This past week the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced that the first stake of Zion was created in the country of Mongolia. According to the Church Public Affairs Web site, there are 8,444 members of the Church currently in Mongolia.

Since the first missionaries arrived in the country in 1992, the Church has grown rapidly. There currently is one mission, one stake, 21 congregations and even two family history centers. I'm certain that with the growth of the Church, there will be multiple stakes there soon, and perhaps even a temple in Ulaanbaatar.

When I was first married we knew a church member who had served in Mongolia, and at the same time our ward in California had a native Mongol serving in the California Long Beach Mission.

In 2007, Elder Earl C. Tingey, a former member of the Quorum of the Seventy and currently the president of the Washington, D.C. temple, said that in a visit to Mongolia he found the people "ripe and prepared to receive the gospel." Then-Elder Tingey also stated that "the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is probably among the few Christian Churches with a well-established presence. It is recognized at the highest levels of government."

On Sunday, June 7, 2009, those humble Saints received their first stake of Zion in their native country: the Ulaanbaatar Mongolia West Stake. The adjective "West" leads me to believe there will be another, soon.

I'm sure there are many in the Church who never thought they would see Mongolia have such great progress - I'm fairly certain that country will have at least one temple within my lifetime. And with its proximity to China, and the success of the Church in both Taiwan and Hong Kong (essentially 'mainland China') I'm also certain that 'mainland China' will open to the Gospel in the not to distant future - perhaps even have temples dotting that country as well.

Truly this is an exciting time to watch the Church grow around the world.

In closing, my favorite quote of all time:

"The Standard of Truth has been erected. No unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing. Persecutions may rage, mobs may combine, armies may assemble, and calamy may defame. But the Truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent till it has penetrated every continent, visited every climb, swept every country and sounded in every ear. Till the purposes of God shall be accomplished, and the Great Jehovah shall say, "The work is done."

Labels: church, lds

Valerie, Karston and I just returned from 9 days in London, England. Valerie went for a work conference, and I tromped around London with a camera around my neck and an eight-month old strapped to my back. Karston loved London, especially the people. He just smiled at everyone until they said hi, or hola, or ciao, or bon jour, then he gave them his big boy grin (that's the same smile you have uncle Spencer!).

Karston was a great baby on the flights, the underground tube and tromping around London. We saw all the sights and played in lots of parks. On Wednesday, May 20, in London, England, Karston crawled for the first time.

Here are few of the photos I took. Find the rest of them on Flickr. Our family pictures are on our private blog (if you have access to it. If you don't, and would like it - send me a request, if you have my e-mail).













Shoutout ~

[Nathan] takes the coolest photos. These are fantastic. I had no idea I lived in such an interesting country! - M. Venn, London

Labels: baby, family, Karston, vacation, val

For those of you who visit our family blog, there is a new post for Mother's Day...

Labels: family

The other day I was doing some research on talks by some of the recent Apostles who have passed on and I came to Elder James E. Faust (1920-2007). Elder Faust was called as an Assistant to the Twelve Apostles in 1972. In 1976 he was called into the Presidency of the Seventy and was eventually called to be an Apostle in 1978. I remember hearing lots of his Conference addresses and have essentially "grown up" with him as an Apostle. His passing in 2007 was met with much sadness throughout the Church.

When I was doing my research I found an article written by Elder Faust that was never published or given publicly. I am not sure if he intended for this article to be his General Conference address for the October 2007 conference or if it was meant to be an Ensign article, but the LDS Web site released it with the November issue of the Ensign, which covers the October Conference.

The article is titled "The Power to Change."

"Each one of us has been given the power to change his or her life. As part of the Lord’s great plan of happiness, we have individual agency to make decisions. We can decide to do better and to be better. In some ways all of us need to change; [more...]

Labels: church, conference, lds, mormon

The other night I read D&C 49:18-19 which reads:

18 And whoso forbiddeth to abstain from meats, that man should not eat the same, is not ordained of God;
19 For, behold, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, and that which cometh of the earth, is ordained for the use of man for food and for raiment, and that he might have in abundance.

The cross-reference in verse 18 on the word 'forbiddeth' refers the reader to Genesis 9:3 which reads:

3 Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.

