What an incredible accomplishment.

Members from all over the Philippines are celebrating as their country opens up its 100th LDS stake.

When Richard L. Elliott seats himself at the polished cherrywood of the Conference Center organ in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, the 7,667 wind-powered pipes translate the music of his soul into something others can enjoy.

Two growing forces in conservative politics are on a collision course: xenophobic nationalism and Mormonism. The Tea Party movement, with its rejection of Chamber of Commerce-type Republican elites, rose-tinted view of America’s past, and belief in self-reliance and small government, has reinvigorated isolationist nationalism within the GOP. Though much of the movement’s rhetoric has lately focused on public spending, suspicion of all things foreign—be they immigrants, overseas military missions, or Obama’s family roots—is one of the Tea Party’s animating forces.

The father takes a Fanta bottle in his hand and whacks it against a rock. CRACK. With the broken glass, he carves a name onto a roughly constructed wooden cross: "Cesilia." Nearby, the mother, draped limp and unmoving over a child-sized wooden casket, doesn't make a sound. A wiry black woman, body hardened by a life of hauling water and working in the fields of rural Mozambique, her eyes are blank, as lifeless as the five-year-old girl she is burying. The funeral doesn't take long. Friends gather around as the men of the family take turns digging the grave. They sing as the casket is lowered into the ground along with the child's few belongings — a bundle of frayed clothing, a few handmade toys. The melody is heavy with the tears they don't shed.

Celebrated news anchor Tom Brokaw joins the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the Orchestra at Temple Square for a special Music and the Spoken Word which commemorates the ten-year anniversary of 9/11. The special, entitled “9/11: Rising Above,” will air on radio, television, cable networks and Internet channels around the country.Choir music director Mack Wilberg said the program will focus on how Americans have risen above the grief and loss of that September day. “The message of this show is that—as individuals and as a nation—we can find healing and strength in adversity and literally rise above all the negatives.”

Two plays about Mormonism are scheduled to premiere shortly in the northeastern United States. According to advance publicity, one of them "chronicles the days leading up to Christmas, 1825, when Joseph Smith Jr. and his father, on the run from the law as confidence men and scammers, return in disgrace to the family farm in upstate New York to save their house from being repossessed. In the process of escaping the clutches of both their creditors and the investors they'd recently fleeced, they lay the foundations of Mormonism." It purports to be "based on historical accounts of Mormonism's early years." The other play, a musical, will likely be somewhat less reverent.

As the "Mormon moment" extends into 2012, the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life Thursday releases a groundbreaking new survey, the first ever published by a non-LDS research organization to focus exclusively on members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and their beliefs, values, perceptions and political preferences.Entitled "Mormons in America: Certain in Their Beliefs, Uncertain of Their Place in Society," the survey was conducted between Oct. 25 and Nov. 16, 2011, among a national sample of 1,019 respondents who identified themselves as Mormons. The results validate a number of long-held stereotypes (most American Mormons are white, well-educated, politically conservative and religiously observant) while providing a few interesting surprises (care for the poor and needy is high on the list of LDS priorities, while drinking coffee and watching R-rated movies aren't as taboo among the rank and file as you might think).

Note: It is a pleasure to have Margaret Blair Young contribute to JI’s monthlong series on issues of Race and Mormonism. Margaret Blair Young has written extensively on Blacks in the western USA and particilarly Black Latter-day Saints. Much of her work has been co-authored with Darius Gray. She authored I Am Jane. The first staged reading of I Am Jane was on the Nelke theater stage at BYU. It was the climax of a playwriting class, and met some deserved criticism. It was, as I recall, about 120 pages. Too many words. The first draft I wrote used a clichéd convention: rebellious teenager dreams about/ learns about/ re-enacts the life of a heroic ancestor and gains self-respect and courage. But such a play is more about the teen than the character whose life I wanted to explore. And I was researching it even as I was scripting the play.

A gathering of volunteers — all spouses and associates of U.S. governors — stood shoulder-to-shoulder on Thursday assembling hygiene kits at the Latter-day Saint Humanitarian Center in Salt Lake City.