Communi-phobia

As I continue to walk my own fine line not fighting for or against same-sex marriage. Most of the criticism I have received is from those on the "against" side who seem to use the teachings of the Prophets to condemn me for "not hating gays enough." I don't think that's the message of the Prophets at all.

Anyhoo, I thought I would like to note that there are a lot of messages popping up on the internets linking Gay Marriage to Communism. Even on claimed LDS affiliated sites. Yep, more evidence of the paranoid style in American politics.

Science AND Religion

Absolutely compatible!

That may be enough to challenge plenty of belief systems. But my daughter, faithful LDS, great Mom, and Jr. High Science Teacher, explains it all so well in this newspaper article from the Salt Lake Tribune:

The Charleston Address

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release

June 26, 2015

Remarks by the President in Eulogy for the Honorable Reverend Clementa Pinckney

College of Charleston
Charleston, South Carolina

2:49 P.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT:  Giving all praise and honor to God.  (Applause.)
  

The Bible calls us to hope. To persevere, and have faith in things not seen.

“They were still living by faith when they died,” Scripture tells us. “They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on Earth.”

We are here today to remember a man of God who lived by faith. A man who believed in things not seen. A man who believed there were better days ahead, off in the distance. A man of service who persevered, knowing full well he would not receive all those things he was promised, because he believed his efforts would deliver a better life for those who followed.

Father's Day Talk: The Refiner's Fire

Posting before we leave for Church to test if anyone in the ward reads the blog - or they can read along to see how I stray from my notes:

Nantyglo, Brynmawr, Wales. 19th Century "Refiner's Fire"

 

Side Channel of Dulas Brook at Cusop Mill By Jaggery (c) licensed for free use under Creative Commons License

No jokes

Happy Father’s Day

Not happy for all

Family history – 9 generations back to Wales – troubles. Oh, yeah

A-5 Returns from Japan: Christ, Covenants, & Gethsemanes

A-5 and Missionary Service in Japan

This is a companion piece to A-6's Missionary Farewell Address as A-6 gave his Homecoming Address in the same Sacrament Meeting:

皆さん, おはようございます! Recently, I returned from the Japan Nagoya Mission. I had the wonderful privilege to serve alongside amazing people. I am grateful today for the opportunity to speak and share some of my experiences. As I speak, I hope that the Spirit will be able to enter your hearts and share with you the message you need.

Before receiving my mission call, late one night at BYU, as I imagined where I would be called to serve, I remember thinking to myself, “I hope I don’t get called to speak Chinese. That would be impossible to learn.” Then I got my call to Japan. I was very surprised. Then quickly came the first day of the MTC. First, I received a name tag that had what looked like hieroglyphics that the Book of Mormon was originally written in. Then I went to my class where my sensei spoke nothing but Japanese to us. I felt like Chris Farley in the SNL skit where he is on a Japanese Game Show.

More DNA Analysis - The Celtic Will Out

Found it.

Yes, you can download and upload the raw DNA data from ancestry and use on other sites. The easiest appears to be gedmatch.com, a "crowd-sourcing" site that needs our financial along with DNA contributions. It's all still very confusing and I still haven't figured out how to look at my Y Chromosome which I seriously need for Welsh connections.

But I found my American Indian percentage! Or at least one of the versions. There are several ways to look at DNA on the Gedwatch site. It scares me to begin to understand them cuz of a little knowledge and stranger-danger, etc. One of the analyses gave me:

Amerindian

0.22%

"The Fall of Adam" A-6's Missionary Farewell Address

A-6 in front went first at Church followed by his older brother just back from Japan

This is the transcript of my youngest son's talk at church for his missionary farewell. He is off to the Ohio! Well, next Wednesday.

It is another family classic:

"Konnichiwa!"

                   Japanese joke, just kidding I’m going to Ohio. Today I’m going to tell the story of “The Fall of Adam.” Many of you are probably pretty familiar with the layout of the generic attic. For those of you that are not, attics are, of course, located on the top of houses or sheds. Attics generally provide support for the roof, using either rafters or trusses to do such. Rafters are types of beams while trusses are triangular pieces of wood. So these rafters are laid out across the attic providing a place to walk if necessary and the safety to do so. The floor of an attic is usually made up of insulation dry wall and sheet rock and is certainly not intended to be walked on, for any reason. Ever. To get into the attic they either will have stairs leading up to it or pull down stairs, or a pull down ladder. You can usually see a section in the ceiling that has these pull down ladders.

White Bread!? My Ancestry.com DNA Results

This is going to take some time to analyze and sink in. I also have to check out all the Ancestry leaf links to see if I can answer the Vaughan paternity questions with distant cousins. But it's a bit depressing to find I'm 100% European with no interesting ethnicity showing.
Ethnicity estimate

APPROXIMATE AMOUNT

Europe100%

• Great Britain56%
• Ireland15%
• Europe West10%
• Scandinavia9%
• Trace Regions
  

  10%
• Europe East6%
• Italy/Greece3%
• Iberian Peninsula< 1%

No Native American? There should at least be a trace from Grandma Peninah. There are other Wood-DNA cousins I can check on that.