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The Little Things

Millennial Star - Long ago, in the days before the internet, I was a timid freshman at Vassar College. Vassar is located in Poughkeepsie, New York, about an hour and a half north of New York City. Though there is a small airport in a town near Vassar, it was significantly cheaper to find your way to NYC and fly in and out of there. There was a shuttle between Poughkeepsie and the NYC airports that was convenient and fairly inexpensive, and it was popular with the Vassar students, so I used that to get the airport when I flew home to Utah for...

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Success Strategies ~ Respecting Parents

Millennial Star - There are certain skills I teach my children for successful communication in my home. Two of the main skills are Following Instructions and Accepting No Answers. These are two of the basic skills for showing respect to parents and for learning how to respect any authority, even God. People who can’t do these basic skills are very noticeable in society. However, learning these skills takes lots of practice and really goes against our selfish tendency to disconnect and disrespect when we are not in control. What most people don’t understand is that knowing how to follow an instruction or accept a...

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Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, my Mom and Dallin Oaks, a Convergence

Mormon Matters - Joseph Smith found language terribly important, and was clear that no translation into English could be perfect because of the limits of the language. Brigham Young expounded on the theme a number of times, that all revelation that came through prophets, all scripture and all records had flaws because of the weaknesses of the language, the impact of culture and other overlays that create the connotations we live with and the sub-texts of our lives. My first memory of a devotional at BYU was of Spencer W. Kimball quoting Brigham Young on how we would go astray if we relied on...

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Huntsman wants to help build cancer hospitals in Middle East

Deseret News - Using diplomacy that focuses on curing cancer, Jon Huntsman Sr. has laid the groundwork to help build a network of cancer hospitals in several countries, including nations in the Middle East. He told the Deseret News on Wednesday that he's been approached multiple times in recent years by government and medical officials at home and abroad who want to use the genetic research now under way at Utah's Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) as the basis for establishing a specialty cancer hospital in their areas. He said he has no estimate for when these hospitals might be built. Researchers and leaders in...

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Elder Holland on the earthquake and life in Chile

LDS Church News - Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve was on a Church assignment in the African nation of Ghana when he received word of the history-making earthquake that sent a portion of Chile into a literal upheaval on Feb. 27. He presided over the Church's Chile Area from August 15, 2002-August 15, 2004, and lived in Santiago. He said that in addition to "the wonderful members of the Church in that country," he met many other Chileans, many of whom hold a tender spot in his heart and with whom he has remained friends. "I got the first indication...

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Meet 'Mahana': 'Lingo' lead actress to lifelong fame

Deseret News - Naomi Kahoilua Wilson insists that making the Mormon film "Johnny Lingo" in 1969 was more like a huge Polynesian luau -- fun coming above film formalities. She's a reliable witness. She was Mahana. She still is, since the role of the shy outcast Mahana has become what Wilson terms a "full-time church calling" as opposed to a character she once played for a 24-minute film. "People have asked me what it's like to be a Mormon icon," Wilson, now 60, said, laughing. "But I think it's more like a Mormon relic." Many would protest Wilson's modesty, since "Lingo" hasn't decreased in...

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I Feel Patriotic When I Sing "Praise to the Man"!

Mormon Mommy Blogs - After I finished my mission in England, I came home for all of three months before I packed my bag and headed off to the states to be an EFY counsellor for the summer. After all, being in England for 18 months, and then heading back home, just four hours away, made me feel like I really hadn't experienced much of the world. In fact, when I was getting my papers ready for my mission, I had actually had the cheek of getting myself a new passport. All in the hope that my righteous act of service would be rewarded in...

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Books on Mormonism show change

Deseret News - The LifeWay Christian Store on South State Street in Salt Lake City has a shelf of LDS literature. These are books, however, that probably not one Mormon in a million will ever read. Basically, they are "defense manuals," handbooks for helping Protestants deal with this ambitious, upstart religion that's out to perform a baptism for every soul who has ever set foot on earth. Last Monday, I spent about an hour thumbing through the books on the Mormon shelf at LifeWay. The books range from "kind and honest" to "kind of honest." They best remind me of the volume "I (heart)...

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Earthquake in Chile: Faith prevails over fear

LDS Church News - Ana Torres Henriquez is a reluctant earthquake veteran. As a Chilean, she's learned first-hand that her country is a seismically-active land. Geologically, the Latin term "Terra Firma" does not apply to Chile. In 1985, Sister Torres Henriquez survived a deadly quake at its epicenter in the coastal city of Valparaiso. Still, nothing from the past prepared this ward Relief Society president for the massive magnitude-8.8 temblor that rattled the central coast of Chile on Feb. 27. "It seemed like the movement of the earthquake was eternal — it never quit," wrote Sister Torres Henriquez in an e-mail shared with friends. The...

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LDS Church works with Cambodian government to aid rice farmers

KSL - Last November, KSL 5 News showed you how Utahns were helping Cambodian children receive education and training that changes their lives. Now, other Utahns, also missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, are working to help rice farmers double their production. The rice fields of Kampong Chhnang province in Cambodia are brown in the dry season, but the farmers who own them have increased production substantially in the last three and a half years. "I went around and spoke to a number of them, and almost every one of them indicated that, personally, the amount of rice that...