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Wednesday, August 2, 2017

Church News Update

Hello, all! In my first reading of the Church News today, I came upon two interesting articles. Elder H. Bryan Richards, an emeritus general authority, gave the opening keynote address at the BYU Conference on Family History and Genealogy. He shared a wonderful experience about a journey of discovery he took to find information about his family. That news article can be found here.

Second, the Church News also wrote an article about a statement Elder Jeffrey R. Holland made as a follow-up to his address at the Seminar for New Mission Presidents. At the time he shared the story he told during that seminar, he was unaware of some elements of the story that had been embellished by family members. The family reached out to him with the true story, and he wanted to pass that along. I applaud Elder Holland's willingness to issue that clarification. Either version of the story is amazing. To read more about what Elder Holland said about this, click here.

That's it for this Church News update. Thanks for the privilege of your time. Comments are always welcome and appreciated, but I wanted to note that any negative comments about Elder Holland that may arise because of this update will not be tolerated. I have always been and will always be a staunch supporter of the Brethren, and, as amazing as we think they are, they are, like us, imperfect people who are trying to do the best they can to lead and inspire in spite of the weaknesses they may perceive in themselves. Elder Holland did a wonderful job of clarifying the true facts, and that's enough for me. He is still my favorite apostle, and this clarification only served to deepen my respect for him.

I will leave it at that. I will be back again soon with another update. Thanks again for your time. Hope you all are well.

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In addition to my life-long love for the subjects which I cover in the posts of this blog, I have long held the belief that we can disagree without becoming disagreeable. Differences of opinion are natural, while being disagreeable in expressing those differences is not. And in that sense, I have no desire to close the door on anyone who earnestly desires to contribute to the ongoing dialogue on subjects covered in the posts on this blog.

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