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Has He Really Been In Office For A Year?
Barack Obama meets with the Queen of England. He asks her, “Your Majesty, how do you run such an efficient government? Are there any tips you can give to me?”
“Well,” says the Queen, “the most important thing is to surround yourself with intelligent people.”
Obama frowns “But how do I know the people around me are really intelligent?”
The Queen takes a sip of tea. “Oh, that’s easy. You just ask them to answer an intelligent riddle.” The Queen pushes a button on her intercom. “Please send Tony Blair in here, would you?”
Tony Blair walks into the room. “Yes, my Queen?”
The Queen smiles. “Answer me this, please, Tony. Your mother and father have a child. It is not your brother and it is not your sister. Who is it?”
Without pausing for a moment, Tony Blair answers, “That would be me.”
“Yes! Very good,” says the Queen.
Obama goes back home to ask Joe Biden, his vice president, the same question. “Joe. Answer this for me. Your mother and your father have a child. It’s not your brother and it’s not your sister. Who is it?”
“I’m not sure,” says Biden. “Let me get back to you on that one.” He goes to his advisors and asks every one, but none can give him an answer. Finally, he ends up in the men’s room and recognizes Colin Powell’s shoes in the next stall.
Biden asks Powell, “Colin! Can you answer this for me? Your mother and father have a child and it’s not your brother or your sister. Who is it?”
Colin Powell yells back, “That’s easy. It’s me!”
Biden smiles, and says, “Thanks!” Then, he goes back to speak with Obama.
“Say, I did some research and I have the answer to that riddle. It’s Colin Powell.”
Obama gets up, stomps over to Biden, and angrily yells into his face, “No, you idiot! It’s Tony Blair!”
2009 Football Pool!
Are you ready for some football? I created a football pool three years ago and invited family and friends to join. The winner gets a $10 gift certificate to Dairy Queen. I can taste that large Chocolate Extreme Blizzard now!
I invite you to sign up for the EM football pool and join in the fun. In order to join, you must register as a user at http://www.poolhost.com/ When registering, you will choose a personal username and password. Once you’ve entered PoolHost.com as a registered user, go to the ‘User Tools’ menu and choose ‘Join a Private Pool’. Click on the “Pro Football Pick’em” icon in the upper left corner and then you will be asked to enter the Pool’s Login Name and the Pool’s Password.
For the Pool’s Login Name type: EMfootballpool
For the Pool’s Password type: football
That’s it and then you’re in! The next time you login in to http://www.poolhost.com/, you can go to ‘My Pools’ and you’ll see all pools that you belong to. Clicking on a pool name will take you to that pool. You can switch to a different pool by going to ‘My Pools’ again at any time. To Register, click here: http://www.poolhost.com/index.asp?page=register.asp
If you read this after tomorrow night’s game, don’t worry about it. Just be honest and tell me who you would have picked. I can enter it in for you after the deadline.
Mormon Miracle Pageant 2009
I am sitting in Bill McKeever’s kitchen and this is the FIRST chance I have had to update you on our 2009 mission trip at the Mormon Miracle Pageant in Manti, Utah. This has been a weird year as I will explain in a later report.
For now, I am going to take this opportunity to post a YouTube video I made while standing in front of the Oqiuirrh Mountain, Utah Mormon Temple. We had just finished taking our temple tour last Tuesday (the day we flew into Utah) when I had the idea for this Quick Question For Mormons.
Before the temple tour, we saw a video in which Jeffrey R. Holland, one of the twelve “Apostles” of the Mormon church, states something that I find to be incredibly offensive. I’ve seen this video before, but it was just as offensive this time around as when I first saw it. Here is my video.
Rain Dance By Little Miss Walker
Our daughter loves ballet and has been practicing this dance for awhile. She was finally able to perform it last week… in the rain! The wind was pushing her around a bit so she was not as graceful as usual. Still, we are VERY proud of our little girl!
As always, we do not mention the names of our children on the internet. Any comment which does so will be deleted.
Manti Training For 2009
It is that time of year again! We begin training and preparing our Manti Mission Team for the mission trip in June. That is the good news. The better news is that the training is open to Christians who wants to learn more about Mormonism and how to witness to them. We will conduct seven weekly training sessions starting on Monday, April 27 and will go through Monday, June 8. We will be meeting at Community Bible Church in portable 2 (the portables are behind the church building) from 7:00 to 8:30 PM. Childcare is available with advance notice. Please email Becky ASAP to arrange for your childcare. We will need your child’s date of birth and your cell phone number.
Our class schedule is as follows.
April 27- Introductions and The Mormon Puzzle Video.
May 4- The Mormon World View of Exaltation.
May 11- Mormonism’s Impossible Gospel Part 1.
May 18- Mormonism’s Impossible Gospel Part 2.
May 25- Explaining the Gospel to Mormons.
June 1- God Is Not A Man.
June 8- Role-playing to apply what you have learned.
Our training sessions are always fun and informative. You will learn more about Mormonism than you ever thought you could know. You will gain a heart for the Mormon people and will be equipped to reach out in love to those who are lost. Training materials will be available for purchase. We look forward to seeing you there!
