Economic Crisis- Reflections from an honest journalist,

Here's a reflection of a really honest writer from the N.Y. Times, Edmund Andrews:

My Personal Credit Crisis

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/magazine/17foreclosure-t.html?_r=2&ref=magazine&pagewanted=all

Phil Kesler: Testimony of a Friend

Today I read the testimony of one of a friend and former roommate at Utah State-

Phil Kesler.

He passed away the eve of February 11th after bravely battling cancer for about two years.

Phil was my roommate for 3 years, from the summer of 1996 until the summer of 1999.

He was a faithful friend to all that he knew, and faithful to his God.

I have a lot of good memories- his honesty, kindness, frankness, patience, musical talent (on Sunday mornings we all rested in the beautiful hymns he played on his piano in the living room of our townhouse).

Sometimes some of us (Phil, Mark, etc.) would stay up late in our apartment in North Logan and would just chat, enjoying a late, peaceful night sharing thoughts on the Gospel, life, dating, etc.

Heidi, a long-time neighbor and friend, married Phil several years later. They now have a beautiful daughter. What a lucky woman. They are both great examples to me.

I truly enjoyed reading Phil's testimony and am grateful Heidi shared it. I remember that he often would study his scriptures at the kitchen table, recording his thoughts in a large notebook. I think of that often.

Amen Phil!

Thanks for all you give.

Love, your brother,

Loren

p.s. Read the last several posts from Heidi here:

http://bamamoma2.blogspot.com,

especially,

NOT the Only One

Phil the Brave

More here from Phil's friends and acquaintances:

it stays with us

Another Angel

Remembering Phil - by Jill Bearden

Tribute to Phil

Voice Male web site

Drawing on other's words - updated links

Know your faith!

Impressive!

Know what you believe:

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles_of_faith/2009/03/mormon_tv_harva.html

http://vimeo.com/2120177

Mormon Temples

You may have heard a lot in the news recently about the Mormons (members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) and their belief in temple worship. Like Frank Moore Cross, professor of Ancient History at Harvard, states in the following video:

"Someone who does not know much about temples, and Mormons building temples, should be directed to the Bible."

The Old and New Testament are full of descriptions of temples and their purpose. Of course, since the coming of Jesus Christ and the fulfillment of the Mosaic Law, temples serve a different, although identical, or parallel purpose: providing a sacred place where we can go to make an offering to the Lord.

The Savior asks us to come unto him and live as He does. His joy is fulfilled in our desire to seek others' welfare as we commhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifit ourselves to God's work and glory: "to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man." - Moses 1:39

Primary resources on temples:

The purpose of temples and see temples around the world.
More questions? See the FAQ page.

The power of Women

I received an e-mail recently that had an article on the correlation between the safety/security of women and the relative peacefulness of the nations in which they live.

I quote from the BYU news release:

The researchers spent seven years building a new database that covers 260 factors regarding the treatment of women in 174 countries. Then they used that data to show a statistically significant relationship between the security of women and peacefulness of nations.

This research is available at http://womanstats.org and boasts that is has "the most comprehensive compilation of information on the status of women in the world."

Valerie Hudson is the project's lead.

I further quote from the article:

"We suggest that the root of what we call national security may actually lie in a very unusual or unexpected place, and that is the treatment of women in society," says lead author Valerie Hudson, BYU professor of political science. "We offer what we consider to be fairly strong preliminary empirical evidence based on our new database that this is a viable alternative hypothesis."

The researchers compared their findings regarding the treatment of women with commonly held explanations for peacefulness: levels of democracy, levels of wealth and identity of the civilization. The association with peace was strongest with the treatment of women.

"If you used all four variables to try to predict state peacefulness, the one that would give you the best predictions of the four would be violence against women," Hudson found.

Hudson and her co-authors acknowledge that the relationship they observed can operate in the other direction, that is, state insecurity and violence can exaggerate the insecurity of women. And they say much further research is necessary before their results can be considered authoritative.

Of course this is stating the obvious, but think about it- the nation who values and seeks the security of womanhood is the most peaceful... why would it not be so? Seek the security of women, and the family, and the security of the nation will follow.

So, when we're told to be especially nice to girls, we'd better listen...


But what about the men? What effect do they have on a nation? How about this article, entitled "Bare Branches" compiled by the same team, that is forecasting major problems for China, a nation with a culture that values male children over female. They will apparently be faced with 30 million surplus men in about 10 years...

Chinese leader Hu Jintao, reviews the troops... this will be quite a task in about 10 years...