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WikiLeaks files: U.S. envoys helped Mormons worldwide

Salt Lake Tribune - Thankful for the opportunity, an LDS Church official in Kazakhstan presented tenets of his faith to the central Asian nation’s president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, a tough former Communist labeled by detractors as corrupt and ruthless. General authority Paul Pieper, who represents the area for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, spoke in both Kazakh and Russian as he outlined support of traditional family values, education and the authority of local governments — as well as the faith’s taboos against alcohol, tobacco and illicit drugs. "You don’t drink?’’ Nazarbayev interrupted. "There are places in Russia where they live to be over...

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Science and faith discussion evolving to a place of harmony

Deseret News - As a young boy, Dixon Woodbury remembers catching giant bugs in the Seattle woods with his friends, eagerly bringing them home so his mother could tell him what they were, what they ate and what ate them. Growing up with an entomologist mother and a physiologist father, Woodbury peppered them with questions at the dinner table, always curious about the world around him. When the topic of evolution came up, Woodbury remembers his father scratching his head then saying, "I believe that is how God did it." "It made a lot of sense to me and I never really needed to...

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Mormons in Virginia clean riverbanks, historical sites and help those in need

Deseret News - Hundreds of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Fredericksburg, Va., area gathered on Saturday, Sept. 24, to clean riverbanks and local historical sites. Other volunteers, including those of other faiths, also made blankets for children as part of an Eagle Scout project, while still others packed boxes with microwavable meals and snack items on behalf of soldiers in need. On that same day, Latter-day Saints in Culpepper, Va., helped provide services for a family involved in a serious automobile accident, while other Mormons in that community helped provide firewood and home repairs for the needy....

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President Packer is at half-century milestone of service

LDS Church News - Early on Saturday morning, Sept. 30, 1961, Boyd K. Packer, then Supervisor of the Church Seminaries and Institutes and a member of the Brigham Young University Administrative Council, was in a meeting with teachers and leaders who had come to Salt Lake City for training in conjunction with the 131st Semiannual General Conference. He was summoned from that meeting to take a telephone call from President Hugh B. Brown, a counselor in the First Presidency, who told him he was to go to President David O. McKay's office. "I was 37 years old. I had no idea what was coming," said...

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Rare Salt Lake Temple garden room painting found

Deseret News - A painting by John Hafen has surfaced at Anthony's Antiques and Fine Arts gallery accompanied with a 1941 letter written by Hafen's son and a paint box that the artist used during his career. Hafen is known for his landscape paintings and his mural work to the Salt Lake City Temple during the 1890s. "The painting was a commission for the First Presidency for the garden room in the Salt Lake City Temple," said Ron Fox, an art enthusiast and president of the Fox Group, Inc. ...

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Little Girl Falls Asleep Watching General Conference

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Homeschoolers love the GOP, except for Romney

Reuters - As the girls dig in to their math problems, Farrier contemplates the Republican presidential candidates who are vying for the support of homeschoolers like her. "They're wooing us. It feels really good," she says. After decades on the margins of political life, homeschoolers have become some of the most valued Republican foot soldiers in Iowa, where a few thousand activists can wield an outsize influence in the first nominating contest in the 2012 presidential election. Four years ago, homeschoolers helped push Mike Huckabee to a surprise victory in the Iowa caucuses over Mitt Romney's better-funded, better organized campaign. ...

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BYU football: Bronco, players weigh in on Cougars' QB quandary

Deseret News - BYU coach Bronco Mendenhall said Monday that he's not ready to name a starting quarterback and that he likely won't do so until the end of the week. The last time Mendenhall had to choose between Jake Heaps and Riley Nelson, just prior to the start of the 2010 season, he announced that Nelson would start but that Heaps would play, which resulted in inconsistent performances from both QBs. ...

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Provo Tabernacle announcement raises mixed emotions

The Daily Herald - When LDS Church President Thomas S. Monson announced Saturday during general conference that the burned-out Provo Tabernacle would be restored and become a temple, watchers in Provo were surprised -- in some cases it was a good surprise, and for others it was not quite what they'd hoped for. Kena Jo Matthews, chairwoman for the Utah Valley Ministerial Association, has fond memories of the tabernacle from her childhood. "It has been such a wonderful community building for so long," Matthews said. "It's amazing what they are doing with it. I'm glad they are keeping the building. Communities are made up of...

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Utah Legislature lauds Mormon church's welfare system

Deseret News - The Utah Legislature passed a resolution Monday recognizing the 75th anniversary of the LDS Church welfare program. The resolution recognizes the significant impact the system has had, both in Utah and throughout the world, and the efforts made by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its members to serve others regardless of religious affiliation. ...