From The Jewel box # 26
3/09
I was eating supper with the two older kids when our oldest son said, “I don’t like that song.” A veggie tales CD was playing in the background and the song which just came on was The Hokey Pokey. I asked, “Why don’t you like this song?”
It just doesn’t make any sense.
What about it doesn’t make sense?
Well, it never really tells you what it’s all about.
You know, he’s got a point…
*******
Important note: We will not reveal the names of our children on this blog. Any comment that mentions our children’s names will be deleted. It is nothing personal, we just feel that it is an important safety measure for our family. If you would like to read the other FTJB entries, click on the “From the Jewel Box” link in the side bar on the right or on the Jewel Box icon at the end of this paragraph. Come on parents! Feel free to share special jewels from your precious children. Just know that on this blog, our kids are the cutest! 
From The Jewel Box # 25
1/23/09
Our oldest daughter recently lost her two front teeth. When I told her that she had a lisp, she asked the following question.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64WMAXQS0qA&hl=en&fs=1]
*******
Important note: We will not reveal the names of our children on this blog. Any comment that mentions our children’s names will be deleted. It is nothing personal, we just feel that it is an important safety measure for our family. If you would like to read the other FTJB entries, click on the “From the Jewel Box” link in the side bar on the right or on the Jewel Box icon at the end of this paragraph. Come on parents! Feel free to share special jewels from your precious children. Just know that on this blog, our kids are the cutest!
A Contrast In Attitudes
I recently received an e-mail from one of my colleagues, Aaron Shafovaloff of Mormonism Research Ministry, about a former Mormon who apologized to him via email. Aaron forwarded this email to others in the ministry as an encouragement for us. I asked the original writer if I could share it here and other places. He gave me permission as along as I keep his name confidential. We’ll call him “Chuck.” Here is Chuck’s letter to Aaron as is and in its entirety.
Dear Aaron, I remember (under a former YouTube name) mocking or criticizing several of your videos on Mormonism. I was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and felt that your videos created false accusations against the Church and my faith. I thought of you as a hateful and spiteful person. As the times have turned, I realized that I was wrong. I was the one who was hateful and spiteful and I would like to as for your forgiveness. The reason why I have changed my opinions came when I was reading scripture and came across Matthew 7:22-23 : On that day many will say to me ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in Your name, drive out demons in Your name, and do many miracles in Your name?’ Then I will announce to them, ‘I never knew you! Depart from Me, you law-breakers!’ I was frozen on these two verses and all I could feel was fear. I couldn’t explain it at first, but all I felt was a paralyzing fear from the words of Jesus. Then the thought came across my mind, “What if I am one who Jesus Christ will turn away from the kingdom of God?”
I since then started to conduct serious research into Mormonism, its histories and claims, if they were compatible with the Bible (also did the same for Evangelical Christian beliefs), and if the Church projected an accurate and fair picture of its history. First, I found that many parts of our history are not talked about too often. I found some of our contreversal beliefs are never explained, nor taught by missionaries until well after baptism. I also discovered that many of these things never make it into our LDS videos because they, “Are not necessary and ideal in promoting the spiritual aspects and faith promoting material of Joseph Smith.” I quickly realized that we, as a Church, were deliberately deceptive of our faith and hid or destorted facts on plural marriage, views on race, exaltation of humans into godhood, and many other things.
After looking how our doctrine compared to the Bible, it made clear sense as to why we needed additional scripture. Either the doctrine unique to Mormonism needed the Book of Mormon, Doctrine & Covenants, or the Pearl of Great Price to back it up or scripture from the Bible needed to be distorted beyond its meaning. When I e-mailed FAIR LDS about how certain passages were met to be read versus how they translated them, the response I got was, “That is one way you could translate it. Unfortunately, there was just so much confusion that we needed as restoration to understand these things.” However, when examining these “Abomamable Creeds of Christendom” I realized that all their statements come straight out of the Bible! They were just formulated to give names to Biblically accepted beliefs such as Holy Trinity. I was more in shock to realize that all Protestants, Catholics, and Eastern Orthodox Churches were in mutual agreement with these creeds which were (as a learned later on) were very historical to the early Christian views.
So, I have left the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints after having to be force to conclude that it was not of God nor Christ. So, I choose to accept Jesus Christ as my savior and worship him always and not the Jesus of Joseph Smith. I want to thank you for your ministries (especially Mormonism Research Ministry which I obtain valuable information concerning Mormonism) and hope that you continue to serve Christ in your every day life. Once again, I am deeply sorry for comments I left on your videos because those statements were the real lies and deceptions.
God bless,
Chuck
What an encouraging letter! I frequently get posts from Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses who claim that I am wasting my time on YouTube or with our ministry in general. My response is 1) I do not think pursuing the souls of men is a waste of time and 2) they do not receive the private correspondence we receive. It is these kinds of letters that encourage us to keep doing what we do. As you can imagine, the majority of the responses we receive are not this encouraging. Meet Larry. If you have been following our blog for awhile, you may remember Larry.
