Miscellaneous Church News Reported

Hello again, everyone! I wanted to post again now to share some Church news which has crossed my radar in the last few hours or so. Yesterday, the Church News published the latest edition of their series "This Week on Social".

Featured posts included thoughts from 5 members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostle, including: a video of Elder Quentin L. Cook following last week's Face-to-Face Event for Young Adults (in which he took time to answer additional questions that had been submitted about the new Church History series), Elder D. Todd Christofferson addressing the power of the scriptures, Elder Ronald A. Rasband expressing gratitude for those who participated in the recent "National Weekend of Prayer" as per the Church's request, Elder Gerrit.W. Gong describing how following a spiritual prompting brought peace when something unexpected occurred in his life, Elder Ulisses Soares sharing his personal thoughts about visiting his homeland of Brazil for the first time following his call to the apostleship, and Sister Michelle D. Craig, First Counselor in the Young Women General Presidency, who provided more insight about how Church members can follow the invitation of President Nelson to "stay on the covenant path. As the Church moves further into the age of technology, it is a blessing to have these regularly-posted insights from Church leaders.

The Church News also continued the tradition of featuring articles written by general auxiliary presidencies. In an article from the Young Women General Presidency, insights are shared regarding how the involvement of Laurels and Mia Maids in ministering assignments can help the young women themselves, their senior companions, and those to whom they are assigned to minister.

I was personally gratified when the Church retired home and visiting teaching in favor of ministering and when we learned that 14-18 year-old young women would have the opportunity to serve alongside the Relief Society in such efforts. I recall with fondness the memories I have of being a teacher and priest assigned to visit families in company with elders and high priests and how formative those experiences were for me, and I am glad that the same opportunity is now being extended to young women of the same age. I was likewise touched to learn that each current member of the Young Women General Presidency has a Mia Maid or Laurel as her ministering companion.

This next story was not published by the Church News, but was covered by KSL, and may be of interest to some of you. I have previously referenced the story of Sam Young, the former bishop who recently went on a hunger strike to protest the Church's policies and practices relating to the format and tone of bishop's interviews with the youth. KSL reported today that Brother Young has been excommunicated by his local leaders.

The unfortunate thing about cases such as those of Brother Young and Kate Kelly, who heads up the Ordain Women movement is that they seem to feel justified in their belief that their concerns are not being taken seriously enough, and that the decision of their local leaders to excommunicate them is more a result of the Church not taking their concerns seriously enough than it is a result of their unwillingness to sustain Church leaders and respect the process by which Church policies have been decided.

It boggles my mind more than a little that such individuals seem to think they know more about the way the Church should do things or about what the Lord's will is than those that have been appointed to lead. And the real tragedy is that when they have been notified that the continuation of such attitudes, expressions and actions may result in excommunication, when such disciplinary action is taken, they fail to acknowledge their own culpability in the issues that led to that occurring.

Such instances seem to arise based on a misconception that the local or general leaders of the Church are not as informed on such issues as they need to be. And I don't know why such assumptions are ever made. The Church has clarified more fully in recent days how Church leaders go about determining the positions that become official statements. On issues about which they have limited experience, they solicit the opinions and insights of individuals who are more qualified to weigh in on those decisions. And nothing official is announced until they are fully confident that the positions they are formulating are in harmony with the will of the Lord.

We saw that process just recently. Having obtained the opinions of medical professionals and governmental leaders who are qualified to weigh in on such issues, the Church joined a coalition here in Utah which has taken a position against the current wording of an initiative which will go before Utah voters and would, if passed, legalize medical marijuana.

Although the statement of the coalition and that of Church leadership is clear that the problem is the current wording of the initiative, and that the Church could and likely will get on board with a different measure that would enable legal use of marijuana as medicine but provide safeguards against and penalties for those who use it illegally, the majority who criticize the coalition's position (and the Church's support of it in particular) are decrying the fact that the Church is trying to hurt those who would benefit from using it as a medicine.

But it generally seems to be the case that if individuals or groups have any preconceived perception about the Church, its' leaders, or officially-released policies and practices, such individuals are less likely to see the thoughtful and thorough way the Church and its' leaders craft a position before anything is ever officially released. And that is tragic indeed.

Sorry to get on my soapbox. But issues like what led to Brother Young's recent excommunication and how the Church got on board with the coalition opposing the wording of the initiative as it now stands.have been greatly misunderstood by individuals who assert that their position on the subject is more thoroughly-researched than those the Church and its' leaders on any level have taken, and that is simply not the case.

In other news, President Nelson is now in British Colombia, and he will address a gathering of Saints there later tonight. I will carry a report of that devotional here as soon as information on it is available. I do continue to monitor all Church news and temple developments and will do my best to bring word of those to you as I receive it.

That does it for this post. Any and all comments are, as always, welcome and appreciated. Thank you for the privilege of your time. If you enjoyed what you read here and would like to stay informed of newly-added content, please feel free to subscribe. Until my next post, I wish each one of you all the best and pray that the Lord will bless you all in everything you do.