In tackling verse 18, it is plainly spelled out that those who coerce of force others into abstaining from eating meat are not looked on highlIn his book Doctrine & Covenants Commentary, former Apostle Hyrum M. Smith (1872-1918) states that "a purely vegetarian diet cannot be urged on religious grounds."

As members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints we have been given the Word of Wisdom, "given for a principle with promise." When we discuss section 89, we tend to quickly focus on the "do not" parts of that revelation, instructing us to abstain for certain harmful products. However, and more importantly, we are to remember the "dos" of the Word of Wisdom, which include eating "flesh also of beasts and of the fowls of the air, I, the Lord, have ordained for the use of man with thanksgiving." The Lord then adds the all-important caveat: sparingly.

In the next verse He adds "and it is pleasing unto me that they should not be used, only in times of winter, or of cold, or famine. This reading makes it sounds like meats should ONLY be used in times of winter, cold, or famine. We have here a punctuation issue. The comma in the preceding verse which comes before 'only' is not in the version found in the nineteenth-century LDS periodical Times and Seasons. If we remove the comma as it appeared in Volume III., p. 799 of Times and Seasons, we get the reading "they should not be used only in times of winter, or of cold, or famine." This has a much clearer meaning and can be interpreted that meats are to be consumed at all times and in all weather.

Secondly, because the Word of Wisdom comes with a promise that

"all saints who remember to keep and do these sayings, walking in obedience to the commandments, shall receive health in their navel and marrow to their bones; And shall find wisdom and great treasures of knowledge, even hidden treasures; And shall run and not be weary, and shall walk and not faint... and ... the destroying angel shall pass by them, as the children of Israel, and not slay them,"

I wonder how God views vegetarians and vegans in reference to these promises. Elder Smith's viewpoint on this topic was made clear in my earlier statement.

Thirdly, I link members of PETA and similar activist groups to this topic, as D&C 49:19 clearly states that "the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air...[are] ordained for the use of man and for raiment."

I agree with members of PETA and similar groups that the unnecessary slaughter of animals should be shunned. The Lord continues in section 49 with a voice of warning "And wo be unto man that sheddeth blood or that wasteth flesh and hath no need (D&C 49:21)." Elder Smith adds in his Commentary "nor must man waste animal life. To kill, when not necessary, is a sin akin to murder." However, members of these groups mentioned tend to view the slaughterhouses and meat packing plants and those who work in and eat the residue of these companies as evil, murderous tyrants. Elder Smith's comments were made in 1916, when clearly the meat packing industry was already underway. It is my view that as long as animals are being raised and killed for human consumption, God will not hold those responsible, despite the PETA protests - as long as we do it sparingly and with the purpose of adhering to the Word of Wisdom. Furthermore, I agree with Elder Smith's statement that "a purely vegetarian diet cannot be urged on religious grounds."

What say ye?

Labels: church, dnc, lds, mormon

Recently Valerie and I have discussed making our family-related blog posts private. Since this blog has been around for eight-years and a lot of folks follow it (thanks!), and is privately hosted, we can not easily make it password-protected. However, as most of you know, Blogger has that nice feature when you sign up for a "dummy" blog, hosted on their servers for free.

So we have created www.the-coffeys.blogspot.com strictly for our family posts. This site will continue to exist but strictly for everything non-family.

You will notice that the new blogpost blog has the same "feel" as this site. We felt like keeping our "brand," as Valerie put it earlier.

I will be gradually moving over our family-related posts to the new site, so don't be alarmed if you check the new site and WHAM! there are 25 archived posts. If you have been faithful in reading this site you haven't missed a thing. I will also be sending out invites to the blogpost site - if for some reason I failed to invite you a) I'm sorry and b) click on the link to request an invite and we'll invite you to keep up-to-date with our little family!

Thanks for being our friends and family!

Labels: family, friends

I don't know about you but on August 7 I will be going to see G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. Growing up in the 1980s I was a big fan of the cartoon show every Saturday morning and collected many of the action figurines.

