraging.

Otterson made it clear that this is a moral issue in that it deals with vitals needs of individuals such as housing and employment “”The issue before you tonight is the right of people to have a roof over their heads and the right to work without being discriminated against. But, importantly, the ordinance also attempts to balance vital issues of religious freedom.”

Moreover, Otterson reiterated the church’s position of respect “I represent a church that believes in human dignity, in treating others with respect even when we disagree – in fact, especially when we disagree. The Church’s past statements are on the public record for all to see. In these comments and in our actions, we try to follow what Jesus Christ taught.”

I was incredibly pleased by this statement as an indicator that common ground will be looked for when possible and compromise is possible.

I hope that this open backing has the widespread impact of helping to finally lead to the passing of common sense legislation that also protects the right of religious groups.

Happy Veterans Day!

Even though I am generally critical of most of the wars that America has fought in recent years, I want to make sure that our troops get treated with respect as heroes that risk their lives for their country. We should never let our politics get in the way of honor and respect. Moreover, we need to make sure that our soldiers are treated as heroes when they return and given proper health care, benefits and treatment. It is so sad to see war veteran homeless on the streets. How can we allow those that would risk their lives for our nation to end up begging for scrap on the street.

As hard as it can be at times, we must also pray on this day for the soldiers and the veterans of the nations that we have warred against and even those fighting for terror groups such as Al Queida. I am inspired by the myriad of examples in the Book of Mormon of prophets praying for the well being of their enemies. They are someones father, husband or brother as well.  It is when we dehumanize the foe that we end up compromising our most precious moral values.

Gay Marriage, Maine and Mormons

It seems that voters in Maine, by people’s veto, overturned the legislature’s decision to approve Gay Marriage. The results are here

REJECT SAME-SEX MARRIAGE LAW
Yes	266324	52.75%
No	238595	47.25%

In Contrast, Washington State voted to approve legislation that would give domestic partnerships completely equivalent rights within the state except without the label of marriage ( of course, federal rights would be at issue were DOMA to be repealed. Results here.

This night thus provides an interesting contrast on legislation relating to gay rights and marriage. While it is still early to draw conclusions and a lot of analysis must be done to get a more complete picture I think there are two tentative conclusions that can be drawn.

Conclusion #1: Opposition to Gay Marriage even in the most liberal states is not a “Mormon” driven phenomenon.

Opponents of 1 in Maine were very quick to paint the effort as a Mormon initiative despite a lack of any church involvement. Advertisements were taken out declaring that The Mormons Are Coming. Despite my personal sympathy for the No on 1 position, it seems that individuals intentionally tried to run a xenophobic Mormon bashing campaign and to play up fears and dislike of the LDS church.

Yet, Maine voters turned out in record numbers and still ended up voting for 1. Catholics in Maine were large donors to the campaign and were involved in the get out the vote operation. Maine hardly has a Latter Day Saint presence and there has been no evidence linking to any officially sponsored church activity or to a large surge of LDS involvement. This statement is of course tentative as the rolls of Yes on 1 donors are yet to be disclosed.

Yet, it seems to me that the opposition is deeper than merely foreign religious conservatives invading an otherwise ‘tolerant’ state. Just as in California, overwhelming numbers of non-religious or non-partisan citizens voted to opposed Gay Marriage.

The other conclusion that I at least draw from the contrast between Washington and Maine is that Americans, at least in the more progressive states, are not bigots. There is an effort to name call and label anyone who votes against Gay Marriage a bigot. Yet, this is the position of the majority of Americans including the President and vice president of the United States. They are willing to approve domestic partnership rights and to grant all other rights under the law but are also willing to fight in regard to the utilization of the word marriage. This is not a hateful or bigoted position in and of itself. I have absolutely no sympathy for the large percentage not vote for the Washington Amendment but plenty of empathy for those that voted yes on 1.

As much as those favoring Gay Marriage must be frustrated and infuriated now, it is important to remember that name calling only belittles their side. Indeed, this name calling often makes the pro-marriage side appear callous and belligerent. In contrast, I think that a position that emphasizes both love and the practical benefits of allowing gay marriage could prevail in future contests. Support for Gay Marriage band rests on the feeling that something has gone seriously wrong with marriage as an institution and that banning gay marriage will somehow solve hurts that are much more deeply rooted and come from our fragmented society. In contrast, Gay Marriage backers need to show that their marriages would strengthen the institution by allowing for more loving families ( through adoption) and relationships that are enduring and long lasting. Both sides can be said to be pro-family and struggling to define family as best it can. This is the major struggle ahead of us in the debates.

