I know Mormons are a little different. I don't expect every person everywhere to understand a religion and its culture so well to be experts in everything they say or write.

Within the first few pages of the Book of Mormon, readers come across the names of 11 witnesses, each who has signed his name as someone who has either seen or felt the ancient plates that Joseph Smith used to translate the Book of Mormon.

There was the sound of ripping paper, a well-timed drumroll, and then a pause.

By its own admission, the Book of Mormon is not a perfect text, something the book’s authors and compilers themselves frequently insisted. So what can we learn from these small mistakes that will draw us closer to our Heavenly Father?

Sometimes we joke about teaching Primary in our culture. We tease young married couples that they'll get called into nursery; since they don't have kids of their own, it's only fair they give the other members a break, right? Or we joke about preparing a Primary lesson, saying, "Just bring some treats and play some games. The kids will love you for it."

The Pacific Northwest is home of the Hoh Rain Forest, where the majority of the trees are several hundred years old. The forest is so dense that the only chance young seedlings have of survival is when one of the great trees falls. Light that was once unable to reach the ground now breaks through the foliage to nourish the seedlings that begin to grow in the trunk of the fallen tree. This tree is called a “nurse log.” It provides moisture, nutrients, and disease protection to the young trees that have taken root in its trunk. Hundreds of years later the only evidence that remains of the nurse log is a perfectly straight row of magnificent trees. Like the nurse logs in the Hoh Rain Forest, our legacy as mothers is often evident only after our work is done.The world does very little honor the role of mothers. However, when all is said and done, what we do with our family within the walls of our own home has far more influence on society as a whole than anything else. Elder Neal A. Maxwell said:

It’s been a year since David Archuleta was the featured artist of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas concert.

Eight outstanding Utahns, including a high leader in the LDS Church, were honored Tuesday at the 52nd annual Bronze Minuteman Awards Dinner of the Utah National Guard. In a ceremony at the Little America Hotel, the award recipients were President Boyd K. Packer of the Quorum of the Twelve of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake Chamber President Lane Beattie, Salt Lake City Police Chief Chris Burbank; Mark and Sally Dietlein of the Hale Center Theater; Master Sgt. (Ret.) Mark B. Harrison; Gail Miller, who built a Utah business empire with her late husband Larry; and, in a surprise announcement, Patti Griffith, who organized the program but was unaware of her award before her name was announced.

I read with interest Dennis Prager’s article expressing his sorrow over President Bush’s recent speech at a Jews for Jesus gathering in Texas. While he strongly defended Evangelical Christians in general, Mr. Prager joined virtually every other Jewish writer in denouncing the Messianic Jewish group. I was particularly interested in his observation that to Jews, the claim of Jews for Jesus that they remain Jewish in spite of their Christian beliefs is analogous to Evangelicals’ reaction to Mormons’ claim to be Christians. While the disdain expressed by Jews and some Evangelicals is similar, there is an important difference in the dynamics of those relationships that needs to be clarified in this space. Whether or not one agrees with Jews in their rejection of Jews for Jesus and other Messianic groups that target Jews for conversion, it’s hard to argue that Jews don’t have the right to determine who is a Jew, at least in the religious sense. If Jewish leaders choose to accept atheists as Jews while rejecting those who accept Jesus Christ as their Savior, it is their right and privilege to do so.

This Super Bowl Sunday, church may be as jarring as a quarterback sack for some worshippers who, after settling into their pews, discover that the subject of the morning's sermon is pornography.