Immigration and Mormons

A few months ago, Bishop Burton of the LDS church spoke out in favor of Utah's Immigration bill which set up a guest worker program (or the dirty word "amnesty"). Many conservatives took issue with Burton's presence. Arturo Morales-LLan, head of Legal Immigrants for Immigration Law Enforcement said “David Burton has a right to be present or to be involved in any affairs concerning the faith, but he does not speak for the First Presidency.” He added that he won’t believe that the church supports these reform efforts until he sees an official statement from the LDS First Presidency itself. (see here)

Well, today the church released an official statement on immigration (see here) which included passages such as these:

The history of mass expulsion or mistreatment of individuals or families is cause for concern especially where race, culture, or religion are involved. This should give pause to any policy that contemplates targeting any one group, particularly if that group comes mostly from one heritage.

this issue is one that must ultimately be resolved by the federal government

The Church supports an approach where undocumented immigrants are allowed to square themselves with the law and continue to work without this necessarily leading to citizenship.

In summary: the church acknowledged and denounced the racial component to the immigration debate, the church noted that immigration is not some 10th amendment item (aka states rights) but is a federal issue, and the church came out in support of amnesty (ie. no deportation). It sounds like the church supports allowing illegals to join a guest worker program or to be on a path to Legal Permanent Resident status, and are open to the idea of a path to citizenship (just not necessarily to citizenship).

I'd love to hear from mormons who feel this is at odds with your beliefs. I'd like to hear your thoughts and how you're dealing with this.

(Only?) True and Living Church

The [only] true and living church... (losing the only)

Freestyle Rowing - New Olympic Sport?

Just imagine it. I want to see couples rowing, where each couple is in their own canoe.

ROFL

Russian Profanity Part 1

I had a few people tell me how much they love the story of the missionary trying to say "Job" and inadvertently dropping the F-Bomb in a discussion. It reminded me of a certain lesson I taught for the language lesson in district meetings at the end of my mission. It was a lesson on profanity. I knew so many missionaries who had accidentally profaned on several occasions that it seemed a lesson dedicated to it would be useful. It pretty much amounted to me telling these stories.

A young missionary was trying to teach about prophets. He said: "God speaks to prophets and He says: 'Blah blah blah blah blah' and then the prophets say that to the people." He said this all in Russian except the "blah's." Everyone's eyes got really large. Turns out that blah sounds almost identical to profanity that is analogous to using the F-word as an interjection.

Another missionary friend was trying to say that we baptize people in water. In Russian water is 'voda' but to say 'in water' you say 'vo vodye.' The end of the word changes depending on the case and preposition. The missionary in attempting to say this added the incorrect ending and said 'vodu' or 'v adu' which means "in hell." Yes, he said 'we baptize people in hell.' (I guess as Mormons it's not too far off)

Often in Russian before people leave to go somewhere they say "we went." This once led to inadvertent profanity. In Russian there's no real syntax. Every word is "declined" much like verbs are conjugated. As a result, syntax is largely unnecessary. This means that you can speak like Yoda all the time and it's totally normal. If someone is leaving you might say "you went" to them. In russian that's ты пошел. If you decide to mix it up, it's still technically correct, but turns out that in russian that means F@$% you. Google translate actually does this translation correctly. Once when I gave this story in the profanity lesson one of the female missionaries got this shocked and offended look and said "That's what that guy said!" Apparently she'd been wondering why the guy slamming the door in her face told her that she'd left.

In Ukraine I picked up one of the Harry Potter books to read in Russian. In Russian he's known as "Garry Potter." This is because Harry is a bad word. It's an adjective form of a swear word for the male anatomy. It was always funny hearing new missionaries screw this one up.

Once after some people showed us some of their favorite cartoons growing up, we mentioned some of our favorite cartoons from our childhood. One missionary mentioned the names of the lovable cartoon ducks Huey Duey and Louie. Saying those names with a Russian accent is a bad idea. I don't believe Louie means anything. Duey sounds like saying "blow," (specifically saying 'blow' in command form). Huey is profanity meaning part of the male anatomy, but it's offensiveness is on par with our F-bomb.

This isn't even half of such stories, more to come later...