Anyway time for sleep. I will have more thoughts in the morning.

Elder Ballard speaks at Cambridge Stake Conference Friday Night

Elder M. Russell Ballard of the Quroum of the Twelve Apostles presided at our stake conference this Friday night and Sunday morning, and also at the LDS education conference on Saturday. He also spoke at the Ward Leadership session but since I am but a lowly new convert I was not a part of that session. . I am going to blog about my reactions to the two sessions of conference first and then talk about all of the individual talks at the Education Conference in greater detail. I have an audio recording of the Friday session and a video recording of Elder Ballards talk on Sunday that I will try to get uploaded soon. I don’t think these sessions were recorded professionally and so these may well for all I know be the only copies that will be hitting the net. I apologize for the poor quality but they were recorded from far away on my iphone

Elder Ballard’s Talk Broken up due to Iphone limitations

Friday’s session took place at historic Trinity Church is Boston which was a pretty magnificent venue. The quality of music was stunning. I recorded a recording of the first hymn which was not the best one by far, but which shows of the absolutely outstanding organs.

Listen to the Beautiful organs in Trinity Church

On Saturday, Elder Ballard told us that his remarks on Friday were given without notes of preparation which makes it all the more remarkable. It was a beautiful talk full of inspirational stories and a beautiful message. Many on the bloggernacle noted the heavy promise on following one’s own promptings and gaining inner light at the most recent conference, and this talk was a continuation of that trend. Elder Ballard’s message seemed to be that we need to facilitate and follow the promptings of the spirit. We need to find quiet moments of reflection and allow ourselves to listen to the still small voice.

Before Elder Ballard began speaking he invited several people up to bear their testimonies and the last one to come up ended his testimony speaking about miracles. Elder Ballard began by recounting several cases of what he considered to be miracles.

He spoke about the process of discernment, which came miraculously when he needed to rearrange a stake. He had initially done this duty as a junior companion to then Elder Thomas S. Monson and the first time he went by himself he had no idea what to do. He met with many potential Stake Presidents, but did feel anything. Finally, the next to last brother came and he felt familiarity. He asked the brother how he knew him, and the brother told Elder Ballard that several years ago he had shaken his hand at a youth conference.

It was running late and the brother’s parents lived in a different stake. He called his parents and both said that the spirit had already told them that their son had been chosen to be the stake president. Elder Ballard recalled jokingly, “ The Lord expects us to keep his confidence but he does not keep ours very well.”

Elder Ballard then told a similar story about a brother that, even though he had not initially been considered one of the likely choices by the existing Stake president, had already planned out a full list of counselors which was ready when he was chosen at the absolute last minute after a lengthy search.

Elder Ballard spoke about how this is true in families and in our day to day life as we strive to understand what the lord would have us do.

He quoted “Be still for a moment and know that I am God.” And urged us to work out a regular period of time to be alone and in a quiet place. He told us to have scriptures in hand even if they are not necessarily open, and to engage in a conversation with our heavenly father.

The key is to be still and listen, and we can feel what every convert has felt. Almost every convert when asked when he or she first knew the church was true will almost always have a story related to feeling it was true rather than an intellectual experience.

Elder Ballard then went on to tell a story from 1985 when he was sent to Bolivia to Lake Titicaca which was rising at the time. He and his companions were on top of the hill and when he had a few minutes alone, Elder Ballard felt a strong prompting to bless the area. He had been nervous and unsure about what to do to help the Saints whose land was being flooded. He made the blessing and in 2.5 week the water dropped 11 feet which hydrologists could not understand and newspapers called a miracle.

He reemphasized that most impressions come with a few minutes of quiet and that our knowledge of the gospel and that the priesthood is on the land is our most precious precious gift.

Most of have had promptings to do something and not listened to them. Elder Ballard learned not to do so the hard way. He was a bishop in a ward and there was an old widow in the ward that he was very close to. He got a prompting one night late at night that he had to go see her. It was snowing and an improper hour and so he didn’t go. The next morning he went to go see her and found out from her daughter that she had passed away two hours prior.

