Sunday, March 18, 2007

Church News

So much to write, yet so little time as we move this week to our new house a mile away from our current abode. So I'll save some of my nuggets for next week.

But I wanted to let everyone know that Kathryn had a great article published in this week's Church News about a new branch that was created in our stake. I believe it's page 13, and it's a full page.

On a related note, a couple of thoughts about the Church News:

1. It kind of follows a double standard when it profiles new mission presidents, temple presidents, General Authorities, etc. Why is it the style to publish the age of the priesthood holder, but never the age of his wife? Of course, I'm smart enough to know why that is, but if it's not relevant to know the wife's age, why is it relevant to know the male's age?

2. Of course, I'm glad they publish the male's age. I always look to find the youngest-called mission presidents. And I've noticed a trend. If you don't want to be called as a mission president when you are super young, don't work for the church!!! Seems like all 39 year old presidents are CES, BYU or some other job with the church. Working for the church seems to be like putting a red beacon on your head that says: "Hey coach, send me in as a mission president while I'm young".

3. If all callings are of equal importance, in theory, and the most important callings are HT, father and husband (for males), why do they list all the former callings of a new mission president? Does their past experience need to be listed to show they are qualified? I thought "he that is called is qualified", so shouldn't that be enough? And how relevant is it to their calling at age 65 that they were a Sunday School president at age 25?

Sunday, March 11, 2007

Daylight Savings Time

A short post today...I used some of my writing time drafting a letter to "Sue Sue" on her mission instead of blogging:

1. I don't have an issue with the whole Daylight Savings Time in principle. And I really like the earlier start time as NYC is at the start of the Eastern Time Zone which means it can really light really early in the morning, which means kids rise earlier. (Mid to late March was always like "running out the clock" to get to Daylight Savings Time as it would get sunny too soon).

But here's my issue: What idiot decided that 2 a.m. would be the PERFECT time to lose an hour? Sure, it works great in the fall when we gain an hour. Who doesn't love an extra hour of sleep. But seriously...does anyone really desire to give up an hour of sleep? Why don't we lose that hour when we're doing something we hate....or at least gets us to the weekend faster? How cool would it be if we lost that hour at 4 p.m. on Friday....we'd all get to leave work early and have a longer weekend.

For that matter....nearly ANY hour lost during the work week would be preferable to having one less hour on a weekend.

I realize from a practical matter it has to be the nighttime. But at least make it Friday night to Saturday morning so we have a couple of days to adjust to it before having to go to work


2. We've been doing a lot of packing...and purging...this weekend. When I looked in one trash bag, I saw a handful of Christmas toys for the kids from a couple of years ago. Makes you think about the "shelf life" of the things we buy.

I wondered if our purchasing habits would be different if we had to have an "exit strategy" for every item we bought (i.e determining ahead of time when and how we'd discard the item after it had served its usefulness). If we had to commit to keeping -- and using -- something for a full year (under threat of a penalty for not adhering) I think we'd second guess a lot of our purchases. Just think what that money could be used for. Even realizing that some of the things we buy are more disposable than we think (i.e. we'll trash them in a year or so) would provide a sober reality.

And if we were brutally honest, we'd probably admit that 90 percent of the things we buy for our kids for Christmas get tossed aside within three months. Of course....being a marketer of toys, I can't have too many realize that or I'd be out of a job.

Sunday, March 4, 2007

Training from an Area Authority 70

Admittedly, last week's posting was lame, but I was tired yet still wanted to keep my promise of a "post a week".

Tonight, here are some thoughts and such from an early morning training we had with Elder Kim Smith, our area authority 70.

1. To the older men in the audience who were bishops: Don't think you can't relate to the youth. Pres. Hinckley is 96 or so and can you think of anyone who relates better with the youth than he?

2. Did you know that the only time a President does NOT choose his councilors in the church are when it's a YM president? The new handbook confirms that. The Bishop calls the President of the YM AND the councilors as they oversee a specific group of boys within the AP.

3. We must all ensure the church is keeping true to the Church Handbook. As a councilor, it's OK to point out that something isn't according to handbook. The handbook represents safety, and we should all protect ourselves by doing whatever it takes to adhere to it.

4. YM need to learn how to SERVE, not just be entertained. After all, missions and EQ sure aren't about being entertained!

5. Bishops are too quick to write welfare checks. By doing so, they are preventing a unique teaching opportunity from occurring.

6. When someone seeks welfare assistance, a Bishop should ask how their extended family is helping them out as that's the first line of defense. He shared an example of a brother to whom he wasn't close that needed help. The Bishop told him to ask his family first, and he said he was embarrassed. But now he and that brother are very close. (So, to my family...anyone need help?!)

7. Elder Bednar had said at a training recently that the Devil has increased his intensity so if we are at just the same level of spirituality as in the past, we're actually losing ground. (It's like my company....if we make the same amount of money from year to year, we actually make less profit as salaries have gone up, rent has gone up, etc. and we have less left over as profit). If you are doing LESS than you have normally done, you're losing ground twice as fast. So we need to make an active effort at increasing our level of spirituality.

Mark