Last year, I posted a blog about a Mormon man who challenged me on Topix. You can read that post here if you are interested. To make a long story short, things did not go well with Larry. He eventually became even more unreasonable and likened me to a murderer and a rapist for engaging in our ministry. At that point, I thought it was best to ignore Larry’s comments until I received an apology. I have done so until recently.
Once I remembered that Larry lives near the city in which I will be attending an apologetics conference, I decided to post to Larry in hopes that we could meet in person and settle our differences. The Topix post is titled An attempt at peace with Larry. For the sake of time, I will reproduce just my original post to him and his answer.
My post
Larry,
You and I have a misunderstanding that I would like to clear up. You also owe me an apology for likening me to a murderer and rapist for simply being a critic of your religion. I would like to resolve our differences and clear up your misunderstanding and we have an opportunity to do so face to face. I will be in Kansas City for a conference in March (http://www.emnr.org/conference.html ) and would like to meet you.
I look forward to meeting you and resolving our issues so we can get on to the positive discussions we use to have. If you aren’t careful, we might even become friends. 😉
Larry’s Response
Let me first say Keith I am not avoiding you. I have spent the last three days in the hospital. As for you offer you can put it and your demand for an appology were the sun dont shine. You claim I compaired you to a murderer and rapest, what I did was to point out that you are no different than the ministers who through their words led people into mob action that led to those crimes. I pointed out that you called LDS foreigners in Chrsitian America including those LDS who have spilt their own blood for this country. Just like those ministers of old you have a ministry that has no other purpose than to attack religions you do not like. Just like those ministers you feel people with lies and half truths to stire up problems for the LDS CHurch. You do not go out and commit acts of violence against the LDS neither did the ministers of old. YOu do however through your lies lead people to actions that you can the deny any aprt of. Why then would I want to wast my time on you?
Is it me or are some Mormons not anywhere near as nice as the Mormons on those TV commercials? I must admit that I was disappointed with Larry’s response. I offer peace, but he would rather hang on to hatred. This guy is really one tough nut to crack and regardless of how nice I try to be to him, he simply does not see the need to respond in kind.
After I read his response, I was quickly reminded of “Chuck’s” encouraging words to Aaron and his kind email to me. In it he stated, “While I was in Mormonism and was blinded from truth… anybody who showed me the truth out of love felt hateful in my eyes. A ministry like yours, to me, was nothing more than a hate group who persecuted me for my beliefs. I now realize that yours (and several others) ministries is to help the LDS people obtain true salvation for we are all blinded by a false gospel administered by a false prophet. I think when my eyes was opened to Christ’s love and grace, that my heart was more recieving of the love of others and the need to right my wrongs with the followers of Christ. I look at what you guys do and it is tough love… the fact that you do have to speak against Mormonism, but the love of someone who cares about a complete stranger’s ability to one day be in heaven. Thanks for what you do!”
Chuck is right. This kind of love is tough, but it is worth it. I share this contrast, not in an attempt to make Larry look bad, but for the purpose of encouraging the Christian reader that God does indeed save the lost. If you are discouraged because of someone in your life who is giving you a hard time about Christianity, just remember “Chuck.” God is still in the business of doing miracles. I hope that one day Larry will come to his senses having escaped the snare of the Devil (2nd Timothy 2:24-26) and will one day be able to write a letter like Chuck’s. Please join me in prayer for Larry.
A CHRISTmas Thought
CHRISTmas 2008 is now past and we are currently in that awkward “in-between” time of CHRISTmas and New Year’s eve. The Holy-day season is not over, yet it doesn’t feel quite right to continue to listen to CHRISTmas music. Our family is still trying to hang on to the spirit of the season as we began a new family tradition.
Starting this year, our family will watch A CHRISTmas Carol at least once during the CHRISTmas season. I’m partial to the 1984 version with George C. Scott.
Our two oldest kids are six and seven so we had to answer a bunch of questions about the story.
“Are the ghosts good or bad?”
“Why is the ‘first spirit’ really the second one to appear?”
“How were those two kids underneath the robe of the second spirit really the kids of Mr. Scrooge?”
“Was tiny Tim a Christian?”
“Do we have any more popcorn left?”
“How heavy were those chains?”
“How can Mr. Scrooge see his body under the covers if he is already in his body?”
As the kids get older, I’m sure the questions will become more profound.
I was reminded this morning through a YouTube video that we are to keep the spirit of CHRISTmas in our hearts all through the year. The following video is a very neat little way to get people to think about what is inside of them. Enjoy the video and remember to let the spirit of the Holy-days continue to influence your life all through the year.
Happy 6th Birthday!
Happy birthday son! Our little boy is already six years old! We had a great day on the 21st as Mommy “built” a special birthday cake for our son. Becky lets the kids pick a cake out of a cake book that they would like her to make. Our son wanted a castle cake so Becky “built” it for him. Since the castle is green, we pretended that Shrek lived there and we ate his house.
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