He told of another somber story of a family he met with that had been wrecked by the loss of a father and several children within a short time period. He met with them after a session of conference and they said “ I’m grateful you can meet with what’s left of us.”

He again urged us not to let the world spin so fast that we miss personal quiet time. We are all here in the Boston area for something: To get an education or to get married and he urges us to get busy with that, but not to get so busy that we ignore our spiritual needs. When stressed he has found that we feel most dependant on heaven. We must have the desire to discern the will of god and structure life in order to allow those calm moments to list. We must stay spiritually in tune. Righteous desires of the heart are fulfilled although we have to wait. We must wait upon the lord listening for his promptings and act upon them.

Winning missionary ideas from the New England Education Conference

Winning missionary ideas from the New England Education Conference

Elder Ballard of the Quroum of the Twelve, Area 70 Clayton M. Christensen and Jet Blue/More Good Foundation founder David Neeleman spoke at the LDS Education conference this Saturday. I will be writing more about their talks, but I first wanted to share some of the innovative missionary ideas that participants developed.

 

We broke out into groups and each group came up with an idea that could be used to improve missionary activity or church outreach. Afterwards, we all went around and voted on our favorite ideas. Those with the most votes were selected to present to the whole group in front of the speakers. These are the winning suggestions:

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WhyIbelieve.net/Testimony Website (Interestingly enough when you go to this URL it has temporary content of a temple)

A website that would offer a standardized place to write and record ( Audio and Video) testimony so that it could be searchable by name and linkable to/from facebook, blogs etc.

This would not be a random listing of testimonies as current sites but organized so that you could find testimonies by name, geographic location or topic.

 

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Service website/Craig’s list

One of Elder Chritensen’s key points was that people are looking for opportunities to serve and one of the best ways to get investigators interested is to get them serving with us. But, service opportunities are often hard to find or through organizations that require specialized training and commitments. Thus, the church should sponsor a service website where people could post request for service and others could find acts of service to do. This would facilitate service and allow individuals to discover new service opportunities. This would sort of be like a Craig’s list for service

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Testimony Twitters

Would involve a coordinated effort to flood twitter with LDS related tweets. Someone would post a testimony and everyone would repost/retweet it or post their own tweets.

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Customizable Pass-along cards

Current pass-along card are problematic because sometimes one really likes the image on one side but not the text on the other side or vice versa. Also, the size is a problem as certain people like business card sized while others wanted larger cards. One should be able to order and/or print out cards that are customizable in size and content. Also, digital pass-along cards should be available.

Another related idea that my group came up with though it was not in the winning groups presentation was the idea of adding personalization to the cards. Thus, you could print a card with some of your favorite church related websites or your own personal testimony page as well as the standard church sites.

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Digital Temple Tours

Would allow individuals to take a digital guided tour of a temple. This could either be done in accordance with a temple opening or on a permanent basis. The tour would allow people to understand what is done at the LDS temple and dispel myths.

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Improved Facebook App

Facebook application that would especially focus on displaying one’s testimony on ones profile and allowing individuals to click a button to ask a question about the church and another button that would show questions that you have already answered. These could be named or anonymous.

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Scholarships to non-LDS schools

Would fund scholarships to non-LDS universities in order to allow church members to spread to places other than BYU more rapidly. This scholarship would be based on observance to the same honor code as BYU ( though perhaps the dress code might be relaxed) and thus would ensure that strong members are able to attend top quality schools and spread the word.

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How being a Mormon gave me the edge lecture series

Would feature business leaders or other high profile individuals that were LDS explaining why being a Mormon helped them get the edge professionally.

My idea in relation to this would also involve a shadowing program that would allow people to accompany these individuals around their day to do work etc.This could perhaps be given alongside an idea that didn’t win: A 30 Day Mormon Challenge encouraging individuals to try living an LDS style life in terms of diet, modest and habits and to see how it makes them feel.

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Free the MoTab

 

Would place whole albums of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir for free download on a church related website encouraging people to find out more about the church as well. Could turn the church into a primary source for beautiful and inspirational music. There could be seasonal promotions and downloads in order to entice people to return to the site more often.