Unlike a lot of 1980s cartoons-turned movies, I don't think this one will be all that bad. It already has a pretty solid cast; some names you may not recognize but you have seen them in great movies before. I'm not going to go through each of the actors/characters here but will let you watch this great amateur promotional video off Youtube.



Here are a few thumbnails of the cast (poster shots) that can be found on IMDB:

Valerie's birthday is on the 23rd of this month. She recently requested (and sent me info on) tickets to Fleetwood Mac, who were coming to Washington, D.C. as part of their Unleashed 2009 Tour. Being last minute and all I thought that it would be near impossible to get tickets - and good ones at that - and then with Fleetwood Mac being such a hugely popular ticket - Hall of Famers at that.

Luckily there is a lovely website called stubhub.com! Valerie had already found tickets on Stubhub and let me choose the seats and therefore ticket price. Since she really, really wanted to go I went with the last remaining floor tickets possible, and doled out the $150 each for Row Y, seats 13 and 14.

I have been married to Valerie for over eight years and dated her for three prior to that. It is true that you keep learning new things about your spouse year after year and even then, you never really know them! I NEVER KNEW that Valerie was such a big fan of Fleetwood Mac. Great band and all, but I have NEVER caught her listening to them (until recently).

So we went and were pleasantly surprised to find out that our seats were much better than we had expected. The floor seating was laid out with sections A-Z and then a gap, and then AA-ZZ. So essentially we were in the middle of the floor section, in row Y. As the image shows, our seats were pretty awesome. Seats 13 and 14 turned out to be ON THE AISLE so we had great views and didn't have to worry too much about people on either side of us!

In her excitement, Valerie did her homework on this concert and thanks to Stevie Nicks' Web site, we knew in advance the set list for this tour:

Fleetwood Mac Opening Night Set List

• "Monday Morning"
• "The Chain"
• "Dreams"
• "I Know I'm Not Wrong"
• "Gypsy"
• "Go Insane"
• "Rhiannon"
• "Second Hand News"
• "Tusk"
• "Sara"
• "Big Love"
• "Landslide"
• "Never Going Back Again"
• "Storms"
• "Say That You Love Me"
• "Gold Dust Woman"
• "Oh Well"
• "I'm So Afraid"
• "Stand Back"
• "Go Your Own Way"
• "World Turning" (encore song)
• "Don't Stop" (encore song)
• "Silver Springs" (encore song)

Here are some more of the photos I snapped with my iPhone during the concert:


Stevie through my binoculars & iPhone camera


John "Mac" McVie through my binoculars & iPhone camera


Lindsey Buckingham through my binoculars & iPhone camera


Stevie Nicks, Mick Fleetwood & Lindsay Buckingham through my binoculars & iPhone.


Val rocking out

Labels: concert, music, val

Okay, so this post is super late but I've been meaning to get this online but have been busy with life and Karston.

On March 2, Alexandria had a snow day. The "experts" were calling for up to 10" of snow but that would pretty much inundate the entire region. Luckily we got no more than 3 inches of snow, which is still enough to make people freak out, crash and for schools to close. I was on my way to work when I got an email from our executive director saying that we had the option to "work from home," which I gladly accepted. Valerie works from home as well so we took a lunch break and met up with her brother and our niece Ellie, and along with Isabel, went sledding at Ellie's school nearby.

Labels: family, winter

Okay, so I really don't have a new band. But my sister-in-law Mandy posted on her blog today this little Web game where you go to three various sites and following the instructions given you come up with a mock album cover for a make believe band.

Ironically, and by luck of chance, My band name (randomized from Wikipedia) was Jackie Trent and my album cover artwork was titled Jackie Devil (randomized from Flickr). My randomized album title was the ending of an Ellen Degeneres quote (from the Quotations Page):

The only thing that scares me more than space aliens is the idea that there aren't any space aliens. We can't be the best that creation has to offer. I pray we're not all there is. If so, we're in big trouble. - Ellen DeGeneres

Here are the instructions:

How to make your own album cover...
[paste these directions when you post your photo]

1 - Go to "wikipedia." Hit "random"
or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2 - Go to "Random quotations"
or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.

3 - Go to flickr and click on "explore the last seven days"
or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4 - Use Photoshop or similar program to put it all together.